FILE -- In this Sept. 30, 2016 file photo, US President Barack Obama, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk during the funeral of former Israeli President and Prime minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. (Menahem Kahana, Pool via AP, File)
With the Democrats blasting Russia for "interfering" in U.S. elections, I think it’s time to discuss the recent history of U.S. interference in elections elsewhere.
1: Team Obama tried to defeat Bibi Netanyahu in Israel
In 2015, the Obama administration illegally funneled money to leftist opposition groups in Israel to help them bring down the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu: $350,000 was given to a group called OneVoice Movement (OVM).
This group said it wants to bring about "peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine." It goes without saying that OVM was and is against Netanyahu. That's bad enough, but leftover money was used to set up a leftist election machine in Israel that took on the Israeli leader.
Five American campaign experts were hired. One of them was President Obama's field director during the 2012 elections.
2: Team Obama tried to bring down the right-of-center government in Macedonia
Most Americans probably don't know where Macedonia is, but that didn't prevent the Obama administration from meddling in that country's internal affairs. Judicial Watch uncovered the relevant government documents:
[The documents] show the U.S. government has quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with leftwing, billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
We're talking about millions of dollars funneled from the State Department and USAID to Soros' groups in Macedonia. These groups' main purpose was to bring down the country's center-right government. The Obama administration actively helped those groups, and this work continued afterward.
3: Team Obama built up the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and helped to overthrow Hosni Mubarak
The United States government actively meddled in Egypt's politics and electionsby supporting the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Team Obama was quite candid about that interference.
Yet we didn't hear one word of criticism from the mainstream media -- the same media that can't stop talking about Russia's supposed meddling in the U.S. presidential election last year.
4: Bill Clinton helped Boris Yeltsin stay in power in Russia
Back in the 1990s, Russia was led by a man Bill Clinton believed was a real democrat: Boris Yeltsin. As expert Stephen Cohen explains:
[P]olitical missionaries and evangelists, usually called "advisers", spread across Russia in the early and mid-1990s.
Clinton and his advisers actually called this interference "a policy of American tutelage."
Although Yeltsin was incredibly popular in the White House, the same couldn't be said for his popularity in Russia itself. Still the White House supported him and did everything in its power to keep him in the Kremlin. The result? Russian oligarchs enriched themselves beyond measure, and "the life expectancy for Russian men and women fell from 64 and 74 years respectively to 58 and 71 years."
Time magazine was quite open and transparent about the 1996 elections in Russia which were, shockingly, won by the highly unpopular Yeltsin. Their cover:
Yanks To the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win
Vladimir Putin was already on the rise in Russian political circles back then, and he saw clearly what had happened: Yeltsin "won" the elections because of U.S. interference and meddling. It was Clinton who basically bought Yeltsin's victory by endorsing a $10.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund:
Yeltsin used the loan to bolster his popular support, telling voters that only he had the reformist credentials to secure such loans, according to media reports at the time. He used the money, in part, for social spending before the election, including payment of back wages and pensions.
5: Barack Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod tried to help Labour win elections in Britain
Last but not least, there's this:
The political strategist behind President Barack Obama’s White House victories is taking his talents across the pond to help Britain’s Labour Party.David Axelrod will spend the next several months serving as the party’s “senior strategic advisor,” in an effort to get British opposition leader Ed Miliband elected as prime minister in May 2015. In a statement Friday, Axelrod said he had been impressed by Miliband’s ideas and says he has solid vision for the country’s future.“Barack Obama articulated a vision which had, at its core, the experience of everyday people,” Axelrod said. “And everyday people responded, they organised and they overcame the odds. I see the same thing happening in Britain.”
Obviously, Axelrod wasn't an official representative of the American government, but everybody understood that he wouldn't be involved in Britain's elections if Obama disapproved. This was meddling -- and not just some fake news Facebook ads, either. Axelrod actively and officially campaigned on behalf of Labour, Britain's main opposition party.
Democrats are clearly using a double standard.
Of course one nation is trying to interfere in another nation's elections. There are very real interests at stake, which is why the U.S. -- especially under Democratic leadership -- has a long, long record of meddling in other country's internal affairs.
The U.S. does this all the time and had never been secretive about it, either. So why the outrage aimed at Russia now?
Simple: because Putin's interests are not aligned with the Democrats' interests. That's all there is to this story.
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