Continuing to try to play up the “threat” posed by Russia while trying to sell NATO nations on a massive increase in military spending, Defense Secretary James Mattis today insisted that there was “very little doubt” that Russia had “either interfered or attempted to interfere” in some elections in the past.
Mattis did not offer any specific cases of Russian interference in any specific elections, and certainly didn’t bring up the possibility of Russian involvement in the US election in November, speculation of which is still a sore spot with the Trump Administration.
He did, however, insist that NATO has always “stood for military strength and protection of democracies,” insisting that the US doubts the commitment of European member nations for not massively increasing their military spending to keep up with US demands.
Mattis also rejected the idea of increased US military ties with Russia, insisting that Russia has to prove itself to be “mature” enough to cooperate with the United States.
The potential of Russia’s “threat” to European elections has been a popular subject in nations like France and Germany, mostly because recent polls have shown those nations’ ruling parties to be polling rather poorly, and they are looking for someone to blame on the matter.
Well yes, and so has anyone else who can. The US leads the pack in that, even in France, for long in Italy.
As for interfering in the US, Israel has led that pack, not Russia.
But yeah, the Russian may have done some too, of varying and not very great success.
Even under Stalin the Russians had fairly good information on foreign leaders and their intentions. The problem was that Stalin too often believed that it was Western propaganda.
Given his career I assume that Putin is not so dumb meaning that he did not need much if any encouragement from the Trump campaign to prefer Trump over Clinton. My hunch is therefore that the Trump campaign tried to egg Putin on but that he did not need it.
No doubt USA has interfered in many elections. This guy Mattis a a creepy ogre. He has that John McCain look around his mouth.
One of the most flagrant examples of this was the CIA’s involvement in the 1953 overthrow of the elected and legitimate government of Iran that led to the installation of US puppet the Shah of Iran. It’s known as Mosaddeq coup or Operation Ajax and Wikipedia has a decent article about it. This paved the way for the Iranian revolution and the Hostage Crisis roughly 26 years later.
And the CIA doesn’t. Riiiiiiight…..
Little doubt? Not if you really think about it.
You would think when he refers to the Russians that have done this in the past, he’s got to be referring to the now defunct Soviet Union. I can’t believe the current Russians would stoop to this. Mattis needs to put up or shut up about this. How about some proof? Which elections? Why is this now coming forward? And why is he picking up the allegations that started with the Democrats in a feeble attempt to explain away Killery’s loss?