Obama Official Admits Meddling in Russia

 Tom Malinowski, who  served as Barack Obama's assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor from 2014 to 2017, has admitted in a Washington Post article that the United States "meddled" in Russian elections by financing political groups.

Malinowski says:  "until the U.S. Agency for International Development was expelled from Russia in 2012  [it helped]  fund some of the country’s leading nongovernmental organizations. These included the human rights group Memorial, the Committee Against Torture and, most important, given the drama to come, a group called Golos, Russia’s main nongovernment organization for election fraud monitoring."

Malinowski  demonstrates his imperialistic attitude with the claim:  "This effort was non-partisan and it aimed to strengthen democracy for everyone in Russia, not to steer the outcome."  What gives  Malinowski and the United States the authority to claim they know what is best for Russian democracy?    The term "non-partisan" is a nonsense word because issue positions and election procedures may not  have the same impact on all parties.   Any claims about corruption in the Russian government are inherently partisan because the claims place the governing party in  a negative light.

Malinowski may be too ignorant to understand the potential implications of such spending, but former KGB officer President Vladimir Putin probably knows why the Soviet Union financed comparable groups in the United States during the 1950's.     Americans called such organizations designed to support the communist view of the world   "communist front groups".    When a nation finances alternate political groups in another nation, it is meddling in that nation's politics if any of those connected with those organizations participates in politics regardless of whether  the participation involves issues or  personalities.   I wonder what Democrats would say if Russia  financed a group in the United States whose purpose was monitoring election fraud.

Malinowski is out of touch with reality.  He suffers from the delusion that American foreign policy has some idealistic purpose.   As a Vietnam vet I know that isn't true..  Many American foreign policy actions are just a response to events.   Actions that have a purpose usually are designed to serve corporate  interests.  

The best example of this situation is the Obama administration's efforts to push the crooked Enron corporation's global warming fraud.   The claim that carbon dioxide causes global warming is based on a primitive early 19th Century belief that was disproved in 1909.  Malinowski talks about corruption in Russia.   I wonder what he would say if Russia had made a major effort to discredit Hillary Clinton by exposing the global warming fraud prior to last year's election.