As the tide of anti-Russian hysteria in the West that is threatening to submerge the general public in utter insanity. Acting with impunity as some form of royalty, Donald Trump has recently signed an order enabling the US to introduce sanctions against all “foreign forces” who are to interfere in the election process in the United States. As it’s been boldly pointed out by The Wall Street Journal, this order is so much more than a political statement from the US president, as it sets out such activities as unacceptable and punishable.
However, it remains unclear why Washington keeps alleging that it was Russia that was trying to interfere in the recent presidential election, as there’s been zero evidence presented to the international community so far. What is even more puzzling is how the White House is going to get around numerous instances of its own interfering with the democratic process in other countries.
A recent revelation of a CIA veteran released by the New York Times is, without a doubt, is particularly revealing in this context:
If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the CIA, where he was the chief of Russian operations. The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it.” “We’ve been doing this kind of thing since the CIA was created in 1947.
Moreover, it’s been pointed out that a Carnegie Mellon scholar, Dov H. Levin, has tried to track back the historical record for Washington’s both overt and covert election influence operations. He managed to establish a total of 81 cases of such interference carried out by the United States in the period between 1946 and 2000.
The CIA would often pull behind-the-scenes financial strings, providing financial support to those candidates and parties that are sure to support any decision taken in Washington, once elected. There’s been a number of dirty tricks in its toolbox, as it’s been pointed out by Dov Levin, as the CIA could arrange a leak of sensible information incredibly damaging to those candidates that were determined to defend their country’s national interests. And the list goes on with bags of cash delivered to a Rome hotel for favored Italian candidates. Scandalous stories leaked to foreign newspapers to swing an election in Nicaragua. Millions of pamphlets, posters and stickers printed to defeat an incumbent in Serbia.
However, it noteworthy that over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the CIA but openly by the State Department and its affiliates. What is even more curious that a number of mainstream sources don’t make a big secret out of the fact that Washington stole dozens and dozens of elections, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs and even Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet.
At this point nobody can be tricked by the notion the US tries to promote democracy abroad anymore, as it’s clear that it makes use of diplomatic leverage, democracy aid, and cooperation with pro-democratic multilateral organizations to pursue its own agenda. All this is but another covert form of electoral meddling.
It’s true that American «pro-democracy diplomacy» and assistance do indeed seek to shape the political direction of other countries. And they are carried out with a strong sense of self-interest, not out of unalloyed idealism. Many Western observers acutely aware of the long record of U.S. Interventionism.
However, what this ultimately leads to is a scenario where a strongman leader of doubtful democratic fidelity is trying to legitimate himself and perpetuate his rule through elections. This has been the case with Chile‘s bloody dictator Augusto Pinochet back in 1988. A more recent example of this situation can be observed in Myanmar, where a self-proclaimed champion of human rights much lauded in the West, Aung San Suu Kyi is usurping all power in the country by inventing an unconstitutional position of state counsellor of Myanmar for her to occupy indefinitely.
That is why Washington keeps pumping considerable resources in various NGO operating in those countries that the White House describers as its strategic adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, Cuba or in those states that share a common border from any player from that list. And it must recognized that such instances of fowl play on Washington’s part across the CIS region and Central Asia do not simply ruin independent states, but it also represents a serious challenge to regional stability.
However, as it has been shown by the order against all “foreign forces” involved in election meddling that was signed by Trump, the Deep States seems to be determined to spread disinformation through all means possible, accusing not other players of the things it has been doing for so long. This is exactly what occurred in Montenegro in 2016, where Washington was trying to accuse Moscow of staging a coup d’etat against Milo Djukanovic. However, in less than two years, Podgorica issued an international arrest warrant for a former CIA agent Joseph Assad, an American citizen of Egyptian origin, who is suspected of creating a mutiny to remove M Milo Djukanovic from power.
So the question naturally arises: what consequences should the US and its citizens suffer for repeated instances of election meddling all across the world?
Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”