Russia and national security

Wikileaks is familiar to Americans due to its releasing of stolen classified documents from the U.S. government. Former U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning and former NSA intelligence analyst Edward Snowden both stole documents and gave them to Wikileaks to publish. Wikileaks was founded in Iceland in 2006 by Australian Julian Assange, an Internet activist.

The publicized documents were released with no apparent regard for the consequences to the people who were subjects of the emails. When Snowden fled the U.S. after stealing the documents it should be noted that he initially ended up in Russia where he was granted "temporary asylum." It has been reported that Snowden has remained in Russia. It is my opinion that Russia giving asylum to Snowden, who is wanted for crimes in the U.S., has made Russia an enemy of the U.S. Harboring a man wanted for crimes against the U.S. government defines Russia's president Putin's relationship with the U.S.

The Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Clapper, has said that Russia, among other nations such as North Korea, is actively and constantly trying to hack into U.S. government and private networks and computer accounts. Clapper recently said at a security conference, "The Russians hack our systems all the time, not just government but also corporate." The recent hacking of the Democrat National Committee (DNC) has been linked to Russian hackers by security firms such as ThreatConnect after studying and tracking the IP (computer) addresses attached to those incidents, including those into the DNC.

When Hillary Clinton quoted these intelligence appraisals about Russia during the second presidential debate, Donald Trump replied "She doesn't know that." Rejecting the intelligence reports about Russian computer attacks as well as their actions in Syria denies the axiom that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Russia has proven it is an enemy of the U.S. and ignoring past behaviors is dangerous to our national security.

Anyone denying the intelligence about Russia brings up memories of Charles Lindbergh's denying the threat posed by Nazi Germany before the start of WW II.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.