{"id":164705,"date":"2015-07-08T23:15:55","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T23:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=164705"},"modified":"2015-07-08T23:24:30","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T23:24:30","slug":"wikipedia-as-propaganda-not-history-mh17-as-an-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/wikipedia-as-propaganda-not-history-mh17-as-an-example\/","title":{"rendered":"Wikipedia as Propaganda Not History — MH17 as An Example"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Wikipedia articles are more propaganda than they are historical accounts. And, often, their cited sources are misleading, or even false.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 15 August 2007, the BBC headlined\u00a0\u201cWikipedia Shows CIA Page Edits,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and Jonathan Fildes reported that, \u201cAn online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organizations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.\u201d I.e.: What the CIA doesn\u2019t like, they can (and do) eliminate or change.<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, on 25 June 2015, an anonymous reddit poster, \u201cmoose,\u201d\u00a0listed and linked directly to 18 different news reports,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in such media as New York Times, Washington Post, Telegraph, Mirror, Guardian,<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Newsweek<\/i>, reporting about wikipedia edits that were supplied not only by the CIA but by other U.S. Government offices, and by large corporations. That person opened with a news report which implicated Wikipedia itself, “Wikipedia honcho caught in scandal quits, defends paid edits,\u201d in which Wikipedia\u2019s own corruption was discussed. Most of the other news reports there concerned unpaid edits by employees at CIA, congressional and British parliamentary offices, the DCRI (French equivalent of the U.S. CIA), large corporations, self-interested individuals, and others. One article even concerned a report that, “All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) changed a Russian language version of a page listing civil aviation accidents to say that ‘The plane [flight MH17] was shot down by Ukrainian\u00a0soldiers\u2019.\u201d Basically, wikipedia has been revealed to be a river of \u2018information\u2019 that\u2019s polluted by so many self-interested sources as to be no more reliable than, say: \u201cNew York Times, Washington Post, Telegraph, Mirror, Guardian,\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Newsweek.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not reliable at all. For example, everybody knew in 2002 and 2003 that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling WMD \u201cWeapons of Mass Destruction,\u201d because they had read it in such \u2018news\u2019 sources as that<\/i>. Consequently, even when wikipedia links to those sorts of articles, it can be propagating lies. After all, The New York Times<\/i> and Washington Post<\/i> were stenographically \u2018reporting\u2019 the lies from the White House as if those lies were truths (not challenging them at all); so, the fame of a publisher has nothing to do with the honesty (the integrity and carefulness) of its \u2018news\u2019 reporting. Stenographic \u2018news\u2019 reporting isn\u2019t news-reporting; it is propaganda, no matter how famous and respected the \u2018news\u2019 medium happens (unfortunately) to be. Some of the most unreliable \u2018news\u2019 media have top prestige.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE MALAYSIAN AIRLINER OVER UKRAINE<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

As an example: wikipedia\u2019s English-language article about the 17 July 2014 shoot-down of the MH17 Malaysian airliner is a shameless propaganda-piece by the U.S. Government and its agents. Its (at present) 320 footnote-sources don\u2019t include any of the many reports (virtually all in the foreign press) that present evidence the Ukrainian government shot down this airliner. Among the important issues that aren\u2019t even raised, are: why was the Ukrainian government given veto-power over any final report which will be issued by the official four-nation MH17 investigating team: Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Ukraine?\u00a0Why was Ukraine even included in this team to investigate a crime in which one of the two main suspects is the Ukrainian government itself?<\/span><\/p>\n

Why was the presence of\u00a030mm bullet-holes in the side-panel next to the pilot<\/span><\/a>\u00a0not mentioned in this lengthy wikipedia article? (If this plane had been brought down by only a missile, such as wikipedia assumes, there wouldn\u2019t be any bullet-holes \u2013 much less, hundreds of them, as there are.) Why was\u00a0the first analysis of that side-panel<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 which is the best and most reliable piece of evidence that exists about how this disaster actually happened \u2013 ignored altogether in the wikipedia article? After all, that analysis of the side-panel has subsequently been further confirmed by other reliable evidence, all of which the article also ignores.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have edited some wikipedia articles, but I won\u2019t edit the one on MH17: it\u2019s too thoroughly rotten with speculative and other bad sources, so that it would need to be entirely rewritten \u2013 and bogus \u2018evidence\u2019 removed from it \u2013 in order for the article to present an account that\u2019s based upon the best evidence regarding each of its particulars. Wikipedia\u2019s article is thoroughly based on anti-Russian propaganda; it might as well have been written by the CIA (like the case that was presented about \u201cSaddam\u2019s WMD\u201d was).<\/span><\/p>\n

Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0is the wikipedia article, so that you can see what U.S. propaganda says about the downing of MH17.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0is my latest article about the downing of the MH17.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0is my most comprehensive article reconstructing, on a best-evidence<\/i> basis, how and why and who shot down this airliner. <\/span><\/p>\n

The core of my case there is the same item of evidence to which Haisenko first called the public\u2019s attention: that side-panel. I basically accept his reconstruction of how the plane came down, but I supplement it with additional evidence. Please click onto any link in the article, to see the evidence more fully analyzed, in the given linked-to source, wherever you have further questions that aren\u2019t directly addressed in the article.<\/span><\/p>\n

My articles present far fewer items of \u2018evidence\u2019 than does the wikipedia article, because I exclude all but the most-reliable evidence about any given detail. There is so much speculation that\u2019s published, and so much bogus \u2018evidence\u2019; my guiding principle is therefore to rely only upon the least-speculative argument that refers to only the most-reliable, assuredly un<\/i>tampered-with, items of evidence. This is what one is supposed to do in a court of law; it\u2019s the reason why judges are authorized to exclude from being presented to jurors any \u2018evidence\u2019 that fails to meet modern legal\/forensic standards of authenticity and reliability. It\u2019s the only way that an unprejudiced verdict can even become possible. It\u2019s the prerequisite to history, as opposed to mere myth.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the contrast between my articles about the MH17 disaster, and the 320 articles from which the wikipedia article about MH17 is constructed. And it also separates my articles from wikipedia\u2019s article itself about the subject, \u201cMalaysia Airlines Flight 17.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s especially wrong about the wikipedia account is that it doesn\u2019t even refer to the 30mm bullet holes in that side panel \u2013 evidence that is inconsistent with the U.S.-Ukrainian account (wikipedia\u2019s account) of how this airliner was shot down. (Wikipedia\u2019s article is instead obsessed with \u201ca Buk missile launcher\u201d \u2013 the theory of the case that\u2019s pumped by America\u2019s and Ukraine\u2019s governments, and which is entirely inconsistent with such bullet-holes. You don\u2019t get bullet-holes from 33,000+ feet away.) And the wikipedia article also doesn\u2019t refer to Peter Haisenko, the brilliant former Luftahansa pilot who first pointed out those bullet holes in the side-panel, and who noted that there wouldn\u2019t be any, much less hundreds of, bullet-holes firing directly into the pilot\u2019s body, if the only thing that had brought down this airliner were shrapnel from some missile fired from 33,000 feet below. You simply can\u2019t target the pilot\u2019s belly and pump perhaps a thousand bullets into it from 33,000 feet down. This side-panel decimates the American-Ukrainian theory of the case \u2013 and so decimates wikipedia\u2019s propagandistic article.<\/span><\/p>\n

And why wasn\u2019t the autopsy on the pilot<\/span><\/a> made public? Everyone needs to know what was inside that corpse. But wikipedia and the \u2018news\u2019 media show no interest in that crucial question, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t live in a democracy. This is a dictatorship. The \u2018news\u2019 media cannot be trusted by any intelligent and open-minded person. To find the truth, one (unfortunately) needs to investigate on one\u2019s own and take the attitude that only the most solid evidence and the least speculative argument constitutes authentic history, on anything. All else \u2013 any casual trusting of the \u2018news\u2019 media \u2013 is merely accepting lies and myths, which are designed to manipulate people (like when we invaded Iraq), instead of to inform them.\u00a0There is more than ample reason to distrust the \u2018news\u2019 media. And wikipedia is just as manipulated as the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n

We live now in a culture where lies and myths drown out truth<\/span><\/a>. In other words: we live in a dictatorship. That\u2019s today\u2019s USA. This is the reality, in which we live. And the Big Lie is: it\u2019s not so. But the evidence sadly proves: it\u2019s so; it clearly<\/span><\/a> is the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

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 Wikipedia articles are more propaganda than they are historical accounts. And, often, their cited sources are misleading, or even false. On 15 August 2007, the BBC headlined\u00a0\u201cWikipedia Shows CIA Page Edits,\u201d\u00a0and Jonathan Fildes reported that, \u201cAn online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organizations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":164707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,32,96,535,59,526,987,523,49,76,40,3050],"class_list":{"0":"post-164705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cia","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-global-news","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-propaganda","16":"tag-russia-today","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-warfare","20":"tag-white-house","21":"tag-wikipedia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}