White House Fails To Disclose Planned “Response” To Russia’s Alleged Role In Recent Hacks

U.S. President Barack Obama walks to board Air Force One for travel to Greensboro, North Carolina from the Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S. October 11, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
US President Barack Obama prepares to travel to Greensboro, NC on October 11, 2016. Credit – Reuters

As True Activist reported last Friday, the US intelligence community accused Russia of hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign insiders, though intelligence officials stopped short of placing direct blame on Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The statement came only an hour before Wikileaks first released the already infamous Podesta emails. Yet, Russia’s ties to the hacks are based on pure speculation as the statement said US intelligence officials were “confident” that Russia was to blame as the leaks are “consistent with the methods and motivations of Russia-directed efforts.” The statement failed to disclose any concrete evidence. However, similar speculation has led to some major intelligence blunders in the recent past as the US intelligence community was also “confident” that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” in the weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, which, as we all know, turned out to be entirely false.

Though Russia has laughed off the accusations and accused the US of reviving McCarthyism to distract from its own sordid actions in the Middle East, the US statement further underscores the rapid escalation of hostilities between the two nations. After the accusation was made public, a senior administration official told Andrew Beatty, AFP news agency’s White House correspondent, that the US “will respond at a time and place of our choosing” to Russia’s “meddling” in the US election, or rather exposing the rampant corruption that led to Clinton’s decidedly undemocratic coronation. This ominous statement was seconded by White House spokesman Josh Earnest at a White House press conference yesterday as he responded to journalists’ inquiries about the President’s position concerning Russia’s connections to the hacks.

Earnest said that President Obama has several options available to him and that it is possible that he may choose to avoid public disclosure of whatever “option” he chooses:

“There are a range of responses that are available to the president and he will consider a response that is proportional. It is certainly possible that the president can choose response options that we never announce.”

The Obama administration is not just considering his potentially covert response to Russia’s alleged role in the hacks, but also his response to the dissolution of diplomatic cooperation between the US and Russia over Syria. Obama has been considering air strikes against Syria’s Assad, which Russia has directly stated would lead to war. The high tensions have led to Russian warning of all-out nuclear war with the US as well as nationwide drills preparing its citizens for nuclear and chemical warfare. Yet, fanning the flames of an already tenuous situation with Russia appears to be of no concern to Obama, despite the severity of the potential consequences. Obama is using Russia as a convenient scapegoat to distract the public from the content of the leaks themselves, which have exposed widespread corruption within Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the White House, and the corporate media, while also helping him curry public support for his agenda of regime change in Syria.

Considering that this latest promise of retaliation could be carried out with zero accountability and could involve covert military operations against Russian interests, citizens of the US and elsewhere must take it upon themselves to demand an end to the neo-McCarthyism being pushed by both the White House and the corporate media.

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