Eric Zuesse
On December 17th, the neoconservative ‘liberal’ American ‘news’ site “The Daily Beast,” headlined one of their typical rabidly anti-Russia ‘news’ reports, “How to Really Punish Russia for Hacking: We must respond to Russia’s hacking—but any response risks escalation.”
Their article opened:
After much hand-wringing, the Obama administration admitted that the Russian government interfered with the presidential election. (It was not a 400-pound hacker, unless that hacker lives in Moscow.) It’s true that people often question attribution, but the critics were wrong on Sony and they are wrong now. It was the Russians.
Their article was ignoring the many reasons to doubt the veracity of the Obama Administration’s — and its CIA’s — allegations that Russia definitely did this — that Russia definitely revealed, to Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton’s and the Democratic National Committee’s corruption not only of themselves but of the Democratic Party’s political process that had removed the more popular candidate, Bernie Sanders, from contention and handed the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton. (And now they lost and are using Russia as the whipping-boy for that.) Their article simply ignored that sound reason exists to suspect that the CIA’s alleged allegations in that matter are lies. And here’s how a former British Ambassador tells how he knows that they are lies. If that’s not enough, try this, keeping in mind this, all showing that the CIA is hardly the public’s friend. So, The Daily Beast’s assuming that the CIA — which had helped George W. Bush lie this country into war against Iraq in 2003 — isn’t helping Barack Obama lie this nation into war against Russia in 2017 (and global nuclear annihilation), is either vicious, or else incredibly stupid, because they’re denying history.
The warmongering Beast then goes on to say:
The Russians calculated that they could manipulate the U.S. without punishment. So far, they have been right. They have succeeded beyond their greatest hopes. There is no reason for them to stop of their own accord and the likelihood of further Russian action is high if the U.S. does not take action in response.
So much, then, from a government-mouthpiece from a nation that routinely taps the phones of Angela Merkel and other leaders and overthrows freely elected governments in Ukraine and Chile, etc., and invades countries like Libya and Iraq. while preaching ‘freedom’ and ‘law’.
Then, this rabid propaganda asserts:
Russians will deny everything, but it sets a bad precedent if we create a crisis management structure and then do not use it in the first test.
It goes on to allege that Russia is a country “less bound by law” than we are; and so, whatever we do, “the chance of escalation is greater” if we “retaliate,” but we don’t have to worry about that, because they’re the ones who are to blame if we go to World War III over this, and we need to “retaliate,” and should do so:
One question about a response to Russian hacking is how we will control the risk of escalation without being ineffective. Unplugging a few servers will not end Russian action, but unplugging many servers may lead to broader conflict. When facing an opponent who is nimbler in decision-making, less bound by law, and more willing to take risks, the chance of escalation is greater.
Was the United States “less bound by law, and more willing to take risks” when our lying government said that “a report came out of the Atomic – the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need” (before we invade Iraq). (Bush then in 2002 was arguing there that we didn’t need any U.N. authorization and didn’t need any international weapons inspectors to go into Iraq to search to see if there were any WMD — weapons of mass destruction — there, but needed to invade fast.
Was the U.S. “less bound by law” when we invaded Syria because it’s allied with Russia and Iran while we’re allied with the Saudi royal family and the Qatari royal family, to grab some of Russia’s share of the world’s largest oil-and-gas market: the EU?
Who is the U.S. aristocracy, to dictate which countries’ governments are okay, and which ones ought to be invaded or overthrown?
What kind of glass house is this, which throws bombs at others while preaching about international laws that it violates more often than any other government on Earth?
How hypocritical is this government?
How dangerous is it?
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.