March 22, 2017

While sifting through current events earlier this week and scrounging for notable and salient happenings in domestic or foreign legislature, I was coming up a little short on finding something so prominent and pressing that I found interesting to write about. Of course there was the onset of a new health care bill, some more very professional and mature tweets from President Trump, some court decisions, and more information regarding the immigration ban and Russian hacking allegations. However, this morning, the morning of March 22 2017, what I and the world needed to address became painfully clear. At 2:40 pm, on the streets of England's capitol outside the House of Commons, police were called to address a horrific incident. This incident, immediately taken as a serious terroristic threat, claimed the life of at least 5 people and tragically injured at least 40. Myself, and the rest of the world stood in support and solace with London and awaited updates on the situation as they became available. After a day of piecing together updates and interviews from UK local news sites in close proximation to the event, the world is left with grief and sadness for the victims, as well as many questions and a legitimate fear for the unknown landscape of our globe with frequent small-scale terroristic attacks.

I say small-scale lightly, because there is nothing small about the nature of any terroristic violence and what it is truly intended to be: an attack on democratic ideals and the safety we have so long attempted to attain and preserve. The attacker, driving a car which was hired last Thursday in Birmingham, mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge at an unprecedented speed prior to crashing into a gate of Houses of Parliament. The initial reckless crash impeded catastrophic injuries to about 40 bystanders caught in midst of a unexpected and unprecedented attack on what started out as a normal day in London. The terrorist himself, armed with two knives, fatally stabbed a policeman named as PC Palmer, who was a 48 year old courageous responder, husband, and dad. Attempts to revive him were fruitless. On the scene, the assailant was then shot by police and died eventually in the hospital. The events taking place on the streets of London put Westminster on lockdown and had those in the House of Commons for the session of Parliament which was currently underway at the time of the attack locked down for 5 hours.

These small-scale attacks are dark and senseless, and usually leave the world with more questions than answers. Sadly, lone-wolf attacks are becoming normalized and more frequent on the global stage. In the wake of any attack such as today, which is ironically the anniversary of the attack on Brussels, people are quick to blame and point fingers and further a divide amongst humans. The recent line of terrorists attacks on the basis of Islamic beliefs is wrongly accrediting inhumane, senseless killing to a peaceful religion- merely a coward scapegoat for extremism. Terrorism has no religion, knows no boundaries, and has no place in our world. Terrorist attacks have vastly shaped many aspects of our everyday lives, the majority of our foreign policy, and perhaps most importantly; our views about those who are different from us. Our views on an entire religion based on a portion which practices lawlessness and evil. 

The war on terror shapes our globe and puts a face to our security fears, and the attack on London confirms recent conclusions about different levels of risk around the world. According to an article for the Daily Mail UK,  London is at greater risk of a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists than New York or Washington."London has become the pre-eminent terrorist target in Western Europe," said Jake Stratton, research director of the Control Risk Group's 2004 RiskMap report.

World leaders and people from all walks of life come together in the face of tragedy and horror. The Prime Minister spoke about the attacks, and responded with deep sadness as well as determined triumph: "The values our parliament represents - democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law - command the admiration and respect of free people everywhere. Any attempt to defeat those values through violence and terror is doomed to failure. Tomorrow morning, Parliament will meet as normal. We will come together as normal. And Londoners - and others from around the world who have come here to visit this great City - will get up and go about their day as normal. They will board their trains, they will leave their hotels, they will walk these streets, they will live their lives. And we will all move forward together. Never giving in to terror. And never allowing the voices of hate and evil to drive us apart." Theresa May's message is a model of perseverance in trial and a promise to uphold democratic ideals despite efforts to destroy them. 

Conspiracy or Death to Democracy?

While many are aware that the 2016 election was a unique and very emotionally-loaded topic, did it have Americans questioning the democratic process? Should the sanctity of our long-standing democratic process be questioned after the US intelligence community has claimed Russia attempted to intervene with our election? If a country founded on freedom and democratic ideals is found to no longer have free and fair elections, then what do we even have?

This accusation is not one to be taken likely, for obvious reasons like national security and such. The issue of hacking and interference is one that has been brought up and confirmed by the CIA and the intelligence community, and has been backed by a chorus of capitol hill elites- including GOP senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. In a two-party system where the two parties appear to agree on virtually nothing, this kind of bipartisan consensus that some type of interference was attempted or still in the works is miraculous and very telling of the salience of the situation. However, Trump (who is on the good end of the supposed Russian interference deal) has denied any possibility of such occurring and has ridden it off as more sabotaging ploys from the biased liberal media.

What does this all mean? What are we even talking about?

According to Jeremey Diamond for CNN, back in October of 2016 the US government announced it was fairly confident Russia orchestrated the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations of the Democratic Party. The first public understanding of this was a little vague, and for the most part still might be. At that time it was announced that the hacks led to the public dissemination of thousands of emails which included damaging rhetoric about the Democratic party and their nominee, Hilary Clinton. The breaking of the news in October startled many that put so much faith in our democratic system, and the damning new information so close to the election had potential to really sway the polls. However, at first, intelligence agencies were not as bold as to say these efforts by the Russians were an intentional act to put Trump at the forefront for the presidency. That all changed in December 2016 when the CIA firmly told a group of top senators that Russia's hacks were explicitly carried out with the intention of helping Trump.

That is no small accusation by any means, so what brought the CIA to such a conclusion? What are they even concluding in the first place here? Their more complete analysis of evidence finds that hackers not only released the emails, but breached GOP individuals and organization in the months prior to the election. These include Republican House members and leaders of groups and non-profits in close proximity with the GOP. Something I found interesting (and maybe a little ironic) is that there is evidence of Russian digital footprints funneling money into "troll farms" spreading fake news about Clinton. Sad. Fake news and alternative facts are really prevalent today it appears. 

During Obama's last couple weeks in office he made a statement to NPR about the severity of the situation and the need for very calculated next steps for America, even going as far as to say this is a "cyber Cold War." He told NPR, "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing." However, as the clock ran out on his window of power to make this action he spoke of, it now shifted into the hands of Donald Trump- who denies the entire situation. That's right. He thinks the CIA is lying. About national security. And the sanctity of our democracy. Lying.

In a very intelligible quote from President Trump after the news, he says "I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it. I don't know why and I think it's just -- you know, they talked about all sorts of things. Every week it's another excuse...No, I don't believe that at all," Trump said. "They have no idea if it's Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. I mean they have no idea."

So, even if our president thinks that the intelligence breach is more likely to have been orchestrated by "someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds", there is actually consensus among top ranking republicans and democratic in Congress that Russia was involved in some facet of the election. This support in congress is essentially leading to an agreed front to investigate further the connections with Russian intelligence and take action accordingly. While Trump thinks this entire situation is aimed at delegitimizing his win, he is mistaken in a horrifying way. If more truth and evidence arises, this situation will delegitimize the basic principles and democratic practices with which America has upheld and fought for. This has the potential to reshape future US foreign policy and alter the layout of our relations with other countries, particularly Russia. This kind of uncertainty about the motives of the cyber attacks brings back a Cold War era chill that will absolutely have some kind of affect on America in the coming months.