Exclusive: One danger of lying is that you must then incorporate the falsehood into the longer narrative, somehow making the lies fit. The same is true of propaganda as the New York Times is learning as it continues to falsify the narrative of the Ukraine crisis, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
In late February, a conference is scheduled in New York City to discuss the risk of nuclear war if computers reach the level of artificial intelligence and take decisions out of human hands. But there is already the old-fashioned danger of nuclear war, started by human miscalculation, fed by hubris and propaganda.
That possible scenario is playing out in Ukraine, where the European Union and the United States provoked a political crisis on Russia’s border in November 2013, then backed a coup d’etat in February 2014 and have presented a one-sided account of the ensuing civil war, blaming everything on Russia.
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 7, 2014. (U.S. State Department photo)
Possibly the worst purveyor of this Cold War-style propaganda has been the New York Times, which has given its readers a steady diet of biased reporting and analysis, including now accusing the Russians for a resurgence in the fighting.
One way the Times has falsified the Ukraine narrative is by dating the origins of the crisis to several months after the crisis actually began. So, the lead story in Saturday’s editions ignored the actual chronology of events and started the clock with the appearance of Russian troops in Crimea in spring 2014.
The Times article by Rick Lyman and Andrew E. Kramer said: “A shaky cease-fire has all but vanished, with rebel leaders vowing fresh attacks. Civilians are being hit by deadly mortars at bus stops. Tanks are rumbling down snowy roads in rebel-held areas with soldiers in unmarked green uniforms sitting on their turrets, waving at bystanders, a disquieting echo of the ‘little green men’ whose appearance in Crimea opened this stubborn conflict in the spring.”
In other words, the story doesn’t start in fall 2013 with the extraordinary U.S. intervention in Ukrainian political affairs spearheaded by American neocons, such as National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and Sen. John McCain nor with the U.S.-backed coup on Feb. 22, 2014, which ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych and put one of Nuland’s chosen leaders, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in as Prime Minister.
No, because if that history were included, Times readers might actually have a chance for a balanced understanding of this unnecessary tragedy. For propaganda purposes, it is better to start the cameras rolling only after the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from the failed state of Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
Except the Times won’t reference the lopsided referendum or the popular will of the Crimean people. It’s better to pretend that Russian troops the “little green men” just invaded Crimea and conquered the place against the people’s will. The Russian troops were already in Crimea as part of an agreement with Ukraine for maintaining the Russian naval base at Sevastopol.
Which leads you to the next paragraph of the Times story: “The renewed fighting has dashed any hopes of reinvigorating a cease-fire signed in September [2014] and honored more in name than in fact since then. It has also put to rest the notion that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, would be so staggered by the twin blows of Western sanctions and a collapse in oil prices that he would forsake the separatists in order to foster better relations with the West.”
That last point gets us to the danger of human miscalculation driven by hubris. The key error committed by the EU and compounded by the U.S. was to assume that a brazen bid to get Ukraine to repudiate its longtime relationship with Russia and to bring Ukraine into the NATO alliance would not prompt a determined Russian reaction.
Russia sees the prospect of NATO military forces and their nuclear weapons on its borders as a grave strategic threat, especially with Kiev in the hands of rabid right-wing politicians, including neo-Nazis, who regard Russia as a historic enemy. Confronted with such a danger especially with thousands of ethnic Russians inside Ukraine being slaughtered it was a near certainty that Russia’s leaders would not succumb meekly to Western sanctions and demands.
Yet, as long as the United States remains in thrall to the propagandistic narrative that the New York Times and other U.S. mainstream media outlets have spun, President Barack Obama will almost surely continue to ratchet up the tensions. To do otherwise would open Obama to accusations of “weakness.”
During his State of the Union address, Obama mostly presented himself as a peacemaker, but his one major deviation was when he crowed about the suffering that U.S.-organized sanctions had inflicted on Russia, whose economy, he boasted, was “in tatters.”
So, with the West swaggering and Russia facing what it considers a grave strategic threat, it’s not hard to imagine how the crisis in Ukraine could escalate into a violent clash between NATO and Russian forces with the possibility of further miscalculation bringing nuclear weapons into play.
The Actual Narrative
There’s no sign that the New York Times has any regrets about becoming a crude propaganda organ, but just in case someone is listening inside “the newspaper of record,” let’s reprise the actual narrative of the Ukraine crisis. It began not last spring, as the Times would have you believe, but rather in fall 2013 when President Yanukovych was evaluating the cost of an EU association agreement if it required an economic break with Russia.
This part of the narrative was well explained by Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, even though it has generally taken a harshly anti-Russian line. But, in a retrospective piece published a year after the crisis began, Der Spiegel acknowledged that EU and German leaders were guilty of miscalculations that contributed to the civil war in Ukraine, particularly by under-appreciating the enormous financial costs to Ukraine if it broke its historic ties to Russia.
In November 2013, Yanukovych learned from experts at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine that the total cost to the country’s economy from severing its business connections to Russia would be around $160 billion, 50 times the $3 billion figure that the EU had estimated, Der Spiegel reported.
The figure stunned Yanukovych, who pleaded for financial help that the EU couldn’t provide, the magazine said. Western loans would have to come from the International Monetary Fund, which was demanding painful “reforms” of Ukraine’s economy, structural changes that would make the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder, including raising the price of natural gas by 40 percent and devaluing Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, by 25 percent.
With Putin offering a more generous aid package of $15 billion, Yanukovych backed out of the EU agreement but told the EU’s Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Nov. 28, 2013, that he was willing to continue negotiating. German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded with “a sentence dripping with disapproval and cool sarcasm aimed directly at the Ukrainian president. ‘I feel like I’m at a wedding where the groom has suddenly issued new, last minute stipulations,” according to Der Spiegel’s chronology of the crisis.
After the collapse of the EU deal, U.S. neocons went to work on one more “regime change” this time in Ukraine using the popular disappointment in western Ukraine over the failed EU agreement as a way to topple Yanukovych, the constitutionally elected president whose political base was in eastern Ukraine.
Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, a prominent neocon holdover who advised Vice President Dick Cheney, passed out cookies to anti-Yanukovych demonstrators at the Maidan Square in Kiev and reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”
Sen. McCain, who seems to want war pretty much everywhere, joined Ukrainian rightists onstage at the Maidan urging on the protests, and Gershman’s U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy deployed its Ukrainian political/media operatives in support of the disruptions. As early as September 2013, the NED president had identified Ukraine as “the biggest prize” and an important step toward toppling Putin in Russia. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons’ Ukraine-Syria-Iran Gambit.”]
By early February 2014, Nuland was telling U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt “fuck the EU” and discussing how to “glue this thing” as she handpicked who the new leaders of Ukraine would be; “Yats is the guy,” she said about Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
As violent disorders at the Maidan grew worse with well-organized neo-Nazi militias hurling firebombs at police the State Department and U.S. news media blamed Yanukovych. On Feb. 20, when mysterious snipers apparently firing from positions controlled by the neo-Nazi Right Sektor shot to death police officers and protesters, the situation spun out of control and the American press again blamed Yanukovych.
Though Yanukovych signed a Feb. 21 agreement with three European countries accepting reduced powers and early elections, that was not enough for the coup-makers. On Feb. 22, a putsch, spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias, forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.
Remarkably, however, when the Times pretended to review this history in a January 2015 article, the Times ignored the extraordinary evidence of a U.S.-backed coup including the scores of NED political projects, McCain’s cheerleading and Nuland’s plotting. The Times simply informed its readers that there was no coup. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.”]
But the Times’ propaganda on Ukraine is not just wretched journalism, it is also a dangerous ingredient in what could become a nuclear confrontation, if Americans come to believe a false narrative and thus go along with more provocative actions by their political leaders who, in turn, might feel compelled to act tough because otherwise they’d be attacked as “soft.”
In other words, even without computers seizing control of man’s nuclear weapons, man himself might blunder into a nuclear Armageddon, driven not by artificial intelligence but a lack of the human kind.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
The Chief of Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko, is saying […] on Thursday January 29th, that the only Russian citizens who are fighting in the contested region, are residents in that region, or of Ukraine, and also some Russian citizens (and this does not deny that perhaps some of other countries’ citizens are fighting there, inasmuch as American mercenaries have already been noted to have been participating on the Ukrainian Government’s side), who “are members of illegal armed groups,†meaning fighters who are not paid by any government, but instead are just “individual citizens†(as opposed to foreign-government-paid ones). General Muzhenko also says, emphatically, that the “Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian army.â€
In other words: He is explicitly and clearly denying the very basis for the EU’s sanctions against Russia, and for the U.S.’s sanctions against Russia: all of the sanctions against Russia are based on the falsehood that Ukraine is fighting against “the regular units of the Russian army†— i.e., against the Russian-Government-controlled-and-trained fighting forces.
The allegation to the effect that Ukraine is instead fighting against “regular units of the Russian army†is the allegation that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has invaded Ukraine, and it is the entire basis for the economic sanctions that are in force against Russia.
Those sanctions should therefore be immediately removed, with apology, and with compensation being paid to all individuals who have been suffering them; and it is therefore incumbent upon the Russian Government to pursue, through all legally available channels, restitution, plus damages, against the perpetrators of that dangerous fraud — and the news reports have already made clear precisely whom those persons are, who have asserted, as public officials, what can only be considered to be major libel.
Otherwise, Ukraine’s top general should be fired, for asserting what he has just asserted.
If what General Muzhenko says is true, then he is a hero for having risked his entire career by having gone public with this courageous statement. And, if what he says is false, then he has no place heading Ukraine’s military.
Ukrainian Government: “No Russian Troops Are Fighting Against Usâ€
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/ukrainian-government-russian-troops-fighting-us.html
To: Abe
Thanks for being fair towards my writings!
This note is just to let you know I am not using a pseudonym: this is my real name. See, 33 years ago, at the age of 33, I defected from “Communist” Bulgaria to “Democratic” Belgium. After the equally extensive experience with Communism and Democracy, and a long career of executive in the microelectronics industry I came to the conclusion I need to fear nothing and noone. Besides, as just about everybody has learned by now, Nomenklatura (of any color and any label) IS watching us all the time. So, I do not care – and since a long, long time – and am neither afraid not ashamed to speak my mind and declare my name in the open.
This is probably going to explain why I consider myself dissident – today, as well as 33 years back – and call for change of the political system, as outlined in the papers about Nomenklaturocracy and Revolution within Democracy. I believe change is inevitable and therefore my plea is to the intelligent people of this world to organize for conducting it by peaceful, democratic means thus avoiding violence, chaos, damage, victims and civil war. And we are running out of time…
Apologies for my error, Mr. Daraktchiev.
In “Understanding Ukraine” you mention the Ukrainian politician Lazar Kaganovich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazar_Kaganovich who supervised the implementation of many of Stalin’s economic policies, including rapid industrialization and the agricultural collectivization policy that caused a catastrophic 1932–33 Soviet famine.
Short rerun of the script for Ukraine
(from “Explaining Ukraine” https://www.academia.edu/6847478/Explaining_Ukraine)
The title of that script – should someone decide to run it in a drama theater – would be “Double hijacked revolution, accelerated by Washington’s money.†Indeed, from point of view of the Nomenklaturocracy concept things are clear. Look at the narrative (starting point = 10 years after the Lirst abuse of popular discontent in 2004, a.k.a. “orange revolutionâ€):
†despite high expectations, 20+ years of “democracy†yields sinking in poverty for the majority of the population, rampant corruption by the ruling “elite,†debilitatingâ€aimed reform of once nearâ€perfect education system, a whole generation brainwashed into consumerism… all very similar to the situation in the neighboring countries, including those already pranking EU membership (Romania, Bulgaria…)
†popular discontent with the Nomenklaturchiks of all colors is grown to the level of startâ€off of a revolution that is brewing against ALL Nomenklatura, in order to bring in People Power
†foreign investment (US$ 5B courtesy of Victoria F.E.U. Nulland + Unknown number from German “donors†+ ??? from ??? “friendsâ€) buys a bunch of powerâ€hungry Nomenklaturchiks who call themselves “opposition†(opposition to what?) to stir up (and pay for) protests against the legitimate president (one of the top Nomenklaturchiks; still democratically elected and empowered) who is desperately trying to save the country from bankruptcy
†protests look impressive; however, in a country of 46 million a few protests of a couple of hundred thousands – make it a million – is some 2% of the nation; and many wouldn’t bother to come were they not paid for it plus transported to the venue; protests proceed peaceful and orderly
†in order to achieve its purpose, the protest management (the “opposition†that hijacked the revolution in order to use the popular unrest for the sole purpose to become Ministers and Presidents themselves) brings the thugs in
†the armed bandits take over, start violence – for the incitement of which the “opposition leaders†should be held accountable as well – and a true riot breaks out
†US and EU cheer in support of the neoâ€Nazi bandits!!! Some of the – hitherto blind for the realities – people wake up and withdraw from the streets
†Takeover of the Parliament results in installment, at gun point, of “new government†and “new parliament†– all illegitimate, yet quickly recognized as the new “leaders†of Ukraine by the US President himself, while the democratically elected President who has been the negotiating partner with the EU just a few weeks ago, and who has not resigned or died was discounted simply because he went in hiding
†In another part of town the new “leaders†claim they need to be given the funds that should save Ukraine – i.e. we are back to the starting point. And delivery is not in sight because there was no money to start with: promises for money ain’t the same thing as cash! And the people of this world started to ask “How come we (US, EU) always support the nasties while trying to portray them as goodies?†For it’s not easy to talk about popular revolt when you show on TV neoâ€Nazis with guns and Molotov cocktails in violent attacks against the forces of law and order of a legitimate government which in fact has been way too lenient versus illegal actions against the public order. Despite all the bias that “the investing party†and its subordinates from MSM et. al. emanate, people at large still use their brains, especially those associated with the alternative media
†Autonomous Crimea votes for secession and requests ascendance to Russia
†Those who (mistakenly) believe they have the right to give orders to the people (of Crimea) go to the drawer with math equations and pick up Putin = BG. With that plaque in hand, smart looking and sounding speeches follow
†All servile media applauds
†Russia (Putin) is unimpressed
†After some air hisses out of the hot air balloon, the chapter is closed
†In the rest of Ukraine – certainly the whole Eastern half – people realize they are stuck with the foreign stooges relying on neoâ€Nazi bandits, imported “advisors,†mercenaries and snipers, who have in essence hijacked their revolution… and they decide to seize the momentum: the true Ukrainian revolution (Part 2) unravels
†With a little help from our friends, we shall overcome: that is the Leitmotif of the revolutionaries, I believe. And “friends†does not limit itself to Russia – all honest, dignified, independentâ€minded people of this world should lend support to the cause of Ukrainian people who do not want to become slaves of IMF, EC, EU, US and their subcontractors
†to be continued…
Conclusion
The campaign in Ukraine is simply part of the ongoing US proxy war for the vast resources of Russia – nothing more, nothing less. Of that very same proxy war, stages of which have been so many places and nations – real ones! – that happened to be a barrier, one way or another: Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia and its derivatives, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Baltic republics… you could name at least as many more. This aggressive policy of the US and NATO is accompanied by empty rhetoric without any relevance to the facts of the matter; NATO itself has lost the justiLication and the purpose of its existence and should have been dissolved by the time its adversary, the Warsaw Pact, has selfâ€dissolved. The US Nomenklatura and its accomplices of the EU Nomenklatura plus the responsible ones on the part of the ofLicial media should one day be held accountable for all their crimes against humanity.
The Light against NWO is picking up momentum but attaining victory will require united effort by all dissident groups internationally. Ukrainians’ Light today is simply a part of the worldâ€wide opposition against NWO. They may not necessarily realize this but they intuitively know where their better future resides. In fact we are all into it, whether we like it or not, and each must take a stand.
Carroll Price, who extols the virtues of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the comment above, apparently likes to rail online against “International Judaism” and the “Zionist elite”.
See http://www.unz.com/comments/commenter/Carroll+Price/
Hasbara (Hebrew: הַסְבָּרָה‎ hasbará, “explainingâ€) propagandist trolls strive to discredit websites, articles, and videos critical of Israel and Zionism.
Hasbara tactics of deception include:
1) accusing anyone who offers legitimate criticism of Israel or Zionism of being “anti-semiticâ€, and
2) deliberately posting incendiary comments with links to “anti-semitic†and “Holocaust denial†material.
These smear tactics have intensified due to the ever-increasing Israeli military aggression and outright racism, as well as Israel’s collusion with the United States in regime change projects from the Middle East to Eastern Europe.
Readers of Consortium News are alert to these deceptive tactics.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire for Ukraine. Russia gave them cheap gas on credit. Now the west will loot the Ukraine
To Charles – and everybody else, actually:
The reason of your dissent is that you do not have the necessary in-depth knowledge about Ukraine and Ukrainians. In that regard, it would help you to read the article at https://www.academia.edu/6847478/Explaining_Ukraine; it is sufficiently concise to avoid too much time invested yet it provides enough depth to get the essentials clarified. Or so I hope.
Or so I hope.
I fear your hope is misplaced. First, I tried to make a page search for some names. Wouldn’t work.
Ok, I’ll download the PDF. Facebook wouldn’t recognize the login in two browsers.
Finally, I tried cut/pasting to get the text so I could use a word processor to look for the stuff I wanted.
$,- #+,2P7%*#$ -.$ 8Q /$*2$%’ )%&4/*+# -.$#’$/0$’ )*-%+&-‘ <.+/$ $0$%5&,$ <.& L+6.-' -.$# *%$ ,*-+&,*/+'-' M+:$: D3/&&25 3*2 6"5'ENI *' -.+' -5)+4*//5 .*))$,' &, -.$ '&+/ &7 -.$ D3/&&25 3*2 6"5'E +- +'
Gibberish! Was this stuff so ‘hot’ that these levels of protection were necessary?
Now in quite a foul mood, I skimmed the piece for things I might easily verify. “Lazar Kaganovich” was claimed to be a major factor in the Ukraine Famine, and the bastard was a Ukrainian!
Consulting my copy of the 1984 Senate hearings on the Ukrainian famine, I found his name mentioned only 3 times. The guy was a bit player in the famine.
So it appears to me that missing out on the download wasn’t a bad deal for me after all.
Nice write-up!
Note: Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research. In order to access content on the site you must register to create an account and become a Member.
Apparently the commenter is a Bulgarian who is using the pseudonym “Ivan Daraktchiev” to point out the hypocrisy of Ukraine’s anti-Russian “nationalism”.
In addition to his article “Understanding Ukraine,” I recommend the author’s “Nomenklaturocracy, or what exactly was Orwell right about” https://www.academia.edu/4439386/Nomenklaturocracy_or_what_exactly_was_Orwell_right_about
Launched in 2008, Academia.edu now has over 16 million registered users as of 2014. The platform can be used to share academic papers, monitor their impact, and follow the research in a particular field. Membership is free.
There is no other reason. Our foreign diplomats are unbelievable stupid assholes
Are you really citing a rigged election as evidence of popular support for the Russian annexation of Crimea?
Pew Research Center: “Despite Concerns about Governance, Ukrainians Want to Remain One Country” (MAY 8, 2014):
“Crimean residents are almost universally positive toward Russia. At least nine-in-ten have confidence in Putin (93%) and say Russia is playing a positive role in Crimea (92%). Confidence in Obama is almost negligible at 4%, and just 2% think the U.S. is having a good influence on the way things are going on the Crimean peninsula.
International attention has focused on Crimea in large part due to the March 16th referendum on seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia. According to the reported results, most of the Crimean residents who participated voted for secession. However, the legitimacy of the referendum has been hotly disputed, and few in the international community have accepted the outcome.
For their part, Crimeans seem content with their annexation by Russia. Overwhelming majorities say the March 16th referendum was free and fair (91%) and that the government in Kyiv ought to recognize the results of the vote (88%).”
http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/
The NYT of course has been a tool of the State since the ’50’s.
Thew simple, no-brainer way of determining the level of lies is if they enable comments or not.
I want to sound a small note of dissent here.
Yes, the New York Times is engaged in state propaganda and, yes, the U.S. provoked a dangerous game of brinksmanship against an adversary that will not yield. But there is a substantial part of Ukraine that does want to be free of Russian influence and that’s because of the long and brutal Russian history in Ukraine, including the mass deaths under Stalin’s partially artificially-created famine.
In the U.S. interventions in Venezuela, it’s clear that there’s majority support for the government that the U.S. wants to overthrow. But in Ukraine, the situation is much more ambiguous. If the U.S. clearly stated its goals–which probably include taking over Ukraine’s oil and agriculture by western companies–there would be majority opposition. But as it is, there probably is majority support for ending Russia’s historical control of Ukraine and re-orienting toward the west. So, the U.S. intervention may be welcomed, even if it almost certainly is not benign.
So, I agree that how one views this depends on where one starts the narrative. If one starts it in 1917, one could come to a different conclusion. It’s important to keep that perspective, that this is not a case of one good and one bad outside power meddling in Ukraine, but of two bad outside powers wreaking havoc on a weak state for geopolitical purposes.
And, yes, since the U.S. and Western states are what we can influence, we should focus on changing their bad behavior.
But as it is, there probably is majority support for ending Russia’s historical control of Ukraine and re-orienting toward the west. So, the U.S. intervention may be welcomed, even if it almost certainly is not benign.
You have a lot of qualifiers there – “probably”, “may be”, and “almost certainly”.
And you didn’t mention that Ukraine has been an independent nation since 1990. Nuland spoke of the $5 billion dollars “invested” in the Ukraine, but that didn’t have the desired result. So the West went with a violent coup. Worse, it used as an instrument the local pond scum – Ukraine Nazis.
Although the Ukraine military has failed miserably, the Imperial West continues to throw money and weapons and “training” at the nation. Who are they training? My guess is that there is about to be a rash of terror attacks by the Ukraine Nazis.
I do hope I’m wrong with that guess.
Right, the Ukrainians hate the Russians so much that they ELECTED Yanukovich.
It’s an overly simplistic view. First, a couple of historical notes: the 1932-33 famine affected the Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakh parts of the Soviet Union and was caused by “collectivisation”. Millions of Russians died as well, so certainly it was not directed against a particular ethnic group. Second, let me remind you that this happened in the Soviet Union, which had many Ukrainians in governing positions and was ruled by an ethnic Georgian. To say that Russia was brutal towards Ukraine is mere non-sense as they are so closely related that it’s hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. They have the same origin (‘Kievskaya Rus’) and they have been part of the same country for centuries. Essentially all Russian families have relatives in Ukraine and vice versa.
This makes the Ukrainian crisis all the more painful for all the parties involved. Mismanagement and corruption in Ukraine in the last 20 years impoverished people to the extent that they would follow any lunatic who promises change. The crisis was instigated by the neocons who wanted new resources and military bases on the border with Russia. Now we have what we have: Ukraine in tatters with blood-thirsty gangs in power and no light at the end of the tunnel…
Posted for Bryan Hemming: The NYT is not alone in playing its role as ventriloquist’s doll for the warmongers of Washington and London. The Guardian’s Shaun Walker seems to have been sitting on the lap of the CIA since the conflict in Ukraine began. Unfortunately for him, some of us can see his operator’s lips move.
The powerful position of MSM has reached the height of brainwashing similat to what I have lived through in WW II under the Nazi occupation in The Netherlands. What happens today equals psychological war fare against Ruforeign policyssia and its leaders under US geopolitical ambitions or colonization foreign policy.
The bad part is that also the anti-Russian sentiments is on the rise although Russian people are peace loving people who like everywhere on this globe want to live in peace, have a job, raise their children.
But apparently some aggressive, stupid , power hungry ego maniac Neocons in Washington will not allow and will even risk WWIII to try to get Russia to its knees but powerful China, India will defend Russia.
ANDREW E. KRAMER
I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to find out about one of the authors, and have had no luck at all. The fellow has no wiki and no biography I can locate.
His stories are “truth-challenged”, but is that his doing or his editor’s? Much is left out if its absence enhances the Official Story, but sometimes unexpected material appears. At the very end of the article under discussion is this:
If one were to ask the remaining residents of Donetsk, even those who have been loyal to the Kiev government, whether they supported this new rebel advance, they would say yes, Mr. Menendez said — and not necessarily for political reasons.
“They just want to push the front lines out of the city,†he said, “to stop the shelling on them.†”
That happens to be the plain truth. So what is it doing buried in a bunch of near-lies?
From all accounts Putin wants to force the rebels back into the Ukraine, albeit with many more rights. The Ukrainians and their Imperial backers have no interest in this happening – the purpose of the agitation in the Ukraine is to harm Russia, and you can’t do that as well if there is peace. So the Ukraine has been slaughtering the civilians in the rebel cities within reach of its artillery.
Putin may or may not care about the rebel civilians, but he has to pay heed to public opinion back home in Russia. So I’d wager he has given the rebel fighters enough material support to drive away the Ukrainian army. One account I read said that a Brigade Commander was captured, and just about all of his 600 troops were killed in the fighting for the airport.
Still an opinion, but I suspect the Russians have decided that the West has gone crazy, as in completely bonkers. I further expect Russia’s future behavior is going to reflect that view, so things may get even uglier.
The New York Times is no longer an objective news reporting organization. That’s why I cancelled my subscription. And that’s what I encourage everyone to do.
The NYT has accused Russia (multiple times with NO proof whatsoever!), of sending thousands of stealth troops across open pastures to invade Ukraine. The invasion was so stealth -it was invisible. Even the herds of sleeping dairy cows didn’t bother to wake up, or move over, so all the invisible tanks and troop carriers could pass through.
What can we expect from the NYTimes? Decent coverage of restaurants, some good movie reviews, and average coverage of American politics.
Since 2001, the Times has marched to the militaristic and manipulative beat of American mega-capital. Demonization of secular leaders in unstable areas seems to be the calling card of this cabal of media and money. Sounding the Manichaean trumpet against Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, and Putin has been awarded to the NYTimes because of its remarkable history. Unfortunately “truth-to-power” has been replaced by “sycophancy-to-power” in global matters. No attempt is ever made to present the counter-arguments of the powers they look to destabilize.
And look where it’s got us. Very smart, NYT, very smart !
Having been brought up and educated on the Times, it grieves me. It really does.
Given our history of pulling the rug out from any national leader who doesn’t suit our dreams, this report doesn’t surprise me. We seem to believe that the world is our oyster and we can do anything that suits us.
There is great difficulty today in finding news/reports/journalism in which we can believe.
“…believe that the world is our oyster and we can do anything…”
And until someone soundly beechslaps the US down, this perception will continue unabated. That day is inevitable – and well earned…unfortunate for the innocents caught in the crossfire.
“unfortunate for the innocents caught in the crossfire.”
Alas, there are no innocents in this country today as there were no innocents in Germany and in the whole of Europe in 1930s. As rational beings we are in mortal sin when we don’t develop our mental power to the limits. Closing our minds is crime punishable by annihilation.
Based on conversations over the past year with friends and acquaintances – generally smart and informed persons – the false narrative is firmly entrenched. I’ve largely given up on trying to discuss any of these issues once I’ve ascertained an anti-Russian bias, because the conversation quickly turns angry and defensive. The demonization of Putin over cultural issues – gay rights and Pussy Riot – has proved very very effective, and a lot of people who should know better are ready to believe the worst regarding Russia and the Ukraine.
True Jaycee.
Big Lies repeated enough get most people to believe them. The power of repetition works.
Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin forthrightly accused US of “playing an instigator’s role” in Ukraine conflict.
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2015/01/22/514805baseless-accusations-of-russian-troops-in-ukraine/
Well what is interesting is that your friends will bring up Pussy Riot and Gay Rights, which I do believe are behind in Russia, for sure, but I would say for your friends to look at the glowing words from American (and western) politicians for the recent death of the Saudi King – Saudi Arabia being a brutal dictatorship that has public executions, you can be executed just for being gay, has oppressive rights for women and opposes any dissent in the country at all (not too mention funding terrorism in the Middle East etc.). So I would say to your friends that they need to open up their eyes to the blatant hypocrisy in our media and by our politicians.
Here are links to a few articles which are more truthful about the death of King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia (plus check out the article on Consortium News) from the Intercept which is run by Glen Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill etc.
The Intercept: “SAUDI ARABIA’S TYRANT KING MISREMEMBERED AS MAN OF PEACE” (January 23, 2014):
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/23/saudi-arabias-king-misremembered-man-peace/
The Intercept: “COMPARE AND CONTRAST: OBAMA’S REACTION TO THE DEATHS OF KING ABDULLAH AND HUGO CHÃVEZ” (January 23, 2014):
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/23/compare-contrast-obamas-reaction-king-abdullah-hugo-chavez/
I like demonization of Putin. He is against gays, he is homophobe, he is new Hitler, he must be want to conquer Europe, he is Satan. Yeah, iron logic.
So why didn’t you include it’s inappropriate for Putin to take up perfectly good oxygen someone else may need?
You are stupid bastard! Yeah, iron logic.