Is Russian troll farm an act of war akin to Pearl Harbor?
According to the indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Russian trolls, operating out of St. Petersburg, took American identities on social media and became players in our 2016 election.
On divisive racial and religious issues, the trolls took both sides. In the presidential election, the trolls favored Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein and Donald Trump, and almost never Hillary Clinton. How grave a matter is this?
This Russian troll farm is “the equivalent (of ) Pearl Harbor,” says Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who would head up the House Judiciary Committee, handling any impeachment, if Democrats retake the House.
When MSNBC’s Chris Hayes pressed, Nadler doubled down: The Russians “are destroying our democratic process.” While the Russian trolling may not equal Pearl Harbor in its violence, Nadler said, in its “seriousness, it is very much on a par” with Japan’s surprise attack.
Trump’s reaction to the hysteria that broke out after the Russian indictments: “They are laughing their (expletives) off in Moscow.”
While Mueller’s indictments confirm Russians meddled in the U.S. election, what explains the shock and fear for “our democracy”? Is the Great Republic about to fall because trolls tweeted in our election? Is this generation ignorant of history?
Before and after World War II, we had Stalinists and Soviet spies at the highest levels of American culture and government.
The Hollywood Ten, who went to prison for contempt of Congress, were secret members of a Communist Party that, directed from Moscow, controlled the Progressive Party in Philadelphia in 1948 that nominated former Vice President Henry Wallace to run against Harry Truman.
Soviet spies infiltrated the U.S. atom bomb project and shortened the time Stalin needed to explode a Soviet bomb in 1949.
As for Russian trolling in our election, do we really have clean hands when it comes to meddling in elections and the internal politics of regimes we dislike?
“Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries’ elections?” Laura Ingraham asked ex-CIA Director James Woolsey recently.
With a grin, Woolsey replied, “Oh, probably.”
“We don’t do that anymore, though?” Ingraham interrupted.
“Well,” Woolsey said with a smile. “Only for a very good cause.”
The U.S. role in the overthrow of Premier Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 and President Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon in 1963 are established facts.
When the democratically elected Marxist Salvador Allende was overthrown in Chile in 1973, the Nixon White House may have had no direct role. But the White House welcomed the ascendancy of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
What do these indictments of Russians tell us? After 18 months, the James Comey-Robert Mueller FBI investigation into hacking of the DNC and John Podesta emails has yet to produce evidence of collusion.
Yet we do have evidence a senior British spy and Trump hater, Christopher Steele, paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC to dig up dirt on Trump, colluded with Kremlin agents to produce a dossier of scurrilous and unsubstantiated charges, to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump. And the FBI used this disinformation to get FISA Court warrants to surveil and wiretap the Trump campaign.
Why is this conspiracy and collusion with Russians less worthy of Mueller’s attention than a troll farm in St. Petersburg?