{"id":108978,"date":"2014-03-04T13:31:02","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T13:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=108978"},"modified":"2014-03-04T13:31:02","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T13:31:02","slug":"us-media-escalates-propaganda-offensive-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/us-media-escalates-propaganda-offensive-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"US Media Escalates Propaganda Offensive on Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joseph Kishore\u00a0and\u00a0David North<\/strong>
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the wake of the right-wing coup in Ukraine organized by the United States and the European powers, the American media is responding with a torrent of inflammatory war propaganda directed against Russia.<\/p>\n

In the newspapers and on the airwaves, the demonization of Russia is unrelenting. The coverage of events follows a single simplistic story line. The actions of Russia are portrayed as the epitome of evil. Its president, Vladimir Putin, is the devil incarnate.<\/p>\n

The historical background, the economic interests, the political context and the geo-strategic calculations that underlie Russia\u2019s actions are ignored. No facts are allowed to get in the way of the programmed message. No lie is too absurd or ridiculous. The purpose of the propaganda campaign is not to convince public opinion, but to intimidate it.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s lead editorial (\u201cRussia\u2019s Aggression\u201d) in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0does not contain a trace of analysis. It consists entirely of denunciations, saber-rattling and limitless hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0begins by denouncing \u201cPutin\u2019s cynical and outrageous exploitation of the Ukrainian crisis to seize control of Crimea.\u201d Reality is stood on its head. The United States supported right-wing and fascistic forces in Ukraine to bring about regime-change in a country on Russia\u2019s border. These operations were exposed to the world in a telephone conversation leaked last month in which the US ambassador to Ukraine and the US assistant secretary of state discussed the composition of a new Washington-backed government. Of course, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0makes no reference to this episode.<\/p>\n

With breathtaking cynicism, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0demands that Obama tell Putin that Russia \u201chas stepped far outside the bounds of civilized behavior, and that this carries a steep price in international standing and in economic relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who is outside the bounds of \u201ccivilized behavior?\u201d The United States has intervened in country after country\u2013from Panama, Grenada and Vietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Its military operations over the past quarter-century have resulted in the deaths of at least a million people.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0also published a column (\u201cPutin\u2019s Crimean Crime\u201d) by Roger Cohen, who postures as an intellectual and foreign policy specialist. He has over the years championed every manner of US military aggression, from the Balkans to Syria. He counted as a close personal friend the late US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, who was killed at the US consulate in Benghazi after helping organize the operation to overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi.<\/p>\n

Cohen\u2019s\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0column consists of a string of insults and epithets. Ukraine\u2019s deposed leader Yanukovych is described as a \u201cbungling, sybaritic, trigger-happy president,\u201d and Putin as being \u201cobsessed\u201d with Russia\u2019s \u201cimperium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s actions are portrayed as incomprehensible. Why should he feel threatened by \u201cNATO\u2019s expansion into the Baltic states;\u201d \u201cthe European Union\u2019s embrace of the likes of Poland and Romania;\u201d \u201cthe humbling by NATO of Serbia;\u201d or \u201cthe West\u2019s perceived manipulation of a United Nations mandate to have its way in Libya?\u201d Clearly, Putin is mad!<\/p>\n

In a brief and repugnant foray into history, Cohen refers in passing to the crimes of the Nazis in Ukraine during World War II, but does so in a manner that suggests they were only a continuation of Stalin\u2019s crimes. \u201cThe Nazis later [after Stalin] did their worst,\u201d he writes blithely, stating that \u201cmore millions died.\u201d Here Cohen joins a growing list of right-wing historians who are relativizing Nazi crimes as part of an effort to justify German remilitarization today.<\/p>\n

Cohen then refers without explanation to the \u201ccorpse-filled ravine of Babi Yar.\u201d Readers unfamiliar with history might assume that Cohen is referring to a Stalinist atrocity. He does not inform his readers that the Babi Yar ravine in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev was the site of the horrific massacre of 33,000 Jews by the Nazis on September 29\u201430, 1941.<\/p>\n

This event occurred just three months after the start of the Nazi \u201cwar of extermination\u201d [Vernichtungskrieg<\/em>] against the Soviet Union. The operations of German imperialism included the murder of six million European Jews. Approximately 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians died in the struggle to defeat the onslaught of Germany\u2019s fascist regime.<\/p>\n

Significantly, Cohen refers to Babi Yar without mentioning the political pedigree of the forces in Ukraine with which the United States and Germany are currently working. The opposition is dominated by virulent anti-Semites.<\/p>\n

The Svoboda party is the major political force in the protests that overthrew Yanukovych. It was formed in 2004 as part of a rebranding effort by its predecessor organization, the Social National Party of Ukraine (SNPU). This party, whose members wore insignias that had been used by the Waffen SS, was compelled to change its name because its close association with fascism complicated the US effort to integrate it into the \u201cOrange Revolution,\u201d which was finally carried out in 2005.<\/p>\n

Oleh Tyahnybok is the long-time leader of Svoboda and participated in the meetings with US and EU officials that prepared last month\u2019s regime-change. In 2004, Tyahnybok gave a speech on Mount Yavoryna in which he lauded the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the World War II era. The UIA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) \u201cfought against the Russkies, fought against the Germans, fought against the Yids [Jews] and other filth that wanted to take from us our Ukrainian state,\u201d he said. Tyahnybok praised his listeners as the force most feared by \u201cthe Russkie-Yid mafia that controls Ukraine.\u201d In 2005, Tyahnybok signed a petition demanding the banning of Jewish organizations in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Roger Cohen studiously avoids any reference to the fascistic and anti-Semitic forces with whom the US is allied in the Ukraine. In this, however, Cohen is not alone. The subject is all but taboo in the US press.<\/p>\n

The line of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0is identical to that of the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>(which editorializes that Russia\u2019s \u201cbrazen aggression brings the threat of war to the heart of Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War\u201d), theWashington Post<\/em>\u00a0(which insists that the Obama administration \u201cspell out the consequences for Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine\u201d) and the\u00a0Nation<\/em>\u00a0magazine (whose chief foreign policy correspondent and ex-Larouchite Robert Dreyfuss writes that \u201cVladimir Putin must back down.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The coordinated character of the US media response makes clear that one is not dealing with the writings of individuals, but rather the unfolding of a quite deliberate plan aimed at indoctrinating the public to accept actions previously considered unthinkable.<\/p>\n

Influential policy experts are calling for military action. Andrew Kuchins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies writes that Russian military intervention beyond Crimea \u201cis a red line that will mean war with Ukrainian and NATO forces if it is crossed.\u201d He adds, \u201cUS and NATO forces need to be deployed to the Black Sea in close proximity to the Ukrainian Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a war would have catastrophic consequences. The fight against war requires an unrelenting struggle to expose the lies of the media. We urge our readers to build up the following of the\u00a0World Socialist Web Site<\/em>\u00a0among workers and youth. Share and distribute our articles. The people of the world must be alerted to the grave danger that exists.<\/p>\n

Reprinted with permission from\u00a0World Socialist Web Site<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Kishore\u00a0and\u00a0David North RINF Alternative News In the wake of the right-wing coup in Ukraine organized by the United States and the European powers, the American media is responding with a torrent of inflammatory war propaganda directed against Russia. In the newspapers and on the airwaves, the demonization of Russia is unrelenting. The coverage of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}