Obama advancing Clinton election agenda: Analyst

The Obama administration is trying to advance its pro-Hillary Clinton election agenda through accusing Russia of conducting cyberattacks aimed at influencing US election process, a political analyst says.

Barry Grossman made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday when asked about an announcement by the White House that the US would give a “proportional response” to hacking by Russia in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

"We obviously will ensure that our response is proportional," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday. "It is unlikely that our response would be announced in advance.”

The accusations came after the hack of the Democratic National Committee in June and the subsequent release of 20,000 DNC emails by WikiLeaks in July.

The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Clinton blamed Russia for the cyber intrusion and said it aimed to help her Republican rival Donald Trump win the election.

Russian authorities have time and again denied Moscow has been behind breaches, targeting the November 8 election process.

“Clinton, who is being promoted by the establishment and a corrupt corporate media as inevitably destined to be the next US president, has already made her position clear. Less than two months ago, she announced in the clearest possible terms that will treat cyberattacks as an act of war,” Grossman told Press TV.

This is despite the fact that “through the 17 agencies comprising the US intelligence apparatus and the Atlantic World’s NSA controlled “5 Eyes” global surveillance program -  the USA has itself turned cyber based espionage and sabotage, data theft, communications monitoring, and hacking, into a massive, industrialized enterprise which recognizes no laws, conventions, or international borders,” he added.

“Even though under international law, mere espionage has never been considered an act of war, a Clinton administration will treat cyber based espionage as an act of war which justifies a military response. She has also made it clear in private conversations that she favors the extra-judicial execution of people like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange using drone strikes.”

“In other words, notwithstanding what the White House is claiming as it tries to manage public opinion to advance its pro-Clinton election agenda, Clinton’s policy cannot by any stretch of the imagination be characterized as envisioning a “proportional response” to governments which are deemed by faceless men meeting in secret US star chambers to be doing the very same thing which the USA itself presumes an unqualified right to do on a massive scale globally,” Grossman stated.

“Bearing in mind that the US now openly presumes the right to police the world without in any way considering itself bound by international law and custom, this bridling at foreign efforts to influence the US electoral process is not only absurd but also exposes the racism and feigned ideologically-based superiority inherent in the new model of US governance,” he said.

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