As usual, every morning, I check Reuters, UPI, AP. What are they saying? What are they telling the US population and the press in the USA’s satellite states in Europe?
Every morning I hope “this day will be different”. Every morning I muse: “Surely, somebody will say, ‘This is it! I can’t take anymore!'”, and I will see, in Reuters, the UPI or the AP, a great big headline: THIS IS GENOCIDE. STOP IT!
But this morning was just as every other morning:
Cat flees from owner at truck stop, turns up 670 miles away (UPI) This was not, I admit, the top headline, nor even one of them. But I assure you that GAZA was not mentioned in any of the headlines.
Israeli strike kills an elite Hezbollah commander in the latest escalation linked to the war in Gaza (AP) Yes, this was the top headline. It was meant to bring joy to those worried that Israel’s war against the terrorists was not going well. It was meant as joyful tidings.
US secretary of state rallies Mideast leaders to prepare for Gaza’s post-war future (AP) Note the word “post-war”. As though the ongoing war is just any old war, not an extermination campaign. Later today, several US outlets proudly declare that the “Mideast leaders” have committed to some post-war efforts, as though Blinken had achieved something, anything at all. Of course the “Mideast leaders” will help Gaza, as they always do! Nothing to do with Blinken.
US top diplomat urges Israel to avoid harming civilians in Gaza. (Reuters) Isn’t that just sweet: Do please be careful, when you bomb hospitals, ambulances and aid convoys. And do please avoid hurting children when you raise apartment buildings to the ground.
A lof of what has happened these past two years has not surprised me. What has, however, astounded and shocked me has been 1) the silencing in the press of all criticism of the US and NATO’s handling of the war in Ukraine and 2) the US and UK crackdown on criticism of Israel post October 7.
An important factor in the near total suppression of dissent regarding US foreign policy, not only in the USA but also in US satellite states – has finally been made clear to me thanks to a book:
The Think Tank Racket by Glenn Diesen, Clarity Press, 2023.
According to Wikipedia as at 01.12.2023:
A think tank is a research institute that performs research and advocacy on topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank
That sounds promising enough: Politicians are, after all, initially just people like you and me who have been asked to represent us. They are not experts on “social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture”, etc. They rely on experts who can tell them all about it. Think tanks supposedly serve just that purpose: to inform politicians. Yes, and also to inform the media.
Now, as you will of course immediately point out: All these researchers will have to be paid. Who pays them?
Just so. And please notice the two warning words in Wikipedia’s definition: “and advocacy“
Unsurprisingly, they are paid by those who can afford to pay them and who stand to gain by doing so.
While most of us know a lot about all sorts of things, the matter of “national security” in a big and dangerous world full of threats – cyber threats, WMDs, long distance missiles, AI threats – is not for novices and could easily fill a telephone directory. So yes, I do understand the need for experts. Not only to advise politicians, but also to advise the press.
But there is, again, the issue of funding. The relationship between 1) those who provide the funding, 2) the experts and 3) the government – i.e. the decision makers. Diesen has taken a closer look at some of the think tanks, their funders, to the extent they are known, and the vested interests of some of the “experts”. I would be understating matters by saying that much of what comes to light in his book is extremely disturbing.
I shall not divulge his dramatic revelations though I will quote him a couple of times.
The first quote:
From the start, let’s be clear, the term “think tank” essentially amounts to a more polite way of saying “lobby group.” They exist to serve—and promote—the agendas of their funders. However, particularly in the United States, the field has become increasingly shady and disingenuous, with lobbyists being given faux academic titles like “Senior Non-Resident Fellow” and “Junior Adjunct Fellow” to distinguish them from honest registered lobbyists.
We have all heard the expression “military-industrial complex”, apparently coined by Eisenhower who, in his farewell address warned:
[W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
There are those who claim that US warmongering not only benefits the likes of Lockhead Martin, Raytheon and Boing, but is driven by them. Since I do not have the skills to asses the weight of US defence contractors in the national economy, I leave you with a link so you can judge for yourself.
Surely the defence contractors would not advocate involving their own country in a war for pecuniary reasons? True enough, none of the very numerous wars engaged in by the USA since WWII – not one – was fought on US soil. (Not WWII either.) Admittedly many of “our boys” lost their lives in Vietnam and some, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds, died in Iraq, just as quite a few disadvantaged US women famously lose their lives every year “while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, ….” (maternal mortality) largely due to inadequate health care. It is tempting to deduce that from the point of view of US policy makers, these disadvantaged young men and women are dispensable.
Jenny Erpenbeck wrote in Gehen, ging, gegangen: “there’s no better way to make history disappear than to unleash money. Money on the loose is fiercer than a fighting dog.” [My translation]. And the evidence presented in Glenn Diesen’s book seems to indicate that profit might well be a driving force for continuous US warmongering. I give you none of his examples because I think you should read the book.
One of the think tanks discussed by Diesen is the Atlantic Council, basically a NATO propaganda wing.
Here is my second quotation from Diesen, about the Atlantic Council:
[I]n the decade 2006–2016, its annual revenue grew from $2 million to $21 million, a more than a ten-fold increase.”
Not bad for a team of “experts”, I’d say. Most scientific researchers here in OSLO can not even afford a simple 2-room flat. From my perspective, in Norway, the Atlantic Council is definitely a target of study, since NATO-criticism has been totally silenced here on Torvald Stoltenberg’s watch. In view of the war crimes recently committed in LIBYA by NATO, including not least Norway, the silence suggests suppression.
Here is what we find on the Atlantic Council “About” page.
Can you read the text? This is it:
Driven by our mission of “shaping the global future together,” the Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes US leadership and engagement in the world, in partnership with allies and partners, to shape solutions to global challenges.
“Global future”? NATO countries make up roughly 11.87 % of the global population! But this “nonpartisan” instrument nevertheless intends to shape the global future, having “galvanized” US leadership? Good luck with that. And as for the “engagement“, a common collocation of the word is “military”, i.e. miiitary engagement, so that word, at least, is apt.
A report referred to by Diesen was produced by the think tank RAND in April 2019. The report, Overextending and unbalancing Russia can be downloaded in its entirety, but you will find a summary of it here. The preface tells us that the report is “sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G-8, Headquarters, Department of the Army”.
Please note that the preface does not exclude other sponsors.
The goal in this report is to weaken (“overextend and unbalance”) “Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad” notwithstanding the fact that
unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is not overextended geographically. Other than in Syria, its foreign commitments in Ukraine and the Caucasus are relatively compact, contiguous to Russia, and in locales where at least some of the local population is friendly and geography provides Russia with military advantages.
The report mentions a number of Russian vulnerabilities, and sees its economy as relatively weak compared to that of the USA. More importantly: not once in the report do I find any suggestion that Russia poses a military threat to a NATO country.
I cannot quite put my finger on just what it is that gets up the US nose until I come to Chapter 5, Ideological and Informational Measures: “Russia has orchestrated a series of efforts … to undermine Western political institutions and increase Russia’s standing and influence …” Ah!
At any rate, you can see for yourself what measures to weaken Russia were assessed by RAND in 2019 and how they were rated. You will see that among the measures that were highly rated were several “Air and Space Cost-Imposing Measures” e.g. “Invest more in long-range strike aircraft and missiles” – all presumably lucrative for the defence contractors.
What I found most interesting, however, were the following paragraphs:
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties.
Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even pre-empt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.
Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to escalate the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for WorldPolicy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline, sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver by Russia.” According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic assumption.
There is also some risk of weapons supplied to the Ukrainians winding up in the wrong hands. A RAND study conducted for the President of Ukraine found reasons for concern about the potential misuse of Western military aid.
bold highlights are mine
RAND seems to have been more prescient than most other policy advisers pushing for war “to the last Ukrainian” and “what it takes” etc. Those of us who have been accused of being Putin acolytes – i.e. all who have warned about the consequences of the “proxywar” – find support in, of all things, a RAND document from 2019. Would you believe it?
Meanwhile the disgraceful Wikipedia article vilifying Glenn Diesen is an example of just how “lethal” the stand-off between the USA and everybody who does not vocally support “our” foreign policy has become. Glenn Diesen is a political science professor at a Norwegian university. As a Norwegian, I resent the innuendo that university professors here are employed by virtue of anything but outstanding academic qualifications. I may disagree with our professors and frequently do, but academic debate has until recently been allowed, even welcomed. Controversial views are no exception! The information Glenn Diesen brings to the table is based on research – an example of which is the book I so warmly recommend, a result of assiduous and time-consuming work. It is, moreover, written in an easy, often ironical, conversational tone.
The other night I had a terrible argument with a couple whom I consider particularly close friends. They were spending the weekend at my place, and we had enjoyed two lovely days, when in the evening, I unwittingly stepped on a sore toe. Now, I had been very careful not to even mention Ukraine; in this country we are told in no uncertain terms that we are defending democracy against fascism and that the war is being waged between good and evil. Moreover, those who exclusively read the New York Times and Guardian – and my friends consider them the ultimate sources of information about current events – will “know for a fact” that such is the case. So no, not a word about Ukraine.
Assuming that we would probably agree about “cancelling”, I joked about this growing trend. There are all sorts of views that qualify as grounds for cancelling these days, and I happen to believe – and assumed that my academic friends would agree – that rather than cancel views we don’t like, we should discuss them. Well, my friends, didn’t agree. They were in fact furious with me: 1) The very concept “cancelling”, they maintained, was invented by the ignorati such as Trump and his followers. There was no such thing as cancelling. 2) Misinformation, however, deserved to be suppressed (i.e. cancelled). “People need to check their facts,” they insisted, and they repeated the word again and again: facts. facts. facts.
Admittedly, a few facts, such as many but far from all historic dates, are more or less incontrovertible (except, perhaps, among philosophers). Conversely, in a war, most “facts” are contentious and a great number go on to be debated for centuries.
Even within the exact sciences, calculations are often debatable, if for no other reason because the figures on which they are based,which in turn rely on other figures based on figures, etc. are open to debate. Most social scientists do not even pretend that their “facts” are conclusive. Historians, however, tend to cheat a bit. After all, when all is said and done, history is anything but a-political.
I forget who said that history is always written by the victors, be they Roman or British or US American, not by the Galls, the African peoples or the indigenous (North, Central and South) Americans. Historians live in the victors’ society and their world view will inevitably reflect that of their surroundings. True there will be the occasional deviant interpretation of past events, but in the end, the version that is accepted science and generally agreed upon is the one that gives the best possible impression of “our actions”,”our country”, “us”.
The breakup of the Soviet Union represented the demise of Communism in Europe. Yet, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) which had been established to “defend” Europe against Communism, was not disbanded (why?) and the Great Divide persisted. Why? Why did we not throttle the growth of the monster that was quietly being groomed in our midst? Was there a real threat or was there something else going on? In 2021, Russian military expenditure was fairly modest, whereas the US controlled about 750 bases in at least 80 countries and spent more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. How could anybody imagine that Russia would wish or be able to threaten Europe with such puny means? Even in 2022, the country’s military expenses amounted to a mere 4% of global military expenditure, compared to the USA’s 39%.
Now a SIPRI headline from April 2023 reads: “World military expenditure reaches new record high as European spending surges”. Whom does this absurd military build-up benefit? Certainly not the population of Ukraine! Certainly not the populations of Europe!
The information war waged between the so-called blocks is no less terrifying: the battle for hearts and minds. Remember Vietnam? The Pentagon Papers and the persecution of Daniel Ellsberg? And that was just the beginning.
Before the breakup, during the first Cold War between what the West called Communist states and what so-called Communists called Capitalist states, the stories told on each side were grossly inaccurate. I happen to be familiar with both of them.
Take, for instance, DDR, East Germany, a country which is, with reason, indelibly linked in our minds with “repression”, “fear”, “Stasi”. With reason, yes, but we never heard the whole story. We will probably never know how misinformed we were, because East Germany is gone, subsumed into a greater Germany, and those who lived there have nothing but flighty memories to go by when evoking the past. The German writer Jenny Erpenbeck is one who recalls beautiful fragments of what is gone. True, even in the worst of places you find happy people, just as even in Beverly Hills there are lots of suicides. So I agree, fragments of memory are not reliable.
Analysing quality of life is no joke anywhere, let alone in an entire country, now non-existant, yet still reviled, both by the West and by the East. The only defenders of what was once East Germany are people who actually lived there.
If NATO “wins” Ukraine, as that horrible man at the top insists it will, will the Ukrainians weep for joy? Weep, they will, you may be sure.
The Great Divide runs not only between East and West, but straight down the middle of our societies, splitting families and friendships, spreading distrust, even hate — as welfare states are mangled by military budgets. And fear, yes, because the absurd contradictions imbedded in the concept of waging war as a deterrent to war confuse and frighten us. We suspect we’re being had. We all know that unless these spiralling excesses stop, there will be war for us all. We blame the Russians, but that does not make us feel better.
Formerly respected news outlets, which used to argue about political issues, now all clamour for more weaponry. All who try to paint a fuller picture of the situation are vilified, though I have not yet seen them referred to as “traitors” – just a question of time, you may be sure. Here is a short video explaining what happens to “the fuller picture“.
In short, I very much doubt that the press is much freer in the West than in Russia. In fact I suspect that here, the battle for hearts and minds (in short, indoctrination) has been more successful. Nevertheless it is growing ever more aggressive (in short, authoritarian), not least in the UK, which after Brexit appears to be accountable only to the US administration, not to the EU and certainly not to the British people.
Yep, artificial intelligence and Wikipedia have already met, I fear. Or are the automatons at work human? Diligent cancelists? At any rate, things are starting to happen, awful things reminiscent of noxious chemical reactions.
The other day, I looked up Helsinki Times in Wikipedia. The first paragraph read:
Helsinki Times is the first English language daily online newspaper in Finland providing news about Finland and the world for English-speaking readers resident in the country. A weekly printed edition was issued between 2007 and 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Times (as at 17 May 2023)
That sounded ok, The article went on to tell me that “notable guest columnists include ….” I looked up those I did not know, including Cynthia McKinney.
Wikipedia’s introductory sentence about Cynthia McKinney was:
Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is an American politician, academic, and conspiracy theorist [my emphasis].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinney (as at 17 May 2023)
Now I have no idea of what views are held by Cynthia McKinney, who is a member of the Democratic Party. Since she has served six terms in the House of Representatives, she must have served her voters well. She is sure to hold various views which you or I may or may not not share, but HONESTLY: Committing character assassination of Cynthia McKinney in the very first sentence of the Wikipedia article about her seems a bit over the top, no? I don’t know what “conspiracy theorist” views she holds, mind you: Wikipedia having rubbished her, I naturally read no further.
Is Wikipedia now a guardian of a modern “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” ( a list of written works condemned as heretical or injurious to the Christian faith by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1563)?
Who gets to define something as a conspiracy theory? It certainly isn’t anybody I know.
I am told that if you don’t believe the official story about the murder of JFK, you hold a conspiracy theory. I look up Lee Harvey Oswald in Wikipedia. The article is extremely long. It contains no doubts about the matter, no unanswered questions: The man was emotionally screwed, a defector to the USSR and he did it. He killed Kennedy. Alone. Period. In Wikipedia he is damned without a trial.
I read somewhere just the other day that 70% of the US population have doubts about that story; 70% of the US population are “conspiracy theorists”?
What is a conspiracy theory? Firstly, the expression is pejorative. If you hold conspiracy theories, you should get your head examined, and people you know will cross to the other side of the street when they see you. Conspiracy theories tend to 1) question the intentions of powerful institutions — say banks, the CIA, the President, the national health authorities, etc. 2) Their dissemination is deemed a “threat to Democracy”, to “national security”, etc.
It’s usually the mainstream press that gets to attach the bell to the cat, and the social media will immediately follow suit. The mainstream press does not need to pretend to be unbiased, on the contrary. It’s supposed to promulgate political positions. It might encourage debate on some issues – for instance, about the environmental benefits of electric cars – but conspiracy theories are above question, or should I say below question. They are so base, they must not be put on the table. They are simply trampled on.
Encyclopaedias, however, are supposed to hold certain academic, yea, scientific standards. They may present differing views about controversial issues, including the arguments supporting those views, but it is not for the encyclopaedist to make the final judgment unless the arguments on one side are particularly flimsy.
The arguments raising doubts about the official story of the JFK killing are not flimsy. In the last and very brief paragraph about Lee Harvey Oswald, sub-titled “Other investigations and dissenting theories” those arguments are, however, not presented. A couple of films are listed, presumably to lengthen the paragraph. Remember Oliver Stone’s film JFK? A rather compelling story, no? Too compelling, it would seem, because it is not among the films listed.
The JFK case was a long time ago, and principal players in that drama are long gone. But some lasting damage has been done: You and I know that we cannot believe everything we are told by presidents, government agencies and corporate spokespersons even though they earnestly look you straight in the eye from the TV screen. Had the US authorities not put so much effort into suppressing the “dissenting theories”, the damage would have been far greater.
And now we can no longer trust the intentions of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is, or rather was, our encyclopedia. We made it. Hundreds and thousands of us contributed painstakingly to its remarkable growth. True, we always knew that in the heat of a scuffle, some articles would be skewed. Who can blame a writer from an occupied state who is less than objective about the occupying country! However, since we all had access, we could edit, correct, and view the article’s history. We still can, of course, but with artificial intelligence, it’s a losing battle, I fear.
Today, I came across, once again, an important and well-sourced article in the Grayzone. Articles in the Grayzone tend to be a bit tedious, as they seek to adhere strictly to the source. They are not colourful, ironic or full of beautiful metaphors. They are simply dull, yet, sometimes extremely interesting. I was sure the Grayzone article satisfied journalistic and even scientific standards, so I gave Wikipedia a new chance. This is what I got by way of an introductory paragraph:
The Grayzone is an American far-left news website and blog founded and edited by American journalist Max Blumenthal. The website, initially founded as The Grayzone Project, was affiliated with AlterNet before becoming independent in early 2018. A fringe website, it is known for misleading reporting and sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes The Grayzone has denied human rights abuses against Uyghurs, promulgated conspiracy theories about Venezuela, Xinjiang, Syria and other regions, and promoted pro-Russian propaganda during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Grayzone has been described by Commentary as a propaganda shop devoted to pushing pro-Assad, pro-Maduro, pro-Putin, and pro-Hamas narratives. [My highlights.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone (as at 17 May 2023)
Wow! Kill, kill, kill. Is it really no longer possible to simply disagree with content? Does it have to be savaged?
Wkipedia appears to be rapidly descending into an artificial intelligence Hades from which there will probably be no return, unless the damage done is the work of diligent cancelist humans.
On the other hand, GPT chatbot is basically the child of Silicon Valley, which is basically affiliated with the Democratic Party establishment. So whether the automatons at work are digital or human, the ongoing editing of Wikipedia appears to bear the imprint of cancelist Dems.
Though the title may seem sensationalist, the contents of this profound and illuminating analysis are not.
If you prefer to just get a gist of what Jacob Siegel wrote, you can turn to Glenn Greenwald’s interview of him here. The video only starts after a few minutes. Drag the green dot to 9:35.
It is with great sorrow that I add, in case you didn’t know, that Glenn Greenwald’s husband David Miranda died this week at the age of 37. He was also, in his own right, a remarkable man.
David Miranda no longer knows pain, but Glenn Greenwald — an indefatigable champion of a free press and freedom of information — will undoubtedly continue to do so. I am sure there are many of us around the world who feel with him.
I shall be publishing the second part of Thorarinn Hjartarson’s analysis of the “Holdomor” narrative in a couple of days.
In the mean time you might take a look at an article that appeared yesterday in Helsinki Times. I was kindly informed about it by a friend in Poland. I gather press freedom is not much greater in Poland than it is in Norway these days.
By mistreating and possibly poisoning the prisoner Aleksej Navaljnyj, the Russian authorities are merely reinforcing the Western public’s perception that the concept of justice simply does not exist in Russia.
No matter what you or I think about Navaljnyj’s political views, he is not suspected of having killed anybody, or of having turned “customers” into helpless drug addicts or even of having raped a child. Such crimes, had he committed any of them, might have justified the nine-year prison sentence, with which he has been saddled. He has only been convicted of the sort of financial activities regularly committed with impunity by the filthy rich. Moreover, he is said to be kept, not in a “prison”, but in a “labour camp”, whatever that means.
Of course the Russian authorities have every reason to laugh – even guffaw – over Western sensibilities. I shall not even mention the innumerable school (and other mass ) shootings and deplorable health conditions in US America, merely limit myself to pointing out that you need not be in prison to get killed, one way or another. I do, however, want to stress that Western suppression of investigative journalists and whistle blowers is increasingly reminiscent of what has hitherto been considered more typical of Russia and China.
Suppression of fact, current or historical, is basically unsustainable. The suppressed fact will sooner or later catch up with the suppressor or his/her descendants. And there is no vouching for the good behaviour of those who have been duped.
Take military expenditure: According to Sipri, 2.2 percent of global GNP went to military expenditure in 2022. That’s quite a lot of money not being used on health services or education. 39% of that military expenditure was US American, 13% was Chinese and 3.9% Russian. A lot of people are being duped pretty seriously, wouldn’t you say? A lot of people are going to be, sooner or later, very very angry. But the Western powers have counted on the general public’s tagging along nicely, led by a nose ring.
Indeed, so far, the Western powers’ suppression of fact has duly had the effect of discombobulating and paralysing the general public.
It has also had the effect of turning Julian Assange into a martyr, a saint. Now I very much doubt that the long-suffering man ever intended or wanted to be considered a saint, but there you are. His name is emblazoned on banners and heads “Free Assange” petitions all over the world. Even The Guardian (a paper that in my opinion stabbed Assange in the back some years ago) acknowledges the importance of his case. It is, in fact, a test case. If Assange is convicted, Russia will rightly be able to say: You, the West, are no better than us.
But beware, Mr Lavrov: You are quoted as having rejected the notion that journalists do not commit crimes. While I always enjoy your elegant irony, I advise that you desist from antagonising journalists, be they Russian or Western. After all, there are journalists on this side of the ugly curtain who are doing their utmost to present an alternative to the prevailing US/NATO narrative about the Ukraine war. While they are not your allies, they are not your worst foes either. And while you may consider Navaljnyj a pain in the ass, he will not go away even if he dies. On the contrary, he will haunt the Russian authorities for years to come, if for no other reason because journalists on this side of the ugly curtain will find it less risky to revile your country than to revile their own. I am sure you can understand that.
Have you heard of “perception management”? Simply put, it means persuasion on the basis not of facts but of lies (or suppression of facts).
During the 1980s, Reagan decided to “kick the Vietnam syndrome“, a condition from which the US public was suffering, sick to the heart of the horror and shame of the Vietnam war, so that future presidents would find it very difficult to pursue the nation’s foreign policy goal of maintaining global hegemony.
In Reagan’s case, the challenge was to convince the US public to support US martial activities in Central America. As Robert Parry subsequently wrote (in 2014):
In that sense, propaganda in pursuit of foreign policy goals would trump the democratic ideal of an informed electorate. The point would be not to honestly inform the American people about events around the world but to manage their perceptions by ramping up fear in some cases and defusing outrage in others – depending on the U.S. government’s needs.
to weed out American reporters who uncovered facts that undercut the desired public images. As part of that effort, the administration attacked New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner for disclosing the Salvadoran regime’s massacre of about 800 men, women and children in the village of El Mozote in northeast El Salvador in December 1981. Accuracy in Media and conservative news organizations, such as The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, joined in pummeling Bonner, who was soon ousted from his job.
One solution involved imposing strict control over the movements of journalists. The government could no longer afford to allow – as it had in Vietnam – enterprising reporters to run around the battlefield, going wherever they wanted and speaking with whomever they pleased.
An important group targeted by perception management consisted of the many who were saddened and shocked by revelations of crimes against humanity. We have therefore been seeing, with increasing frequency, the waging of what Joseph Darda calls “humanitarian wars”. In his paper Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome Narrative: Human Rights, the Nayirah Testimony, and the Gulf War, he quotes George Bush, who in 1990 was preparing for yet another war:
With a war on the horizon, Bush took the proclamation [his own presidential proclamation designating December 10 as Human Rights Day] as an opportunity to situate the looming Gulf War in a human rights context. “In a world where human rights are routinely denied in too many lands,” he observed, “nowhere is that situation more tragic and more urgent today than in Kuwait.” Listing the atrocities reportedly committed by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait, Bush concluded, “As long as such assaults occur, as long as inhumane regimes deny basic human rights, our work is not done.” The Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait was not merely a threat to Kuwaiti sovereignty but also, Bush alleged, a threat to the sanctity of human rights everywhere. Americans could not feel secure in their own liberal rights until these rights were restored to the citizens of this small, oil-rich state in the Persian Gulf. Thus, the United States’ intervention in the Middle East was not really a war but, as Bush continually stressed that fall and winter, a unified “stand in defense of peace and freedom.”
Next, I quote someone who appreciated George Bush’s appeal to humanitarianism. On the face of it, he sounds like a humane fellow. Only the name of the source, (hoover.org) gives us pause:
The Bush administration made its case for military action, and, after considerable debate, the American people, through their representatives in Congress, gave approval. The administration also made its case to the United Nations, highlighting the damage that inaction would inflict on prospects for peace in the long term.
Although the dangers of careless military activism are easy to imagine, the cost of passivity is more difficult to discern. In the 1990s, the Vietnam syndrome helped delay and limit U.S. military intervention in the Balkans. Those delays and limits extended murderous Serbian repression and actually accelerated ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Failure to intervene militarily often permits humanitarian crises to continue and leads to more dangerous conflicts.
I have previously written about the bombing to kingdom come of Libya, a vicious NATO operation performed allegedly to protect demonstrators. This was definitely a case of successful perception management, since the public hardly raised an eyebrow at the devastation in NATO’s wake.
Of course, one very important reason to go to war is “self defence”. For some years now, the USA has been spreading its network of military bases in the Far East – obviously for “self-defence” (in case the humanitarian plight of the Uighurs fails to capture sufficient public sympathy). I quote Glenn Greenwald, mocking the self-defence rationale:
I was looking at a video earlier today of George Bush and others saying that the reason we had to go fight in Iraq and invade Iraq is that we’d rather fight them over there than fight them over here. And I saw a video earlier today of California Democrat Adam Schiff saying exactly the same thing about the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. Namely, the reason we must fight Russia over in Ukraine is that, if we don’t, we’ll have to fight them over here. Presumably, the Russian army is on the verge of attacking the American homeland right after it gets done trying to hold a town or two for more than three months in Ukraine, confident that it can conquer the American homeland, despite spending 1/15 in its military of what the United States spends.
https://rumble.com/GGreenwald (Sorry, I failed to take a note of the post)
More recently, “freedom and democracy” has supplanted humanitarian justification of destabilisation activities – bellicose or otherwise. During the Euromaidan Protests, Senator John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Chris Murphy visited Kiev to “show solidarity” to the demonstrators. McCain dined with opposition leaders, including members of the ultra right‐wing Svoboda Party, and later appeared on stage in Maidan Square during a mass rally. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Svoboda leader Oleg Tyagnibok.
John McCain — repeat: a US Senator — enthusiastically addressed the protesters — Ukrainian protesters in Ukraine, not in the USA:
Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better.
We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-ukraine-protests-support-just-cause (bold text is my highlighting)
He told CNN:
What we’re trying to do is try to bring about a peaceful transition here, that would stop the violence and give the Ukrainian people what they unfortunately have not had, with different revolutions that have taken place – a real society. This is a grassroots revolution here – it’s been peaceful except when the government tried to crack down on them, and the government hasn’t tried that since.
I’m praising their ability and their desire to demonstrate peacefully for change that I think they deserve.
Ibid (bold text is my highlighting)
Now, there is every reason to question how “peaceful” this so-called “peaceful transition” was. After all, quite a few protesters and some police officers were killed. We have been told that they were killed by officers defending (the Democratically elected) president Yanukovich. Apparently, the story is being compellingly disputed by Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist at the University of Ottawa, Ivan Katchanovski. Read the abstract of his paper and/or download it here.
However, his peer-reviewed paper has been ignored by mainstream media (which has proven its stalwart ignorance of late). It is truly quite fascinating. No less fascinating is the story of its suppression and the suppression of another of his papers, that of the 2014 Odessa massacre.
So! The final OPCW report appears to have been a cover-up. For what? Why? What/who killed the victims in Douma?
There are still nearly 1000 US troops in Syria. What are they doing there? Who is currently controlling Syrian oil? What are the effects on the Syrian population of US sanctions?
The regime change attempt in Syria was motivated and presented to the public as defence of human and civil rights. I put to you, though I cannot provide documentation — because investigative journalism is now becoming illegal in a growing number of “Democratic” countries — that the regime change attempt was largely orchestrated by the USA for reasons that are totally non-humanitarian. The result was death and devastation.
Please do not bring any more children into this world. I put to you that bringing children into the world now is turning into an act of parental egoism, the victims of which will be those same children.
Do you sometimes come out of a building and feel that the world outside is somehow unreal? Maybe if you have been very immersed in your work, or if you have seen an engrossing film or even just read a thrilling saga?
Recently, I have had that feeling almost every day, but not when I relocate between physical spaces. No, I am discombobulated by a sense of unreality every time I enter the space of – the enormous space of – mass media.
During Covid, we clung to mass media, not only for entertainment. Banned from the real world, many of us had to resort to laptops, mobile phones and TVs, to see a beach, cows in a field, and the delightful hubbub of a train station. We even turned to broadcasting outlets for comfort and reassurance.
In my country, the benign, familiar face of one of our news anchors would remind us every evening to maintain a two-metre distance distance, wash our hands thoroughly, and wear the mask properly. We would anxiously wait for the daily figures (remember the Worldometer?) – active cases, critical cases, deaths…. Almost every evening, the news included a brief lesson, such as “How to put on your mask”, “How to wash your hands”, “How to sneeze”, “What to do when you feel ill”.
In Norway, there was hardly any political opposition to government imposed measures regarding Covid. In fact, there was practically no political debate at all during the Covid regime.
We hoped, month after month after month, that it would soon end, that this was only a parenthesis in our normality, but it lasted for two years. Strictly speaking, it is still not entirely over. And we all know that it will happen again. And again.
Yet, we return with a vengeance to a semblance of normality, to a pretence of normality – to the realm of make-belief. News anchors are still telling us that everything is fine, except of course in Ukraine, but we will all do our bit to help Ukraine, and everything will soon be all right there too. Of the looming energy crisis in Europe, particularly in Germany and UK and of the numerous apocalyptic fires devouring hundreds of square kilometres (yes, kilometres, not acres) of forest, not to mention homes… hardly a word. As for the tension in South-East Asia – all China’s fault, of course, just as the war in Ukraine is all Russia’s fault – we choose to hope that justice will prevail, and justice is, of course, on our side. No doubt about that, at least.
There are doubts, though, fears even. Not about justice’s being on our side. We are, after all, like all human inhabitants, inculcated with certain values. (Inculcation is just a polite word for indoctrination – which, of course, is only practised by “Commies” (i.e. the Russians and Chinese). So justice is no doubt on our side, and we believe in progress, and just look at what science has accomplished, even in our lifetime.
Yet, something feels wrong, and definitely not right. Deep down, under our apparent complacence, there is angst. Everywhere.
Overnight, in my country, the mainstream press has become monolithic. Faced with a common enemy, Covid, the competing news outlets joined forces. Now that the threat of Covid may or may not be over, there are still threats, most notably that of Russia. Russia stands accused, and no news outlet or newspaper will allow the defendant to state his case.
As for the rest of us, we all know that the government is and has always been lying about the energy situation and about the urgency of the climate situation, yet, we put up with increasing militarisation, the theft of our hydroelectic energy and the refusal to seriously cut back emissions. Every evening, the benign, familiar face of one of our news anchors still tells us that everything is fine except for the people in Ukraine, and since most of us feel, for some reason or another, more kindly towards Ukrainians than to Syrians, we hope and believe that NATO’s defence of democracy and liberty will prevail.
