New Sanctions On Russia?

The newest news is that that US has slapped new sanctions on Russia over cyberattacks and elections meddling.

Okay, sure. Put those sanctions on Vlad’s meddling, please. How come it happened now and it’s okay to admit to it, but when it happened before and Trump got elected, it was some sort of wierd conspiracy?

Here’s the full article, from NPR:  https://www.npr.org/2021/04/15/987585796/u-s-slaps-new-sanctions-on-russia-over-cyber-attack-election-meddling

From the article:  White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday afternoon that “our objective here is not to escalate, our objective is to impose costs for what we feel are unacceptable actions by the Russian government.”

The sanctions are also meant to impose a penalty over Russia’s continued occupation of Crimea, which it infiltrated and annexed from Ukraine seven years ago, and for reportedly offering bounties for attacks against U.S. and coalition military personnel in Afghanistan.

Psaki said that while the U.S. believes with “low to moderate confidence” that bounties were offered by Russia, “we had enough concern about these reports that we wanted to have our intelligence community look into them.” – article

This begs the question: if it happened this time, how come the Lefterds said at first that it didn’t ever happen in the prior election – he cheated – because it was someone else’s TURN!. And that election was won by a GOPer candidate? If it was so important to put Trump into office back then, why meddle with success and boot him out? Is it because Biden was and still is truly the weaker of the two candidates?

Here’s the link to a Reuters 2017 article about those attempts to meddle in that election.  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-cyber-intel-factbox/factbox-u-s-intel-report-on-russian-cyber-attacks-in-2016-election-idUSKBN14Q2HH

From the Reuters 2017 article:  The following quotes are some highlights of the report, which was drafted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency, and released on Friday:

– “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.”

– “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”

– “We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.” – article

Is it now okay to switch positions with the way the winds and the votes blow, or is it a mere coincidence that this complaint comes up now?  You really can’t have it both ways, y’know. And it is a good idea to ask why meddle when the person currently occupying the Oval Office is frequently unable to even complete a sentence or a brief speech.

I think the real question should be this: what possible advantage can Russia have over the USA by meddling with an election in the first place? Is Vlad worried that we might interfere in his attempts to recoup the Central Asian states like Ukraine and Belarus and Azerbaijan and Chechnya? I did bring up the subject of Azerbaijan a few weeks ago, and how their 16+ parties were all squabbling over election results, since their civil war “ended”. (They still shoot at each other, however.)

It is less that vaguely logical to assume that we give a hoot what Vlad does over there, and that he’d really gain any benefit from it, despite his repeated attempts to poison those in Russia who oppose him. If control of that area, including eastern Europe, is so important to him, then why is he not waging some sort of knock-down drag-out battle to regain all the former Soviets states that Stalin grabbed, including East Germany and Poland? Remember, we now have a base in Poland and Vlad knows about it, and it most likely concerns him. I’d be more concerned if the Chinese were attempting to take control of Vladivostok, as the Japanese did in World War I.

I would put more credence in reports that it’s China doing it at the behest of Xi JinPing, since he wants to abscond with Taiwan, which is one of our allies. We have no bases there, but there is a long relationship we’ve had with Taiwan and with the Philippines, and even the Philippine government has been hinting at re-establishing US military bases there.

Keep your eyes and ears open on this.

Category: 2020 Election, Biden, Russia, Trump!