Washington Diarist
America deserves a national strategy that is informed by the best information modern science and scholarship has to offer. Not that this will guarentee the validity and value of the policy as it is placed against the march of time, simply that we will be able to say in our generation that we did our best. We deserve more than tactics melded out 140–280 characters at a time.
Sadly, our failure as a Nation to demand a national strategy from our elected leaders is a direct reflection of both how effective the Russian “active measures” campaign has been against us and how it grows in effectiveness over time. It portends the same for any efforts the Chinese might be engaged in. We know as a matter of FACT ( see: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg25362/html/CHRG-115shrg25362.htm ) that the Russian government launched a broad influence campaign against the United States starting in late 2014. It is a particularly insidious form of statecraft because it leaves in it’s wake what early users of the internet would come to know as Urban Legends.
One of the most famouse active measures campaigns was known as Operation INFEKTION (see: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol53no4/pdf/U-%20Boghardt-AIDS-Made%20in%20the%20USA-17Dec.pdf ).
On July 17, 1983 an obscure newspaper in India, the Patriot, printed an anonymous letter. The letter, entitled “AIDS may invade India: Mystery disease caused by US experiments,” was allegedly written by a “well-known American scientist and anthropologist” in New York. The central trhust was that “AIDS…is believed to be the result of the Pentagon’s experiments to develop new and dangerous biological weapons.” It went on to state that the United States was about to transfer these experiments to India’s arch enemy Pakistan.
Two years later a Soviet newspaper picked up the thread: The U.S. Army had developed AIDS as a bioweapon at Fort Detrick, Md. Other publications followed suit and by 1986, an East German biology professor was publishing “research” in which he explained that the virus had been tested on service members used as human guinea pigs — who then began spreading it among vulnerable populations.
None of it was true. All of it was fiction created by Russian intelligence officers and their allies.
Yet, the storyline — that the U.S. government created AIDS — has proven one of the most durable examples of “dezinformatsiya,” in the history of such activities.
It hasn’t gotten better.
Why do the Russians even care you might ask?
There is a very good reason why Russia wants to crack and fizure our Democracy. When we turn inward, they are able to better compete with us on the world stage. When we are united as a people, Russia is simply a bit player on that same stage. To give you a sense of how much of a bit player, Russia’s GDP is around the same size as that of Connecticut. When America is strong, the world does not see them as the super power they aspire to be, but rather the kleptocracy of Putin cronies they are.
You have to wonder: is it simply a coincidence that just 20 days after a call with Valdamir Putin in April of 2017 that President Trump first trots out the “perhaps it was was the Ukrainians” as a possible source of the leaked Clinton campaign emails during the 2016 election?
Could be. That is a possibility. Of course, it is far more likely that this idea originated in Moscow to deflect blame from them and put it on their regional opponent.
TRUMP: No, I don’t support or unsupport. It was just information. They shouldn’t have allowed it to get out. If they had the proper defensive devices on their internet, you know, equipment, they wouldn’t even allow the FBI. How about this: they get hacked, and the FBI goes to see them, and they won’t let the FBI see their server. But do you understand, nobody ever writes it. Why wouldn’t (former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John) Podesta and Hillary Clinton allow the FBI to see the server? They brought in another company that I hear is Ukrainian-based.
AP: CrowdStrike?
TRUMP: That’s what I heard. I heard it’s owned by a very rich Ukrainian, that’s what I heard. But they brought in another company to investigate the server. Why didn’t they allow the FBI in to investigate the server? I mean, there is so many things that nobody writes about. It’s incredible.
(source: https://www.apnews.com/c810d7de280a47e88848b0ac74690c83 )
Trump indeed appears a useful idiot. As far as Putin is concerned, he’s still helping spread the dezinformatsiya in 2019. (see: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf ) “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people …,” the president said. It is unclear whether the ellipses indicate that words were omitted or that Mr. Trump’s voice was trailing off. Then he added one novel detail: “The server, they say Ukraine has it.”
Again, there is absolutely no evidence to support the president’s vague suggestion that Ukraine, not Russia, might be responsible for the hacking, or that CrowdStrike somehow connived in it.
Putin must be so pleased. All this Russian success is making the Chinese jealous as near as I can tell. I mean they’ve been involved in our campaigns before, why not now?
Back in 1996, Johnny Chung, a bagman for the Asian billionaire Riady family confessed that at least $35,000 of his donations to the Clinton campaign and the DNC had come from a Chinese aerospace executive — a lieutenant colonel in the Chinese military. In addiiton, Chung said the executive had helped him meet three times with General Ji Shengde who was, at the time, the head of Chinese military intelligence. According to Chung’s testimony, General Shengde had told him: “We really like your president. We hope he will be reelected. I will give you $300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to . . . your president and the Democratic party.”
If you are wondering why you can’t quite bring to memory this affair, you can thank America’s very short attention span. In July of 1997 Gianni Versace was murdered. In August the death of Princes Diana ate the rest of the time that America’s congress was engaged in oversight (see: http://www.mrc.org/media-reality-check/diana-story-ate-september ). Long story short, the DNC was made to return more than $2.8 million in illegal or improper donations from foreign nationals.
America: we are under attack. Russia and the Chinese are actively engaged in influencing the 2020 elections. If you want to talk about how to stop the Chineese, Trump by all acounts is willing to listen (obviously, as they are trying to get rid of him). The same is not true of the interference designed to help. In fact, according to some senior IC leaders, even mentioning “election security measures” and Russia in a Presidential briefing is likely to bring it to a swift end with a dismissive tired by the POTUS. Hitting to close to home, it threatens to penitrate the psychological shield the president has in place against facts that he believes tarnish his electoral victory.
Here’s what you can do right now: any time you read something on Facebook or Twitter that you want to like (or retweet) take the time to stop and consider the contents. Does it exacerbate divisions in our society? Does it pit one group against another? Does it sound like it might only be partially true? Does it make you feel like you are justified in your worst fears about “the other side?”
If any of those things are true, consider not liking or re-tweeting. Spend some time investigating the source of the information. Be curious about the posts/tweets that sow division. Repost/retweet the things that invite us to find common ground as Americans. If we actually start talking to each other again without the help of parties who do not have our best interests at heart, America will be on the road to recovery.
My profound fear is we love being right about our political positions more than we love our country.
