US Announces Response To Russian Election Hacking [Update] (reuters.com) 821
Dustin Volz and Joel Schectman, reporting for Reuters: The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information in an effort to help President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Both officials declined to specify what actions President Barack Obama has approved, but said targeted economic sanctions, indictments, leaking information to embarrass Russian officials or oligarchs, and restrictions on Russian diplomats in the United States are among steps that have been discussed. One decision that has been made, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, is to avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control. One example of an excessive step might be interfering with Russian internet messaging. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and Office of Director of National Intelligence agree that Russia was behind hacks into Democratic Party organizations and operatives ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. There is also agreement, according to U.S. officials, that Russia sought to intervene in the election to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.Update: Here's the statement by the President of the United States in response to Russian malicious cyber activity and harassment: All Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions. In October, my Administration publicized our assessment that Russia took actions intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government. Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year. Such activities have consequences. Today, I have ordered a number of actions in response. I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners. Using this new authority, I have sanctioned nine entities and individuals: the GRU and the FSB, two Russian intelligence services; four individual officers of the GRU; and three companies that provided material support to the GRU's cyber operations. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury is designating two Russian individuals for using cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information. The State Department is also shutting down two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes, and is declaring "persona non grata" 35 Russian intelligence operatives. Finally, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are releasing declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity, to help network defenders in the United States and abroad identify, detect, and disrupt Russia's global campaign of malicious cyber activities. Editor's note: the story has been updated to include the statement and has also been moved to the top of the front page.
Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sound familiar? Some things never change
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Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
lets just do one warfront at a time please.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't need to start a war with China, trade or otherwise. Just grow a damned backbone when dealing with them and the companies that export so many jobs because of their handy slave labor wages. As near as I can tell, when they ask us to bend over, our current response tends to be some variant of "how far?"
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
And how much do you want to pay for a smartphone? You act as if offshoring has no benefit for US consumers. And really, within a generation or so, all these stolen manufacturing jobs are all going to be done by machine, so even those slave wage Chinese are going to be banging on the doors of Beijing asking where their jobs went.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
While they're (not) appologizing... (Score:3)
... when is the Whitehouse going to issue apologies and offer reparations to all the countries where it directly interfered and even overthrew or attempted to overthrow democratically elected governments, such as ...
Or helped a puppet government rig an election, such as Vietnam.
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Eisenhower was President when the plebiscite was cancelled.
Care to go back that far.
Yes, I'm aware of that. Eisenhower estimated that the vote would be 80-20 in favor of voting for the "communist side".
The Democrats may do a lot of bad stuff in international relations, but they don't have a monopoly on it.
Two wrongs (Score:3)
Re:Two wrongs (Score:5, Informative)
Yes that was the cover story.
Reality was a lot more of a fuckup. One ridiculous example just before the Cuban revolution was part of the CIA running guns to Castro while another was trying to kill him. Another was dropping bombs on a pro-democracy, pro-USA group of US trained army officers in Indonesia that called themselves "the sons of Eisenhower". How socialist do you think they were? When things changed and covert actions halted against them they became part of a military government in Indonesia that was nothing like socialism.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
What the Russians to the US, and what the US did in Latin America and elsewhere, wasn't "wrong" in some absolute sense. It was one of those things countries do to each other all the time, like war, which is considered basically bad but occasionally justified.
The thing is, if a country starts a war with you, it is considered appropriate to fight back. And someone who supports another country's war against their country is considered a traitor.
The parallel here is that while Russia could be is justified in interfering in the US election, the US is justified in getting angry about it and retaliating as it just did. And a US politician who welcomes this Russian interference is one step above a traitor.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Informative)
Time for a US apology to El-Salvador [thenation.com]
Revisiting American Involvement in El Salvador: The Massacre at El Mozote [huffingtonpost.com]
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as much evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure am glad they didn't lie about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Can you imagine if almost 60,000 Americans were killed and another 300k wounded plus hundreds of thousands of casualties for citizens and soldiers of other nations, a generation of people soured on their nation and a loss of American moral authority on the world stage over a made-up incident that didn't happen?!
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would trust their conclusions a little more if they didn't have a history of lying about absolutely everything to justify unjustifiable wars. I can't remember the last time the CIA told the truth. About anything.
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I would trust their conclusions a little more if they didn't have a history of lying about absolutely everything to justify unjustifiable wars. I can't remember the last time the CIA told the truth. About anything.
Generally those lies come from administrations cherry picking information from the intelligence community. For instance the CIA did provide the Bush administration evidence that Iraq likely didn't have WMD (no agency knew for certain), but it was ignored.
In this case you have politicians on both sides of the aisle looking at the classified evidence and concluding the Russians are guilty of these acts. You have an FBI director who also actively manipulated the media to hinder Clinton come out in agreement wi
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Interesting)
Secrecy. That is what I see. No proof. No inclusion of the US people. Just the same damn political positions that brought us innumerable lies and deceptions designed to manipulate and control the US electorate.
Put up or shut up. They need to come clean with the exact evidence they have. It's not their election, its ours. If our, the people mind you, if our election was compromised I want to know exactly how. What I don't want or need is my elected government officials telling me they know all the answers, I don't need to know them, and they will take care of everything. That was the same kind of thinking that led us to the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and numerous other idiotic expenditures of American lives and uncounted billions of dollars.
That you point towards "politicians on both sides of the aisle" as "proof" is mystifying to me. Lets look at what "passes through both sides of the aisle", shall we? The aforementioned Iraq war. The DMCA. The Patriot Act. Is that sufficient, or should we go on?
Here's a hint. If both parties are in favor of it, they are probably putting you together. Show us the evidence and let the American people make the call. I'm quite tired of our elected officials telling us they know best while keeping us in the dark.
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There's also the minor fact that the CIA's job has basically been to destabilize and overthrow other nations and set up puppet governments there. Just look at the history books about the CIA operations and ask yourself what they're doing today.
They've conflated all manner of "hacks" to make people believe that the voting machines were hacked, never mind Trump winning a state with only paper ballots. They've never produced any kind of evidence, whether to FOIA requests or to Congress. The same press hacks
We have opposing evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem you have is the person who leaked the "hacked information", WikiLeaks, said it was not the Russians.
If you read Obama's claims, he is not claiming Russians hacked the election, as is reported. He is claiming they hacked DNC and Podesta's emails. It looks like Podesta fell for a phising attack, which EASILY could have not been Russian. And the DNC emails came from an insider according to Assange.
So not only are they not releasing their evidence, there actually is pretty good evidence it isn't Russia. In addition they are claiming personal email accounts being hacked, not government in any way, are hacking the election which is deceptive at best. So the evidence is stacked against Russia being involved and the people claiming it are being deceptive as well.
Sounds like utter BS to me.
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When Chinese hackers were exposed a few years ago, the DoJ supplied quite a lot of supporting documentation,
including the names of the alleged perps.
Why not this time?
Re:We have opposing evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Assange has always been a questionable individual, but since he holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Wikileaks has been transformed into a sort of cult of personality. Assange made no secret of his glee at fucking up Clinton's presidential run, so when he says "Oh, no, the Russians had nothing to do with it!" it comes off as disingenuous.
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Assange has always been a questionable individual, but since he holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Wikileaks has been transformed into a sort of cult of personality. Assange made no secret of his glee at fucking up Clinton's presidential run, so when he says "Oh, no, the Russians had nothing to do with it!" it comes off as disingenuous.
The truly funny thing here is when wikileaks was first active so many critics "played the man and not the ball", and the focus of those critics on Assange was then used as "proof" that he was a narcissist, and now it's apparently a cult of personality. That's hilarious if you compare it to any of thousands of celebrities actively seeking attention instead of one that was just singled out for a point of attack.
It's all just very annoying feedback noise that really has very little to do with either wikileak
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Obamacare Sticker Shock explains the election far better than any influence of hacking from Russians.
Once people started seeing their increases in October, an inanimate carbon rod could have beat Hillary.
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I'm not sure that's the #1 reason (I think the #1 reason was immigration), but it's probably #2. Funny how it got no press.
About 1/3rd of US states have only one insurance company left in the "exchange", and in those states rates went up about 50%, to about double where they were before Obamacare. They may not be the most populous states, but it's a heck of a motivation.
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Doesn't matter- it doesn't take an idiot to notice paying $800 one month and $1200 the next month.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Informative)
What a number of people (my employees included) are seeing is that the employer is reducing the amount they pay towards the premiums. We went from 90% down to 80% for employee/40% dependent over the past five or so years in order to keep our contributions essentially flat (2-3% growth). Our employee salaries went up (on average) about 10% per year.
Obamacare is a clusterfuck in many ways, just as the previous system was a clusterfuck. It appears that 20-30% of healthcare costs are linked to the billing/payment process, which is money wasted. While single-payer isn't a panacea (and medicare is a big part of the billing challenges), I have tremendous difficulty in understanding how an improvement can be made without eliminating the insurance companies from the equation.
We need to get costs down to a reasonable level; monthly cost should not be more than 10% of net pay for great coverage or 5% for preventative + catastrophic. It isn't going to happen overnight though, and it will have a negative impact on a lot of companies, people, and industries.
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Obamacare is a clusterfuck in many ways, just as the previous system was a clusterfuck.
The interesting point here is of course why that is. As someone living in a country where universal, national health care is the norm, I know, quite positively, that this system works, and works very well. If there was the political will - and if the media and the economical interests running the US would allow an honest debate - you guys would be perfectly able to introduce a very good, national health care system of your own, which would run much smoother and more cheaply than what you have now, and you w
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My premiums went down the year after ACA became law and the increases since have all been smaller than the average increases before.
But hey.. don't let that stop you from blaming the ACA for your shitty insurance company raping you instead of shopping for a different insurer.
Cool story bro.
You obviously don't live in a state with only one insurer on the "exchange". Funny how prices are higher with an effective monopoly, huh?
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"And that's the problem here. The people denying Russian involvement and denying evidence know damned well that no security service is going to fully elaborate on how the intelligence was gathered."
It would be less of an issue if those security services would brief the congressional subcommittee on national security rather than say "Nah... don't think so".
Without doing that it looks suspicious and it's completely appropriate to ask for more evidence before announcing responses and sanctions.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
There have been a number of claims:
o The Russians hacked the DNC (note: Wikileaks who leaked the documents deny this)
o The Russians deliberately hacked the DNC to affect the election of Trump
o The Russians hacked the RNC
o The Russians deliberately didn't release RNC emails to help Trump.
o The Subcommittee on National Security requested a (non public) briefing on this and was re soundly refused.
First the RNC claims I think are just wrong. RNC emails, if they were hacked, are either boring or would have HELPED Trump as the RNC did everything in it's power to prevent Trump from getting nominated.
Second, Clinton would have been far more beneficial to Putin/Russia and she was as SoS. The reasoning make no sense.
Third, I cannot trust this conclusion without the SC on NS getting briefed and saying "yup -- that's what it looks like".
*IF* the Russians hacked the DNC I doubt it would have been to help Trump. If anything it would be to call in to question an elected Clinton legitimacy (after the primary shenanigans).
note: I didn't vote for Trump. I believe he's a psychopath with poor impulse control. I didn't vote for Clinton either for far too many reasons to rehash here. They both were horrible candidates.
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Sorry, Forgot to ask for the source of where you go the names from.
so I searched
James Risch - Idaho (R) - should not be listed
http://www.spokesman.com/blogs... [spokesman.com]
Dan Coats - Indiana (R)
U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is following this issue but has no comment at this time, according to spokesman Matt Lahr.
http://howeypolitics.com/Conte... [howeypolitics.com]
Marco Rubio - Florida (R)
Susan Collins - Maine (R)
Roy Blunt - Missouri (R)
James Lankford - Oklahoma (R)
Tom Cotton - Arkansas (R)
After searc
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This James Risch (R)?
"What you need to look at is: Was there an effect that they had on the election? And so far I’ve seen nobody who claims that they can prove that the Russians – or any other state actor for that matter – influenced our elections.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/new... [mcclatchydc.com]
I'm not going to go through your list but I'm sure there a lot more examples like that.
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Both McCain and Rubio have openly condemned Russia for election interference. There is pretty strong bipartisan support in the Senate for investigating Russia and taking it to task for the hacking. I understand why Trump supporters would prefer the Russian narrative to go away, and maybe if Trump hadn't chosen Tillerson as his nominee for Secretary of State, the noise might have abated somewhat, but now that Trump has made it clear he intends to be Putin's bosom body, all Trump is doing is raising suspicion
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I'm not a Trump supporter. I think he's a psychopath with poor impulse control. Both candidates were horrible.
And I'm not hoping the "Russian narrative" goes away -- I think it's way premature to be jumping to conclusions and ascribing motives before the subcommittee on national security has been briefed. They requested a non-public briefing and were essentially told to pound sand.
*IF* the Russians hacked DNC emails I doubt it would be to help Trump but to cast doubt about the legitimacy of a Clinton ele
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And when all else fails, invoke.the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Informative)
If Obama is so great, then why did the Democrats lose the White House?
Hillary Clinton
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exclude the well-intentioned people in the Socialist Republic of California and your popular vote comment goes out the window. Thank God for the electoral college.
Hey I know, Lets ignore over 10% of the population and the state with the highest GDP to prove our point!
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure you can see how dumbfuck stupid your logic is, yes?
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because California wants to remove itself. See also: CalExit.
And Texas doesn't whenever a President they don't like get elected?
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically if you exclude all the people you don't like because they vote wrong, then enough everyone else voted the way you like.
Well, no shit sherlock!
Why not just come out and say "Well if we exclude women or non whites, or just balcks specifically, the popular vote goes out the window. Thank god for the electoral college", because that would make the same end result on those numbers.
Basically the only reason you like the electoral college is because it makes your vote count more than the vote of someone who you don't consider as fully human enough to have equal say in a democracy.
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The key flaw to socialism is: Excessive concentration of power. The fact you don't know this yet shows you have not been paying any attention.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
The key flaw to socialism is: Excessive concentration of power.
BZZT! Sorry, wrong answer. You meant to say Fascism, not socialism. Fascism is the excessive concentration of power. In terms of power concentration socialism is closer to anarchy than it is to fascism. Crony capitalism (which is a better description of the American political system) is much closer to fascism in terms of concentration of power than is socialism.
While socialism is not perfect, it is most definitely not intent on concentration of power.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:5, Informative)
Socialism (defined as no private ownership of 'means of production') at a national level requires a command economy. No price signals, no profit motive, so no way to make it 'self organizing' like capitalism.
Command economies all have excessive concentration of power. It is just a fact.
Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
The key flaw to socialism is: Excessive concentration of power. The fact you don't know this yet shows you have not been paying any attention.
That explains why those socialist countries in northern Europe are having such a hard time of it. Oh wait ...
Where the concentration of power in the US? Answer: corporations.
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Re:Retaliatory measures based on no evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, damn them californiana, thinking they're real people.
They should be grateful they get half the vote weight of a pre-civil war slave. It's not like their cities full of visitors from around the globe could possibly teach them more about geopolitical relations than Real Americans who once saw an asian person on their way to the bar.
Not news (Score:2)
It will be news when it actually happens. Can't we wait until then instead of pretending that it's news that something is supposedly going to happen in a few hours?
SLAM DUNK THE RUSSIANS DID IT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Total slam-dunk case those Russkies were guilty of it, just like Iraq!
One thing that I find amusing: Love or hate Snowden, he 100% leaked large numbers of highly classified government documents and ended up finding asylum in Russia.
Consequences to Russia for that action? None.
So-called "russian" hackers grab private emails from the DNC that were not official U.S. government documents and were never classified at all?
Obama makes Bush look like a hippy peace protester and all of the sudden the good little left wingers start making Patton look like a librarian.
Be nice to see the proof of hacking first (Score:5, Informative)
Especially seeing as the way this has been covered 50% of Democrats now think the Russians hacked voting machines
https://today.yougov.com/news/... [yougov.com]
Gotta give the DNC credit on this one, they have managed to completely deflect from their security incompetence and breaking faith with their voters.
Re:Be nice to see the proof of hacking first (Score:4, Funny)
Especially seeing as the way this has been covered 50% of Democrats now think the Russians hacked voting machines
"Truth has a liberal bias," right?
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"That I leave the back door open isn't an unlimited license to steal"
A man 'breaks' in to a house by going through the back door.
He finds evidence of another crime -- a dead body!
He calls the local authorities anonymously and bails.
===================
Man == whoever hacked the emails.
Crime == (not really a 'crime' but evidence of primary manipulation against both their own candidates AND the RNC candidates, misogyny, racism and contempt for voters)
Body == emails
authorities == wikileaks
Re:Be nice to see the proof of hacking first (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey now, just because Clinton "should have known better" and was "extremely careless" doesn't mean... uh. It means she is qualified for a promotion. Yea, that's it. Promote the extremely careless that should have known better to a position to cause more harm! What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Be nice to see the proof of hacking first (Score:4, Informative)
We don't know how many times Clinton's server was hacked, it was configured not to log anything.
We know her admin thought they had been hacked at least once. But he was blitheringly incompetent. So we know she was hacked a non-negative number of times, could be 0, could be 1000. No way to tell, by design.
In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
They found no evidence of actual election systems hacking, the only thing they can even vaguely blame on the Russians is leaking the damaging things that the Democrats actually said in their emails, and most of the good stuff probably came from plain old insider leaks to WikiLeaks.
I wonder what sort of actions they're going to take against Democrat campaign staffers for having such terrible email security practices?
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This is hilarious.
Two decades after the Democrats got caught taking money from the Chinese, and 32 years after Ted Kennedy BEGGED the Soviets to intervene in the 1984 election, NOW you're worried about a foreign country "trying to influence US Elections?"
Heh.
Obama's response today is funny, too. Just close a couple of known spy stations and kick a few people out of the country (when the hacking was supposed to have come from Europe), who will be replaced within the week. Yeah, that'll work.
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Two decades after the Democrats got caught taking money from the Chinese, and 32 years after Ted Kennedy BEGGED the Soviets to intervene in the 1984 election, NOW you're worried about a foreign country "trying to influence US Elections?"
Two decades after the Republicans got caught eating baby human meat, and after Ronald Reagan was found raping large numbers of women in the ear hole, NOW you are not worried about a country "trying to influence US Elections?"
See, I can do it too.
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Denial is normal, but it's not healthy to stay there too long.
Get on with anger, get it out of your system, impotent anger isn't good for you either.
Compromise...good luck.
You will all get to acceptance eventually. Don't make any important life decisions in the meantime.
Why is this news right now? (Score:2)
Seriously... why couldn't this wait for the actual, you know, measures to be announced before posting? At this point, it's akin to "in a few minutes, something will happen... we don't know what, but here's a news flash to tell you before anything actually occurs!"
The ad hominem that ended civilization (Score:5, Insightful)
Before we escalate to all-out cyber and/or nuclear war with Russia, will we be seeing any -actual evidence- of anything other than a very dumb phishing link clicking Podesta, or of "hacking" involving anything requiring more skill than a neighborhood high school computer club, much less a nation-state?
Although I'm sure the Democrats would much prefer the accused not be allowed to speak at all, Putin's question is still pertinent--is he responsible for Democrat losses at -every other governmental level-, as well? Were the Wikileaks e-mails manipulated or untrue, which has still not been asserted?
This red herring is becoming as dangerous as it is ludicrous.
Trump says "Let Bygones Be Bygones" (Score:4, Funny)
Retaliate for 20 days (Score:5)
After that, the Democrats will protest the peace initiative from Trump to defuse the new cold war with Russia and call for more war.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
We should invite response (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a fools game. Retaliating by interfering in Russian politics will simply invite more of the same.
Sounds great to me. With the ultimate Red Team aiding you in finding vulnerabilities, our systems should be more than secure against the average script kiddie. As it stands some guy in a yogurt stand in Bulgaria could probably take down half our government working part time.
Russia exposes political corruption in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
...and they now must be punished.
Is someone going to prosecute and sanction the DNC for stealing the election from Bernie? Or the Clinton Foundation for running a massive pay to play scheme?
Next time Voice of America points out corruption in some foreign election, should we expect to be sanctioned by that foreign nation?
And this is even if you believe that we have 100% proof that Putin leaked Podesta's and the DNC's emails.
Honestly, if Putin *did* do the crime, we should be thanking him for doing a job that the US mainstream media should've been doing.
Slippery Slope (Score:4, Interesting)
The stage that is being set is very frightening. Any information that does not conform to what the powers that be want the people to hear is being labeled interference. The final touches on wide scale internet censorship are being put into place.
The capability of the internet to provide an alternative source of information and discourse is being eviscerated. It is happening faster than I thought it would. For the longest time, the government had more or less complete control of the media and the public discourse. The internet threatened that, but the DNC leaks finally made the government show their hand.
It just will not do to have anybody, internal whistleblowers or foreign governments pointing out the hypocrisy of the United States government. If the people actually realized that they were being manipulated by the government and that the entire electoral process and American Dream are just a sham, they might....
Oh fuck it, who am I kidding? Nobody gives a shit as long as the television / internet works and there is some food in the fridge.
"Proportional Response" is where wars come from. (Score:5, Insightful)
One decision that has been made, they said, speaking on the conditiopn of anonymity, is to avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control.
Shades of Vietnam! This is how minor conflicts escalate into major wars.
The government may be able to handle bothersome individuals by spanking them once when "they're bad", like a parent disciplining a disobedient child, and expect it to stop there. But try that as foreign policy and it's more like slapping the drunken gangster in front of his cohorts.
By only giving a "proportional response", the leader(s) of the opposite side are put on the spot. They HAVE to retaliate in turn, or be viewed as weak. If it is perceived that you intend to avoid a serious conflict (ESPECIALLY if you have ACTUALLY ANNOUNCED that!), you are a "Paper Tiger" and they have no excuse to back down without losing face. So they retaliate a little harder, and you retaliate in proportion, and it ramps up into war. It goes on for years. If you're not willing to put in the effort and take the risk of trying to win it as a war, you fight on and on until your infrastructure is too damaged and your population is sick of it, and then you lose.
Once you have to go to war, if you want to win, the way to do it is with overwhelming force: "rapid dominance" (coned in 1996 but practiced at least since the Roman Empire), also known as "Shock and Awe." This gives the opponent the opportunity to withdraw and still save face, and minimizes casualties on your side. It may also massively reduces casualties on the other side, in comparison to a dragged-out, escalating, conflict. (But even if it doesn't, "... You [win the war] by getting the other poor bastard to die for HIS country.")
Tit-for-tat, with a little forgiveness to compensate for noise in the system, can lead to stabilization. But never-more-than-tit-for-tat, when confronting a strategy of a-bit-more-than-tit-for-tat, grows without bound. You have to switch to "pound-them-into-the-ground" or "surrender" at some point, or a determined opponent will debilitate you until the latter is the de facto result of your collapse. So if you're going to engage in tit-for-tat on the foreign policy level, you have to be ready to go to all-out war or all-out surrender. (You also have to be enough stronger than your opponent to make it work, or at least strong enough, AND appearing determined (and/or crazy) enough, to take them down with you, "Mutual Assured Destruction" style, if they keep pushing.)
In the Vietnam case, US involvement started in 1950, as a sidelight of the Korean conflict and the Cold War. The proportional response policy was implemented in 1961 by Kennedy and the escalation started. By the time the conflict ended the low-end estimates were about half a million dead and a million and a half wounded. (By contrast, the Iraq War had well under an order of magnitude less casualties.)
So now Obama wants to give Trump a going-away present: A shiny new, Vietnam-style, ever-escalating war with Russia, and a public perception that, if he tries to end it, or even keep it from escalating, it's because he's a Russian puppet.
Re: (Score:3)
So now Obama wants to give Trump a going-away present: A shiny new, Vietnam-style, ever-escalating war with Russia, and a public perception that, if he tries to end it, or even keep it from escalating, it's because he's a Russian puppet.
Meh. I don't think Trump is one to stick his finger in the air or worry about the "optics" like a typical politician. So, he'll probably just defuse the whole thing, the media will see this as evidence of him being in bed with Putin, lots of Democrats will believe it, most Republicans won't trust the media, Trump will tweet something angry in response, and life will go on.
Hacking the election? LOL (Score:5, Interesting)
The Russians, if they did anything, didn't hack the election, they increased the elections truthyness!
All the leaked stuff, no one denies it was true.
So the USA wants to punish Russia for making US voters aware of inconvenient truths huh? Nice 'freedom' you have there!
Re: (Score:3)
It is however very convenient when the truths for only one side is released...
Its still more truthy than it would have been otherwise!
Or what? Are you suggesting that its best to suppress truths about candidates unless equivalent value truths are released about all candidates..?
Big Brother Lies to Us, We Love It (Score:3)
“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”
George Orwell, 1984
The Real Crisis (Score:5, Insightful)
The DNC did that to themselves and they are outraged that their corruption was exposed, so they sought a scapegoat to create a diversion from the Real Crisis. Russia didn't invent superdelegates, didn't rig the primaries, didn't provide debate questions in advance. The Real Crisis is that the DNC is losing their voter base even to minorities. Obama's weaponizing of federal agencies as tools of intimidation and retaliation date back to his Illinois state government chicanery and has damaged diplomatic relations. Voters saw government going in the direction of "Boss" Tweed corruption [wikipedia.org] and they wanted none of it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And the proof they did anything is... where exactly?
Re:Why bother (Score:4, Insightful)
Our Country was attacked. We cannot let that attack go without consequences.
Why not?
Obama's been calling Islamic terrorism "workplace violence" or otherwise handwaving it away, to the point of painting the Pulse nightclub massacre as "homophobia", or claiming the attack on the Benghazi consulate - on 9/11 of all dates - was because of some stupid video.
So we already know when it suits his purposes, Obama will twist facts to suit his political purposes.
And it likely suits his purposes to paint Hillary's loss on the Russians instead of his own faults. Or did you miss how the Democrats of suffered massive losses across the board in the last 8 years? Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and are in full control of something like 35 states. And that all happened under Obama.
Obama's been a disaster.
Re: (Score:3)
I think the people that came up with the college did a lot more research and put more thought into the system than the babies complaining about 'popular' vote.
If you know anything about Americas founding you know there was comprise and democracy was seen as a danger. If you think the Senate is a good idea, why would that not be the case for the Executive branch of government?
WHEN STUPID? (Score:5, Insightful)
When was our country attacked?
The DNC is far from my country. The so-called attack, merely showed that Hillary and the DNC was engaged in election rigging (attacking our country).
This administration has provided zero proof of Russia's involvement nor motive.
The only proof we have is that Hillary, exclaimed this was in retaliation to her mucking about in Russia's election. *facepalm* So let's say ALL of this is true. That means this was retaliation on U.S. for interfering in their election.
WE'RE THE BIGGEST DAMN HYPOCRITES IN THE WORLD!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WHEN STUPID? (Score:4, Insightful)
We were attacked, yet some choose to trivialize it as a political issue, instead of realizing that our election process, the basis of democracy in our our Republic, was attacked.
Let me get this straight. Bringing transparency to what is going on behinds the scenes is an attack on our Republic.
Okay....
Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or truth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two years ago, Russia invaded a sovereign country, Ukraine, and occupied it.
More recently, Russia (maybe) took part in telling the truth about the DNC.
Which do you think will result in a stronger response from Obama. As a reminder, his response on Ukraine was basically wagging his finger at them, saying "bad Russia, bad boy" - no concrete action.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:4, Insightful)
If only I had mod points.
The Russian hacks only did the press's job for them.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:5, Insightful)
When I read the stories about the NSA, the five-eyes, the affront to the 4th amendment. I was outraged. I think Edward Snowden is a hero for going against some very very powerful forces and revealing what was happening in our own country against us by the leviathan. Russia did that for the democratic party. You can't be against Russia's hacking, but for Edward Snowden. They play the same character in this one.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:5, Interesting)
Because what the party was up to wasn't nearly as nefarious as you seem to want to paint it. Yes, they had a preferred candidate going in - and a strategy for her to glide through to the nomination with as little damage as possible. They chose her because of her name recognition, her popularity at the time (believe it or not), and yes, her connections - in the sense that she and her husband had done a lot to promote other Democrats. But they played it mostly straight once a viable challenger emerged.
If you were privy to the internal private emails of almost any organization (not just political parties) you'd see plenty that would be embarrassing - maybe even compromising. But you only saw the DNC stuff - and yet you're prepared to think that the Russians did us all a service. Well they didn't. Sure the DNC preferred Clinton to Sanders - largely because they thought she'd be more likely to win (being wrong on that doesn't make them criminal). But they didn't do anything significant to stymie Sanders. Even if they did the things they were accused of (and there's no proof they did), they wouldn't have affected the outcome in any state. Sure, there were the superdelegates - but they were there in 2008 too, and they flipped to the winner of the primary delegates, and would've flipped in 2016 had Sanders won more primary delegates than Clinton did. And you know what - if Trump hadn't won the Republican nomination, Sanders probably would've lost to any other Republican - though I agree he might well have won against Trump. Though, you know, Clinton probably would've won against Trump too had Comey, the Russians, and yes, folks like you - who trashed her for being her party's preferred choice - not had their way.
Snowden was an actual whistle blower - providing information kept from the public about what their government was actually doing. The DNC hackers were just trying to stir up trouble - using information that didn't belong to the public in the same way that the government does.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, collusion and corruption are not nefarious undertakings. If they are not as bad as you want to paint it, then the Russian hacks don't matter, do they? After all, if what they showed American voters was totally mundane regular office affairs how could they have influenced the election? Sorry, you can't have it both ways.
The Russians apparently tried hacking the RNC [businessinsider.com] but failed because no one clicked on a stupid phishing link.
"Stir up trouble" is informing American voters the extent the DNC colluded and how corrupt Clinton was. Good god man, did the Pentagon Papers stir up trouble too? You bet it did and for good reason. Showing the unadulterated truth to voters is not "stirring up trouble" especially compared to the shit that those leaks exposed.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:4, Informative)
those words.
you keep using them.
I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
for example, corruption is the stuff trump is doing RIGHT NOW to enrich himself and his businesses off his newfound position.
Re: (Score:3)
What is he doing RIGHT NOW that is corrupt? You do realize that conflict of interest laws apply different to POTUS, [pbs.org] right? I would love to hear what you and your mods think he has done RIGHT NOW that is corrupt.
Are you denying what was in those emails? Do you think the collusion between the DNC, MSM, and Clinton campaign are just republican conspiracies? Do you think the pay to play policies of the Clinton Foundation were jokes?
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:5, Informative)
Silly me
Yes.
Let's pick a few. Clinton has been accused of being in favour of off shoring. Trump has actually engaged in offshoring.
Clinton has been accused of being in bed with big business. Trump is a card carrying member of big business.
Clinton has been accused of at best weakly substantiated claims of corruption with the foundation. Trump has been caught using his foundation to pay off personal fines.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:4, Insightful)
1. What the DNC 'was up to' pales in comparison to what the NSA was up to.
Actually, the DNC didn't do that much at all. That part of it was and is a tempest in a teapot.
2. Besides that, Russia's hacking is malicious, whereas Snowden's revelations are clearly well-intended. So yes, you can be against Russia's hacking and for Edward Snowden.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not about Democrats vs. Republicans, it's about influencing elections and breaking the law with illegal access of private systems.
Regardless of who was behind Wikileaks documents related to US politics, they were almost entirely anti-Democrat. Anybody who thinks that Republicans don't have a comparable amount of dirty laundry is delusional. Why anyone would trust the vera
Re: (Score:3)
Regardless of who was behind Wikileaks documents related to US politics, they were almost entirely anti-Democrat.
Like it's the RNC's fault that they weren't stupid enough to 1) hang an unsecured private MS Exchange server directly on the public Internet, 2) fall for a monumentally stupid phishing scam, and 3) use email to coordinate some stupefyingly shady shit (colluding with the media and vice-versa, screwing over Sanders and his voters, etc.)
I mean, come on... if the RNC had even thought of doing anything like any of that, you can bet your ass that CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC... all of them would be announcing it fro
Re: (Score:3)
I'm getting so tired with this nugget of "wisdom".
The problem people have with this is not with the content that was released or the fact that it was released all, what they are upset about is the fact that Russia set out to try to change the outcome of the US election through hacking and releasing any info they could find that would help a specific candidate.
Would it be cool if after 4 years of Trump messing with China, China started trying to hack the RNC to dig up their dirty laundry for all to see? I tr
Re: (Score:3)
As much as I did not want Trump to win, it became obvious that it was Hillary who actually lost. The democrats need to clean their act first before blaming republicans. There was major indication for favoring a candidate during preliminaries, and possible leaking of debate questions to that particular candidate. It did not help that Hillary camp did not have any concrete policies and promises during the campaign. They were like an abstract vapour.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:5, Insightful)
There has never been a particularly easy way to deal with Russian belligerency. Napoleon's Grande Armee found itself in a frozen hell when Napoleon tried to hold Alexander I's feet to the fire for betraying him. Britain had to basically pretend the Katyn Massacre didn't happen and had to classify Finland as an Axis ally just so it could gain an ally on Germany's eastern flank. The US was forced to stand by and watch the Soviets crush the Prague Spring. The only things that have ever really worked, at least in the post-WWII era is to get Russia bound up in some sort of regional proxy disputes like Afghanistan. That is what Syria was supposed to be, I suppose, except ISIS appeared in the middle of the chaos, seized the initiative from whatever passed for legitimate anti-Assad rebels, and created a new player that ended up fucking up Iraq and buggering up relations with Turkey.
Russia certainly didn't create the Syrian situation, but it has used it to its advantage. Between Syria and fucking around with elections, a nation with a GDP smaller than Italy's, whose military has, by and large, degraded over the last two decades to regional power status, has managed to project force in a whole new way. Whether that works for Russia in the longer term is hard thing to predict, but it's pretty astounding to watch.
As to Ukraine, if NATO had rolled in there, it would have meant, in very short order, NATO and ultimately uniformed Russian troops would have been lobbing bullets at each other, and that kind of crisis could likely have escalated very quickly. I don't see how any other President would have handled the situation any differently. Neither Ford or Nixon intervened when the Soviets reimposed control over Czechoslovakia in 1968, and for the same reason Obama would not have intervened militarily in Ukraine. Ukraine is not a NATO member, it is not a EU member, and while it has had growing ties with the West, it's still not a first order ally. Couple that with the unwillingness of Europe, and Germany in particular, to wage economic war on Russia to the extent that the Obama Administration had wanted, how can you fault Obama for the more muted response?
And if you think Obama went easy on the Russians, what do you think Trump with his Secretary of State pick (presuming the Senate doesn't sink Tillerson's nomination) is going to do? Do you think he'd stand up to Russia, considering he's made his admiration for Putin pretty clear, and seems to be leaning heavily towards a Russo-American Detente, if not outright Entente?
Re:Making Russia Great Again (Score:5, Informative)
Russia isn't doing a bad job prodding Poland and Hungary either, which will leave the Czechs, Slovaks, and the poor Baltic states (who have suffered mightily over the centuries at the hands of Russia) looking on in horror. Christ, even Lukashenko was spooked by the seizure of Crimea and the Russian-funded civil war in Ukraine, and Belorus has long been seen as the Kremlin's most reliable ally.
But Obama couldn't simply just order US forces into Georgia or Ukraine, nor would any of its NATO partners countenanced anything that would have lead to direct hostilities, or even the remote possibility of direct hostilities with Russia. South Ossetia and Crimea, when you look at the long view, are part of a longstanding pattern of the Muscovy Princes viewing themselves as the rightful rulers and protectors of all things Russian. For a brief time after the October Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky tried to put forward a more internationalist and less Slavic model of Russian suzerainty, but after Lenin's death and Trotsky's exile, the weight of centuries of Russian history pushed it back into the Pan-Slavism.
There's no doubt that Russia, rendered impotent by economic collapse, could do little to prevent the collapse of Yugoslavia and the Balkan conflict, nor could it prevent NATO from taking the Serbs to task, and I would suggest that economic impotence is the reason why, when Russia had regained enough strength, and began trying to impose its will on Ukraine (a country and a people that it has long viewed as being a core part of the Slavic homeland), and failing that, to seize Crimea and leave the rest of Ukraine in chaos. The same goes for the seizure of South Ossetia, which sent out the message to every Russian neighbor that if they had any ethnic Russian or Russian-speaking population, Russia regarded itself as their protector, and would use whatever force it felt necessary to ensure the Kremlin's power and influence.
There was another European leader from the not so distant past who took the same position, and the results were most unpleasant.
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:5, Informative)
The USA and a bunch of other countries imposed strong sanctions on Russia as a result of their aggression in Ukraine. Is that not concrete action?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Over/under: Invasion of sovereign nation or tru (Score:4, Funny)
The USA and a bunch of other countries imposed strong sanctions on Russia as a result of their aggression in Ukraine. Is that not concrete action?
I'm sorry, that doesn't fit with any anti-Obama narrative. Disregarded.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you think that a Trump administration will be tougher on Russia regarding the Ukraine?
Think again. The Trump team signed off on every single item in the RNC platform -- taxes, trade policy, abortion, education, religion, all of it -- except one thing. They said nope, that one has to go.
You know what it was? Support for the Ukraine in its fight against Russia. [washingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:3)
and he did this out of the kindness of his heart?
no.
they hacked both parties.
but only leaked stuff from one.
cause they made a decision as to whom would more benefit them.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess we're just ignoring the Russian troops who were present in the Ukraine then?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:All crap (Score:4, Informative)
Yes because every single US intelligence agency like the CIA is so liberal
They are currently being run by Obama political appointees. You do understand that, right?
You know who else is super liberal: Wikileaks. They confirmed that they got emails from Russian sources.
No, they explicitly said they did NOT get them from the Russians. What's with the phony narrative? How does that help anyone?