The first foreign power directly intervened in the presidential election in the United States was not Russia, and France. And it happened not in 2016, and in 1796, and then the alleged beneficiary was not Donald trump and Thomas Jefferson. The French Ambassador tried to assist Jefferson, the Democrat and francophile, in its fight against the federalist and Anglophile John Adams. The actions of the French Ambassador led to the opposite result and helped Adams win.
Now let’s use the fast rewind and fast forward to 150 years. During the cold war, and even after its end as the United States and the Soviet Union tried — mostly in secret, sometimes not without the shedding of blood, sometimes successfully — to determine the outcome of elections in many parts of the world. And whatever was said about the alleged Russian interference in the American elections in 2016, don’t make the mistake and don’t claim that this is unprecedented, as such, he is not.
However, like it or not, but the obvious intervention of Russia in held in the United States in 2016 elections cannot be considered legitimate. The accusation, which is contained in the declassified version of the intelligence report published late last week CIA, FBI and national security Agency, is very serious. The report says that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally instructed to conduct a campaign to influence elections in 2016 with the aim of undermining the credibility of the American democratic system, and in order to discredit Hillary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.
According to the authors of the report, Russia has used this as a secret and open means, including the Moscow-sponsored hacking attacks, trolling, and other dirty tricks. In addition, Russia gained access to some elements of the electoral system at the national and local level, but not to the part that is responsible for counting the votes. According to the authors of the report, the intervention of Russia in 2016 is “a significant escalation in terms of orientation, activity level, and extent of the efforts made”, while the success of the campaign attests to the emergence of a “new normality”, an attempt to reproduce which will be undertaken elsewhere, including in Europe. As you know, in Netherlands, in France and in Germany this year elections will be held.
This is a serious issue. It would be naive to just dismiss this story, considering it is propaganda or fake news, and, in addition, one should not dismiss it on the grounds that all governments always do this — and to this assessment we can tip conducted by TV channel al-Jazeera operation against the Israeli diplomat, which became known last week. In the report of investigation is not only explicitly rejected such options. The fact of the publication of the report — if, in fact, unprecedented — at least, suggests that the allegations have a substantial basis.
These allegations, if proven true, will confirm the presence of threats not only at the state level, but also at the level of systems. They show that the Russian state is systematically trying to destroy the democratic system and undermine the credibility of people. These systems and this trust needs to be protected. You cannot ignore the evidence that they were threatened.
We should not pretend that the published evaluation exploration prove the truth of the allegations. It is not, and this is partly due to the fact that intelligence agencies may not jeopardize the sources and methods of work. And partly, they can’t do that because the credibility of these agencies suffered greatly as a result of events that occurred in the period between the war in Iraq and the revelations of Snowden. Unfortunately, this means that there are grounds both for reasonable and unreasonable skepticism.
The reaction to Mr. trump on the assessment of intelligence agencies falls into the second category. It was the reaction of the candidate rather than national leader. His disagreement with the estimates presented to him on Friday, the report seems more related to the desire to strengthen the legitimacy of their elections than to counter the threat of destabilization as a result of the actions of Mr. Putin.
Perhaps this is what you want to hear many of his voters. “If you had to, then I’m glad they did,” said one of the voters for Mr. trump’s constituents about the intervention of Russia.
The election of Mr. trump was frightening but it was legal. Past elections have taught a number of lessons that should be learned. His casual attitude to the threat from Russia, Mr. Putin, is not one of them. The Russian leader wants to weaken the democratic nation, and destroy the credibility of the company. To achieve his goals, he uses such tools as lies, demoralization, and violence. No one is satisfied with the fact that Mr. trump does not take seriously the Russian threat to anybody, except Mr. Putin.
