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from the happening-since-the-start-of-the-Cold-War dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The FBI director warns that Russian efforts to sow discord and political divide among Americans is continuing. The director of the FBI told lawmakers Wednesday that Russia is engaging in "information warfare" as the US heads into the 2020 presidential election. But he said there's no sign that Russia is targeting America's election infrastructure.
FBI Director Chris Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that Russia is waging a covert social media campaign to create a political divide and sow the seeds of discord among Americans, just as it did during the 2016 election, according to an Associated Press account of the hearing.
The effort, Wray said, involves fictional personas, bots, social media postings and disinformation. He said the threat was continuous and that was harder to combat than a hack on an election system.
"Unlike a cyberattack on an election infrastructure, that kind of effort -- disinformation -- in a world where we have a First Amendment and believe strongly in freedom of expression, the FBI is not going to be in the business of being the truth police and monitoring disinformation online," Wray said.
Disinformation has long been a part of Russia's foreign policy strategy, and social media has allowed the trolling effort to expand on a viral scale. US intelligence agencies have warned Congress that these campaigns will continue in future elections.
[...] "They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other," Wray said. "And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions, which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in ... information warfare."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 09 2020, @01:39PM (7 children)
Citations needed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 09 2020, @03:37PM (6 children)
Really?
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/are-u-s-and-russia-in-a-new-cold-war/ [brookings.edu]
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/jim-sciutto-kremlin-waging-new-kind-war/589387/ [theatlantic.com]
https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/03/28/is_russia_americas_enemy_112267.html [realclearworld.com] (an interesting take positing that Russia isn't 'enemy' so much as 'rival')
The United States Army's take on it: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/July-August-2019/Finch-Russian-media/ [army.mil]
But if you want to figure it out for yourself there is a process you may follow:
What are the values of the United States? (Both what we actually do and what we want the United States to be or be perceived as.)
What are the values of the Russian Federation? (NOT 'Russia'.) (Both what they espouse and what they have done and you had better look closely at Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria as part of that analysis).
Are those values complimentary or in conflict?
And finally.... has Russia engaged in attempts to subvert the United States - overtly and covertly - to better align with its values? (And does the United States try to do the same - overtly and covertly - with the Russian Federation?)
Me, when I look at those questions I would say unequivocally that Russian Federation is not a friend of the United States and should not be seen as an ally. (Which doesn't mean that there aren't friendly Russians or that the Russian Federation and the United States cannot find ways to cooperate concerning things in which we do have mutual interest and can take complementary action....)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 09 2020, @03:40PM (5 children)
By the way.… that doesn't mean that Vladmir Putin's personal values, outlook, and desire of how he wants to be a leader are not shared by Donald Trump. IMO Donald Trump would absolutely love to have the Russian political system be enacted in America so long as he's on top of it. He's certainly willing to launch politically based career pogroms, isn't he? Makes me wonder what he'd do if he had the power to "disappear" his political enemies.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 09 2020, @04:07PM (4 children)
Sometimes, I wonder if posters to SN are living in alternative dimensions, living alternate histories.
Russia was not the "enemy of the United States" until the United States started diddling Russia and her neighbors. Do Ukraine and Georgia ring any bells? If there's a "cold war" or any other type of war, WE STARTED IT!! In effect, we allowed the Koch brothers to bombard a near neighbor (Ukraine) with 14 billion dollars worth of economic munitions. They toppled the ligitimate government, and installed a fascist government in it's place, RIGHT ON RUSSIA'S BORDERS!!
Remember that Russia fought an existential threat only a couple generations ago. That war was fought against fascists, Nazis, and skinhead variants - from whom today's neonazis and skinheads are descended.
With that in mind, put yourself in Russia's position.
It would be far more accurate to say that the Democratic party, and the United States are the enemies of Russia. Russia didn't come to Alaska, and piss in our drinking water. Instead, we went to Ukraine, and shit all over the living room, and the drinking water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 09 2020, @05:28PM (3 children)
Maybe you are a Russian troll, or just insomnia?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 09 2020, @05:35PM (2 children)
I am the voice in the wilderness. Many of you are hopelessly lost, but if you listen to me, you may be a lot less lost.
Let's try this: Who stands to gain from any conflict with Russia? The military industrial complex, of course. They win via proxy war, direct war, threat of war, imaginary war, cold war, hot war - war is profitable.
Eisenhower told us to beware the MIC - and here, the D's are actively promoting conflict with Russia, because PROFIT!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10 2020, @06:32PM (1 child)
Do you even read what you write? Your view on reality is tenuous at best. Also, beckoning people to join you in the woods and just follow your orders is creepy as fuck. Starting to make sense why you love Trump so much, even as the logical portion of your brain says "look at the evidence, he is a shit for brains dumbass".
As usual it would be amusing if it wasn't destroying the ideals of American freedom.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 10 2020, @10:50PM
You're thinking of Creepy Joe, the Democratic presidential hopeful.