Let’s be clear, today freedom of speech is facing the worst crisis since its global acceptance as an empirical ethical rule in the west. Whether the citizens of Europe accept that due to dire circumstances, the ban on several informative Russian media outlets and the unscrupulous tagging of fake news or pro Russian outlet on anyone who is opposed to the Western-centric explanation of this war, this does not negate the fact that the MSM (Main Stream Media) is not correctly or honestly reporting the situation to their own populations. Journalism is not about crediting a position but reporting the facts and Main Stream Media has been failing consistently to do that. This failure may be apparent only today (even though it seems apparent to only a part of the population) but its premises date from decades ago and in the case of Ukraine, the most visible cracks appeared during the Orange Revolution when Main Stream Media definitively took a position in this fateful year of 2014 when the Democratically elected government of Ukraine was ‘cancelled’ by a ‘revolution of the people’. Revolutions do happen and sometimes unfortunately it is the only way available to reset the clocks. However when you do a revolution or for that extent when you support one, you have to take the responsibility for the counter events that this revolution will inevitably produce. We know the story; parts of Ukraine did not accept the new realities that this so called revolution of the people has created. Crimea and the Donbass reacted negatively to the events of the Maidan since they considered it as a Hijack of their votes (a common occurrence these past decades in Ukraine and something strangely accepted in the West as a proof of democracy) and thus anyone conscious of democracy should accept or at least understand their automatic reflex. The Western Press has consistently failed to adequately report the Russian point of view and ignored completely the following murderous actions of the newly installed regime of Kiev against its own population in the East of Ukraine. Much to the contrary unfortunately as each time Ukraine expressed a new excess against ‘democracy’ or unleashed extreme violence against the Donbas and did even more, this insanely corrupt country was hailed as a beacon of Democracy and forgiven the murders, the artillery pounding, the unacceptable rape, the attacks against the fundamental rights of the population etc,etc.
If the dynamics controlling the Main Stream Press allow this distortion of the facts, then many having followed the Ukrainian Crisis since the beginning almost a decade ago, have been stunned by the immediate emotional response of the western population as soon as the hostilities started. The question that everyone having a true grasp of the situation was asking was how this kind of emotional response had never before been shown in response to the 8 year long plight of the people of the Donbass? This strange situation prevails up to this day where the World and the United Nations scream about supposed atrocities committed by Russian Forces with War Crimes being levelled against Russia while a religious absolution is given to Ukraine when it is caught lying, killing and behaving hysterically. Did RT, Sputnik News and the other Press agencies in Russia fail to raise the attention regarding the situation in Eastern Ukraine? The guilt here does not belong with RT or Sputnik News because they certainly did their part, putting as many documentaries and information out as they could for almost a decade now. In the Donbass reporting on the constant shelling of the population, there were several independent journalists present from Western Europe and America who covered the situation professionally and are still to this date doing an excellent job of true journalism on the frontline. Many of these journalists have found their blogs banned on YouTube and their articles tagged as fake news or Russian propaganda.
We have a situation today where Russia is losing a war, not on the ground as many would hope but the Information War and activists and citizens having any interest in the freedom of the press and human rights, should be extremely concerned and not underestimate the negative impact that in the long run this situation will have created. Russian authorities will have a tremendous work in Public Relations to reverse this situation in the West or maybe they will change focus and concentrate their media campaign on the population of the countries that have supported them instead. It will all depend of how much Russia will deem important the winning of hearts in the west. We may dislike the manipulation technique of MSM but one must admit that succeeding making the whole planet believe that the population of Mariupol supported the Ukrainian regime at any given time of the conflict is simply grand propaganda art while selling a fascist, racist, extremist armed unit like the Azov Battalion as ‘Courageous, Virtuous ‘Defenders’ of this city can only be considered as a master piece of Manipulation. Going against the steam roller of Main Stream Media for anyone would equate in military history as charging armoured vehicles with lances and spears, something that Polish people have heard about( Poland has also been extremely active in the information war and is pouring unverifiable accounts of the situation continuously on a daily basis). The worst insult is the BBC and CNN selling to the world that the Ukrainian propaganda organ the Kiev Independent is some sort of reliable source of empirical truth. The purpose of this article is not to propose an alternative to the public relation campaign of the media in the Russian Federation but they will have to rethink their strategy and they will have to do that quickly. It is not either our intention to analyse why a large part of the population is incapable of logical and impassioned analysis of an international crisis which could easily degenerate into an existential threat. Historians have wondered what more than seven decades of communism has done to the population of Russia in terms of their view of the world but Russian specialists in the information war and diplomats to that extent should take in consideration the potential damage of the constant ‘Hollywoodian’ propaganda of the west concerning Russia which is always portrayed as this cold bad guy.
The ban on RT and Sputnik News reveals a terrible reality that the population of the west has not perceived yet. Someone could resume the evolution of the opinion framework of a human being as simply as that. Most of us are born in a family cell or entourage who inculcate us with their basic values and religious beliefs, once we join an education system these values are challenged or confirmed as education gives us the ability to make informed choices, that is how it works. But today Western governments are telling to their public that ‘Despite the fact that we gladly trust you to vote for the best candidate in a national election, we do not trust in your intellectual abilities to distinguish fake news from true ones’. We do not think you are able to analyse the situation so we will do it for you, we will ban what is dangerous for the ‘greater good’. Are we supposed to accept that whether we support Ukraine or not? The purpose of this article is to see there still exists some common sense in Main Stream Media and if here and there, there is still an effort to perform true Journalism.
It is a War and as an online newspaper, we found ourselves in the middle of the confrontation whether we like it or not and for us, retrieving the correct information is both a matter of ethics and survival. Statistically it is absolutely impossible that all the journalists in MSM share the same opinion and as in any conflict, there will be dissidence. In the case of the reporting on the Ukrainian armed conflict, we notice two main form of dissidence in the western press, direct and indirect dissidence.
Before going into the details, let’s answer this first fundamental question. Why even bother? If the west has already taken a position, what is the point, they are not asking to be convinced of the contrary to that which is being sold to them, they are looking for the confirmation of their judgment. It is extremely tedious for someone close to the Russian point of view on the events occurring to read MSM or to browse YouTube. One of the most troubling assertions of main stream media being that Ukraine is winning, YouTube is awash with those claims as well as the poor performance if not the debacle of the Russian army. Let’s try here to be the most basic possible for the most intellectually challenged to understand. When you are losing part of your territory and your army is retreating from positions it previously occupied, when your aviation is the shadow of what it has been, no, you are not winning and from any side that you look at it, you are losing and in a pathetic way with that. In fact this article is addressed to those who are desperate and tired of the ones coming from MSM and why despite all the nauseous reflexes that someone educated could or should have reading the BBC or watching CNN, we must continue to watch and comment on their actions as ultimately, it is the only way to challenge them.
Indirect dissidence is the most difficult to spot. During the Cold War, some people transferred information through scientific articles, habitually due to the heavy scientific and technical terminologies it passed censorship as the censor wrongly attributed the article to let’s say a cosmological phenomenon rather than the description of the functioning of a military device for instance. It is certainly the most difficult dissidence to identify and identifying authors of such articles could be problematic to them and ultimately shut down the information source. Direct dissidence is much easier to deal with though certainly not devoid at all of danger.
We could choose a lot of publications to illustrate our point of view but we chose The National Interest @ https://nationalinterest.org This publication boasts in it’s About- Us page of having for almost three decades, displayed a remarkable consistency in its approach to foreign policy. One thing is sure during the whole duration of this particular conflict which has lasted too long already, the National Interest has consistently demonstrated its support to the Ukrainian regime with one sided analysis. Evocative titles like ‘Should America seek to Humiliate Russian In Ukraine’ where an emotionally hysterical Melinda Haring posing as a leading foreign affairs analyst continuously advocates arming Ukraine to the teeth, insisting on the fact that Ukraine is not only winning but that all the risks are fair, even the one of a nuclear conflict, one that the aggressive hawks rate at only at 5 percent possibility of arising. Taking time to proceed to an analysis of what she said during the hour long debate with William P. Ruger, the President of the American Institute would equate to trying to decrypt the screams of a hysterical chicken about to get its head cut off as a wise statement on foreign policy; therefore to say that the National Interest is certainly a publication that one can point at as having no sympathy towards the Russian Federation. Some articles forcibly hail the fact that some of the Russian military hardware it is indeed excellent but this is a very rare occurrence. However as the ‘Art of War’ teaches anyone who is prepared to put in the time to read it, knowing your adversary is of far more value than only knowing your friends and allies. The fake propaganda that the Western powers accuse Russia of propagating revolves mainly around the reasons that the Russian Federation and its president Vladimir Putin invoked to justify the intervention of the armed forces in Ukraine. They are by now well known. Russia states that she has been forced to intervene to stop the harassment of the population of the Donbass by the Authorities of Kiev to avoid misunderstanding and harassment which in this instance means; murder, rape, artillery barrage, death squads etc. The second reason invoked was that the behaviour of Ukraine and her decision to accede to the status of NATO Membership raised unacceptable security concerns for the Russian Federation and thirdly, Russia insisted that one of the most destabilizing elements in the Ukrainian society was the Ultra Nationalists who had infiltrated the political decision making of the government and were controlling the Neo-Nazi units in the country. All these reasons have been flatly qualified as Russian Propaganda and those who dare to pretend to the contrary know what the price to be paid on social media is. On the 4 May 2022, Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defence and foreign policy and a contributing Editor at the National Interest wrote an article titled ‘Ukraine Is a Russian Vital Interest and Moscow will behave Accordingly’. Galen in his article debates the possibility of Russia making use of nuclear weapons in the conflict. If the article has this surrealist tone of Nuclear Armageddon, Galen proceeds to qualify the ‘Max Boot’ missive of May 2 in the Washington Post and the attitude of Speaker Pelosi pleading for the necessity to humiliate Russia and win this war during her visit to Kiev with the deeds of individuals who, quote ‘..do not seem to comprehend that Ukraine is a vital Russian security interest…. “. When he adds that “ …The failure to understand just how important Ukraine is to Russia caused Western leaders to disregard Moscow’s warnings over more than a decade against making Kiev a NATO member or an informal ally.” Ted Galen even adds “…For the same reasons, they seem to be making an even more generous blunder by ignoring the Kremlins dire warnings if NATO uses Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia”. This is a clear admittance of the legitimate security concerns of the Russian Federation. The author admits shyly that’ “However, nations have genuine vital interests, and greats powers will do almost anything to prevail in such situations” and less shyly, “Ukraine occupies an importance to Russia comparable to Canada’s or Mexico’s importance to the United States. Preventing Ukraine from becoming a NATO military pawn is of the most vital interest to Russian leaders”. If there is something that someone can take out of reading the whole article, it is that the claims of security concerns were not Russian propaganda or paranoia after all but is something that their American counterparts accept and understand. The student of human behaviour will find it interesting as to why the author would define Ukraine in an alliance with NATO as a ‘Pawn’ and not more respectfully as an ally?
We have to stress that we are not saying in any way that these authors are kind of pro-Russian, we are only concentrating on the information they have written about and which appeared in a publication known for its pro-Ukrainian alignment. However it seems that the suspicions of Ted Galen Carpenter about Ukraine are not new, on August 30 2021 while the bulk of the worldwide partisans of Ukraine were not even aware of the existence of such a country, he wrote in the National Interest ‘Ukraine: Washington’s Bellicose Security Client’ and quite frankly the man was certainly looking in a crystal ball while writing this piece as the author stipulates in the Article that “….Treating Ukraine as an ally creates serious and growing perils for the American people…’. He assesses the democratic values attributed to Ukraine as doubtful writing that “…The key assumptions under grinding U.S policy towards Ukraine are faulty. Burgeoning authoritarianism rather than a commitment to democracy mark Kiev’s internal governance and the country’s foreign policy is alarmingly bellicose towards its much larger, more powerful neighbour, Ukraine is both and unworthy and dangerous partner for the US.” If the language here is not sufficiently clear to credit the suspicion of Ultra Nationalism or the presence of Neo Nazis in Ukraine, the following sentence makes no doubt that Ukraine’s penchants were definitively obnoxious. “Although Ukraine’s domestic trends are troubling, far more worrisome is the leadership’s jingoistic rhetoric and policy positions regarding Kiev’s relation towards Russia”. He went on, arguing that this development should be more than a matter of academic concern for the US. Also important to remember is how he notes that the aggressive military demonstrations of Kiev should be taken seriously reminding that in the spring of 2021, Kiev began to deploy troops and tanks near Crimea for military drills and that Russia countered with a large scale troop movement. The author hailed the fact that cooler heads prevailed adding that Crimea and the adjacent area remain worrisome flashpoints. He was prophetic as the flashpoint has turned into a fire which risks in turn escalating into a conflagration. As we said, the man does not seem to be a fan of Ukraine. In June 2021, he even said that Kiev’s democratic image is thoroughly tarnished and no amount of polish that Ukraine’s passionate lobbyists in the West try to apply can alter that reality. And he is not alone…
Brendan Flynn currently lectures on international relations at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and we found only one article credited to him in the National Interest. He wrote on April 20 2022, ‘America’s Interest in Ukraine is not what you think’. Flynn states bluntly that the United States primary security interest in Ukraine is a stable relationship with Russia. His article is taxed with the necessity of resetting the US – Russia relationship which has deteriorated because of a series of bad decisions and fraught policies. On March 8 2022, Sumantra Maitra, an elected early career historian member of the Royal Historical Society, said in the heat of an international public debate on whether or not impose a No Fly Zone over Ukraine in a written and signed article for the National Interest, “Enforcing a No Fly Zone in Ukraine Would be Catastrophic . He writes “A No Fly Zone is not a gentleman’s agreement that aircraft will not fly over a particular territory. Rather it is a declaration by one side that another side’s aircraft will be shot down if they enter a designated airspace”. The author touches the heart of the problem higher in his article saying that “...since an informed public is key to sound American public policy, it is important to understand what a No Fly Zone would require…” An informed public is what has been missing not only in the United States but in Europe and for that matter, all over the world. The public worldwide has been eager to comment, participate and debate about the situation in Ukraine and that can be only an excellent and healthy thing and maybe we are even assisting at the slow difficult birth of what will be revealed to be a true democratic participation of the public in politics but that is another debate entirely. On Social Media, supporters of the Russian cause very often point the finger at those who stands with Ukraine accusing them of total ignorance and incapable of putting things in their true context. Is that true and more importantly, fair? Who can blame the man living in say, Costa Rica for not knowing anything more about Ukraine apart from its Geographic Location? We are not speaking here about education, the man could be a fireman or an accountant, people have priorities in life and one would more happily use his free time for his children or hobby instead keeping up with an obscure geopolitical crisis situated thousands of kilometres from where you live. The fireman is doing both his job and duty ensuring that your assets and life are safe, on the other hand the duty of a journalist is to provide accurate information that helps the fireman build an opinion of the situation.
Can we also blame the public for still retaining a certain level of trust towards their local and national media? It is fundamental to understand that the psychological aspect of this situation has been largely dismissed. For once, the public also thought or felt in phase with their government’s with a ‘Just cause’ and a heroic President at the head of a determined and courageous nation against a well defined bad guy. For once, their governments seemed to do the right thing after all these terrible unjustified wars of the past decades, after the lockdown and all the unpleasant events of the past years so they could rise for once, hand in hand with their government and their press supporting an unjustly invaded innocent democratic country. The guilty ones are unscrupulous journalists as well as ignorant and corrupt politicians. The most enervating part remains the fact that the shift of Ukraine from a corrupt racist failed state to a vibrant democracy has been deliberately engineered to fool the people and create the emotional response. There has been a deliberate cover up from the BBC, CNN and mainstream Media in general when they ignored the thousands of deaths inflicted by their Ukrainian champions on the people of the Donbass. Far from being a stupid analyst Maitra observed that “….. It is crucial to remember that thus far in Ukraine, Russia refrained from Using its best assets, and the top tier Russian Air Force has stayed out of action.” One must understand that the people we are quoting are much more worried about US National Security rather than espousing in anyway the Russian cause. On March 18 2022, the same author signs an article with the evocative title “ The Perils of Emotional Arguments for Intervention In Ukraine”. He explains there clearly that “ A new poll showed that American support for a no fly zone plummets when respondents are told what a no fly zone means the U.S military will shoot down Russian military planes flying over Ukraine, possibly triggering a war between the U.S and Russia” . Once again, education of the people is key and we pointed out who should have done that. How then can we explain that an ignorant American public must be explained to at the last minute, the realities of a no fly zone? Sumantra Maitra was himself part of the 78 experts who signed an open letter opposing a No Fly Zone in Ukraine. How come we journalists around the world have allowed it to come to that? Where the population has became so ignorant that it is willing to take the risk of committing such a suicidal act. Do not get us wrong, once again if you place these articles into their context, they heavily condemn Russian actions and is not our intention to distort the real meaning of what the different authors wrote but nevertheless, the information that one can deduce from such articles is extremely relevant. Ironically, may be or maybe not, Maitra remarks “ If there is one glaring similarity between Zelensky and Churchill, it is that Zelensky understands as much as Churchill that dragging the United States into a potential world war-even a nuclear war-is in the interest of his country. Whether it is in the interest of the United States is a different question altogether.” It is a pertinent remark but let’s just remember one thing, what Zelensky and the entire corrupted mob that came to be President of Ukraine after the US supported coup in Ukraine, have done nothing for Ukraine, strictly nothing. Zelensky wants the Survival of a regime, a flawed Idea of Ukraine that is preoccupied with their own pockets, the main interest of the comedian at the head of the bunch of thugs in Kiev.
Yes reading MSM is tedious and painful but rather than putting doubt on your stance regarding the people of the Donbass, it will reinforce your views and will give you excellent insights on the situation as well as allowing you to use their own words to put down the ongoing manipulative rhetoric .
The impact on each of us and globally makes this the turning point of the 21st Century
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