John Bolton Proposes Cyber Retaliation Against Russia, Starting with Wikileaks

[Frodo]

Let's assume this isn't an April Fool's joke:

John Bolton, cyber warrior
Trump’s incoming adviser has said the U.S. should launch a ‘retaliatory cyber campaign against Russia’ and ‘use WikiLeaks for target practice.’

I'm not sure how to react to this story, given I believe that Russia should definitely be punished severely for its meddling in the 2016 election, as well as for its other crimes against nations and individuals.  But how.......

[ChinaSoc]

NATO wants war with Russia, Bolton is only pandering to the wishes of the ruling class, including lots of liberals.

Much of the criticism of Bolton is about style, big chunks of the american elite support interventions against Russia, Iran, DPRK and some even China.

[Crumpets]

In fairness, the US's cyber warfare capabilities are - as Obama would put it - an army of horses and bayonets. If we are going to pump trillions of dollars into the Pentagon, cyber command is not a bad place to invest it.

I just wish someone other than John Bolton or the like were calling the shots.

[JA]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

[Virginiá]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?

I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.

[King Lear]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

I totally agree, this Russophobia is out of control, and it's being aided by the "Liberal" media (CNN and MSNBC), little do they realize, all their doing is giving Trump justification to a
Start a big War in the Middle East (most likely Iran), because supporting hawkishness against Russia, will lead to Hawkishness against its allies (Iran and Syria).

[Sestak]

In fairness, the US's cyber warfare capabilities are - as Obama would put it - an army of horses and bayonets. If we are going to pump trillions of dollars into the Pentagon, cyber command is not a bad place to invest it.

I just wish someone other than John Bolton or the like were calling the shots.

Agree that investing in cyberwarfare is not an awful thing to do with our giganormous military budget.


Something something Iran are the good guys something something #MeToo Transgenders

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Epic HP.

[Storebought]

Dismantling Wikileaks is a no-brainer. How is that even a controversy?

[ChinaSoc]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

And it's going to get overwhelming support from liberals since they view Trump as a Russian agent (despite his very anti-Russian administration) and are unlikely to associate the war with him (unlike Bush and Iraq), Trump plays that well too, the ruling class may hate his crudeness but they will give him a blank check to strike Iran or DPRK (since liberals are not pissed with Trump's threats to DPRK, they are pissed he is actually going to do something good which is meeting with Kim Jong Un).

[JA]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?

I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.

There are several factors that influence my perception of the current situation.

1. Russia's existing government - dominated by nationalist conservatives and Putin-allied oligarchs - is the direct consequence of America's rather shameless meddling in Russian domestic politics in the 1990s. Acts within history reverberate through time and have consequences. The result of Clinton's government intervening so brazenly to support Yelzin gave rise to Putin and his government. It also helped to spoil potentially improved relations between America and Russia post-Cold War. America's violation of a verbal agreement not to expand the boundaries of NATO past the former Iron Curtain also contributed to unnecessarily heightened tensions between America and Russia. Now, that doesn't mean Russia is some innocent angel that just sits by doing nothing; but we must acknowledge our role in creating our existing situation.

2. The Russophobia of the #Resistance is helping the Deep State, composed of an intelligence community and "national security" officials that still retain an interventionist, hawkish foreign policy stance, to regain credibility lost from its involvement in the Iraq War debacle and subsequent failed or harmful interventions. The Left never did a good job holding these officials accountable, whether it's for Iraq or Libya, but they were at least largely suspicious of their proclamations. Now, they're treated like the wise agents in an internal war with the Trump Administration. This has and will continue to allow them to vastly expand their powers, such as Bolton desires, under the guise of retaliating or at least defending against Russian and other foreign cyber attacks.

3. America already has an extensive cybersecurity system. We were the ones who initiated the use of social media and other manipulation of public thought via the internet to promote American interests abroad. That's not to mention our use of NGOs to promote similar interests as well. America is certainly not behind Russia or anyone else when it comes to these capabilities; we are the pioneers of it.

Basically, the way I see it is that the Russiaphobia stemming from the 2016 election has been fanned in order to promote the interests of the National Security and intelligence apparatus and increase popular support for their increased power, reach, and interventions abroad. They'll use it to target information leakers and invest in most social media manipulation programs and campaigns. And the public will either support it or look the other way because it'll be defended as a necessary defense mechanism against Russia.

Yet, interestingly, Russia's influence on the election was negligible at best. The notion of them throwing it for Trump is absurd. What's more damning and deserves far greater attention are the voter suppression tactics employed by Republicans (which receive far less attention than Russian interference), Republican gerrymandering of districts to ensure Congressional dominance, and a deeply flawed electoral system that allows a Presidential candidate to win by 3 million votes, yet lose the election.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Dismantling Wikileaks is a no-brainer. How is that even a controversy?

For some reason a bunch of people are under the delusion it's an actual organization that's dedicated to government transparency instead of a de facto Russian intelligence front that otherwise primarily exists as a personality cult that feeds the ego of one of history's greatest narcissists. Especially as Wikileaks has gone after people for leaks that didn't fit Assange's agenda.

Yes Wikileaks needs to go, and an actual organization that fights for transparency can hopefully fill that void. Anyone thinking Wikileaks does/will is delusional beyond belief.

[Virginiá]

I don't deny that America has done its own meddling, but the stupid and destructive actions of a past administration shouldn't consign future administrations to the fallout, if it can be avoided. Regardless of why Russia is meddling with our elections, there are a great many people who want it to stop, and the leaders of this country have a duty to protect America from this stuff (Trump does, but its laughable to think about it, obviously).

Yet, interestingly, Russia's influence on the election was negligible at best. The notion of them throwing it for Trump is absurd. What's more damning and deserves far greater attention are the voter suppression tactics employed by Republicans (which receive far less attention than Russian interference), Republican gerrymandering of districts to ensure Congressional dominance, and a deeply flawed electoral system that allows a Presidential candidate to win by 3 million votes, yet lose the election.

I think the email scandal and the resulting FBI investigation that dogged her even up until the last days was the biggest single influence, but the Podesta/DNC hacks probably had an effect too. It's hard to quantify exactly how much though. Otherwise, I agree that the actual tactics Russia had going (social media/trolls/bots/etc) probably wasn't that effective. The email hacks were really the crème de la crème of their operation. In the end, if Clinton had just used a normal email account or better yet, stayed in the Senate, she'd never have had these problems. That stint as SoS ruined her.

Regarding the voter suppression/gerrymandering stuff, I agree wholeheartedly, but those things are either too difficult for the average voter to understand, or they don't appear blatantly oppressive, like poll taxes or literacy tests were. Asking for an ID at face value sounds pretty reasonable - it's hard for me to find people who think it is unreasonable right off the bat. It's the motives and the details that matter. There is also the issue that no one can point to a major decrease in any particular voter group, like, say, going from 66% African American turnout to 20% or something. If you just point to smaller-sounding decreases around the margins, it doesn't register that much with voters. Talking about 66% to 59% or something like that doesn't sound too bad to the average person.

Gerrymandering is a whole different ball game. Peoples eyes glaze over the second you start talking about maps and district lines and all that stuff. That is probably why politicians have gotten away with it unchallenged for so long (other than being the ones that would have to outlaw it if/when it came to it)

[Crumpets]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?

I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.

-snip for size-

Only people who don't know what they are talking about or are totally blinded by partisanship are saying that Putin flipped a Clinton victory to a Trump victory. What the intelligence community is arguing is that the Kremlin ran a campaign to damage Americans' faith in their democratic institutions. If you see America's actions in Russia in the 90s as shameless, than you should be more than happy to see Russia exposed for its election meddling, and "but he did it first!" is not an excuse to allow for one country to manipulate the democratic processes of another, let alone preclude a country that has been hit from building up their defenses against future attacks.

I know that you yourself identify as a strong anti-imperialist. I don't see how you cannot see Russia's attempts to - if not pick the winners of elections - disrupt elections, funnel money to certain campaigns, promote candidates on social media and tamper with voter rolls as anything but an imperialist persuit. And yes, I know the US does many of the same things. Here is the difference - the US, for all of its flaws, allows for public debate and discussion about our actions, and to remove those who were in charge of those actions when we collectively see fit. It's why you and I are able to have this kind of conversation without fearing any sort of repurcussions from it. I say that not to defend US actions, but to underscore that equating US interference to Russian interference is a dangerous false equivalency. Putin (and Xi for that matter) are desperately trying to have everyone simultaneously think their countries are superpowers that can take on any threat, but beg for sympathy when the evil imperialist US/EU call them out on their BS. Putin's a big boy who can answer for his actions.

And out of curiosity, I'd like to know where you think I fit into this Russophobic conspiracy. I am someone who supported Clinton from the get-go, someone who hopes eventually to have a career in foreign policy, and someone who wants to see the investigations into the 2016 elections continue, and see those who are found responsible for any wrongdoing brought to justice. I am also someone who has been to Russia twice, studied abroad in Russia, speaks Russian, worked as a tutor for disadvantaged Russian-speaking teens, will be rooting for team Russia in the world cup this year, is learning the balalaika, and has my room decorated with matreshkas, Russian art, and a Cheburashka doll. Please present evidence to me that by not liking Putin, Kadyrov, Yanukovych, and the like, I am being Russophobic. You can call that a strawman, but that is pretty much the impression that I get from your post.

I will also say for the record, that I think the US, UK, et al, have been pretty ham-handed in their handling of some aspects of the response to the Skripal case. At the very least, I would have liked to have seen a broader presentation of evidence against the agents who were expelled other than "oh yeah, there were a bunch of agents hanging out at our consulates, but Skripal got poisoned so we decided to kick them out."

[Fuzzy Bear]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?



I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.

I propose we do nothing to Russia.

2016 happened because it is the price of an open society.  Russians, Chinese, and other folks from other nations live in our open society.  They use our internet freely.  They create all sorts of troll farms for purposes that suit them.  They gain valuable information about the workings of our governments (state and national) through FOIA and state public records laws.  They work in our industries at the highest levels, have access to our highest technologies, and exchange information with our native-born scientists and defense experts.  Other nations take advantage of our openness all the time, and they take advantage of our virtue to drum up public support that has a moral argument but serves their interests at the expense of the American interest.

Why did Russia, for example, wish for us to take in tons of Syrian refugees?  Simple; this way, we would house the enemies of THEIR client state, the Assad regime.  These same troll farms that purportedly boosted Trump also pushed this policy, which aided Russia.  And that's just one example; we're manipulated and rolled all the time by governments not truly friendly to us, by appealing to our goodness and our openness. 

So do we become a CLOSED society?  Or do we become an INFORMED society, with its head not in the clouds, and not up its own . . . posterior.  That's our choice.  But to engage Russia in cyberwarfare is the silliest idea I've heard yet.  It's that simple.  And for that reason, John Bolton is a man who, I pray, falls out of favor with Trump in a hurry.  I would, right now, disapprove of Trump's performance as President, and Bolton's appointment is 90 percent of the reason why.

[HillGoose]

hell yes!!!!!!

[Progressive Pessimist]

Dismantling Wikileaks is a no-brainer. How is that even a controversy?

For some reason a bunch of people are under the delusion it's an actual organization that's dedicated to government transparency instead of a de facto Russian intelligence front that otherwise primarily exists as a personality cult that feeds the ego of one of history's greatest narcissists. Especially as Wikileaks has gone after people for leaks that didn't fit Assange's agenda.

Yes Wikileaks needs to go, and an actual organization that fights for transparency can hopefully fill that void. Anyone thinking Wikileaks does/will is delusional beyond belief.

Also Julian Assange is a rapist.

[courts]

hope he fires this guy in a few months

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Dismantling Wikileaks is a no-brainer. How is that even a controversy?

Because, for all their failings, they aren't subject to US jurisdiction. "Going after Wikileaks because they were mean to our government" is giving Russia free reign to go after the Washington Post, or China after Google. This is a bad thing.

Just like Trump and his band of plunderers need to be dealt with under the law, so does Wikileaks. And that's a lot harder because of how it's put together. But just because 'following the law is hard' does not mean 'so we'll just stop having laws' is a good idea.

[RFayette]

Good.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?

I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.

There are several factors that influence my perception of the current situation.

1. Russia's existing government - dominated by nationalist conservatives and Putin-allied oligarchs - is the direct consequence of America's rather shameless meddling in Russian domestic politics in the 1990s. Acts within history reverberate through time and have consequences. The result of Clinton's government intervening so brazenly to support Yelzin gave rise to Putin and his government. It also helped to spoil potentially improved relations between America and Russia post-Cold War. America's violation of a verbal agreement not to expand the boundaries of NATO past the former Iron Curtain also contributed to unnecessarily heightened tensions between America and Russia. Now, that doesn't mean Russia is some innocent angel that just sits by doing nothing; but we must acknowledge our role in creating our existing situation.

2. The Russophobia of the #Resistance is helping the Deep State, composed of an intelligence community and "national security" officials that still retain an interventionist, hawkish foreign policy stance, to regain credibility lost from its involvement in the Iraq War debacle and subsequent failed or harmful interventions. The Left never did a good job holding these officials accountable, whether it's for Iraq or Libya, but they were at least largely suspicious of their proclamations. Now, they're treated like the wise agents in an internal war with the Trump Administration. This has and will continue to allow them to vastly expand their powers, such as Bolton desires, under the guise of retaliating or at least defending against Russian and other foreign cyber attacks.

3. America already has an extensive cybersecurity system. We were the ones who initiated the use of social media and other manipulation of public thought via the internet to promote American interests abroad. That's not to mention our use of NGOs to promote similar interests as well. America is certainly not behind Russia or anyone else when it comes to these capabilities; we are the pioneers of it.

Basically, the way I see it is that the Russiaphobia stemming from the 2016 election has been fanned in order to promote the interests of the National Security and intelligence apparatus and increase popular support for their increased power, reach, and interventions abroad. They'll use it to target information leakers and invest in most social media manipulation programs and campaigns. And the public will either support it or look the other way because it'll be defended as a necessary defense mechanism against Russia.

Yet, interestingly, Russia's influence on the election was negligible at best. The notion of them throwing it for Trump is absurd. What's more damning and deserves far greater attention are the voter suppression tactics employed by Republicans (which receive far less attention than Russian interference), Republican gerrymandering of districts to ensure Congressional dominance, and a deeply flawed electoral system that allows a Presidential candidate to win by 3 million votes, yet lose the election.

1. Don't forget how American vulture capitalism helped damage Russia during the same period, too. But at the same time, should our guilt and the worthlessness of our word mean that we should just let Russia take apart nations like Lithuania or Estonia so long as they don't roll in tanks until the very end?

2. This perhaps the part that bothers me the most. As one of my favorite webcomics says, "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less." Treating Clapper or the like as credible makes me sick, and I think it's a terrible idea that damages the credibility of the anti-Trump movement. But at the same time, I do not think it's all just jumping at shadows. Again, this puts us in a tough bind, with no clearly good directions to go.

3. As with many things 'cyber' our government is much, much better at dishing it out than defending against it. It looks to me like the US goverment spent years deliberately weakening 'the internet' against attacks of all sorts, to make it's own job easier. There's a certain poetic justice to it. But that still doesn't make it a good thing.


I see a lot of different groups on the anti-Russia bandwagon, all fighting over the direction it will go. Once again, it's a very tough call. Many groups are using it as an excuse to push things in their preferred (and terrible) directions. But we do need to move away from the flaming garbage dump that is the Trump administration, and Russia is a rival that poses some threat to the United States. (And not just our empire, even if much of the threat is originally of our own making.)

I'm not sure Russia's influence really was that negligible. Trump's win was a combination of many factors, and close enoug that ANY of them may have been decisive. I also strongly suspect that what Russian interference we can see and prove is but the tip of the iceberg. (That's how these things tend to go.)

And what Russia did or didn't do, the fact remains that the Trump & Kids Circus tried to conspire with people they believed were connected to the Russian government to win the election. That they were stupid about it and that it probably did them no good is beside the point. Trying to get a gun to go murder someone is attempted murder, even if you get the wrong bullets and are too stupid to work the safety. It's still attempted murder! Likewise, Trump tried to conspire with Russia (and looks guilty as all hell).

Again, this puts us in a tough position. A true good defense would be a much more educated, cynical, and involved public, plus adopting real security for the internet (totally rebuilding it, effectively). But those in charge (Trump and anti-Trump) will never do this - they all depend upon an ignorant, easily manipulated electorate. And the government and the corporations that pull strings love the insecure internet; I wouldn't trust any of them to properly secure it anyway!

I think Trump needs to be fully investigated, and that a fair investigation will almost certainly destroy his administration, if not put him in jail. I think we need to secure our whole election system. (Paper ballots! Verifiable paper trail the whole way, still compatible with secret voting.) End the ability of anyone, Republican, Russia or anyone else, to tamper with voter rolls. (And end as much GOP voter suppresion as possible while we're at it.)

I do think Russia tried to hit us with a sophisticated but subtle attack. While they will be far from the last to do so, and there's lots of space to argue about how effective it was, the fact remains that we have been struck a grevious blow with the election of Trump. Self-inflicted or attempted assssination doesn't matter so much as preventing similar attempts in the future and hopefully recovering from this one.

I'm not opitimistic though. If I had to put money down, I'd say we're going to fail. On all counts.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I’ve never been able to fully appreciate the arguments of the “West got what it deserved” camp, and for a few reasons. (1) Regarding “meddling” in the 1996 Russian election, I’ll cop to never having read a book on the topic, but from what little I’ve examined, it appears to have been the actions of American businesses and American political operators—not government officials or their known agents—that helped Yeltsin’s re-election. Moreover, I don’t know how assured anyone can be that somehow Zyuganov, who was co-opted in later years, would be leading some functioning social democracy at this point. (2) Regarding the “verbal agreement,” if it even occurred, it was just that. If we are to assume the Cold War is over, why should former satellites not have the right to set their own international priorities? Governments change—we learned that when the current Russian leadership effected a border shift. (3) Every protest to actual or alleged instance of Western involvement in former satellites or former SSR’s utterly ignores the fact that the people living in them, and their political leadership, are not simply passive actors, a blank slate that only a Western or a Russian destiny can be inscribed upon. Does anyone want to insist that the first Ukrainian 2004 runoff wasn’t marked by fraud? That Yushchenko deserved to be poisoned?

If we want to build a post-Cold War International Relations order, it starts with blurring the line we once drew between Western Europe and the Iron Curtain. Only a few countries are trying to institutionalize that division, and they lie to its East.

[Badger]

Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).

What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?

I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.

-snip for size-

Only people who don't know what they are talking about or are totally blinded by partisanship are saying that Putin flipped a Clinton victory to a Trump victory. What the intelligence community is arguing is that the Kremlin ran a campaign to damage Americans' faith in their democratic institutions. If you see America's actions in Russia in the 90s as shameless, than you should be more than happy to see Russia exposed for its election meddling, and "but he did it first!" is not an excuse to allow for one country to manipulate the democratic processes of another, let alone preclude a country that has been hit from building up their defenses against future attacks.

I know that you yourself identify as a strong anti-imperialist. I don't see how you cannot see Russia's attempts to - if not pick the winners of elections - disrupt elections, funnel money to certain campaigns, promote candidates on social media and tamper with voter rolls as anything but an imperialist persuit. And yes, I know the US does many of the same things. Here is the difference - the US, for all of its flaws, allows for public debate and discussion about our actions, and to remove those who were in charge of those actions when we collectively see fit. It's why you and I are able to have this kind of conversation without fearing any sort of repurcussions from it. I say that not to defend US actions, but to underscore that equating US interference to Russian interference is a dangerous false equivalency. Putin (and Xi for that matter) are desperately trying to have everyone simultaneously think their countries are superpowers that can take on any threat, but beg for sympathy when the evil imperialist US/EU call them out on their BS. Putin's a big boy who can answer for his actions.

And out of curiosity, I'd like to know where you think I fit into this Russophobic conspiracy. I am someone who supported Clinton from the get-go, someone who hopes eventually to have a career in foreign policy, and someone who wants to see the investigations into the 2016 elections continue, and see those who are found responsible for any wrongdoing brought to justice. I am also someone who has been to Russia twice, studied abroad in Russia, speaks Russian, worked as a tutor for disadvantaged Russian-speaking teens, will be rooting for team Russia in the world cup this year, is learning the balalaika, and has my room decorated with matreshkas, Russian art, and a Cheburashka doll. Please present evidence to me that by not liking Putin, Kadyrov, Yanukovych, and the like, I am being Russophobic. You can call that a strawman, but that is pretty much the impression that I get from your post.

I will also say for the record, that I think the US, UK, et al, have been pretty ham-handed in their handling of some aspects of the response to the Skripal case. At the very least, I would have liked to have seen a broader presentation of evidence against the agents who were expelled other than "oh yeah, there were a bunch of agents hanging out at our consulates, but Skripal got poisoned so we decided to kick them out."

To say that the number of Russian intelligence cyber officers numbering in the low triple digits dedicated full-time towards a sophisticated coordinated effort to impact the election in Trump's favor couldn't or didn't flip about 55,000 votes in Pennsylvania and Michigan to swing the Electoral College in his favor is, while hardly a given, by no means whatsoever can you hold out by any reasonable mathematical or political analysis.