After all, these agencies failed to stop Russia from effectively installing Trump as its Manchurian president of the United States.
Meanwhile, much is being made about the way Russian trolls have been operating for months like moles inside the IT systems not just of the US government but also of the biggest US corporations. But, as I said in my commentary on Friday, nobody should have been surprised. And I’m not referring just to the open invitation the United States gave when it failed to retaliate after Russia’s notorious cyber attacks on the 2016 presidential election.
Because the real worry is not Putin’s Russian trolls. It’s Putin’s American puppet. In fact, Hillary famously warned that Trump’s deference to Putin was such that electing him would be tantamount to putting Putin in the White House.
Of course, US intelligence officials are deflecting blame for their failures by hailing these cyber attacks as the work of high-tech geniuses. Except that I had good reason to pooh-pooh this notion as follows:
This latest poisoning substantiates my abiding assertion that Putin is not only a coward but an incompetent too. After all, Navalny is now in dubious company with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the aforementioned Skripal, which makes his the third (high-profile) poisoning Putin has bungled.
Yet Western media have bought his manufactured reputation as a political Professor Moriaty hook, line, and sinker, whereas a reputation as a political Inspector Clouseau is clearly more warranted.
(“Germany Confirms What Everyone Knew: Putin Poisoned Navalny,” The iPINIONS Journal, September 3, 2020)
Sure enough, just yesterday, the following report by Sky News vindicated my take:
A Russian FSB agent has been tricked into allegedly admitting he poisoned Putin critic Alexei Navalny by unwittingly telling Mr Navalny himself on a phone call, according to reports.
The officer, identified as Konstantin Kudryavtsev, is said to have taken a 45-minute call from Mr Navalny last Monday, but was duped into believing he was actually talking to a senior security official instead.
He explained to the Russian opposition leader that Novichok nerve agent used to poison him had been applied to his underwear, with a specific focus on ‘the insides, the crotch.’
This is why the unfolding story about Russia’s greatest intelligence triumph is really a story about America’s greatest intelligence failure. This, despite billions the US spent on defenses against the kind of unprecedented cyber attack Russian just executed.
Not to mention the abiding failure inherent in US intelligence agencies being unable to offer any greater insight into Trump’s treasonous deference to Putin today than they could four years ago. This, despite Trump making it abundantly clear that, Putin has such compromising information on him, he’d rather betray America than defy Putin.
True to form:
President Donald Trump on Saturday downplayed the hacking campaign that has torn through U.S. government agencies and businesses that experts believe is the work of Russian intelligence, deflecting blame away from Russia and suggesting Chinese involvement while contradicting top officials in his own administration.
(NBC News, December 19, 2020)
The point is that all of this hullabaloo about cyber attacks across America is tantamount to ignoring the big elephant (or Trojan Horse) in the White House.
This is the same Trump who, in Helsinki in 2017, infamously kowtowed to explain that Putin’s cyberattack on the 2016 election was just a diplomatic gesture of goodwill. Every agency in the US intelligence community tried to disabuse him of that Manchurian spin. But Trump threw them under the bus joined Putin on board and then drove all over them.
(“Maduro Outlasting Trump Like Assad Outlasted Obama. (‘Black-Swan’ Song for Trump,” Talking iPINIONS Podcast, December 5, 2020)
Incidentally, the Republicans who refused to impeach Trump are willfully complicit. This, because they have enabled his serial betrayals – of his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the United States and duty to honor, respect, and champion the democratic norms that made America great.
Related commentaries:
Trump-Maduro podcast… Navalny… Russian cyber attacks…