Joe Biden’s Team Is Signaling They Intend To Aggressively Retaliate Against Russia, Journalist Says
In a Wednesday piece on his Substack site, journalist Glenn Greenwald claimed that President-elect Joe Biden and his team are planning to aggressively retaliate against the Russian hackers that have allegedly infiltrated various United States government agencies and corporate servers.
“Democrats (along with some Republicans long obsessed with The Russian Threat, such as Mitt Romney) are casting the latest alleged hack by Moscow in the most melodramatic terms possible, ensuring that Biden will enter the White House with tensions sky-high with Russia and facing heavy pressure to retaliate aggressively,” he wrote.
The columnist highlighted that Biden — along with his top national security advisers – has “repeatedly threatened aggressive retaliation” against Russia. Despite this apparent aggression, Greenwald claimed that there is a lack of evidence thus far in support of claims that Russia is behind the attack.
Although the writer acknowledged that it’s “perfectly plausible” that the Kremlin is behind the attacks, he warned against accepting claims from American intelligence aimed at foreign adversaries when no evidence is provided. The Intercept co-founder pointed to the most recent example that supports this rule — the media claims that alleged documents from Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation.
Greenwald noted that even subsequent evidence of Russia’s involvement would not diminish the danger of promoting intelligence community claims without proper analysis. He pointed to one glaring example — the false claims that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction that drove Americans to invade the Western Asian country.
The writer also suggested that the Biden administration’s purported retaliation plans are “reckless” due to the lack of “specifics.”
“Even if Moscow’s responsibility is demonstrated, what is the U.S. supposed to do in response? If your answer is that they should hack Russia back, rest assured the NSA and CIA are always trying to hack Russia as much as it possibly can, long before this event.”
According to Politico, Biden’s administration will face the challenge of removing the alleged Russian hackers from American systems and deterring the country from trying again without sparking a full-scale cyberwar. Dave Kennedy, a former NSA hacker who founded the cybersecurity company TrustedSec, argued that Biden’s administration should consider using disinformation campaigns, sanctions, and retaliatory cyberattacks.
As The Inquisitr reported, Reality Winner was imprisoned in 2018 for releasing National Security Agency intelligence that revealed Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The country allegedly used spear-phishing — which it also used on Democrat John Podesta’s email account — to try and break into U.S. election software firms.
