We will never be given any solid evidence for these U.S. spy claims, writes Caitlin Johnstone. Yet U.S. foreign policy officials and mainstream news coverage of them will act as though we have.
U.S. presidential debate, Oct. 22, 2020.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
A report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council assesses that most of the governments the U.S.-centralized empire has targeted for destruction are guilty of seeking to interfere in the nation’s 2020 election.
Yeah, so, that’s the news. According to the U.S. intelligence cartel, the nations which sought to interfere in the outcome of the U.S. election include Russia, Iran, China, Lebanese Hizballah, Cuba and Venezuela. Interestingly, exactly zero nations aligned geopolitically with the United States are listed as having interfered in its electoral process.
“We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US,” the report informs us.
“A key element of Moscow’s strategy this election cycle was its use of proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives —including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden — to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration.”
“We assess that Iran carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects-though without directly promoting his rivals-undermine public confidence in the electoral process and US institutions, and sow division and exacerbate societal tensions in the US,” the report adds. “We assess that Supreme Leader Khamenei authorized the campaign and Iran’s military and intelligence services implemented it using overt and covert messaging and cyber operations.”
Shoutout to Lebanese Hizballah, Cuba, and Venezuela for making it into the Russiagate 2021 Edition pic.twitter.com/dFsEBLG4w1
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) March 16, 2021
The report finds that China “considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election,” and that it “probably continued to collect intelligence on election-related targets and topics” and “a probably also continued longstanding efforts to gather information on US voters and public opinion; political parties, candidates and their staffs; and senior government officials.”
Hizballah, Cuba, Venezuela
“We assess that Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah supported efforts to undermine former President Trump in the 2020 US election,” the report says. “Nasrallah probably saw this as a low-cost means to mitigate the risk of a regional conflict while Lebanon faces political, financial, and public health crises.”
“We assess Cuba sought to undermine former President Trump’s electoral prospects by pushing anti-Republican and pro-Democrat narratives to the Latin American community,” the report adds. “Cuban intelligence probably conducted some low-level activities in support of this effort.”
“The Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro had an adversarial relationship with the Trump administration and we assess that Maduro had the intent, though probably not the capability, to try to influence public opinion in the US against the former President,” the National Intelligence Council claims.
New: The Biden admin is expected to announce sanctions related to election interference as soon as next week, 3 admin officials tell me. They didn't disclose details related to the expected sanctions but said that they'll target multiple countries including Russia, China & Iran.
— Kylie Atwood (@kylieatwood) March 16, 2021
So what the U.S. intelligence cartel is asking us to believe this time around is that America’s democracy has suffered yet another invisible attack, the evidence for which is of course top secret, and that the culprits involved are most of the governments the U.S. intelligence cartel doesn’t like. Also, we’re being asked to believe that U.S.-aligned nations like Saudi Arabia and Israel have had no similar interventions in the US electoral process at all.
Justifying More Sanctions
And, of course, we’re already getting reports that this narrative will be used to justify sanctions against many of the accused nations, including Iran (which would necessarily kill the nuclear deal Biden campaigned on re-entering).
“The Biden admin is expected to announce sanctions related to election interference as soon as next week, three admin officials tell me,” CNN’s Kylie Atwood reports on Twitter. “They didn’t disclose details related to the expected sanctions but said that they’ll target multiple countries including Russia, China and Iran.”
So, this completely unevidenced narrative is being used to justify support for increased aggressions which have already been long sought by the U.S. intelligence cartel, which has an extensive and unbroken record of lying to us about exactly this sort of thing.
The response to this is of course disbelief absent the mountain of evidence required in a post-Iraq invasion world, which (spoiler alert) will never surface. We will never be given any solid evidence for these U.S. spy claims, yet U.S. foreign policy and mainstream news coverage of it will march on as though we have.
BREAKING: Top secret evidence reveals the 2020 US election was attacked by Russia and Iran and China and North Korea and Venezuela and Syria and Hezbollah and Hamas and WikiLeaks and Jeremy Corbyn supporters and Substack journalists and anti-imperialists who have YouTube channels
— Caitlin Johnstone ? (@caitoz) March 16, 2021
There is no legitimate reason to trust any of these unproven claims, and it’s also worth noting that even if those claims were true it would not matter. The U.S. interferes in world elections more than any other nation on earth, so foreign nations are fully entitled to interfere in U.S. elections as much as they like. You have no legitimate grievances about pushback on your behavior when you are the clear aggressor.
Furthermore, any claims of foreign nations pushing “influence narratives” are dwarfed by orders of magnitude by the influence narratives being pushed by the media-owning plutocratic class inside the United States. Claiming that any foreign nation has anywhere near that degree of influence over the narratives which Americans consume and believe is cartoonish. The only real electoral interference in the United States was by the plutocratic class.
This continually recycled story is so unbelievably tedious. “Oh no, we’ve been attacked in an invisible way by an enemy we were already preparing to slam with economic sanctions and new cold war escalations! Believe us or you’re a conspiracy theorist!”
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Those who control the dominant narratives will keep adjusting them as they see fit to advance whatever pre-existing agendas they have chambered up ready to fire. Truth simply does not feature.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article was re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Donate securely with PayPal
Or securely by credit card or check by clicking the red button:
Small wonder the US is creating a cadre of agitators on their own soil. We need them to bully our populace into asking for more guns, ammo, tanks, rocket launchers while inadvertantly bolstering the US’ claims for more military (everywhere). The perverseness of these actions has consequences, many violent and fatal. As we continue to cancel any dissenting voices by stangling them with nonsense restrictions and violence we will be left with a population armed to the teeth who stand no chance against the military. Hope their weaponry is up to the task but I seriously doubt any fringe group or staunch “patriot” has any weapon that can overpower or match the power that would be unleashed by their own government and no, I doubt they will only “shoot them in the leg”.
Johnstone reinforces my queasy sensation of being caught up in a Monte Python skit. Blaming Venezuela and North Korea is absurdly hilarious. Hysterical. But . . . as I look around, I seem to be the only one laughing.
The question is, when will ENOUGH Americans wake up enough and get fed up enough to actually bother doing something? We are a nation of cowards and sheep.
Nothing ever changes because of elections. That’s why half of us voters never vote! I’m sure foreign leaders have noticed that, whichever party controls the White House, foreign policy never changes. It’s always more wars abroad, more poverty at home.
Probably interference charges justify more police state measures. Since 2001, while we’ve bloviated about democracy, we’ve morphed into dirty war Argentina, with disappearaces legalized, lawless torture prisons, even “targetted assassination”, ie, murder by death squad. No president, of whatever party, gives up these undemocratic measures.
Oh my, this is a big thing! President Biden’s election is the illegitimate spawn of Cuban, Iranian, and Venezuelan psyops. Let’s start the investigations, prepare the affidavits, subpoenas, and special prosecutors. #RESISTANCE We have to fight against Biden’s illegitimate presidency. We don’t have a woman VP – she was installed by Havana and Tehran. IMPEACHMENT!!!!! NOW!!!! Rachel, please, where are you? Democracy, the nation needs you.
“We assess” is the new “highly likely” we learned from Theresa May when we got a lot more anti-Russian “assessments” and accepted them without any evidence . The “intelligence” we accept was weak or missing, and also accepted regardless of the alleged benefit of the “interference” which allegedly took place. Surely the fact that Biden is POTUS rather weakens the alleged Putin plans to defeat him, and the mention of false stories (I suppose Hunter Biden and Burisma) would be better forgotten by Biden rather than highlighted.
The Biden “administration” has lots of work to do to try to reanimate his pathetically divided nation, and this sort of spiteful hitting out at “enemies” using ridiculous accusations and sanctions does not help .”Top diplomat Blinken” is perhaps trying to outdo the diplomatic success of his predecessors!!!
When I read “we assess,” I know they do not have a _____clue nor an iota of evidence.
To my mind the comment on Iran is among the most disturbing of the so-called assessments because it establishes a kind of precedent for targeting, censoring and possibly criminalizing domestic activity, including reporting, that “undermine[s] public confidence in the electoral process and US institutions, and sow[s] division and exacerbate[s] societal tensions in the US . . .”
The targets will not remain foreign adversaries.
It seems obvious that these reports are simply part of the war machine’s bureaucratic process – that there has to be some sort of record about supposed crimes so that the US can proceed with its war making in retaliation where it wants to. Equally obvious is that these claims being believable (or having evidence to back them up) is of no concern. This is strictly meant to dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s needed for the US to continue killing people and stealing resources.
I feel for any poor soul who lives in fear as a result of what these spooks say, rather than the real damage that they do.
Should it not be…”all nations we hate, we interfere in their elections”??? Just asking.
Thanks Caitlin…a concise and accurate overview of our world’s reality…It is the USA which has interfered in other countries elections (usually outcomes, therefore coups) and continues to…But hey, we’re the enlightened, we’re the indispensable (to whom, exactly????)…
And Economic Sanctions are as bloodthirsty – but much more invisibly so (not that US-NATO bombing is as visible to their own populations as it bloody needs to be) – as any open warfare…But for those in power (MICIMATT lot plus WH) hereabouts no matter how many die from the effects of those sanctions. After all that female murderer, friend of another female killer, HRC, told us that those deaths – the ones mentioned were deaths of children, known to be as a result of those sanctions – “were a price worth paying”. Of course, none were among those children Albright knew (over here)…Who the heck can pretend that females are less socio-pathic than males can be?
Saddam Hussein had outlived his usefulness to the USA…Yemen didn’t have any…Iran needs to disappear because a) the Iranians (bulk of the population) wanted rid of the Shah, imposed on them by the US-UK engineered coup, and they got rid of him; b) Israel (OAP) wants rid of Iran which would leave (they imagine) Syria and Lebanon open to their supremacist, hubristic greed ridden land grabbing…
Anne.
A worthy comment making my planned effort to comment along similar lines on this article something of a duplication.
Of course, one would have to imagine that most Americans would be aware of the lies incorporated in the news media these days, fed by friendly government sources. Now to me, that is the saddest part of this whole story knowing that the mention of Cuba, Venezuela, Lebanon, Iran, China, and Russia would, or perhaps better put…, could make the average American form an opinion about all those people in those countries based on government lies, day after day. But not to the Anne’s (above) of this world. That’s a great comfort.
Seems that a Biden bunch will not improve in any way at all from the past Trump bunch. It is all you can expect these days. as the empire slides down the hill. A Blinken taking over from a Pompeo. Birds of a feather.
A final note concerns a US acolyte, Australia where we saw an open white-anting of a current elected, progressive government in 1973 running for re-election, but being seriously crippled by the devious CIA. The CIA was successful.
Now that was committed against a totally compliant so-called ‘ally’, if there really is such a thing any more. Australia, now gearing up, boots and all, to be a member of yet another US war consortium, this time called Quad.
The newly formed NATO of S. E. ASIA
The thing that pisses me off here is I’m told that Russia or some other country manipulated me to do something – not sure what..not sure why, not sure how. But they did and they must be punished/sanctioned for it to get me some justice.
So my government is telling me that I’m dumb as a post, that my brain has been interfered with by some country and that my votes, actions, behavior at the ballot box have been dictated to me and my fellow Americans by some propaganda, brain waves, videos, something – somehow I do their bidding and I don’t even know what that is – I know who I voted for unless the voting machines were hacked – we’ve had decades to insure that our voting machines have a paper trail so audits of the vote can be done but Congress has not seen fit to order that this known and available technology be used. No president has used his power of the pulpit to push for it.
But no worries, my government will exact revenge to seek justice for me for having been hacked by some secretive foreign government and will use its financial, military, economic power to hit back for me.
Do they think we’re stupid or something?
So we’re paying 100’s of billions for an intelligence service that can’t prove how or why or where this has occurred but has divined that it’s true and that its damaged our election process.
And yet they did not succeed in finding what Condoleezza Rice testified they knew about – planes flying into buildings.
They did not succeed in warning about pandemics in time to prepare, they did not discover and avoid the tragic bombing of the Cole….
What they have done for decades and decades seems to be – through coups and propaganda and secretive actions – pave the way for multinational corporations to gain control over the natural resources of other countries for the benefit of the multinational corporations…while the people who live in those countries take a back seat and are sometimes impoverished.
Based on the list of who our enemies and friends are, is this what’s really at the bottom of the 100’s of $billions spent to finance this murky business – “national security” demands I not be told the why’s or what’s of the matter?
Our friends, it seems, have leaders who are willing to have multinationals take control of their natural resources and our enemies , it seems, have “dangerous” leaders who are not willing to give up control over their natural resources. Supposedly committed to keeping the principle benefit for their own peoples first?
Committed to requiring that multinational corporations and banks – to the extent that they may be involved in extraction and production – that they abide by the environmental, social, economic preferences of the country which has those natural resources?
just asking….
Well, post-Communist China is an enemy because ordinary people are prospering and because the national government is not submissive to Uncle Sam.
And of course our good friends and partner in “democracy” the Israelis would never, ever influence our elections in any way. Nor would the Saudis.
A long time ago someone is recorded as saying; “You can fool some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” No, it wasn’t Donald Rumsfeld.
As the utopia prepper said – it is cartoonish.
“… You have no legitimate grievances about pushback on your behavior when you are the clear aggressor.…”
or
The usa has no legal/moral grievances about pushback on their behaviour when the usa is the clear aggressor”
Thankyou for this excellent analysis – Keep Writing!
evidence standards which are so low as to be useless, except for promotional, influence and distraction purposes and of course to help set the global ‘us and them’ agenda. Democracy in the USA is in a bad way and it effects us all.