Putin & Trump and Journalists

[Allan Balliett]

Back on the WHITE HELMETS thread

I ran across this on the Russian Times site this morning (Can anyone vouch
for or condemn Russian Times as a  news source?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBxgZot3U74&feature=em-uploademail

A rather chaotic news report by evening news standards, but I must say I
was taken back by how presentable Assad is in this report.

-Allan in WV

On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 5:27 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <
thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:

> One more longish comment which I want to get off my chest, then it is back
> to short replies and Pynchon- or Pynchon-related stuff. Thank you rich and
> Joseph Tracy for your thoughtful comments.
>
> Am 28.01.2017 um 13:24 schrieb ish mailian:
>
> >The suffering, the murder of countless children of women, of men, the
> >destruction of property, of the good earth, its waters and plants and
> >beasts, the waste of resources and monies, the fractioning and
> >sullying of cultures and peoples is far worse than the propaganda
> >reports.
>
> And:
>
> >It doesn't seem to make sense since all sides are out to exaggerate the
> >war crimes of their enemies while making themselves out as saviors or
> >at least on balance the better devils in a battle that must be waged.
> >This war is not merely a figment of mass propaganda and mass media
> >simulations. It is not a war game. It is not rhetoric and images. The
> >rhetoric, the images, the mass media feeds from embedded propagandists
> >paid for with Western greed and US Empire, do not exceed the
> >real-world suffering and barbarism. This is not a chessboard of
> >deterrence where pivots and real-politic are the real war, what's
> >really going on. What's goin on as Marvin Gay says, is that, "there's
> >too many of us dying."
>
> Are you saying, in so many words, that propaganda is not important because
> it is only images and words whereas the suffering in war is real? Implying
> that there is no connection between propaganda and war? If so, I honestly
> don't know what to say.
>
> We are talking about specific actions. In my opinion, it would be
> impossible to uphold the official narrative about events in the Ukraine and
> in Syria if certain facts were known, that is, if the mainstream media were
> doing their job. They are not doing their job, they don't want to, for
> reasons one may well speculate about, and this is made easier for them by
> specific propaganda outlets that have intentionally be put in place in
> order to promote the Western narrative and suppress other points-of-view.
> These media outlets include the White Helmets (funded with at least one
> hundred million dollars by Western governments and promoted as "heroes"),
> the Aleppo Media Center (funded by the French government) and the Ukrainian
> Crisis Media Center (funded by NATO, the US embassy in Kiev, the NED and
> George Soros' International Renaissance Foundation, amongst others --
> follow the money, as the wise man said). Most Western media receive their
> information only through these embedded media outlets.
>
> Embedding media outlets in the opposition groups of the country you want
> to destabilise in order to bring about regime change is a rather
> sophisticated means of perception management / propaganda / manufacturing
> of consent. David Atlee Pillips would be proud. In the final analysis, what
> the White Helmets peddle is, of course, good old atrocity propaganda:
>
> "Atrocity propaganda is a term referring to the spreading of deliberate
> fabrications or exaggerations about the crimes committed by an enemy,
> constituting a form of psychological warfare. The inherently violent nature
> of war means that exaggeration and invention of atrocities often becomes
> the main staple of propaganda. Patriotism is often not enough to make
> people hate, and propaganda is also necessary. 'So great are the
> psychological resistances to war in modern nations", wrote Harold Lasswell,
> "that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing,
> murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to
> hate.'"
>
> Wiki, "Atrocity propaganda"
>
> Old, simple and obvious but surprisingly effective. Children work best.
>
> What is new, at least in terms of the meticulous preparation that went
> into it, is that the information/propaganda is attributed to "citizen
> activists" on the ground.
>
>
> In this case, I have suggested that Western governments have created, in
> the form of the White Helmets and the Aleppo Media Center, a propaganda
> apparatus within the ranks of the insurgents in Syria and in particular
> eastern Aleppo specifically for the purpose of peddling atrocity propaganda
> to the Western mainstream media, and that the Western mainstream media have
> uncritically forwarded to the public whatever "activists", "citizen
> journalists" and "citizen first responders" told them. This was presumably
> intended to prepare the ground for more robust Western action up to the
> establishment of a NFZ. I will come back to this.
>
>
> But first, some more specifics (I will not be able to avoid lapsing into
> polemics/cynicism  -- which you will have to excuse):
>
> As Patrick Cockburn pointed out in the article that rich thankfully has
> linked to, there have been no independent journalists in eastern Aleppo for
> fear of having their heads cut off by Western supported "moderate rebels".
> Interesting.
>
> Still, the Western media portrayed the insurgents as victims of a barbaric
> attack by Russian and Syrian bombing, even though the most powerful faction
> in eastern Aleppo was Al-Nusra -- i.e. Al-Qaida who are supposed to be our
> foremost enemy because of 9/11 -- and the US have shown no compunction
> whatsoever with regard to bombing al-Qaida-members, their relatives and
> some unrelated wedding parties through the years.
>
> (There is a cognitive dissonance at work here that you can drive several
> tanks through. Right to the Russian border. As is happening right now.)
>
> To be sure, there were also moderate rebels in eastern Aleppo. These were,
> in breach of the international law which was oh so important in the case of
> Crimea, rather openly supported by the US. There is, for example, the
> Al-Zinki militia. Some members of which, I repeat, beheaded a child, on
> camera, with a small knife:
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/20/fighters-from-us-
> backed-moderate-syrian-rebel-group-filmed-cutti/
>
> You are aware of this "incident" (Mark Toner), no? If not, ask yourself,
> why not.
>
>
> The Western mainstream media never reported that the White Helmets were
> founded and trained by a former British military intelligence officer. You
> certainly were aware of this? If not, ask yourself, why not.
>
> You are surely aware of the fact that the White Helmets, who are said to
> be "fiercely independent" and impartial, only work in territory held by the
> insurgents? If not, ask yourself, why not.
>
>
> You have heard about the aid convoy that was supposedly attacked from the
> air. This happened rather conveniently shortly after the US broke an
> armistice negotiated, which is interesting in itself, between the US and
> Russia by "mistakenly" attacking the Syrian army, killing about a hundred
> soldiers and effectively acting as the Daesh air force.
>
> A White Helmet member, who just happened to be there when the aid convoy
> was attacked, told us all about it -- while being filmed by a camera man
> who also just happened to be there:
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/sep/20/syria-af
> termath-of-airstrike-on-un-aid-convoy-video
>
> US officials immediately claimed that Russia was the culprit:
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/20/un-aid-convoy-
> attack-syria-us-russia
>
> Everybody was enraged. Had the Russians committed a war crime? Surely they
> had.
>
> General Dunsford (proving once again that satire is dead): "I don’t have
> the facts. There is no doubt in my mind that the Russians are responsible."
>
> You have certainly heard about the attack on the aid convoy. It was
> frontpage news everywhere. Have you also heard about the report of the UN
> team that was charged with investigating the incident?
>
> Here is the summary of the report:
>
> https://dpa-ps.atavist.com/summary-of-un-headquarters-board-
> of-inquiry-report
>
> What does it say? The Russians didn't do it, the Syrians probably did do
> it, but are for various reasons cleared from the allegation of having
> committed a war crime. One country claimed that it did not have enough time
> to provide satellite imagery for the investigation. This was probably the
> same country that claimed it had proof that Russian sparatists/federalists
> in eastern Ukraine had shot down MH-17 but refused to provide the satellite
> imagery.
>
> You are aware of this UN report, no? If not, ask yourself, why not.
>
>
> >The barbarism of Assad and Putin is far worse than anything
> >that has been reported by  anyone thus far. How do I know this?
>
> Good question. How do you know this?
>
>
> If the people in the West were aware of the fact that their governments
> fund, arm and train neo-Nazis in Ukraine (this is official, David Morris at
> least had the balls to state that he thinks funding neo-Nazi militias is
> okay if it helps to spread freedom and democracy and oppose the Russian
> threat) and Al-Qaida in Syria (presumably only by proxy) and consciously
> let ISIS grow (according to John Kerry and the DIA memo) in order to bring
> about the desired regime changes, they just might begin to ask questions.
>
> I happen to naively believe that the media has the responsibility to make
> the people aware of these facts.
>
> But you just have to compare the NYT's take on Kerry's remarks to the
> members of Syrian opposition groups with the full transcript to see that
> our trusted liberal media consciously lie by omission:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middlee
> ast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html?_r=0
>
> What? No mention of this:
>
> "The reason Russia came in is because ISIL was getting stronger. Daesh was
> threatening the possibility of going to Damascus at some point and that’s
> why Russia came in. Because they didn’t want a Daesh government and they
> supported Assad. And we knew that this was growing, we were watching.
>
> We saw that Daesh was growing in strength and we thought Assad was
> [indecipherable]. We thought however, that we could probably manage that
> Assad might then negotiate. Instead of negotiating, he got Putin to support
> him."
>
> Is this an admission that the US let ISIS intentionally grow in order to
> put Assad under pressure? I should think so, especially if I read the DIA
> memo alongside Kerry's remarks.
>
> But why is there a military alliance of several Western states engaged in
> Syria? That's right, because they want to fight ISIS.
>
> I will spell it out: The West let IS grow, let them behead and crucify
> whoever they wanted to, because the first and foremost goal was regime
> change in Syria.
>
> Not to mention that regime changes are blatantly illegal under
> international law anyway...
>
>
> >It's a slippery slope that Thomas has veered onto here because his
> >analysis implies that the dying and killing, the barbarism of Putin
> >and Assad can't be measured or condemned because there is no truth we
> >can count from, no truth we can stand on. Who knows what's goin on?
> >There's too many of us dying. We know this much is true.
>
> "Brother, brother..."
>
> "Barbarism" is Samantha Powers' propaganda term. All we have is
> international law and the UN, however compromised both may be. Russia's
> actions in Syria are in accordance with international law, like it or not.
> The US and its allies are not acting in accordance with international law
> in Syria. Kerry himself has pointed this out in the conversation quoted
> above.
>
> The important thing on the propaganda level was therefore to manufacture
> consent about Syria and Russia committing war crimes as opposed to
> conducting a "normal war" -- like presumably the US and its allies do
> (Cockburn rightfully pointed to Mosul for comparison of the reporting).
> This is where the White Helmets and their atrocity propaganda became
> important.
>
> Riding on the propaganda wave, Clinton thought the time had come to
> establish a unilateral NFZ which would have been illegal and, again
> according to General Dunsford, would have provoked war with Russia:
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/11/west-must-
> confront-russia-over-aleppo-syria-emergency-commons-debate-to-hear
>
> This is how dangerous organisations like the White Helmets are. They just
> might bring about nuclear winter.
>
>
> But you are certainly right in that this is a slippery slope: If we cannot
> trust the liberal mainstream media any longer, to whom do we turn for
> truthful reporting, for discerning facts from propaganda? After Ukraine I
> am afraid that, basically, we are on our own.
>
> That the American people elected an habitual liar (not to mention a racist
> and misogynist) to be their President surely does not help. But at least it
> seems that WW III has been deferred.
>
> What more can one ask for?
>
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> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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