Posted By Tim Hains

February 25, 2022

-Real Clear Politics

 

 

Friday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested the U.S. should launch cyberattacks against Russian oligarchs and government institutions in response to the war in Ukraine.

DAVID IGNATIUS: Madam Secretary, back in 2011, 2012, Putin attacked you claiming that you were supporting opposition to him. Putting aside what happened a decade ago, I want to ask you a basic question now. Are there ways that the United States can support those brave Russians who are now in the streets, reports say in 53 cities across Russia, protesting this war? What can we do as a country to encourage and support those people?

HILLARY CLINTON: David, that’s a great question and even though I did not encourage the demonstrations back in 2011, I did point out on behalf of our country that they were in response to what was an obvious effort by Putin to stay in power and to literally rig his elections.

Now we are looking at Russians once again in the streets. They don’t want a war with Ukraine. There’s a lot of family and other connections between Russians and Ukrainians. I think we can have both.

What I would argue for [is] government support, but also nongovernmental support.

There were reports overnight that Anonymous, a group of hackers took down Russian TV.

I think that, you know, people who love freedom, people who understand that, you know, our way of life depends upon supporting those who believe in freedom as well, could be engaged in cyber support for those in the streets and Russia. We did some of that during the Arab Spring when I was secretary of state.

I think we could be also attacking a lot of the government institutions and, again, the oligarchs and their — you know, their way of life through cyber attacks. And it will be difficult to get actual physical support, but I think we should be looking at that. I mean, the old days of Radio Free Europe and beaming in accurate information into the homes of Russians, we should be doing everything we can now online to replicate that.

It will be very difficult for Putin to plug all the holes in that dike. Information going into Russia about what Putin is actually doing with this unprovoked attack on Ukraine can keep people energized. I think that’s something that we should be doing as I say both through our government but also individuals who have the capacity to do that. Our tech companies should not be aiding Russia in this attack in any way, they should be aiding those who are standing for freedom which after all is something that they’re supposed to be on the side of.

c. REAL CLEAR POLITICS