December 20, 2016 l More Sound and Fury... l High Frontier

“. . . And all our yesterdays have lighted fools.
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” Shakespeare

Click here for last week’s message, which ended with the final phrase of the famous words from Scene 5, Act 5 of Shakespeare’s production, Macbeth. It seemed appropriate for the then unfolding saga of the role of alleged Russian cyberattacks on the U.S. election, allegedly to discredit the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. And I think the continuing “sound and fury” still signifies nothing of real importance.

But, now it seems this candle will flicker a while longer before finding its way to “dusty death.” Congress plans to study alleged events of the now completed Presidential Campaign to see if and presumably how cyberattacks might have been employed to sway the results of that campaign and the election — now on the heels of yesterday’s confirmatory Electoral College vote making Donald J. Trump the next President, to be finalized formally on January 6, 2017 in a joint session of congress.

Some want the study to be undertaken within the existing congressional committee structure — e.g., by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which are supposed to be fully briefed on such matters anyway. However — as of this writing, they have not been briefed by the CIA and other intelligence agencies alleged (to selected members of the press apparently by the CIA Director) to have reached such a “uniform” (as alleged by President Obama) consensus. Last Friday, they even refused a formal request to brief the assembled House committee charged with overseeing the Intelligence Community.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a member and former Chair of the House Intelligence Committee called this Intelligence Community refusal “absolutely disgraceful.” He said, “This violates all protocols, and it’s almost as if people in the Intelligence Community are carrying out a disinformation campaign against the President Elect of the United States.” Click here for a Fox News report last week and here for The Hill’s report on a Sunday radio interview with John Catsimatidis on 970 AM in New York in which Rep. King called this refusal “the height of arrogance,” asserted that “There is no CIA Report, there is no CIA conclusion,” and called such reports “a lie.” (Click here for the full radio interview on how the Democrats are seeking to undermine President Elect Donald Trump — well worth a few minutes of your time.)

Click here for a somewhat less informative video of ABC This Week in which Rep. King was joined by fellow member of the House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to discuss these issues, including CIA Director John Brennan’s role in the selective leaks, whatever is the true story.

They both support a congressional review — King by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees (as is their job anyway) and Schiff by a special Commission like the 9/11 Commission. I’m with Rep. King, we don’t need yet another commission to drag out these proceedings for weeks if not months. Congress should do its job.

My real concern is that so much is being made of this political story, while an even greater threat to all Americans has been ignored for years and is still being ignored — namely the existential threat to the electric power grid posed by potential physical, cyber and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks.

That this heated debate is a political story can be amply illustrated by a couple of points — illustrating more subtly the contrary role of Democrats so much more publicly demonstrated by their recent “rude, crude and totally unrefined” behavior.

As I noted last week, Russia has often engaged in nefarious activities attempting to influence our and our allies’ elections — as in 1984 election with which I am personally most familiar. Click here for Michael Reagan’s recent article illustrating that the Soviets worked with Democrats to attempt to defeat his father in the 1980 and 1984 elections, based on KGB records released after the end of the Cold War. Click here for an even more detailed discussion of the 1984 campaign and Senator Ted Kennedy’s active involvement, based on those Cold War records. I referred to my recollections of that 1984 campaign last week.
It is not news that our adversaries seek to influence our elections — what’s new is that the culprit’s tool this time is cyber — that’s jazzy, you see. Mind you, our leaders too have engaged in such activities — and even to influence the elections of our friends, not just our enemies. Witness, the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to seek to undermine Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s 2015 reelection, no doubt because he spoke out strongly against the terrible Iran Deal that is a hallmark of the Obama administration. (Click here.)

As I also noted last week, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, observed in early November that Russia was not the source of the email leaks revealing unflattering aspects of the Clinton campaign — none of which has ever been disputed by the Democrats. Moreover, click here for a more recent report that former British ambassador to Russia, Craig Murray, confirmed Assange’s claim; reported that the DNC and Podesta leaks were the work of a Washington insider; and said he knows that person’s identity and had met with him. Whatever . . .

To be sure, there should be consequences to Russia for their activities to influence our elections — not to mention even more consequential matters. In the instance of the 1984 elections, President Reagan’s “Peace Through Strength” agenda and particularly his commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, without firing a shot — as Lady Margaret Thatcher so vividly observed. Those are the kind of substantive consequences I’d like to see.

Hopefully, President Trump will follow Ronald Reagan’s successful model, rebuild our defenses and deal from a position of strength with Russia — and China, North Korea, Iran, ISIS and other terrorist groups.

Certainly, we need more than President Obama’s recent rambling defense of his failed policies and threats of a “serious response” at a time and place of our choosing. Within the last month of his presidency? Really???? Like following his “red line” warning in Syria, I suppose — and a carbon copy (Remember them?) of how that worked out.

His remaining initiatives will likely be no more beneficial than his other failed foreign and defense pronouncements, policies, plans and programs over the past 8 years. Better he should just enjoy his usual annual vacation in Hawaii . . . at taxpayer’s expense of course.

To be sure, I still contend that we are witnessing much “sound and fury, signifying nothing” but politics while abiding a deadly silence regarding existential threats — including the cyber threats to our electric power grid, about which we truly should be concerned.

I look forward to the next administration and a revival of sound defense and foreign policy initiatives. Hopefully, this revival can and will happen in time to reverse the trends that have made this the most dangerous time in my lifetime for all Americans.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Blessed New Year.

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