‘Proportional Response’: Did The White House Just Threaten To Hack Russia?

Four days after publicly accusing the Russian government of hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Obama Administration has announced plans for what it terms a “proportional” response.

On Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement formally accusing Moscow of attempting to influence the US election by hacking into servers belonging to the DNC. It followed a series of informal accusations against Russia for the hacks, also made without evidence.

 On Tuesday, the White House offered some idea of how it plans to respond.

“There are a range of responses that are available to the president and he will consider a response that is proportional,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

“The president has talked before about the significant capabilities that the US government has to both defend our systems in the United States but also carry out offensive operations in other countries.”

 He added that whatever action the US decides to take will not be announced to the public in advance.

Speaking to Radio Sputnik, Ohio State University Professor Emeritus of International Law John Quigley pointed out that the basis for the decision is largely ungrounded.

“Well, it seems a bit ambiguous. The statement said that it is consistent with methods used which is a formulation that falls short of saying that they definitely know what is going on,” Quigley said.

“Speculation a week or so ago was that the United States would not come out with these accusations because it raises the question of what it could do next,” he added. “The likelihood is that it will not do much. I think that probably the president wanted to make this information public but that he doesn’t really have in mind any specific countermeasure.”

 The Russian government has dismissed the allegations against it as part of a “hysterical campaign.” Speaking to Russia’s Channel One broadcaster, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated, ‘When I discussed the issue with US Secretary of State [John] Kerry last time, I told him that we have had some consultations. After all, we also do not want our nationals to engage in cybercrime. This can be turned against Russia.”

“We do not want to cause any damage to other countries as well,” Lavrov detailed, adding, “It is funny, that there is quite a hysterical campaign underway in the context of the elections debates [suggesting] that we have hacked the sites of the Democratic Party and Pentagon.”

Lavrov said that Kerry expressed interest in bilateral consultations over the issue, but apparently the White House derailed the overture.

Threatening ‘Body Bags’: Is All-Out War Between Russia and the US on its Way?

US State Department spokesman John Kirby has made strong statements of late regarding Russia’s involvement in Syria, claiming that if Russia will not cooperate with the US, Moscow will keep sending troops home in “body bags.”

Radio Sputnik’s Brian Becker discussed the implications of Kirby’s remarks with political analyst Marwa Osman and Loud & Clear producer Walter Smolarek.

At the daily media briefing on Wednesday, former Pentagon Press Secretary and current State Department spokesperson John Kirby said: “The consequences are that the civil war will continue in Syria, that extremists and extremist groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags, and they will continue to lose resources — even, perhaps, more aircraft,” he said.

That statement has been widely perceived as a veiled threat. In particular, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked on her Facebook page, “Don’t you think that such ventriloquism about ‘body bags,’ ‘terrorist attacks in Russian cities’ and ‘loss of aircraft’ sounds more like a ‘get ’em’ command, rather than a diplomatic comment?”

Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov responded to Kirby’s statements, saying, “Concerning Kirby’s threat about the possible loss of Russian aircraft, and sending Russian soldiers home ‘in body bags,’ I will say that we are well informed on where in Syria, including in Aleppo Province, and exactly how many ‘unadvertised’ specialists are engaged in operational planning and commanding the militants.”

“Naturally, one can continue to keep telling us they are stubbornly but ineffectually trying to separate Jabhat al-Nusra from the ‘opposition.’ However, if there are attempts to make good on these threats, it is far from being a fact that the militants will have either body bags or time to save their skins,” he added.

Kirby’s statements coincide with the release of an interview with Abu Al Ezz, a field commander of the former Nusra Front, a terrorist organization that now brands itself under the title “Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.”

“Yes, the US supports the opposition [in Syria], but not directly. They support the countries that support us. But we are not yet satisfied with this support,” Abu Al Ezz told the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper.

Marwa Osman told Radio Sputnik’s Brian Becker that the White House rhetoric indicates that there remains a very high risk for all-out war between Russia and the US.

The US appears to have lost interest in sustaining the ceasefire, according to Loud & Clear producer Walter Smolarek, joining Becker and Osman in the discussion. Smolarek suggested that the recent US air strike on Assad’s forces, that resulted in a Daesh advance, was intentional.

“The Pentagon effectively vetoed the decision from the political leadership, the State Department,” he said.

According to Smolarek, disrupting the Syrian ceasefire was necessary, because if peace had continued, a joint US-Russia cooperation center would be mandated, requiring intelligence sharing. In light of this possibility, the US and Russia would be perceived as military allies. That end result, in Smolarek’s eyes, is not what the Pentagon wants, as the US military repeatedly paints Russia as its primary and ongoing military threat, and, using Moscow as its excuse, consistently demands an “enormously expanded budget” and more “extremely expensive weapons.”

But the Pentagon is playing with fire, according to Osman. US Navy ships in the vicinity of Russian territory are a direct threat, she says, and these provocations have become the Pentagon’s favorite game, considering its support for unreliable violent religious fundamentalists in Syria.

And throughout this military gamesmanship, the ongoing Syrian civil war worsens, spinning out of control, Osman said. The so-called moderate extremists cannot be controlled, as evidenced by how they “make promises and don’t stand up to them.”

Islamic terrorists in Syria, including Daesh and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham — the latter another name for the internationally-recognized terrorist organization Jabhat al-Nusra — are driven by the religious doctrine of Wahhabism, which depends on fatwas, an opinion issued by a mufti, or religious leader, that becomes a demand or law to his followers.

“Any fatwa can be issued, and they just can do whatever they want,” Osman stated.

Obama Proposes New Military Partnership With Russia in Syria

The Obama administration has proposed a new agreement on Syria to the Russian government that would deepen military cooperation between the two countries against some terrorists in exchange for Russia getting the Assad regime to stop bombing U.S.-supported rebels.

The United States transmitted the text of the proposed agreement to the Russian government on Monday after weeks of negotiations and internal Obama administration deliberations, an administration official told me. The crux of the deal is a U.S. promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Under the proposal, which was personally approved by President Obama and heavily supported by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the American and Russian militaries would cooperate at an unprecedented level, something the Russians have sought for a long time.

In exchange, the Russians would agree to pressure the Assad regime to stop bombing certain Syrian rebel groups the United States does not consider terrorists. The United States would not give Russia the exact locations of these groups, under the proposal, but would specify geographic zones that would be safe from the Assad regime’s aerial assaults.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter was opposed to this plan, officials said, but was ultimately compelled to go along with the president’s decision. For many inside and outside the administration who are frustrated with the White House’s decision-making on Syria, the new plan is fatally flawed for several reasons.

“One big flaw is that it’s clear that the Russians have no intent to put heavy pressure on Assad,” said former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. “And in those instances when the Russians have put pressure on, they’ve gotten minimal results from the Syrians.”

There’s not enough reliable intelligence to distinguish Jabhat al-Nusra targets from the other rebel groups they often live near, Ford said. And even if the Syrians agreed not to bomb certain zones, there would be no way to stop Jabhat al-Nusra and other groups from moving around to adjust. Moreover, increased bombing of Jabhat al-Nusra would be likely to cause collateral damage including civilian deaths, which would only bolster the group’s local support.

“It makes no sense to me,” said Ford. “If they are trying to destroy al-Qaeda in Syria, do they really think bombing them is the way to do it? F-16s do not solve recruitment problems with extremist groups.”

One administration official complained that the plan contains no consequences for the Russians or the Assad regime if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain. Fifty-one U.S. diplomats signed a dissent letter this month calling on the White House to use targeted military force against the Assad regime as a means of increasing the pressure on Assad and giving the U.S. real leverage.

Kerry has been threatening for months that if Assad doesn’t respect the current cease-fire, known as the “cessation of hostilities,” that there was a “Plan B” of increasing arms to the Syrian rebels. But the White House has now scuttled that plan in favor of the proposed Russia deal, which could actually leave the rebels in a far worse position.

Because most Jabhat al-Nusra fighters are fighting Assad, if the plan succeeds, Assad will be in a much better position. Meanwhile, the other Sunni Arab groups that are left fighting Assad will be in a much weaker position, said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The strategy could allow Assad to capture Aleppo, which would be a huge victory for his side in the civil war.

“If the U.S. and Russia open up on Jabhat al-Nusra, that changes the dynamics on the ground in Aleppo and Idlib,” he said. “It would definitely benefit the Assad regime and it could potentially benefit the Kurds and ISIS.”

For Russia, the deal is not just about Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin sees increased military cooperation as an acknowledgment of Russian importance and a way to gradually unwind Russia’s isolation following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. That’s why Carter was initially opposed to the plan, officials said.

“The Russians have made it very clear that they want military-to-military cooperation with the U.S., not just to fight terrorism, but to improve their world standing,” said Tabler. “It is a way to be welcomed back into the fold.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the specifics of the proposal but defended its basic principles.

“We have been clear about Russia’s obligations to ensure regime compliance with the cessation of hostilities. We have also been clear about the danger posed by al-Qaeda in Syria to our own national security,” he said. “We are looking at a number of measures to address both of these issues.”

For the White House, the priority in Syria is not solving the Syrian civil war, which most White House officials believe is intractable, or forcing the ouster of Assad. Senior administration officials admit that Russia and Assad are violating the cease-fire and failing to show the will to advance the political process. But the White House has decided not to go back to the plan of increasing pressure on the Assad regime.

“Analytically speaking, the path of military escalation by one side or the other is not likely to lead to a final outcome in Syria,” one senior administration official told me. “It’s essentially a stalemate.”

The White House wants to keep the cease-fire in place for as long as possible, despite the violations, and wants to keep the political process going, despite the lack of progress.

“We want to keep the violence as low as possible for as long as possible,” the official said. “What we have to look at is, what is the alternative? And the alternative is either the levels of violence that we saw months ago . . . or we could see the violence get even worse.”

CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations that Russia is “trying to crush” anti-Assad forces and that Moscow has not lived up to its commitments regarding the cease-fire or the political process in Syria. Nevertheless, Brennan said, the United States needs to work with Russia.

“There’s going to be no way forward on the political front without active Russian cooperation and genuine Russian interest in moving forward,” he said.

If the price of getting Russia on board with the Syrian political process is to further abandon the Syrian rebels and hand Assad large swaths of territory, it’s a bad deal. It’s an even worse deal if Russia takes the U.S. offer and then doesn’t deliver on its corresponding obligations.

The Obama administration is understandably trying to find some creative way to salvage its Syria policy in its final months. But the proposal that Obama offered Putin will have costs for the U.S. position vis-à-vis Russia as well as for the Syrian crisis long after Obama leaves office.

State Department Forms an Army Social Media Trolls To Spread Propaganda

The latest initiative by the country’s diplomatic offices mirrors the social media disinformation campaign used against Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential campaign and may have disquieting impacts on the perceptions of people around the world.

The Obama administration is set to request $21.5 million next year for a propaganda outfit designed to combat Daesh’s growing influence on social media. The program will be fashioned after faux news and social media empire of Hillary Clinton confidante David Brock.

Known as the “Global Engagement Center” (GEC), the division will be part of the US State Department and will have the authority to hire any individual who can “change the narrative” on social media.

This taxpayer-funded boondoggle has grown from a $5.6 million venture in 2015 to $15 million in 2016, with costs continuing to rise. Despite the budget increase, progress continues to stagnate.

Much like David Brock’s “Correct the Record,” which was used to spread vitriol about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s opposition Bernie Sanders, the State Department will employ internet trolls to ‘shift narratives’ on the US-led coalition.

If the US government’s new army of social media trolls is focused on degrading the appeal of terrorist entities like Daesh and al-Qaeda, the effort will prove much more noble than Brock’s Media Matters platform, which used its influence to acquire a polling service firm and a digital media entity known as Blue Nation Review that is used to distort public perceptions.

But Washington appears to be focused on expanding its mission well beyond combating terrorism. The GEC will also sponsor and fund foreign journalists who are not required to disclose that they receive the lion’s share of their funding from US government sources.

The largest such operation is the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which will have a $777.8 million budget in FY2017 to not only operate defunct media outlets like Voice of America, but to also subsidize foreign reporters while hiding their influence and bias behind the brands of local, impartial news outlets.

With news industry standards deteriorating around the world due to hidden corporate and government support, people around the world have taken to social media to research the facts on the ground in real-time in order to be one step ahead of the spin.

That was the case in the US presidential election, when media titans pushed for Clinton’s nomination while treating Sanders as a longshot candidate.

As David Brock’s $1 million army of internet trolls has proven to be true, grassroots activists can quickly be drowned out. The 2016 election brought with it the realization that propaganda can be extended to social media, and now that the US government realizes it, the truth may never be the same.