What The Hell America!

THE FLAMES SPEWED FROM THE PACKAGE and threatened to engulf the pallet of boxes as the forklift rolled down the loading dock. By sheer luck, the plane on which the package was meant to be loaded had been delayed, so when the bomb, camouflaged as an electronic massager, exploded, its fire was contained in the warehouse. Had the flight been on time and the package onboard, the plane might have gone down.

That was July, at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, England. A similar device exploded the same month at a DHL facility in Leipzig, Germany. Two other devices were found in Poland before they could detonate.

Those bombs were only a test run, part of a larger operation to place explosives on cargo and passenger planes bound for the United States and Canada. The group responsible reportedly planned to have the bombs go off once the packages were unloaded, but the risk of a mistake—and the bombs going off on the plane—was high.

Who was behind this plan that could have sent airplanes crashing to the ground after exploding in flames?

It wasn’t al Qaeda, or ISIS, or Hezbollah, or any other designated terrorist organization.

It was Russia.

And the point of the operation wasn’t just to cause small fires in Germany and England. The ultimate targets were planes bound for the United States. These were attempted terrorist attacks against America.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has attacked the United States and Europe on a near-daily basis using what are often referred to as “hybrid” operations, meant to hide the hand of the Russian government and to remain below the threshold of war so as not to trigger a response.

Russia has conducted cyberattacks on water facilities in the United States, including one in Texas that led a tank to overflow for 45 minutes. Senior British officials have blamed Russia for flying drones over U.K. air force bases where American military personnel are stationed. Russian proxies are suspected of having left explosives near a pipeline supplying air force bases in western Germany. A number of suspicious fires have broken out at weapons manufacturing facilities that supply arms to Ukraine, including at a General Dynamics ammunition plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania in April and another at a BAE Systems facility in the United Kingdom the following day. A separate explosion in July at a General Dynamics plant in Arkansas left one person dead.

Before the war began, Russia was already targeting Americans. Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, paid the Taliban and other militia bounties to attack American soldiers in Afghanistan, with an offer of Russian documents and asylum in return. The GRU is also the likely culprit behind “Havana syndrome” or “anomalous health incidents,” attacks from a directed-energy weapon that have left hundreds of American diplomats and intelligence officers and their families—including children—with traumatic brain injury and other cognitive ailments.

Had such attacks been carried out by al Qaeda, ISIS, or Hezbollah, the response would have been swift and severe.

It’s hard to understand why President Trump is ready to make deals with Vladimir Putin, when it is clear Putin has given his blessing for these and other operations that have led to American deaths.

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But President Trump is doing so. Without gaining anything for the United States, Trump has:

• started bilateral talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Russia;

• deprioritized Russia as a focus of cyber defense;

• stopped offensive cyber operations against Russia;

• reassigned federal employees who were working on protecting the United States from covert foreign—including Russian—interference;

• begun negotiations to open Russian consulates in the United States and allow back hundreds of Russian officials, many of whom will be spies; and

• initiated the lifting of sanctions on Russia, including on oligarchs, who play an integral role in funding clandestine operations.

All this as Russia is on its back foot in Ukraine. Despite enlisting the help of thousands of North Korean troops, in the last year Russia managed to advance only 30 miles, at the cost of 100,000 soldiers, 4,000 tanks and fighting vehicles, and $140 billion. The Russian economy is teetering, with interest rates at 21 percent, mortgage rates hovering at 30 percent, and food inflation through the roof. And the Russian military, suffering from corruption and bereft of resources, is sending soldiers on crutches to the front lines and using mules and baby strollers to move materiel. Indeed, Trump’s push to cease the fighting comes at the exact moment Putin most needs a respite.

The result of a bad deal—making concessions to Russia while getting nothing in return—will not be fewer attacks against Americans, but more. Having gotten Trump to roll over without conceding anything, why would Putin stop?

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