{"id":196993,"date":"2015-11-04T02:56:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=196993"},"modified":"2015-11-04T02:56:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T02:56:00","slug":"eu-and-nato-set-to-destabilize-russia-by-anti-putin-propaganda-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/eu-and-nato-set-to-destabilize-russia-by-anti-putin-propaganda-operation\/","title":{"rendered":"EU and NATO Set to Destabilize Russia by Anti-Putin Propaganda Operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

German Economic News\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Published:10\/31\/15\u00a001:23Clock\u00a0|\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de\/2015\/10\/31\/eu-und-nato-wollen-russland-mit-unterwanderung-der-medien-destablisieren\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

(Translated here by \u2013 and then with closing commentary from \u2013 Eric Zuesse)<\/span><\/p>\n

EU, US and NATO are preparing a\u00a0media offensive against Russia inside Russia.\u00a0The\u00a0alliance aim to operate propaganda against the Russian\u00a0government. This\u00a0will also reduce the likelihood that\u00a0independent media\u00a0will thrive\u00a0in Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0“Strategic Communication Team East,” as this operation is called,\u201d has already\u00a0“reached its full staffing levels\u201d as of 1 September 2015, according\u00a0to the German federal government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critical voices against this proposal are arising from within the European Union \u2013 especially in Germany\u2019s Left Party.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Member of the Bundestag Andrej Hunko,\u00a0from the Left Party, said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe new proposal\u00a0is an affront to Russia.\u00a0The media force will be subordinate to the Foreign\u00a0Service, and thus to the EU’s military arm.\u201d …<\/span><\/p>\n

Parliamentarian Alexander S. Neu, also from the Left, says:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The EU member states don\u2019t only build, with NATO\u2019s help, Russian-language media\u00a0in the eastern EU Member States, as is\u00a0happening with the television station ETV\u00a0+ in Estonia.\u00a0In addition, there are clear\u00a0indications that even Russian free media\u00a0are being funded [infiltrated] directly.\u00a0The EU and NATO, the propaganda\u00a0program against Russia, will be extended\u00a0with the start\u00a0of the operation.\u00a0The EU\u00a0Member States already finance non-governmental media\u00a0in Russia, and this means\u00a0that they intervene directly in the media\u00a0landscape of Russia.\u00a0Russian perspectives are now to be neutralized\u00a0with counter-perspectives, foreign propaganda.\u00a0The expected\u00a0communication offensive poses a real\u00a0danger that the relationship between the\u00a0Western countries and Russia will become even more confrontational than it already is. The logical reaction of\u00a0Russia will be to outlaw the foreign financing of free media.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunko then adds:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Now the media and\u00a0members of civil society will also be invited\u00a0to this backroom politics of propaganda. It is extremely dangerous if governments\u00a0and military try to gain information\u00a0superiority and pretend that propaganda, even when and if it\u2019s against propaganda, is instead news-reporting, not propaganda itself.\u00a0It is particularly problematic when the\u00a0‘Strategic Communications Team East’ as\u00a0described by the Foreign Office, even\u00a0poke at\u00a0youngsters.\u00a0Instead of continuing to\u00a0rely on media tutelage, the EU needs to\u00a0reconsider its policy towards Russia\u00a0fundamentally.\u00a0To say it with the words of\u00a0former EU Commissioner G\u00c3\u00bcnter\u00a0Verheugen: Peace is possible only if no\u00a0one wants to dominate the other.\u00a0This also\u00a0applies to the media front, Russia, the US\u00a0and the EU alike.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the German Economic News news-report. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

COMMENTARY<\/b> by Eric Zuesse:<\/span><\/p>\n

This cannot be understood outside its broader context, which is the West\u2019s overall war to defeat Russia \u2013 a war that\u2019s heading possibly to become a hot war, perhaps a very hot one. Over what, really?<\/span><\/p>\n

America\u2019s war to control Russia<\/a><\/span> is not at all defensive (as is claimed), but extremely aggressive. Even in 2010, before there had yet been even a concocted excuse for the West to prepare for war against Russia, the Obama Administration was already struggling, behind the scenes, to get Europe on-board with their aggressive plans, under the pretext that an Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) \u2018defensive\u2019 shield system based in Europe, which would protect against incoming Russian missiles, would be \u2018defensive\u2019 not offensive, even though it\u2019s designed to enable a first-strike nuclear-attack knockout blow by the U.S. of Russia\u2019s capacity to defend itself, by eliminating any incoming missile bombs in flight. It thus would be a way to eliminate Russia\u2019s ability to defend itself. According to a wikileaked cable<\/span><\/a> describing a meeting between U.S. \u2018Defense\u2019 Secretary Robert Gates and French Minister of Defense Herve Morin:<\/span><\/p>\n

Morin, having expressed strong reservations to new U.S. and NATO missile defense (MD) plans at the NATO ministerial in Istanbul (reftel), said he wanted to explain how France sees MD and raise some questions. First, he believes that the shift from Theater Missile Defense (TMD) to defense of populations and territory will give publics a false sense of security, since the sword was ultimately stronger than the shield. For France, security came from strong defense and deterrence. Second, Morin asked what threat the system aims to counter. Nuclear states or rogue states? Third, Morin asked about funding and how European countries would participate in command and control (C2) decisions. <\/span>Morin summarized his own personal opposition to MD by asserting that the U.S. and Europe have differing mentalities on defense spending. He said the U.S. has true resiliency with “infinite” means, while in Europe defense spending has collapsed in every country but the UK and France. <\/span>As a result, any development needing common funding will dilute the already weak European defenses. Morin concluded by stating that it was folly to assume that MD would give us added security.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b67. (S\/NF) SecDef <\/i>[Gates] refuted Morin\u2019s arguments, pointing out that MD contributes to deterrence. <\/span>SecDef explained to Morin that the system was aimed at nations with a handful of nuclear weapons and a limited but growing missile capability to launch them. <\/span>Noting Iran fits that profile, SecDef said that MD provides a good deterrent against limited attacks.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: the U.S. \u2018justifies\u2019 its push for ABM\u2019s as being \u2018defense\u2019 against what Morin was calling \u2018rogue states,\u2019 not against Russia \u2013 and this is obviously a lie, so Gates didn\u2019t answer that question in direct words, such as by saying, \u201cThis isn\u2019t against Russia.\u201d Gates even went further, to assert that, \u201cthe U.S. believed partnering with Russia is once again potentially possible.\u201d (As if it hadn\u2019t always been possible ever since 1991.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, the cable says, \u201cResponding to SecDef\u2019s discussion of MD, Morin asked why there was a need to shift from theater to population defense\u201d (\u201ctheater\u201d meaning protection of military forces, versus \u201cpopulation\u201d meaning protection of the civilian population) and Gates had a similarly irrelevant answer: \u201cSecDef said the systems the U.S. was deploying have broader applications. For example the THAAD system, which the U.S. had deployed to Hawaii as a measure against North Korean threat, protects both the theater and the population.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But actually (and Morin almost certainly knew this), the U.S. had already busted the anti-ABM Treaty with Moscow, under George W. Bush, and the first European installations of U.S. ABMs had already taken place. And they were in Poland and Czech Republic, near Russia \u2013 not at all relevant to a nuclear \u2018threat\u2019 from Iran<\/i> (which didn\u2019t even have nukes anyway). Bob Gates might as well have been a salesman for Phillip Morris, as for Lockheed Martin. (In either case, of course, he was being paid by U.S. taxpayers, not by his actual clients, the beneficiary military corporations.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The end of that cable (section 20) includes this, from Gates to Morin: \u201cSecDef observed that Russian democracy has disappeared and the government was an oligarchy run by the security services.\u201d So: the U.S. argument, essentially, was that ABMs are needed against a non-existent Iranian threat to France, because \u2026 \u201cRussian democracy has disappeared and the government was an oligarchy run by the security services.\u201d Sounds like a pretty good description of the United States<\/span><\/a> there: its aristocracy, and the CIA etc. But the evidence that the description actually applies to Russia is far less than that it applies to the U.S.<\/span><\/a> (And here\u2019s more on that, from a different angle<\/span><\/a>.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Wikileaks\u2019 book<\/a><\/span>, after reviewing and summarizing the cables concerning ABMs, doesn\u2019t mince words, when, at the end of its seventh Chapter, Russ Wellen concludes: \u201cInstead of wasting time and resources lamenting the effects of the [leak of] the cables on international relations and harassing Wikileaks, the United States needs to overhaul its foreign policy. Continuing to view a state such as Russia as a rival in a zero-sum game, as well as an energy resource and an emerging market, instead of as representing a people, only perpetuates conflict.\u201d The topmost of the Amazon reviewers of this book sums up the entire 600+ pages (as E.M. Bristol wrote there): \u201cTo say that the US \u2026 comes off poorly in this book is like saying the Titanic suffered some water damage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

America\u2019s anti-Russia club, NATO, has crept up to the very borders of Russia and demands that Russians be so stupid as not to recognize what the West is doing, as if John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been so stupid as not to have recognized that the USSR\u2019s placing nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 wouldn\u2019t have constituted an aggressive act by the Soviets and thus needed to be blocked. Russians are even more endangered now by the U.S.: Ukraine, after all, directly borders Russia. America\u2019s coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in February 2014<\/span><\/a> and installed a rabidly anti-Russian one<\/span><\/a> there, was extremely bloody<\/span><\/a>, and the U.S.-backed ethnic cleansing to eliminate the residents<\/span><\/a> in the heavily pro-Russian far east of Ukraine has been even more so<\/span><\/a>. Even Khrushchev\u2019s intent wasn\u2019t so aggressive against the U.S. in 1962.<\/span><\/p>\n

This aggressive intention of the U.S. government and its allies \u2013 extending to Russia\u2019s very doorstep in Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltics \u2013 is so intense, that U.S. President Barack Obama holds it even higher in priority than he does the war against the international jihadist movement<\/span><\/a>, a movement that\u2019s actually funded by America\u2019s allies, the royal families of both Saudi Arabia<\/span><\/a> and Qatar<\/span><\/a>. The U.S. now demands that Russia not even try<\/i> <\/span>to defeat the jihadists in Syria (which is an ally of Russia, one that\u2019s being attacked by jihadists hired by the Sauds<\/span><\/a> and Thanis<\/span><\/a>) \u2013 as if the request for Russian help, by Syria\u2019s President (democratically elected<\/span><\/a> by Syrians because no alternative person stood even a chance to hold the country together) were invalid \u2013 as if the request for that military assistance doesn\u2019t have legitimacy, but the demand by America\u2019s imperial President Obama does have legimacy. Obama simply lies. He said on October 3rd (1:08 on the video<\/span><\/a>), \u201cWe\u2019re not going to make Syria a proxy war between the United States and Russia,\u201d but that\u2019s exactly what he has been doing<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, Obama has placed the jihadists after<\/i> <\/span>Russia, as his targets to destroy. Why? <\/span><\/p>\n

Islamic jihad is mainly funded by, and an extension from, the two U.S.-backed Arabic royal families (the Sauds<\/span><\/a> of Saudi Arabia, and the Thanis<\/span><\/a> of Qatar), who constitute a genuine national-security threat against the West, by their ongoing financing of Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Salafist Sunni jihadist organizations, which seek to establish a global Muslim dictatorship. (\u201cSalafist\u201d is basically a synonym for Wahhabist Islam, the Saudi form of Islam; but it\u2019s the term that\u2019s used for the sect outside of Saudi Arabia.) As an example of this jihadism: the Muslim Brotherhood, in its \u201cWho We Are\u201d statement<\/span><\/a>, refers twice to the Salafs (which means ancestors), thrice to the Sunna, and once to jihad. (Specifically regarding jihad<\/i>, it says: \u201cPrayer is the foundation of religion, jihad is the peak of the [camel\u2019s] hump, and God [the camel\u2019s rider] is the end [religion\u2019s rider].\u201d) (And here is that \u201cWho We Are\u201d in English<\/span><\/a>.) Whereas the Thani clan (which owns Qatar) finances the Muslim Brotherhood<\/span><\/a>, the Saud clan (which owns Saudi Arabia) finances Al Qaeda<\/span><\/a>. Are these Europe\u2019s allies? Or instead Europe\u2019s enemies? They\u2019re America\u2019s and Saudi Arabia\u2019s and Qatar\u2019s tools, so long as they are carrying out their mass-murders in other<\/i> <\/span>countries. As Obama\u2019s advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told Osama bin Laden\u2019s jihadists back in 1979 when they were fighting against Russia, \u201cGod is on your side.\u201d<\/span><\/a> To people such as Brzezinski and Obama, Russia\u2019s abandoning communism and dictatorship, and adopting capitalism and democracy, doesn\u2019t make any difference; like George W. Bush\u2019s and Barack Obama\u2019s \u2018Defense\u2019 chief has said: \u201cRussian democracy has disappeared and the government was an oligarchy run by the security services.\u201d But, even if that had been true (and it wasn\u2019t true of Russia, though it has become true of the U.S.), what business is that of America\u2019s? Even if it had been true, this wouldn\u2019t be any reason for America to extend NATO even \u201cone inch to the east.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

For the nations of Europe to be in NATO, and allied to the U.S., is for them to join America\u2019s real war against Russia \u2013 a very dangerous and destructive war, which is driving millions of Syrians fleeing into Europe. Such European politicians are thus traitors to their own countries. The nations of Europe should instead be joining in defense of Russia against America\u2019s aggressions (including now against “Strategic Communication Team East”), aggressions which started by Americas\u2019 targeting Russia\u2019s allies: originally, Libya; then, Syria; then, Ukraine. The U.S.-Saud-Thani threat against the most secular, non-sectarian, country in the Middle East, Syria \u2013 to replace its secular government by a jihadist one \u2013 is also a threat against all of Europe (and not only by its flooding Europe with the refugees). The refugees from Syria and Libya are merely the start of the harms to European peace. Europeans who vote for NATO (alliance with the U.S.) are voting for war against Russia \u2013 not for war against America, the Sauds and the Thanis. Not for war against Europe\u2019s actual enemies. And, last of all, such voters, and the politicians they\u2019re voting for, are not voting for peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cStrategic Communication Team East\u201d is the latest phase of this war-treason from these politicians, treason against their own countries. The reviewer of the Wikileaks book had it correct: \u201cTo say that the US \u2026 comes off poorly in this book is like saying the Titanic suffered some water damage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia is a part of Europe. By contrast: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.S., are not, and they don\u2019t actually want to be. They\u2019re not trying to be European. (During America\u2019s invasion of Iraq in 2003, non-participant France was even publicly despised with slurring jokes aagainst \u201cFrench fries.\u201d) They\u2019ve never requested membership in the European Union, and they\u2019re not even on the European Continent. By contrast, Russia is historically a part of the European family. Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy were Europeans, as much as Beethoven and Dickens were. Mark Twain, great though he was, was American, not<\/i> <\/span>European. Arabia and today\u2019s jihadist-supporting U.S. are not and don\u2019t want to be European. Instead, Arabia has been, and the U.S. has become, dictatorial, even having the nerve to demand that Syria\u2019s popular elected President Assad, the only secular leader that that country can have, must be expelled from power and replaced by a U.S.\/Saudi\/Qatari stooge, and the nerve to proclaim that Syrians aren\u2019t the people who possess the right and the final say-so to determine whether or when Assad should be removed from Syria\u2019s Presidency. The EU\u2019s leaders who favor the U.S. instead of Russia are favoring dictatorship over democracy in Syria \u2013 and in Europe, too. The U.S. used to be a democracy, but no longer is<\/span><\/a>. “Strategic Communication Team East\u201d is part of the U.S.-Arabic war against Russia \u2013 against a nation of<\/i> <\/span>Europe. Rather than having welcomed post-Soviet Russia into the democratic club, the United States has steadily been extending its military alliance against Russia: NATO.<\/span><\/p>\n

As U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon has said<\/span><\/a>: \u201cThe future of President Assad must be decided by the Syrian people. \u2026 I think it is totally unfair and unreasonable \u2026 to paralyze all this political negotiation. This is not acceptable. It\u2019s not fair. \u2026 Many Western countries oppose the Syrian government\u2019s position. Meanwhile, we lost years. 250,000 people have been killed. There are 13 million refugees or internally displaced. Over 50% of hospitals, schools and infrastructure has been destroyed in Syria.\u201d The national leaders he is implicitly charging there are actually being accused by him of war-crimes against the Syrian people; and those war-crimes are even hurting the very people whom those politicians are sworn to be serving \u2013 their own populations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Has democracy been dying in Western countries? Is it already dead in some? Is the ignorance by Western publics regarding these historically important realities of our time, itself proof of that? Did the West learn nothing from George W. Bush\u2019s having lied his country into the catastrophic invasion of Iraq<\/span><\/a>? Now, it\u2019s \u201cregime-change in Syria,\u201d also based upon lies<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

The American investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org German Economic News\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Published:10\/31\/15\u00a001:23Clock\u00a0|\u00a0 http:\/\/deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de\/2015\/10\/31\/eu-und-nato-wollen-russland-mit-unterwanderung-der-medien-destablisieren\/ (Translated here by \u2013 and then with closing commentary from \u2013 Eric Zuesse) EU, US and NATO are preparing a\u00a0media offensive against Russia inside Russia.\u00a0The\u00a0alliance aim to operate propaganda against the Russian\u00a0government. This\u00a0will also reduce the likelihood that\u00a0independent media\u00a0will thrive\u00a0in Russia. The\u00a0“Strategic Communication Team East,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":173320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[115,30,32,96,896,535,859,59,753,526,543,524,523],"class_list":{"0":"post-196993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-cia","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-global-news","14":"tag-merkel","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-police-state","17":"tag-propaganda","18":"tag-putin","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-ukraine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196993","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\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}