Weergaven
It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the elimination of dissent in the mainstream.
Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the US and Britain.
On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously declared, “The medium is the message.” The lie is the message now.
But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream.
The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave.” He was referring to independent journalists and whistleblowers, the honest mavericks to whom media organizations once gave space, often with pride. The space has been abolished.
The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, “shaping the narrative,” much if not most of it is pure propaganda.
The Russians are coming. Russia is worse than bad. Putin is evil, “a Nazi like Hitler,” salivated the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia—tonight, this week, next week. The sources include an ex-CIA propagandist who now speaks for the US State Department and offers no evidence of his claims about Russian actions because “it comes from the US Government.”
The no-evidence rule also applies in London. The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who spent £500,000 of public money flying to Australia in a private plane to warn the Canberra government that both Russia and China were about to pounce, offered no evidence. Antipodean heads nodded; the “narrative” is unchallenged there. One rare exception, former prime minister Paul Keating, called Truss’s warmongering “demented.”
Truss has blithely confused the countries of the Baltic and Black Sea. In Moscow, she told the Russian foreign minister that Britain would never accept Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh—until it was pointed out to her that these places were not part of Ukraine but in Russia. Read the Russian press about the buffoonery of this pretender to 10 Downing Street and cringe.
This entire farce, recently starring Boris Johnson in Moscow playing a clownish version of his hero, Churchill, might be enjoyed as satire were it not for its willful abuse of facts and historical understanding and the real danger of war.
Vladimir Putin refers to the “genocide” in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Following the coup in Ukraine in 2014—orchestrated by Barack Obama’s “point person” in Kyiv, Victoria Nuland—the coup regime, infested with neo-Nazis, launched a campaign of terror against Russian-speaking Donbas, which accounts for a third of Ukraine’s population.
Overseen by CIA director John Brennan in Kyiv, “special security units” coordinated savage attacks on the people of Donbas, who opposed the coup. Video and eyewitness reports show bussed fascist thugs burning the trade union headquarters in the city of Odessa, killing 41 people trapped inside. The police are standing by. Obama congratulated the “duly elected” coup regime for its “remarkable restraint.”
In the US media, the Odessa atrocity was played down as “murky” and a “tragedy” in which “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) attacked “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal damned the victims—“Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says.”
Professor Stephen Cohen, acclaimed as America’s leading authority on Russia, wrote:
“The pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa… reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War II. … [Today] stormtroop-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other ‘impure’ citizens are widespread throughout Kyiv-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s…
“The police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neo-fascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kyiv has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorializing Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms…, renaming streets in their honor, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.”
Today, neo-Nazi Ukraine is seldom mentioned. That the British are training the Ukrainian National Guard, which includes neo-Nazis, is not news. (See Matt Kennard’s Declassified report in Consortium News on February 15.) The return of violent, endorsed fascism to 21st-century Europe, to quote Harold Pinter, “never happened… even while it was happening.”
On December 16, the United Nations tabled a resolution that called for “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism.” The only nations to vote against it were the United States and Ukraine.
Almost every Russian knows that it was across the plains of Ukraine’s “borderland” that Hitler’s divisions swept from the west in 1941, bolstered by Ukraine’s Nazi cultists and collaborators. The result was more than 20 million Russian dead.
Setting aside the maneuvers and cynicism of geopolitics, whomever the players, this historical memory is the driving force behind Russia’s respect-seeking, self-protective security proposals, which were published in Moscow in the week the UN voted 130-2 to outlaw Nazism. They are:
These amount to a comprehensive draft of a peace plan for all of post-war Europe and ought to be welcomed in the West. But who understands their significance in Britain? What they are told is that Putin is a pariah and a threat to Christendom.
Russian-speaking Ukrainians, under economic blockade by Kyiv for seven years, are fighting for their survival. The “massing” army we seldom hear about is the 13 Ukrainian army brigades laying siege to Donbas: an estimated 150,000 troops. If they attack, the provocation to Russia will almost certainly mean war.
In 2015, brokered by the Germans and French, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France met in Minsk and signed an interim peace deal. Ukraine agreed to offer autonomy to Donbas, now the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Minsk agreement has never been given a chance. In Britain, the line, amplified by Boris Johnson, is that Ukraine is being “dictated to” by world leaders. For its part, Britain is arming Ukraine and training its army.
Since the first Cold War, NATO has effectively marched right up to Russia’s most sensitive border having demonstrated its bloody aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and broken solemn promises to pull back. Having dragged European “allies” into American wars that do not concern them, the great unspoken is that NATO itself is the real threat to European security.
In Britain, a state and media xenophobia is triggered at the very mention of “Russia.” Mark the knee-jerk hostility with which the BBC reports Russia. Why? Is it because the restoration of imperial mythology demands, above all, a permanent enemy? Certainly, we deserve better.
John Pilger is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and author. Read his full biography on his website here, and follow him on Twitter: @JohnPilger.
April 25, 2023
The much ballyhooed Ukrainian 'counteroffensive' is destined to fail its purpose of severing Russia's supply line to Crimea and to liberate 'occupied territory'. The Biden administration has finally recognized this and is out to lower expectations and to preemptively blame everyone but itself.
The first to be briefed was Politico:
Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive
Behind closed doors, the administration worries about what Ukraine can accomplish.
The New York Times joined in:
Ukraine’s Spring Offensive Comes With Immense Stakes for Future of the War
Without a decisive victory, Western support for Ukraine could weaken, and Kyiv could come under increasing pressure to enter serious peace talks to end or freeze the conflict.
From the Politico piece:
Publicly, President Joe Biden’s team has offered unwavering support for Ukraine, pledging to load it up with weapons and economic aid for “as long as it takes.” But, if the impending fighting season yields limited gains, administration officials have expressed privately they fear being faced with a two-headed monster attacking it from the hawkish and dovish ends of the spectrum.One side will say that Ukraine’s advances would’ve worked had the administration given Kyiv everything it asked for, namely longer-range missiles, fighter jets and more air defenses. The other side, administration officials worry, will claim Ukraine’s shortcoming proves it can’t force Russia out of its territory completely.
That doesn’t even account for the reaction of America’s allies, mainly in Europe, who may see a peace negotiation between Ukraine and Russia as a more attractive option if Kyiv can’t prove victory is around the corner.
The Times offers less drama:
While Ukrainian officials have said their goal is to break through dug-in Russian defenses and create a widespread collapse in Russia’s army, American officials have assessed that it is unlikely the offensive will result in a dramatic shift in momentum in Ukraine’s favor.Ukraine’s military faces many challenges — one reason that a stalemate remains the most likely outcome. Fighting in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine this winter has drained ammunition reserves and led to heavy casualties in some experienced units.
Back to Politico which draws the bigger picture. If Ukraine proves incapable of doing what the Pentagon had planned for it it will be pushed into a 'ceasefire' which is hoped to become a permanent solution. The Biden administration will then leave the Ukraine issue behind and fixate on its next big target - China:
Biden and his top aides have publicly stressed that Zelenskyy should only begin peace talks when he is ready. But Washington has also communicated to Kyiv some political realities: at some point, especially with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, the pace of U.S. aid will likely slow. Officials in Washington, though not pressing Kyiv, have begun preparing for what those conversations could look like and understand it may be a tough political sell at home for Zelenskyy.“If Ukraine can’t gain dramatically on the battlefield, the question inevitably arises as to whether it is time for a negotiated stop to the fighting,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s expensive, we’re running low on munitions, we’ve got other contingencies around the world to prepare for.”
“It’s legitimate to ask all these questions without compromising Ukraine’s goals. It’s simply a question of means,” Haass said.
Neither Ukraine nor the supporting NATO countries have the means to extend the war. The original, archived Politico piece read:
The fighting has taken a toll on the Ukrainians as well. Fourteen months into the conflict, the Ukrainians have suffered staggering losses — around 100,000 dead — with many of their top soldiers either sidelined or exhausted. The troops have also gone through historic amounts of ammunition and weaponry, with even the West’s prodigious output unable to match Zelenskyy’s urgent requests.
The corrected later version replaced 'dead' with 'casualties'. While the first version was a nearly correct but too low count the new version is far off the mark. The total casualties are a multiple of 100,000.
Still - the Biden crew knows that the end is coming:
U.S. officials have also briefed Ukraine on the dangers of overextending its ambitions and spreading its troops too thin — the same warning Biden gave then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as the Taliban moved to sweep across the country during the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021.
Zelensky has, like Ashraf Ghani, made enough money from the war and is expected to silently move out. But for now it seems unlikely that he is willing to do so.
The alternative to giving up is for the U.S. to escalate again by putting boots on the ground. But Biden wants to win his reelection fight and any further escalation of the war in Ukraine would likely prevent that.
Posted by b on April 25, 2023 at 11:23 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/biden-prepares-to-give-up-on-ukraine.html
De Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) schrijft in zijn jaarverslag dat 2022 een grimmig jaar was. Rusland voert oorlog, China streeft naar wereldheerschappij en tegelijkertijd is een steeds grotere groep rechts-extremisten in Nederland ervan overtuigd dat een kwaadaardige elite aan de touwtjes trekt. Maar of die groep bereid is om geweld te gebruiken, is nog maar de vraag, aldus directeur-generaal Erik Akerboom.
Hij stelt dat het lastig is om een indicatie te geven van hoe groot de kans is, of hoe groot de groep is die in staat is om zich tot geweld te zetten. En dat is een zorgelijk beeld, zegt Akerboom. Temeer omdat Rusland zijn hand er niet voor omdraait om invloed uit te oefenen. 'De Russen zullen geen mogelijkheid nalaten om olie op het vuur te gooien,’ zegt Akerboom in gesprek met verslaggever Martijn de Rijk. 'Dat zijn we gewend. Maar we zien in andere Europese landen dat dat duidelijker gebeurt, omdat er ook een ander sentiment is.’
https://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/politiek/10510136/aivd-china-wil-machtigste-land-ter-wereld-worden
Erik Akermans, toen ik dit aan een goed geïnformeerde bevriende Amerikaanse journalist vertelde schoten wij beiden onmiddellijk in de lach, want met evenveel recht kan ik beweren dat uw, laten we het schatting noemen, lachwekkend laag is, want er zijn, schrik niet, vele miljoenen burgers die totaal geen vertrouwen meer hebben in de politieke- en bestuurlijke ‘elite’ die met een kadaverdiscipline achter de NAVO aan marcheert, of die de kloof tussen arm en rijk almaar laat toenemen, of die betrokken is bij weer een of ander nieuw schandaal, die opnieuw het onvermogen dan wel de corruptie van ‘de boven ons gestelden’ blootlegt. Het is altijd de elite die als laatste ontdekt dat er vóór hun ogen iets fundamenteel is fout gegaan, en u, meneer Akermans behoort nu tot die ‘elite.’ Ik heb sinds de Vietnam-oorlog autoriteiten zoals u zien opereren en ten val zien komen omdat ze ‘de elite’ bleven beschermen en daardoor domweg niet konden zien wat de motieven waren van fatsoenlijke burgers die steeds meer walgden van de officiële politiek. De werkelijkheid zit veel complexer in elkaar dan u kunt beseffen. Als laatsten zullen u en uw dienst beseffen wat er daadwerkelijk speelt. De Amerikaanse Westcoast Band Buffulo Springfield zong hierover in ‘For What It's Worth’ toen de meeste jongeren wisten dat er een omwenteling plaatsvond, maar de autoriteiten steeds krampachtiger de uitgeholde instituten bleven verdedigen. Dit is de strekking van de tekst van Stephen Stills:
There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware…
Everybody look, what's going down?
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind…
Everybody look, what's going down?
What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and they carrying signs
Mostly say, ‘Hooray for our side’ […]
Everybody look, what's going down?
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY
Omdat de Europese elite, net als in de jaren zestig, opnieuw in ganzenpas achter Washington en Wall Street aanloopt, en de belangen van het westers ‘militair-industrieel complex’ de belangen van de burgers laat schenden, is van ultieme importantie niet de kant te kiezen van de gevestigde orde. De alom gerespecteerde Amerikaanse senator J. William Fulbright wees in verband hiermee in 1966 in zijn boek The Arrogance of Power op het gevaar van de Amerikaanse naïviteit met betrekking tot zowel het Amerikaans overzees imperium als de stupide houding van de elite tegenover de eigen bevolking:
There are two America’s. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern super-patriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.
Precies dezelfde ‘arrogantie’ zien we nu terug in de westerse aanname dat ‘we Rusland een lesje gaan leren in Oekraïne,’ zoals het Nederlandse kabinet in navolging van Washington overal rond bazuint. Zelfs nu nog, terwijl de Russische troepen het Oekraïense leger vakkundig heeft gedecimeerd. De overtuiging dat het Westen de Russische Federatie binnen drie maanden economisch zou vernietigen en op die manier een regime change in Moskou zou forceren, om aansluitend ook China eens ‘een lesje’ te leren, blijkt niets anders te zijn geweest dan hoogmoed van de witte man, een feit dat zelfs hoge leidinggevende Amerikaanse militairen beseften, en daarom voorkwamen dat de NAVO-strijdkrachten werden ingezet. ‘No Boots On The Ground,’ zo gold in het Pentagon waar men door de ervaringen met alle recente verloren oorlogen wisten dat de VS niet langer met massaal geweld zijn wil aan de rest van de wereld kan opleggen, en zeker niet in Azië, waar de VS al zo vaak het onderspit delfde, en waar 70 procent van de mensheid leeft. De wereldbevolking heeft genoeg van de ‘Amerikanen,’ en dit betekent ‘Yankee Go Home,’ de slogan waarmee ik als adolescent opgroeide, en nu meer dan een halve eeuw later werkelijkheid wordt. Precies dit is waarvoor Fulbright waarschuwde toen hij schreef:
We have tended in the years of our great power to puzzle the world by presenting to it now the one face of America, now the other, and sometimes both at once. Many people all over the world have come to regard America as being capable of magnanimity and farsightedness but no less capable of pettiness and spite. The result is an inability to anticipate American actions which in turn makes for apprehension and a lack of confidence in American aims.
In diezelfde tijd verwoordde eveneens Martin Luther King het besef dat het Westen een fundamenteel andere koers moest gaan varen. In zijn beroemd geworden toespraak 'A Time to Break the Silence' in de New Yorkse ‘Riverside Church' sprak hij op 4 april 1967 de voor mijn generatie onvergetelijke woorden:
We have no honourable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain social stability for our investments. This tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru. Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment...
In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.' It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, 'This is not just.' The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say of war: 'This way of settling differences is not just.' This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
