Putin & Trump and Journalists

Tue Mar 21 17:41:08 CDT 2017

Russia Times is like the WORST. Anybody who cashes a check from those
bozos is suspect, in my opinion.

Basically, anybody insisting "there's no THERE there" about Russia is
full of shit at this point. The evidence is overwhelming that Trump
has a ton of shady goings-on with Putin/Russia (those two being
interchangeable at this point) and Russian organized crime/oligarchs
(those two being interchangeable at this point). And NO, I don't say
this to "deflect attention from Hillary's shortcomings as a
candidate", or out of some "suicidal urge to spark thermonuclear
conflagration" or whatever other idiotic bullshit Glenn Greenwald,
Jacobin, Chris Hedges, WikiLeaks, or the alt.left have to say about
it.

J.

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 8:03 AM, Allan Balliett
<allan.balliett at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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-aftermath-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/middleeast/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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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l