Do You Want What Your Enemy Wants For You?

Should you want what your enemy wants for you?

That’s essentially the question that many should be asking themselves.

Our enemies, America’s enemies, the enemies of freedom, desire our destruction.

That’s a given.

Knowing that they desire to see America destroyed, they all have various tactics and strategies which they hope will accelerate, and prove successful in their effort to destroy America.

Should America do what our enemies want us to do?

Should America cower and coalesce to them?

Or, perhaps, should America stand firm in the beliefs and practices which made us strong?

The answer, I think, is obvious.

We should stand firm in the in the beliefs and practices which made us strong.

So, here’s a very real quandary.

It’s the first page in the report.

This is NOT a Republican “thing,” nor is it a Democratic “thing” – it’s an American thing.

Our nation’s Intelligence agencies have ALL unanimously concluded that Russia interfered SPECIFICALLY to get Donald Trump elected.

And, they have won.

Donald John Trump is President of the United States.

What should we do?

Seriously.

What should we do?

What should we have done?

What will we do?

He’s been POTUS now, for nearly 4 years.

If Russia wanted Trump for America, should Americans have wanted Trump for America too?

Many Americans did want Trump for America. At least in the Electoral College. Popularly, Trump was defeated. But American Presidents are NOT elected by Popular Vote. They’re elected by Electoral College vote.

That assessment does NOT state that the Trump campaign colluded or conspired with Russia. It states that

“Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”

It states also that,

“We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”

It states as well that,

“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.”

The report furthermore states that the way it was done, and that,

“Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid socialmedia users or “trolls.””

It wasn’t a one-off. They’re going to do it again.

The report stated that,

“We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.”

The report reiterates that,

“We assess Putin, his advisers, and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump over Secretary Clinton.”

“Beginning in June, Putin’s public comments about the US presidential race avoided directly praising President-elect Trump, probably because Kremlin officials thought that any praise from Putin personally would backfire in the United States. Nonetheless, Putin publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stated policy to work with Russia, and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine. Putin publicly contrasted the President-elect’s approach to Russia with Secretary Clinton’s “aggressive rhetoric.””

By their nature, Russian influence campaigns are multifaceted and designed to be deniable because they use a mix of agents of influence, cutouts, front organizations, and false-flag operations. Moscow demonstrated this during the Ukraine crisis in 2014, when Russia deployed forces and advisers to eastern Ukraine and denied it publicly.

Russian Propaganda Efforts.Russia’s state-run propaganda machine—comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls—contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences. State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about President-elect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary election campaigns progressed while consistently offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.

• Starting in March 2016, Russian Government–linked actors began openly supporting President-elect Trump’s candidacy in media aimed at English-speaking audiences.RT and Sputnik—another government-funded outlet producing pro-Kremlin radio and online content in a variety of languages for international audiences—consistently cast President-elect Trump as the target of unfair coverage from traditional US media outlets that they claimed were subservient to a corrupt political establishment.

• Putin’s chief propagandist Dmitriy Kiselev used his flagship weekly newsmagazine program this fall to cast President-elect Trump as an outsider victimized by a corrupt political establishment and faulty democratic election process that aimed to prevent his election because of his desire to work with Moscow.

• Pro-Kremlin proxy Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, proclaimed just before the election that if President-elect Trump won, Russia would “drink champagne” in anticipation of being able to advance its positions on Syria and Ukraine.

• On 6 August, RT published an English-language video called “Julian Assange Special: Do WikiLeaks Have the E-mail That’ll Put Clinton in Prison?” and an exclusive interview with Assange entitled “Clinton and ISIS Funded by the Same Money.” RT’s most popular video on Secretary Clinton, “How 100% of the Clintons’ ‘Charity’ Went to…Themselves,” had more than 9 million views on social media platforms. RT’smost popular English language video about the President-elect, called “Trump Will Not Be Permitted To Win,” featured Assange and had 2.2 million views.

• For more on Russia’s past media efforts—including portraying the 2012 US electoral process as undemocratic—please see Annex A: Russia—Kremlin’s TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US.

Election Operation Signals “New Normal” in Russian Influence Efforts
We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts in the United States and worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes. We assess the Russian intelligence services would have seen their election influence campaign as at least a qualified success because of their perceived ability to impact public discussion.