Today on CNN State of the Union Obama characterized North Korea’s cyberattack on Sony as vandalism.
Obama: North Korea’s hack not war, but ‘cybervandalism’
Kim Jong-un may be a punk, but he leads a nation-state. A cyberattack on the U.S. economy is not playful mischief.
Obama promised proportional retaliation against North Korea at the time of our choosing. Today Mike Rogers, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, on Fox News Sunday told us we were all set and ready with a counterattack but never got the word to go ahead. I guess Obama was preoccupied packing his suitcases for his vacation.
>> Wallace — How serious was the attack? Do you regard this in a sense as an act of war?
>> Rogers — Well, you can’t necessarily say an act of war. We don’t have good, clear policy guidance on what that means when it comes to cyber attacks. … What you saw was a nation-state who engaged in trying to really destroy an American company and then took it to the broader level of using threats of violence in order to get their political will. This was a nation-state attack on the United States, and saying aloha and getting on an airplane going to Hawaii is not the answer…
>> Wallace — So, how tough should he get with North Korea?
>> Rogers — Unfortunately, he’s [Obama] laid out a little bit of a playbook before we’ve done anything. That press action should have been here’s the actions we took on North Korea’s actions, and here’s what we’re going to continue to do. Right now — and trust me, our intelligence services, the folks who would be responsible for at least the first wave of trying to make sure they don’t have the capability to do this again, were ready. They have the capability. They were ready to go. The problem here was not the fact that we didn’t have a capability to do something nearly in immediate time. We just didn’t get a decision from the President of the United States.
Assuming he was speaking of a cyber retaliation, Rogers went on to say not acting immediately diminished our ability to respond as effectively.
As they say in Hawaii, E hana me ka ha`aha`a, let us work with humbleness.
Related:
Lawmaker says U.S. can make hard for North Korea to cyber attack again
Rogers says “threats of violence” not ‘threats of terrorism.’ Even if Rogers didn’t mean to endorse the workplace violence meme, he missed an opportunity to negate it. GOPe_ caution works against setting the paradigm.
I suppose the murder of two NYPD officers is called “childs’ play”.
Obama is the king of the euphemism. Flashbacks: Of recent protests, “When they’re peaceful, they’re necessary. When they turn violent, they’re counterproductive.” That’s right, violence is “counterproductive” (at least when the perpetrators are a vital component of Obama’s constituency (and when has a Tea Party protest ever turned violent?)). And of the Benghazi murders, “If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.” And ISIS will be made a “manageable problem”.
It’s a cliché, but it’s true: Obama shrugs at the true evil in the world, and focuses his hatred and coercions on domestic political opponents. These twisted euphemisms are his rationalizations.
The enemy of this nation is not at the gates, it is already in the W.H. 🙁
Per my tweet, once I read that North Korea denied being behind the Sony hacking, directly contradicting the Dumb Bastard; I realized I didn’t know who to believe. Very sad when the President of the United States is equally as untrustworthy as the leader of one of the world’s most chilling dictatorships. And at least Kim Jong Un is blatantly honest about his motivations.
https://twitter.com/PopArtNJ/status/546685760716677120
Indeed, there are techies who dispute that North Korea did it.
North Korea Hacked Sony? Don’t Believe It, Experts Say
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/north-korea-hacked-sony-don-173312483.html
I have some faith in Mike Rogers who is on the Intelligence Committee and says it was North Korea. In any case, the President of the United States publicly blamed North Korea and promised retaliation. Maybe we’re being set up for a big fat apology to North Korea furthering our humiliation in the world?
Mike Rogers said we were ready to respond instantly. If we’re sure it was North Korea then why wait when waiting gives North Korea an opportunity to prepare? Why try to get China on our side on this? China condemned cyber attacks in general but not North Korea specifically. Even Japan stopped short of blaming North Korea because they have talks going on over North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens in the 70’s and 80’s.
Does anyone know what Europe has to say about this? I don’t see anything.