US presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has been found to have taken dangerous and illegal risks with her emails whilst Secretary of State. Tens of thousands have gone missing. It is suspected that these emails would reveal compromising exchanges with Middle Eastern dictatorships, among other things. (The brutal dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, currently conducting genocidal war on Yemen, is a major arms customer for the US and has contributed between $10m and $25m to the Clinton Foundation, from which Clinton draws financial support for her campaign.) Instead of targeting Clinton's extreme negligence, incompetence and corruption, leading media outlets have suggested, without any evidence, that Russia hacked her emails and - ridiculously - that Russia is trying to steal the US election. It is now official, Hilary Clinton is trying to divert from her criminal negligence by a campaign against Russia and major media organisations are helping to push that narrative. Clinton's defensive actions are yet more evidence that severe narcissism so clouds her judgement that her election would be a global catastrophe. As Julian Assange has said, Hillary Clinton is a “war hawk with bad judgment” who gets an “emotional rush out of killing people.” “A vote today for Hillary Clinton is a vote for endless, stupid war.” Noting his years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and having read thousands of her cables, he stated that, “Hillary lacks judgment and will push the United States into endless wars which spread terrorism.” He also highlighted Clinton's “poor policy decisions,” which he said have “directly contributed” to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).” Stating that Clinton went above the heads of Pentagon generals when it came to Libya, he wrote: “Libya has been destroyed. It became a haven for ISIS. The Libyan national armory was looted and hundreds of tons of weapons were transferred to jihadists in Syria.” He went on to state that Clinton did not learn from her mistakes, and set out to repeat history in Syria. “Having learned nothing from the Libyan disaster Hillary then set about trying do the same in Syria. Hillary's war has increased terrorism, killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and has set back women's rights in the Middle East by hundreds of years,” he wrote. Numerous statements in her autobiography, which I reviewed here, indicate that she seems to operate with an unreal view of the world, to enjoy violence and to be unaware of its consequences.
Article initially published on RT on August 1, 2016. While US media and politicians keep crying ‘wolf’ – or Russia – over the DNC email hack without providing any proof, Moscow called the accusations ‘absurd’. WikiLeaks refused to reveal its sources and promised new leaks before the November vote.
Some 20,000 DNC emails were made public by WikiLeaks on July 22, revealing a close working relationship between the party and some mainstream media figures, as well as collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign to sideline Bernie Sanders, her challenger for the presidential nomination.
The DNC replaced Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the eve of the party’s convention in Philadelphia – she immediately got a post with the Clinton campaign – and fired back with accusations that Russia was behind the hack and the leaks, accusing Moscow of backing Republican nominee Donald Trump.
US media picked up the accusations, reporting them under headlines such as “Russian Intelligence Hacked DNC Emails” (NBC), “Suspected Russian hack of DNC widens” (Yahoo News), “All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack,” (Motherboard), “Evidence mounts linking DNC email hacker to Russia” (The Hill) and “What we know about Russia’s role in the DNC hack” (Politifact).
Actual evidence, however, was nowhere to be found. Instead, reporters relied on insinuations such as, “there seems to be widespread agreement among cybersecurity experts and professionals” (Politifact) that Russia was somehow responsible.
Other experts cited as “evidence” of Russian involvement the fact that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hosted a show on RT – but without noting that the 11-episode run aired in 2012.
“I’m somewhat taken aback by the hyperventilation on this,” US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last week.
Claims of Russian involvement actually go back to mid-June, when the first DNC documents appeared on the blog of Guccifer 2.0, a hacker who claimed responsibility for the breach. CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC to investigate the breach, pointed the finger at Moscow – again, without any proof. CrowdStrike’s chief technology officer Dmitri Alperovitch, who publicized the claims, is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative.
The Kremlin dismissed the charges that Russia was behind DNC hack as “quite absurd,” with presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointing out what he called the “American style” of casting blame first, then investigating afterwards.
“We in Russia are used to investigating first, before accusing anyone of anything. We believe it is more logical and more correct,” Peskov said.
“Such statements by Ms. Clinton are typical pre-election rhetoric,” Peskov told reporters Monday. “There is nothing tangible in her accusations, and we believe their character is more emotional.”
“The leaked information is very interesting, indicating specific actions to manipulate public opinion during the election campaign,” the Kremlin spokesman added. “In this case, there are attempts to cover up these manipulations by demonizing Russia again, which we feel is improper. Russia does not interfere, and never will interfere, in the internal affairs – especially the elections – of any other countries, including the US.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has also called DNC accusations an attempt to deflect attention from the contents of the leaked documents. Speaking to CNN from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he sought asylum in June 2012, Assange rejected speculation that Russia was behind the hack.
"Well, what sort of question is that? I am a journalist. We don't reveal our sources," Assange told CNN’s ‘New Day’ host Poppy Harlow. "The goal of WikiLeaks as a media organization is to educate the public, to turn a dark world into a lighter world through the process of education, and we're doing it.”
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