The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States Government has alleged that the Russian government ‘hacked’ the US election in order to ensure that Donald Trump became president.
Several thoughts occur to me on reading this.
The first is: this production is brought to you by the same team that told you about the weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein, in order to justify the second gulf war and trigger the overall destabilisation of the entire Middle East that so many people are suffering from.
The second is: this production is brought to you by the same team that developed and financed a coup in the Ukraine which toppled President Yanukovych and triggered a long civil war that has immiserated the entire nation.
The third is: this production is brought to you by the same team that has – over a period of decades – sought to put sympathetic regimes in place throughout the world, in order that the interests of the US ‘deep state’ are catered to.
So, before thinking ‘the CIA said it, therefore it must be true’, let us simply bring to mind this history and ask ourselves not ‘was Trump helped by the Russians?’ but instead ‘why is the CIA seeking to undermine the outcome of this democratic election?
I believe it is because the CIA – rightly – perceives Trump to be an existential threat.
After all, one of the most salient differences between Clinton and Trump in this last election was their foreign policy. Clinton was the establishment candidate – the one that sought to continue the framework kept by GW Bush and Obama for the last sixteen years. That framework has several key features, such as: continued drone warfare in the Middle East and elsewhere, reliance on Guantanamo bay to hold undesirables (deplorables?), hostility towards Russia and China as rival great powers. In sum, this is the ‘neo-conservative’ agenda, as put in place in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The principal locus for this struggle between the American intelligence establishment and other world powers has shifted from the Ukraine to Syria, for the simple reason that Putin’s Russia decided to intervene militarily (at the invitation of the Syrian President Assad). The media are full of stories about the tremendous human suffering that the people of Syria are experiencing, and it is appalling, yet what is not so readily apparent is that it is the Russians who are most likely to achieve a lasting peace. If the US establishment gets its way, the war in Syria will carry on for generations more.
Consider that the worst thing to happen to any country is for the rule of law to collapse. (There is a very interesting TED talk on why this is so appalling – search on line for ‘TED talk Gary Haugen locusts’ – it is well worth twenty minutes of your time).
The Syrian civil war is between President Assad (recognised as the legal ruler of the state, supported by Russia, also widely recognised as a very bad man) and ‘moderate’ Islamists (basically a branch of IS but supported by the US and Saudi Arabia, so we don’t get told such things). At this moment in time, with Russian forces fully engaged, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever for President Assad to be driven out of power.
Our choices are therefore: a) escalate the conflict by seeking to establish a ‘no-fly’ zone – the choice advocated by Hillary Clinton, and which would almost certainly have led to a shooting conflict with Russia, or b) allow Russia to cement Assad in power, ending the civil war, and concentrate on defeating IS – this is the course advocated by Trump.
There are those with a vested interest in keeping Oceania at war with Eurasia and with the astonishing election of Trump they can see that their desires are about to be throroughly thwarted. Trump is clearly planning to radically recalibrate the foreign policy of the United States, as can be seen by his various appointments to his Cabinet.
If we are concerned to preserve our way of life, we need to pay attention to what truly threatens it, the enemies both internal and external. Externally, the greatest threat that we face is located in the Middle East, not because of the ‘hard power’ controlled by IS, but because of the soft power. In other words, here is an ideology which cannot be compromised with, and which is steadfastly committed to the elimination of all that we value in our own ways of life. We need to take this seriously, and where there are clear allies in our struggle against them – and Russia is certainly that – let’s not get distracted.
Yet the internal threats are most evident at this moment in time. After all, if you believe that Trump is going to be a disaster, from where do you get this idea? Might it be from the mainstream media by any chance? The same media that – in addition to completely misunderstanding Trump – has consistently been used as a mouthpiece for the views that the CIA have most wanted to be accepted; as with the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the ‘popular revolution’ in the Ukraine; the establishment of Pinochet in Chile… need I go on?
Truly, if we are to preserve our way of life, perhaps the most important thing is to exercise the values of our way of life more effectively in our own lives: to think critically about what we read, to exercise free speech (and notice what and whom can and cannot be criticised with impunity), to strive for the ways of peace and not war. Those things are only worth defending where they actually exist.