I am following with some amusement the story of Jacopo "never specified sources" Iacoboni, who is "threatened" by a guilty Russian general (according to Iacoboni and his "unspecified sources", of wanting to install espionage stations inside the houses Lombard rest.
And I say inside the Lombard nursing homes because so far the Russians have spent all the time disinfesting them, together with Italian soldiers. If Iacoboni has photographs of Russians who go for a walk without being accompanied by Italian soldiers, he is asked to provide them. But Iacoboni is ineffable, he doesn't need proof.
This thing touches a bare nerve, because the Triad of the "respectable" Italian newspapers has a huge history of beautiful and good inventions. When top secret leaders are made, with security measures designed to keep secret services out, Italian newspapers report what has been said , according to "some prominent officials" who were present. Even when only a dozen heads of state were present.
Exploiting the coverage of sources to invent healthy news is a very old Italian tradition, mitigated only slightly by the vice of the prosecutors of having an illegal data leakage channel with which the preliminary investigation is regularly broken.
The thing that Iacoboni did not understand about this game is that it is fine in the Italian media hen house, but at the black cavajere nun je you have to shit the fuck .
First of all: what Iacoboni wrote is not press freedom . It has nothing to do with the freedom of the press, except to the extent that in Italy the word freedom is often used to indicate comfortable pigs , when not sloppy .
Writing about having to "senior sources" reported that the Russian equipment would be "useless" when a few days later the same paper you see pictures with the military Russians disinfestano (using those same equipment) of nursing homes require a leap of conscience and professionalism, of which Iacoboni evidently does not have.
To say that "high-level officials" would have confided to Iacoboni that according to them the real purpose of the Russians is to build an espionage network, as if a convoy of non-NATO soldiers could run without the escort of Italian soldiers, it means not knowing not even the basics of NATO procedures. Hardly a "high-level official" could say such a hogwash, unless "high-level" is understood to be cleaning the fifth floor of some ministry. Everyone else knows what a NOS is.
And the Russian general Igor Konashenkov is right to sell to get pissed, and also to threaten Iacoboni . For several reasons.
- As equipped, while Iacoboni stays in his living room (due to the quarantine) to meet "high-level officials" (who are known to spend the winter on the Iacoboni sofa during the quarantine), the Russian military are taking risks. Of course, the military has a different concept of risk, but since Russia also has a contagion problem, the general might have liked to disinfest Russian hospices, rather than hospices of people who also spit in his face .
- It is clear that Iacoboni follows geopolitical logic when he writes what he writes. I do not say that it is in the service of someone : I say that it follows a geopolitical logic. That can also be personal, that is tied to a personal gestalt of world affairs. Or not. Iacoboni wanted to dance, and now he has to dance. If you fuck a general, you need to know he has an internal intelligence service. You measure your opponent BEFORE you challenge him, you cock: after it is too late. Otherwise you are unfit to survive : too stupid to live.
- The military is fighting. War is their comfort zone . You can't provoke a military man and expect a diplomat's reaction. You can't expect a politician's reaction. You can't expect a chess player's reaction. Being a soldier, Igor Konashenkov fights against the enemy. Fighting is what a soldier does. They are not called soldiers because they win at Masterchef. They are called soldiers because they fight. And if you provoke one, he fights. He's absolutely right to do it, because he's a military man. The cat scratches, the dog bites, the military fights. And it kills.
If that general commands a division, in the Russian organization he has an "operational" level of intelligence non-commissioned officers. Maybe Iacoboni should have asked his senior sources "what if I fuck the black cavajere?".
What does Iacoboni risk? He does not risk a real assassination: the general made a very clear threat. He said that if you dig a hole, you fall into it. It essentially means, that he will undergo a "character assassination", or at least now they will try.
Now quite a few agents will begin to search for Iacoboni's past and present. They will look for every euro they spent or earned. Russian hackers will enter his computers, his cell phone, and read everything. And the cases are two: if the "high level source" exists, it will be "burned". We will read it on Russia Today. If by chance the source does not exist or its "level" is not adequate, the Character Assassination will begin. That is, he will fall into the pit he dug. If the source exists, when it is exposed it will be clear to all the sources of Iacoboni that the journalist is spied on, and nobody wants to talk to him anymore.
If by chance, as often happens, the Italian journalist invented the "high level sources", and published a bullshit, he will be exposed. Some of his chats will end up online (if you can take a screenshot of the phone, E2E encryption is of little use, and many military spyware do it) and will have to justify itself with public opinion. Just start a few campaigns on Facebook and the character assassination will take place.
Why does the Italian press support it? For two reasons:
- inventing high-level sources, anonymous officials, and other such amenities is a widespread vice of Italian journalists. In Italy nothing happens to them, and now they are afraid of having stepped on an international shit, in a game that follows different rules. Rules where you can even die, and badly. And this terrifies the admirable pack of sloppy cialtroni called "order of journalists".
- they must try to keep firm the association that sees the journalist's comfortable pigs, the nonexistent professionalism and the rampant cialtroneria, painted as "freedom of the press". A debate on the quality of the Italian press, at any level, is the thing that terrifies them most. They would not come out well, without exception.
For the rest, Iacoboni is discovering an obvious thing: that reality does not knock on your door.
Reality is the door .
