In that election, it sounds like Clinton endorsed Yeltsin and pushed the IMF to lend the Russian government some money; is that about right, or was there something dirtier?
There's no comparing that to all the hacking, tampering, psy-ops on social media, and general sowing of public unrest the Russians are accused of in '16 and currently. About 2 orders of magnitude difference?
To the general point however, of the US interfering in other governments, yes absolutely, US has run assassinations, overthrows, insurgent support, and lots of other stuff we'll never learn of.
Why are you comparing the actions the US admitted to doing with the actions Russia is accused of doing?
The US manipulated the IMF to give a 10.3 billion dollar loan, and then advised Yeltsin to use that money to buy votes. The US stalled election watch dogs and prevented them from realizing their duties fully. The US sent intelligence agents to Russia to advise Yeltsin on what his tactics should be, and as we have already seen they were highly fraudulent.
The US absolutely was as involved, if not more, in meddling with the 1996 Russian elections as Russia was in 2016. Just because the tactics weren't the same - Yeltsin had already seized control of the media to use it to give himself good coverage, and there was already public unrest - doesn't mean what the US did has a lesser magnitude.
Because in one case, if allegations are true, thousands of people are sick, hurt, and dead in the chaos. In the other case, another bad man is elected as normal.
Mass-privatization and dismantling of the government in Russia (that was done with strong influence and election tampering by the US) caused increase in poverty, increase in death rates, lowering of life expectancy in Russia. A lot of people in Russia died due to US election tampering. This is a under discussed topic in the West.
This is just one study [1]. There are plenty of others. Mass privatization killed a lot of people in Russia. It’s already been publicly admitted by US politicians that the Russian elections were influenced and tampered with by the US as discussed in above threads.
I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of things that put the US in a positive light. That’s great but doesn’t say anything except that the US says a lot of good things about themselves.
No, it doesn't, it discusses the results of PrivMort, a retrospective study, that showed 13% increases in mortality for men in Russia for an extended period of time. This corresponded to about 7 million excess deaths beyond the death rates expected of the RSFSR under the Soviet Union.
The catastrophy that is the Russian economy and social systems have led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths over the years and has put million in misery. This is because the liberalization process was incredibly corrupt and catastrophic.
Life expectancy and GNP per capita (accounting for inflation) still haven't recovered from under the Soviet Union.
That's the kind of election interference I can get behind. If Russia decided to just start giving us oil, or we created some mutually beneficial joint effort to deal with Iran or N. Korea. That would be a good thing over all and the world would be a better place if we all went around doing good things to spread our country's influence.
and what about the people who voted in that election. do they have any say in their own countries matters, or are just to believe american influence is good for them
Well, all nations act in their own interests, but it is generally possible to identify win-win outcomes and work together for mutual benefit. However, as the (former) spouse of a diplomat, I got the distinct impression that it was only really the Russians who were deliberately trying to screw things up for everyone else, just to cause mischief. I guess they are stuck in a mental rut where every situation is seen as win/lose, even when that's not the truth of the matter.
What, and let the Russian authoritarian regime to keep going to legitimize itself with its rigged voting system? To stop sponsoring the pro-democracy activists in Russia? No, it's the Russians who should simply cease their meddling with the elections in the US, stop promoting the hatred, confusion, and intolerance in the US public, that's for the first step. Then the Kremlin should actually allow the pro-democratic forces in the Russia to come to power, form the government that would be dedicated to democracy and liberty and protection of the human rights, and reform the stagnating economics, and cease foreign military escapades (and return the annexed territories to their rightful owners: Crimea, Donbass, South Abkhazia, Kuril islands, Königsberg, Karelia, the list goes on and on), that's for the second step. Only after that it would even start to make sense to demand from the US to "not meddle" in Russian elections. Until all that happens, demanding from the US to stop its support for democracy and human rights in on of the most illiberal modern authoritarian regimes is simply disgusting and cannot be met with anything more than scornful refusal.
It's nice to see how some western people want to tear apart Russia. Makes me believe that Putin is not that bad, at least he wants Russia to be a strong independent country, even if his methods sometimes are questionable.
No, you won't tear apart Russia as long as nuclear weapons are ready to launch.
If he’s “not that bad” why is he dictator for life?
His methods are always questionable! E.g. poisoning opposition leaders.
(And by the way, the need or ability or justification to criticize Russia’s adversaries doesn’t excuse Russia from criticism: i.e. I’m aware that the western world does unfair things, but Russia is a pure dictatorship)
> If he’s “not that bad” why is he dictator for life?
He's not dictator. Russian people voted for him. Just like american people voted for Trump. You might like it or not, you may call them brainwashed, but that's their choice.
> His methods are always questionable! E.g. poisoning opposition leaders.
Nobody in Russia believes to those fiction stories. If they were poisoned by Novichok, they would be dead. I would more believe to NSA poisoning Navalny to paint him as a victim. He's absolutely unpopular in Russia at this moment. There's 0 reason to poison him and 0 reason to let transport him out of the country. Just turn on your logic. This story is absolutely made up by western secret service and propaganda, it's so stupid, I don't know who can believe in it.
> Russia is a pure dictatorship
Again, Russia is not pure dictatorship. Putin clears political landscape, so he can win the elections. That's obvious. It does not make him dictator in my eyes. And it's all words, anyway. I'd prefer dictator who cares about his country, rather than "democratically elected" puppet who'll sell his country to his masters.
He's old anyway, so someone will replace him, one way or another. And many people will remember him fondly, just like many people fondly remember Stalin despite all propaganda against USSR.
Well, one of my university buddies happened to be an observer in the 2012 presidential elections (he went as the observer from the Communist Party, although he himself was supporter for Prokhorov, ironically enough). Well, he claimed he did his duties with utter dilligence, never leaving the voting station, and that he saw a) absolutely zero fraud attempts; b) 70% of valid bulletins had votes for Putin. And when he later checked in the GAS "Vybory" whether the protocol he signed was meddled with in the system, no, it was there with the counted numbers just as it was signed.
He was rather upset with Prokhorov's loss but admitted that that guy wasn't actually popular.
Good anecdata. I observed a few different elections between 2008 and 2012, and the only clean one showed result vastly different from nearby regions.
I myself was kicked out by police force under a made-up reason (obstructing work of commission by making them nervous - without even speaking to them) during parliament elections in 2011. When this kind of stuff did not happen, you could see a different result from nearby stations.
Friends of mine reported discrepancies between observed counts of voters and reported results, indicating fake bulletins. And you can find quite a few videos on YouTube with busses/minibuses driving people around to vote multiple times.
> What, and let the USA authoritarian regime to keep going to legitimize itself with its rigged voting system? To stop sponsoring the pro-democracy activists in USA? No, it's the USA who should simply cease their meddling with the elections in the Russia and the rest of the world, stop promoting the hatred, confusion, and intolerance in the rest of the worlds public, that's for the first step. Then the White house should actually allow the pro-democratic forces in the rest of the world to come to power, form the government that would be dedicated to democracy and liberty and protection of the human rights, and reform the stagnating economics, and cease foreign military escapades (and return the annexed territories to their rightful owners: Louisiana, California, Manhattan, Guantanamo, Puerto Rico, military base all around the world, the list goes on and on), that's for the second step. Only after that it would even start to make sense to demand from the Russia and the rest of the world to "not meddle" in USA elections. Until all that happens, demanding from the Russia to stop its support for democracy and human rights in on of the most illiberal modern authoritarian regimes is simply disgusting and cannot be met with anything more than scornful refusal.
It doesn't matter that Sanders wasn't poisoned, if it is true that the mechanisms of power made it impossible for him to win no matter the popular support his ideas had. The result is the same.
As for a constitutional amendment to keep Trump in office, it doesn't matter who is in office if a party with the same policies keeps seizing power without the popular vote. It is just as undemocratic.
If your political opponents are guaranteed to never achieve any power because there is no requirement for primaries, then no it isn't a democratic achievement.
Not poisoning people because they can't do anything is not an achievement, it's just a prudent use of resources.
The US has also already assassinated political opponents, such as Fred Hampton, or various Union leaders.
And Russia is going to let go of Siberia and China is going to let Manchuria/Manchu guo become a foreign country again... (and Chiapas is independent as well as Yucatán) That boat done sailed a long time ago and ain’t coming back.
Whenever the US returns its annexed territories of California, Texas, Vermont, Hawaii (as well as the entirety of the Western US), you'll have a leg to stand on to ask for Russia to return annexed territories. Otherwise, I'm afraid that's some very strong hypocrisy.
As for democracy, if you wanted democracy in Russia it would have been good not to have a US-backed coup in Russia to prevent democracy and secure the power of Yeltsin. Or are dictators also fine as long as they do your bidding?
Stop fantasizing about ruining yet another nation. If democracy comes to Russia, it won't be by the hands of the US, it will be from the Russian people themselves. Meanwhile, if you want to help, keep your meddling hands out of there.
Yes, the US has heavily meddle in the 1996 Russian elections to prevent the much more popular Communist Party from winning the elections, and by doing so elected Yeltsin, whose disastrous actions led to the much weaker Russia we see today.
Complete with advising him as he seized control of the media and used it to spread disinformation, forcing an IMF loan that was then used to buy votes, sending US intelligence agents to Russia, the whole deal.
As for direct electoral fraud, the numbers in the election are incredibly fishy even from our historical viewpoint, was fraught with irregularities, much, much less than in the Bolivian elections that the US called illegitimate. This hypocrisy is yet more meddling.
Yep, so the communists which drove USSR to the ground had to get 2nd chance to completely dismantle Russia that time? I'd say that was an interesting possibility.
Right, so there it is, elections don't matter if the people elected are those we don't like.
The Communist Party was in the process of decentralizing the economy and increasing democracy. Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev drove Russia so far into the ground that it is worse than the RSFSR in every single measurable way.
If the people want to elect a Communist Party which agrees to respect elections, who are you to say that they're not allowed and to meddle in their elections?
Oh, so queues in modern Russia are 3 hours now? People still can't buy decent food and clothes? They still need to buy grain in US and Canada? I don't think so.
The Russian GDP which is lower when adjusted for inflation as well as the lower life expectancy disagrees with you.
Focusing on one or two indicators is misleading, on all macro indicators rapid liberalization under Yeltsin has been an unmitigated disaster Russia still hasn't recovered from. Literally millions of excess deaths have happened because of it.
You could just ask a Russian person who lived 1991 as an adult for their opinion, if you want subjective and anecdotal evidence. I know I did.
Finally, a 3 hour queue for food, which was fairly rare under the USSR anyways, is better than dying at the age of 40 from deaths of despair, which you would have a two-digit percentage chance of doing as a Russian male after 1996.
Why would this be flagged? It's a Reuters UK news about what is clearly an extremely important topic. It's clearly about hacking which is mentioned multiple times in the article. This is not a Russia Today article or something from the Onion...
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadThere's no comparing that to all the hacking, tampering, psy-ops on social media, and general sowing of public unrest the Russians are accused of in '16 and currently. About 2 orders of magnitude difference?
To the general point however, of the US interfering in other governments, yes absolutely, US has run assassinations, overthrows, insurgent support, and lots of other stuff we'll never learn of.
The US manipulated the IMF to give a 10.3 billion dollar loan, and then advised Yeltsin to use that money to buy votes. The US stalled election watch dogs and prevented them from realizing their duties fully. The US sent intelligence agents to Russia to advise Yeltsin on what his tactics should be, and as we have already seen they were highly fraudulent.
The US absolutely was as involved, if not more, in meddling with the 1996 Russian elections as Russia was in 2016. Just because the tactics weren't the same - Yeltsin had already seized control of the media to use it to give himself good coverage, and there was already public unrest - doesn't mean what the US did has a lesser magnitude.
I know that a lot of people in Russia survived because of humanitarian aid from US though.
I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of things that put the US in a positive light. That’s great but doesn’t say anything except that the US says a lot of good things about themselves.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459934/
Bad job, comrade.
Life expectancy and GNP per capita (accounting for inflation) still haven't recovered from under the Soviet Union.
That doesn't sound too bad?
No, you won't tear apart Russia as long as nuclear weapons are ready to launch.
His methods are always questionable! E.g. poisoning opposition leaders.
(And by the way, the need or ability or justification to criticize Russia’s adversaries doesn’t excuse Russia from criticism: i.e. I’m aware that the western world does unfair things, but Russia is a pure dictatorship)
He's not dictator. Russian people voted for him. Just like american people voted for Trump. You might like it or not, you may call them brainwashed, but that's their choice.
> His methods are always questionable! E.g. poisoning opposition leaders.
Nobody in Russia believes to those fiction stories. If they were poisoned by Novichok, they would be dead. I would more believe to NSA poisoning Navalny to paint him as a victim. He's absolutely unpopular in Russia at this moment. There's 0 reason to poison him and 0 reason to let transport him out of the country. Just turn on your logic. This story is absolutely made up by western secret service and propaganda, it's so stupid, I don't know who can believe in it.
> Russia is a pure dictatorship
Again, Russia is not pure dictatorship. Putin clears political landscape, so he can win the elections. That's obvious. It does not make him dictator in my eyes. And it's all words, anyway. I'd prefer dictator who cares about his country, rather than "democratically elected" puppet who'll sell his country to his masters.
He's old anyway, so someone will replace him, one way or another. And many people will remember him fondly, just like many people fondly remember Stalin despite all propaganda against USSR.
He was rather upset with Prokhorov's loss but admitted that that guy wasn't actually popular.
I myself was kicked out by police force under a made-up reason (obstructing work of commission by making them nervous - without even speaking to them) during parliament elections in 2011. When this kind of stuff did not happen, you could see a different result from nearby stations.
Friends of mine reported discrepancies between observed counts of voters and reported results, indicating fake bulletins. And you can find quite a few videos on YouTube with busses/minibuses driving people around to vote multiple times.
FTFY
Last I checked, Bernie Sanders wasn’t poisoned. Last I checked, there was no constitutional amendment to allow Trump to stay in power until 2036.
As for a constitutional amendment to keep Trump in office, it doesn't matter who is in office if a party with the same policies keeps seizing power without the popular vote. It is just as undemocratic.
Not poisoning people because they can't do anything is not an achievement, it's just a prudent use of resources.
The US has also already assassinated political opponents, such as Fred Hampton, or various Union leaders.
As for democracy, if you wanted democracy in Russia it would have been good not to have a US-backed coup in Russia to prevent democracy and secure the power of Yeltsin. Or are dictators also fine as long as they do your bidding?
Stop fantasizing about ruining yet another nation. If democracy comes to Russia, it won't be by the hands of the US, it will be from the Russian people themselves. Meanwhile, if you want to help, keep your meddling hands out of there.
Otherwise, I get your point. We should all lick American boots and hope they will be nice to us.
And regarding Afghanistan, Libya and Syria - you can thank Russia for the involvement, which continues in latter's even nowadays.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
He later publicly thanked US for helping him win.
Complete with advising him as he seized control of the media and used it to spread disinformation, forcing an IMF loan that was then used to buy votes, sending US intelligence agents to Russia, the whole deal.
As for direct electoral fraud, the numbers in the election are incredibly fishy even from our historical viewpoint, was fraught with irregularities, much, much less than in the Bolivian elections that the US called illegitimate. This hypocrisy is yet more meddling.
The Communist Party was in the process of decentralizing the economy and increasing democracy. Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev drove Russia so far into the ground that it is worse than the RSFSR in every single measurable way.
If the people want to elect a Communist Party which agrees to respect elections, who are you to say that they're not allowed and to meddle in their elections?
Focusing on one or two indicators is misleading, on all macro indicators rapid liberalization under Yeltsin has been an unmitigated disaster Russia still hasn't recovered from. Literally millions of excess deaths have happened because of it.
You could just ask a Russian person who lived 1991 as an adult for their opinion, if you want subjective and anecdotal evidence. I know I did.
Finally, a 3 hour queue for food, which was fairly rare under the USSR anyways, is better than dying at the age of 40 from deaths of despair, which you would have a two-digit percentage chance of doing as a Russian male after 1996.
>more than 30% of deaths in 2012 in Russia were attributable to alcohol
Deaths due to alcoholism are, of course, deaths of despair.
Popular <==> controversy.
Meddling in elections is profitable for lots of people, not just the Russians. I'd stop fixating on them.
Maybe as a state actor they can do more than commerce, but that's quite a socialist point of view.
We seem to have forgotten the Macedonians - https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/