By Printus LeBlanc
Contrary to popular belief, disinformation and misinformation are not interchangeable definitions. Misinformation is untrue or incorrect information that is spread intentionally or unintentionally. Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive and sway public opinion. What if what happened in the presidential election was a Russian disinformation campaign designed to create chaos?
Disinformation is a successful information warfare tool used by the Soviet Union, now Russia. Ladislav Bittman, deputy chief of the Czechoslovak intelligence service’s disinformation department from 1964 to 1966, pointed out: in order to succeed “every disinformation message must at least partially correspond to reality or generally accepted views.” The KGB has had great success in the past with disinformation campaigns.
Operation Seat 12 was the campaign to discredit the authority of the Catholic Church in Europe. Nikita Khrushchev launched the operation because of the church’s anti-communist positions. According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Warsaw Pact, the operation planted news stories about Pope Pius XII being sympathetic to the Nazis. The articles were picked up, and Hitler’s Pope was born. Pacepa goes into greater detail in his book Disinformation.
Before proving this was a disinformation operation, a few details must be believed.
- The DNC server was hacked by the Russian government, even though the server was never analyzed by federal authorities.
- The sources in the Steele dossier are Russian sources, a dossier that has been proven patently false.
- The document James Comey referenced as “fake” and played a role in Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation is a fake.
- The Facebook ads put up by Internet Research Agency targeted both candidates.
Judging by these facts, it becomes clear the Russians were working both sides of the election.
The next thing to look at is the motive. What motive does Vladimir Putin have to interfere in the U.S. election? Was he trying to get one of the candidates elected? Maybe there were policy issues favored by Putin that one of the candidates also preferred?
Energy Policy
Under President Obama and Secretary Clinton, the U.S. had an anti-fossil fuel energy policy, and Clinton seemed likely to carry on the same policies. On the campaign trail, her first term was being described as Obama’s third term.
Clinton opposed Arctic drilling, opening up the southeastern Atlantic coast for oil production, and admitted to wanting to kill the coal industry. Clinton also wanted to increase the regulations on fracking, despite the Obama EPA reluctantly admitting it could not identify one case where the fracking process resulted in water contamination.
President Trump has the exact opposite positions. Trump wants to expand fossil fuel energy production. Two weeks ago his Department of Interior announced the largest oil and gas lease sale in history, offering almost 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico.
Russia wants a subdued U.S. energy policy. Russia is heavily dependent on the hydrocarbon industry. It makes up about 68 percent of Russia’s total export revenues, and the Energy Information Agency reports one-third of government revenue comes from the hydrocarbon industry.
Russian foreign policy is also heavily dependent on energy. Putin has used natural gas as a weapon in the past, most notably against the Ukraine. The Swedish Defense Research Agency published a report detailing 50 instances when Russia used energy as a weapon to put pressure on its neighbors.
Iran Policy
The Obama administration was responsible for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Deal. Many believe the deal will make it easier for Iran to get nuclear weapons while others think it will prevent Iran from acquiring them.
President Trump has made it known he dislikes the Iran Deal, calling it an embarrassment at the U.N. General Assembly. Last month, President Trump did not recertify the deal, instead choosing to give Congress 60 days to renegotiate the agreement or end it.
Hillary Clinton is a fan of the deal and made it known she planned on staying in the agreement.
Putin is in favor of the deal also and has stated, “We are going to support the deal concluded with the previous U.S. administration.”
Missile Defense
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both made massive cuts to the U.S. military, including missile defense programs. Hillary Clinton was running her campaign as if it was a third term for Obama, meaning more cuts to defense.
From day one, President Trump pushed for more defense spending, a more substantial force, and increased missile defense capabilities.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which policy Putin favored more.
These were just a few policy differences, but the list goes on for days from North Korea and Syria to the Paris climate agreement. Vladimir Putin and President Trump are diametrically opposed on almost every issue. Meanwhile, the positions of Hillary Clinton do nothing but advance the Russian agenda. This blows apart the theory that Putin wanted Trump to win the election.
If Putin didn’t want Trump to win, then it means he wanted Clinton to win, right? No.
There is ample evidence to suggest there is a personal issue between Vladimir Putin and Hillary Clinton. In December of 2011, legislative elections were held in Russia. It became clear the vote was rigged with pictures of ballot stuffing, media bias, and impartiality by the election commission, for Vladimir Putin’s party United Russia.
En masse, protestors took to the streets. Putin blamed this on Clinton when she called the elections dishonest and unfair, sending a signal to the protestors. Putin took the Clinton claims as a personal insult and never forgot. Enter the 2016 Presidential election.
In the 2016 election, Putin had a choice, Clinton with whom he had a personal animus towards or Trump with whom he had severe policy differences with. Putin chose a third option, chaos. By initiating a disinformation campaign aimed at generating distrust on both sides he could delegitimize whoever won the election, and it seems to have worked.
You have Democrats calling for the impeachment of the President, based on nothing, and several Republicans believing what the media is telling them because they don’t like the President, or they think they should be President. Robert Mueller is running a separate Justice Department, despite having no crime to investigate. The Republican-controlled Congress is continuously holding hearings on Russia, so they don’t have to work on anything else.
Vladimir Putin was a KGB counterintelligence officer. When you look at him as a KGB officer with knowledge and experience in the art of disinformation, not just the President of Russia, evidence and logic point to the 2016 election being a disinformation campaign designed to create chaos. Congress needs to realize they fell for a Russian disinformation campaign, and get back to what they were elected to do.
Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government
