National Security

John McCain and Donald Trump: fellow travelers in conspiracy theories about ISIS and President Obama

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Now I understand why John McCain endorsed Donald Trump and steadfastly refuses to disavow him: they are both fellow travelers in conspiracy theories about ISIS and President Obama.

Back in June after the nightclub shooting in Orlando, McCain said: Obama ‘directly responsible’ for Orlando shooting:

McCain buttonSen. McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, spoke to reporters in the Capitol Thursday while Obama was in Orlando visiting with the families of those killed in Sunday’s attack and some of the survivors.

“Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaida went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq,” a visibly angry McCain said as the Senate debated a spending bill.

“So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies,” McCain said.

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Questioned on his startling assertion, McCain initially repeated it: “Directly responsible. Because he pulled everybody out of Iraq, and I predicted at the time that ISIS would go unchecked and there would be attacks on the United States of America. It’s a matter of record, so he is directly responsible.”

I did a fact check at the time to explain how McCain’s Neocon wanderlust for war with Iraq opened the door to Al Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor of Daesh or ISIL (ISIS). McCain bears responsibility as much as anyone. How the ‘McMedia’ fail to hold John McCain accountable.

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National Security officials: Donald Trump is a national security risk

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CIALast week Michael Morrell, the acting director and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013, published an op-ed in the New York Times unlike anything that has occurred before in an American election.

In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, Mr. Morrell made the case that the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, is a national security risk, an “unwitting agent” (useful idiot) for Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton:

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.

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Putin patsy Trump has a lot of explaining to do

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Josh Rogin at the Washington Post asks “Why is Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort denying that his staff worked to keep the Republican platform from supporting U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine?” The Trump campaign denies its own Ukraine policy:

His claims about the episode contradict not only the facts, but also the candidate’s long-standing position on the issue. He would be better off just owning it.

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Manafort said that the effort to keep the platform from supporting arms for Ukraine, which I first reported last month, “absolutely did not come from the Trump campaign.”

“So nobody from the Trump campaign wanted that change in the platform?” Chuck Todd pressed. “No one, zero,” Manafort said.

Cartoon_19In fact, there were two Trump campaign staffers in the room when a committee of GOP delegates debated the national security platform the week before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The original platform draft was silent on the issue of arming Ukraine until Diana Denman, a pro-Ted Cruz delegate from Texas, introduced an amendment proposing extensive support for Ukraine, including “lethal defensive weapons.”

The Trump staffers in the room, who were not delegates but were there to oversee the process, intervened and were able to get the issue tabled. On the sideline of the meeting, they negotiated with Denman to find a compromise but were unsuccessful. Eventually, through the pro-Trump delegates, they introduced a new amendment that changed the language from “lethal defensive weapons” to “appropriate assistance.”

That amendment passed, codifying the Trump staff’s language as official GOP policy. In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Trump confirmed that his people were behind the change.

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Donald Trump is now a national security risk

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Timothy Egan of the New York Times has a thought provoking opinion, The Real Plot Against America:

Cartoon_48In retrospect, it worked out much better than planned. Who’d have thought a pariah nation, run by an authoritarian who makes his political opponents disappear, could so easily hijack a great democracy? It didn’t take much. A talented nerd can bring down a minnow of a nation. But this level of political crime requires more refined mechanics — you need everyone to play their assigned roles.

You start with a stooge, a fugitive holed up in London, releasing stolen emails on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, in the name of “transparency.” Cyberburglars rely on a partner in crime to pick up stolen goods. And WikiLeaks has always been there for Russia, a nation with no transparency.

The emails show office gossip — catty, sometimes crude back-and-forth by party operatives, and a bias for one candidate. Ho-hum. To make the plot work, reporters have to take the bait. On cue, they decry the fact that politics is going on inside a major political party. The horror — Democratic hacks saying nasty things about Senator Bernie Sanders.

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Election security is now a national security issue

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Some commenters on this blog have been dismissive of the Russian hacks of the DNC, the DCCC, Hack of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ‘Similar’ to DNC Breach, and a Clinton campaign analytical program. Computer Systems Used by Clinton Campaign Are Said to Be Hacked, Apparently by Russians, largely on the grounds that the United States engages in cyber spying against the rest of the world, so “what’s the big deal?”

First of all, cyber spying is the foundation of national security in the modern world. The United States would be grossly negligent if it was not doing cyber spying, when every other major country in the world is doing it. How often have we heard since September 11, 2001 “why didn’t our intelligence agencies know this was coming?” This false equivalency argument strikes me as a “blame America first” argument, that the United States deserves it for its own actions. This is not a way to ingratiate yourself with your fellow American citizens.

DieboldSecondly, I’m guessing that many of the people making this argument just a few years ago had their hair on fire about electronic voting machines being hacked to rig elections. (Oh, you know you were).  What makes you think that these Russian hackers will stop with attacks on the Democratic Party? We still have electronic voting systems that are vulnerable to hacking.

Security technologist Bruce Schneier writes, By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines:

Russia was behind the hacks into the Democratic National Committee’s computer network that led to the release of thousands of internal emails just before the party’s convention began, U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded.

The FBI is investigating. WikiLeaks promises there is more data to come. The political nature of this cyberattack means that Democrats and Republicans are trying to spin this as much as possible. Even so, we have to accept that someone is attacking our nation’s computer systems in an apparent attempt to influence a presidential election. This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. And it points to the possibility of an even worse problem in November — that our election systems and our voting machines could be vulnerable to a similar attack.

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