1:17 PM
Just one day after
President Barack Obama moved to expel thirty-five Russian expatriates, Russian
President Vladimir Putin took the high road and turned the other cheek – an
action that the Obama Administration surely did not anticipate and likely
considered equally embarrassing. I
suspect as others have also noted, that this was an attempt on Obama’s behalf
to close down the warming of relations with Russia that the incoming President
Elect has signaled he was willing to attempt.
Yes, this was indeed the ultimate F### you to the outgoing President. I
am sure they will try to spin this in a positive. Maybe they will say Putin was wrong so he had
no reason to capitulate in response, that there is no way he can retaliate
(both of which are false) or make up new evidence of Russian hacking the U.S.
to gather more anti-Russian sentiment.
Anyone with common
sense can conclude that this isn’t about Russia or even the election, but
rather Obama and the failed policy purported by the Democratic left in America.
As a lame duck, President Obama has placed the interest of the failing
Democratic Party over the national security interest of the American
people. His aversion for Donald Trump
has led him to project and use the historical trained fear produced in the
American people for decades to hate Russia – like the name of one of my
favorite musical groups, a Cheap Trick. In a few months the Democratic Party
and mainstream East coast media has turned liberal progressives into neocon war
hawks.
Hilarity right? This
re-invigorated blame-Russia ruse seemed to start a few years ago when Putin got hip
to Obama’s game after the February 2014 coup to overthrow the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. For some reason or another, the
cat folk though was smart as sh## (Obama) didn’t seem to recall that this was
not the Yeltsin era, or that since then, Putin has managed to beat Obama to the
punch in all of his foreign policy efforts like a chess grand master playing a
beginner.
It was a foreign
policy coup. Especially when you add to
the calculus the just negotiated Turkey-Russia cease-fire agreement in Syria
which can be stated is a consequence of Putin’s leadership and involvement in
the nation over the past year (an act that has successfully neutered American
neo-liberal policy goals in their call for Assad to leave office). This is
amazing seeing all of this has occurred after Erdogan’s government shot down a
Russian jet and years after Obama telling Medvedev on an open mic in 2012 that
he would work more openly with Russia as a partner rather than a nemesis. Add
to this Russia’s improved relationship with Turkey, questions now come to the
forefront regarding NATO’s second largest Army coming under a significant level
of influence under Putin and concerns about deteriorating relations between
Turkey and the U.S. One could go further and even include this past December
when Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, while in Bahrain stating that the U.S.
had reached an agreement for Qatar to purchase a 5,000-kilometer early-warning radar to enhance its missile defenses (you can see a lot of Russia with this).
It is strange that
Obama is doing all of this as he prepares to leave the Whitehouse. The Obama
administration on the surface seems to be trying to provoke a direct
confrontation with Putin while at the same time create a new cold-war foreign
policy crisis for President-elect Donald Trump to deal with the minute he assumes the office of presidency. Among other things, he has also stepped up
arming and funding jihadist in Syria and has ratchetted up tensions with Putin
not only in Syria, but also on his boarders by installing anti-ballistic
missiles in Romania, Poland, and other nations (supposedly to protect Europe
against Iranian missiles). Now to top it off, he has contrived fake Russian
hacking. One sad consequence is that the Obama Administrations failure to find
any solution to what is happening in Syria, diplomatic or otherwise, and how to
defeat the Islamic State has resulted in historic U.S. allies in the region
scratching their heads in confusion. Namely what is the position of the U.S.? What
leverage if any do they have in the region and will they protect their interests
in the region and how?
Even with these
actions, the report the administration released detailing how the alleged hack
occurred was not detailed at all. There was no mention of the fact that John
Podesta was his own worse cyber enemy. It doesn’t really fall into the category
of hacking when you email your passwords around, lose a cell phone or respond
to a password phishing email even a 6th graders known not to open. From what I
read, most of the “detailed” report produced by the FBI/DHS talked about how
cats can protect themselves from malware but little if anything about proving
that the Russians were the source of the DNC or Podesta email leaks. Really it
was replete of circumstantial evidence and oblique hints (innuendo).
Although the President promised to consult and work with Congress on this issue, he has not nor did he
present them with a detailed report PROVIDING PROOF that the Russians did it or
that the motive was to elect Donald Trump. It is easy to say that a car jacker
stole your car for money, but to say why he needed the money and what the money
would have been used for is another matter. Thus to state unequivocally that
this Russian cyber hacking attempt was aimed at the U.S. presidential election
to elect Trump by talking about hacking infrastructure in an effort to help
prevent more hacking in the future does not suffice as PROOF.
Jerry Gamblin said“the Grizzly Steppe data it is disjointed, ambiguous and really doesn’t provide any actionable data for most companies.” Cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr
wrote: “It merely listed every threat group ever reported on by a commercialcybersecurity company that is suspected of being Russian-made and lumped them under the heading of Russian Intelligence Services (RIS) without providing any supporting evidence that such a connection exists.” Errata Security CEO RobGraham pointed out that, one of the signatures detects the presence
of "PAS TOOL WEB KIT," a tool that's widely used by literally
hundreds, and possibly thousands, of hackers in Russia and Ukraine, most of
whom are otherwise unaffiliated and have no connection to the Russian
government. Lastly to quote Robert M. Lee, CEO and Founder of the critical infrastructure cyber security company Dragos stated “There is no mention of the focus of attribution in any of the White House’s statements.” In simple terms,
the white house is guessing and giving an opinion that can’t even point
directly to the Russian government.
Some have suggested
(which I agree with) that Obama is trying to embarrass Trump and that he is
trying to provoke the President elect into a cyber war with Russia (which I
disagree with). However, Putin’s response demonstrates that Obama's new sanctions and expulsions is a reflection of his weakness in foreign policy.
This sentiment was echoed in the comments made by Russian foreign ministry
spokeswoman Maria Zakharova when she said, “Obama and his illiterate foreign policy team” was just a bunch of “losers, angry and shallow-brained.”
