Submitted by Alex Christoforou via The Duran.com,

Russian "election hack" narrative falls apart in light of Chelsea Manning clemency.

We applaud Obama for commuting the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning from 35 years to 7 years.

Army soldier, Chelsea Manning was convicted in 2013 of leaking hundreds of thousands (some counts have the number at 750,000) classified documents about US national security activities to WikiLeaks.

Those documents included diplomatic cables, military intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and video files showing US strikes against “terrorists”, and in one instance showing strikes that killed two Reuters journalists.

By granting Manning clemency, Obama admits that the massive leak of classified intelligence information (arguably the most damning US intelligence leak ever) was damaging, but not so damaging as to warrant a 35 year prison sentence.

Certainly Manning’s intelligence leak is magnitudes worse a leak (in relation to US national security) than the John Podesta emails, that have the entire US establishment up in arms and pleading for a heavy retaliation.

Keep in mind that Chelsea Manning has pleaded guilty and admitted to the intelligence breach. No evidence has ever been provided to the public that proves the Russian state was behind the Podesta or DNC document leak.

Which brings us to this argument.

The Democrat Party, and their outgoing President Barack Obama, are gravely concerned about “Russian election hacking”, concerned enough to impose sanctions on Russia, expel Russian diplomats, and even call for a “war-like” response towards Russia, with no evidence.

How does Obama, and his party, explain the sudden about face on Manning, and their forgiveness for Manning’s intelligence “betrayal”, that jeopardized the “fabric of US democracy” and “endangered US national security”? Are we to believe that John Podesta’s emails as worthy enough for conflict with Russia, but Manning’s classified document release, that exposed the highest level of US military intelligence information, is now considered forgivable?

Or can we simply conclude that Obama’s “red scare” is simply a political ploy to damage President-elect Trump, and excuse Hillary Clinton (and the Democrat Party) from running the most pathetic election in history…because the false narrative that John Podesta’s email leak threatens to destroy “US democracy”, has know fallen completely apart.