the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 9, 2017
U.S. intelligence agencies are crying foul, claiming the Russians hacked into computer networks and released emails in order to interfere with the U.S. election. The U.S. is complaining about foreign interference? The U.S. wrote the book on foreign interference!
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries. The U.S. has made at least 81 attempts between 1946 and 2000, according to Carnegie Mellon University.
This influence included funding campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation, training only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, making public pronouncements or threats against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid. Two-thirds of these acts were carried out in secret. In 59 percent of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power.
Throughout the cold war and after in Haiti, the Middle East, Egypt, Israel, Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia, to name just a few places, the U.S. intervened in the elections of other countries.
Under President Bill Clinton, Russia was targeted. In 1996, with the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the Russian economy failing, Clinton endorsed a 10.2 billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund linked to privatization and other measures that would move Russia toward a capitalist economy.
Now the U.S. is crying because Russia decided to follow suit. As the saying goes: what goes around, comes around!