Sunday, December 11, 2016

Philip Giraldi — Did Russia Elect Trump?


Even-handed statement of fact and rumor by an intelligence veteran.
So nearly every country employs espionage when dealing with others and works on promoting its own interests through the use of its intelligence and other national resources. That should surprise no one. And it is impossible to know if the WikiLeaks publication of hacked emails changed the outcome of the recent election, though it is clear that it did not help Hillary. The lesson is not that the Russians spied on the United States and covertly assisted a candidate they favored. That should be a given, well understood by people in the White House and elsewhere in the administration. That information is no longer private in an age where electronic intrusion or hacking can be run out of someone’s garage should also be a given. But when aspirants to high office are careless in what they say, when they say it, and how they communicate to associates, there will be consequences.

Far better to mend our own fences than try to punish the Russians for doing what comes naturally. That would only lead to a tit-for-tat worsening of an already bad relationship.
People that grew up in the analog world do not understand the digital world. Result? Stupidity.

Moreover, the US has been interfering in election using analog age tools like NGO fronts for a long time, like the state-finance NED, not to mention actual covert operations to remove unwanted persons. The US "outrage" here is both hypocritical and manufactured in the light not only of history but ongoing US covert operations and propaganda abroad. Even if "Russians" did hack the election, it is a false equivalency.

The American Conservative
Did Russia Elect Trump?
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest

2 comments:

GLH said...

It is not really US outrage, it is Democrat and deep state outrage because they lost the election. The deep state will never change and will have to be eradicated. The Democrats can never change until they admit that they are to blame for their defeat. Even if Russia did have something to do with the email dump they didn't write them.

Ryan Harris said...

The problem is they pre-suaded everyone with the fake news story, now they have people talking about how badly and how much Russia controls the US, and now they are dropping stories about whether the election is completely invalid or only partially, but in anycase Hillary should have won or a do over at a minimum is necessary. If you roll your eyes, they are outraged because you are biased because your candidate won.

The whole Russian schtick is so transparent.

I just assume every election is nothing but propaganda and foreign and domestic interests make their best cases. The US interferes with virtually every election in every country in the world, to pretend this is something new, never happened before... purlease