US WAR PROPAGANDA CHALLENGED
From https://www.state.gov/russias-top-five-persistent-disinformation-narratives/ as of 5:32 pm EST, January 26, 2022
"Russia’s Top Five Persistent Disinformation Narratives
"FACT SHEET
"OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON
JANUARY 20, 2022
"Over many years, Russia has fabricated a set of false narratives that its disinformation and propaganda ecosystem persistently injects into the global information environment. These narratives act like a template, which enables the Kremlin to adjust these narratives, with one consistency – a complete disregard for truth as it shapes the information environment to support its policy goals.
"Russian military and intelligence entities are engaging in this activity across Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem, to include malign social media operations, the use of overt and covert online proxy media outlets, the injection of disinformation into television and radio programming, the hosting of conferences designed to influence attendees into falsely believing that Ukraine, not Russia, is at fault for heightened tensions in the region, and the leveraging of cyber operations to deface media outlets and conduct hack and release operations.
"Here are five major reoccurring Russian disinformation themes that the Kremlin is currently readjusting in an attempt to fill the information environment with false narratives about its actions in Ukraine.
"Theme #1: “Russia is an Innocent Victim”
"Russian government officials falsely portray Russia as a perpetual victim and its aggressive actions as a forced response to the alleged actions of the United States and our democratic allies and partners. To further these claims, Russia turns to one of its favorite labels to attempt to hit back: 'Russophobia.'
FACT: The US has been in a de facto war with Russia since the 1917 revolution. It sent troops to crush it. It refused to recognize the USSR for SIXTEEN years. It refused to enter into an agreement with the USSR to form a joint defense against Hitler, as did the UK and France, forcing Russia to act to buy time with a treaty with Hitler, which actually saved the Soviet Union and also denied Hitler the power that would have come with a conquest of its wealth.
The US spent more mony to take down the USSR, over the period from 1917 until 1991, than anyone, or any government, or any corporation, has spent on any other project in the history of mankind.
"After invading Ukraine in 2014..."
Russia did NOT invade Ukraine in 2014, and still hasn't invaded. The US DID incite, back and direct (ON A RECORDED TELEPHONE CALL) a coup against Ukraine's elected government.
But the US denies it all and says instead that "the Russian government and state-controlled disinformation outlets began to accuse anyone who questioned Russia’s actions of being xenophobic Russophobes."
"For example, Russia claims that the international community’s negative reaction to its invasion of an independent country was simply because people feared and hated Russia. According to the chart below, Russophobia was not an issue of major concern to the Russian Foreign Ministry or state-funded disinformation outlets until the Russian military invaded Ukraine. Claims of 'Russophobia' persist across a range of topics and are employed whenever the Russian government wants to play the victim, when it is actually the aggressor."
The CIA, the BBG's news outlets, the entire corporate and foundation media spent billions of dollars ($5 Billion in Ukraine alone, as admitted by Victoria Nuland) peddling the fabricated "Russiagate" for FIVE YEARS.
Need one say more?
"Theme #2: Historical Revisionism
"When history does not align with the Kremlin’s political objectives, Russian government officials and their proxy voices deny historical events or distort historical narratives to try to cast Russia in a more favorable light and serve its domestic and geopolitical agenda. For example, the 1939 non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which helped precipitate World War II, is politically inconvenient for the Putin regime. In 2020, in an attempt to minimize and rationalize Stalin’s decision to align himself with Hitler, Putin published a twisted version of the start of World War II, downplaying the Soviet role and shifting blame for the war to other countries. Russia often takes this a step further by labeling those who disagree with its twisted version of history as Nazis or Nazi sympathizers."
Again, as stated above regarding the non-aggression agreement with Hitler - the US, UK and France refused to enter into an agreement with the USSR to form a joint defense against Hitler, forcing Russia to act to buy time with the signing of the treaty with Germany.
France actually signed such an agreement with Germany the year before (in 1938) and in 1940 welcomed Hitler into Paris. The governments, military forces and industrial base in each of those two countries were thereafter allied against the USSR, the UK and, ultimately, the US.
The USSR's 1939 agreement with Hitler bought the Soviets an almost two-year repreive from the (1941) Nazi attack, actually saving the Soviet Union from destruction and denying Hitler the decisive power that would have come with a conquest of its massive lands and wealth.
Also note - and see the MANY HOURS and YEARS of coverage in international and social media thereof - the actual rallies and legislation of the Right Sector and Azov groups in the Ukrainian government and on the front lines in the east, where they carry swastikas, hold Nazi-style candle-light marches (with goosestepping militias) and made Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera a national hero.
"The Kremlin also applies this formula to the history of Ukraine’s statehood, NATO’s conduct during the collapse of the Soviet Union, its GULAG prison system, the famine in Ukraine known as Holodomor, and many other events where the Kremlin’s historical actions do not serve its current political goals."
The Holodomor was a product of the Nazi occupation and the OAU/Bandera collaboration. Read the actual history.
"Theme #3: 'The Collapse of Western Civilization is Imminent'
"Russia pushes the false claim that Western civilization is collapsing and has strayed from 'traditional values' because it works to ensure the safety and equality of LGBTQI+ people and promotes concepts such as female equality and multiculturalism."
Actually, Russia has been the most advanced European society in the history of the world with respect to female equality. This criticism mostly deals with the legal and cultural fiction in the US that men can be women and women can be men. This is a biological absurdity. This is not the same as a condemnation of trans-people or their social identities. It is rather statement of an objective biological reality, and the social and cultural and political rejection of this reality is the item referenced as a marker of decay.
"The demise of Western civilization is one of Russia’s oldest disinformation tropes, with claims of 'the decaying west' documented since the 19th century."
Over the period from the end of World War II to the present, there has been a substantial decay of the position of workers and the middle class and, since 1963, there has been a steady decay of democratic values, supplanted by political assassination, war, union-busting, Cointelpro, spying on Americans and more.
Further, polling data accumulated over the last decade has shown a steady trend of public opinion that considers the institutions of the country as lacking legitimacy. Congress (20+/-% positive), the media (15-20% positive) and election integrity (40+/-% positive) all fail the test of public confidence, according to almost every US poll conducted since 2015. And a Congress with such a meager approval rating that nevertheless has an approximate 98% reelection rate is hardly a convincing carrier of the banner of democracy.
"This 'values'-based disinformation narrative evokes ill-defined concepts including 'tradition,' 'family values,' and 'spirituality.' Russia argues it is the bastion of so-called 'traditional values' and gender roles and serves as a moral counterweight to the 'decadence' of the United States and Western countries."
Read on.
"For example, President Putin has claimed the West has practically cancelled the concepts of 'mother' and 'father,' and instead has replaced them with 'parent 1 and 2,' while Foreign Minister Lavrov wrote that Western students 'learn at school that Jesus Christ was bisexual.'"
Perhaps it was a translation problem. Can you say "person with ovaries" instead of woman? "He/him"? "She/her"? "They/them"? Etc.
Or perhaps he was referring to this offering at Amazon.
"Theme #4: 'Popular Movements are U.S.-sponsored ‘Color Revolutions’
"The Kremlin has difficulty accepting that all individuals should have the human right to freedom of expression, and that the government should be accountable to its people. Russia has accused the United States of either instigating uprisings or plotting 'color revolutions' in Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Ukraine, and throughout the Middle East and Africa."
This turns history - and reality - on its head.
Historically, the US claimed - with legislation and more - that each and every indigenous independence movement in Asia (e.g., Korea and Vietnam), Africa (e.g., Angola, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, Congo, et al) and Latin America (e.g., Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc., etc.) was either instigated by the Soviet Union or was a Soviet "communist plot" AND, BTW, took military action against each and every one of these, and dozens more, with MILLIONS of casualties as the result.
Meanwhile, each of the "revolutions" listed by Secretary Blinken (in five former Soviet republics and in those former colonies of Europe and the US in Africa and Asia and Latin America that had achieved independence) was CLEARLY a product of US direction and financial support, instigated by US propaganda outlets, and enabled and empowered by US arms and military assistance. Outside of the bubble of the US government, these are not even controversial statements. These facts are known by almost everyone on Earth but the American people.
"If a popular movement is pro-democracy and pro-reform and not deemed to be in Russia’s geopolitical interests, the Kremlin will often attack its legitimacy and claim that the United States is secretly behind it. These baseless accusations often target local and international civil society organizations, as well as independent media that expose human rights abuses and corruption. The Kremlin seeks to deny that people in neighboring countries could have agency, dignity, and independent aspirations to advocate for themselves, just as it denies these qualities to the people of Russia."
A simple visit to Russia demonstrates, actually, that more people there feel that they are free than the people here do.
But forgetting that for a moment, it is the US that has crushed popular movements in countries across the world, from Afghanistan in 1979 to Zimbabwe in 2017 et seq., and many dozens of countries in between.
And it is the US, not Russia, that has its military deployed across the world in more than EIGHT HUNDRED FOREIGN BASES, and has a military budget of $750 BILLION vs Russia's military budget of $70 BILLION.
In other words the US spends TEN TIMES MORE THAN RUSSIA ON ITS MILITARY. (Look it up.)
"Theme #5: Reality is Whatever the Kremlin Wants It to Be
"The Kremlin frequently tries to create multiple false realities and insert confusions into the information environment when the truth is not in its interests. Often intentionally confusing, Russian officials make arguments designed to try to shift the blame away from the Russian government’s role, even if some of the narratives contradict one another."
Actually, Russia's officials speak about their views and their positions quite clearly and consistently. Notice that you never see any unedited presentation of their perceptions, claims or concerns in any US media. Instead, hysterical, inaccurate and largely comical characterizations of "what Putin wants" dominate the narrative.
To speak plainly, who is bullshitting whom?
"However, in time, presenting multiple conflicting narratives can itself become a technique intended to generate confusion and discourage response."
Only if the media covers it that way, OR presents conflicting narratives, unmediated, for the viewers to see. Instead, the old version (e.g., Russiagate) goes down the memory hole, across ALL media - corporate (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX), foundation (PBS, NPR, Pacifica, Democracy Now) and government (BBG outlets, e.g., Radio free Europe) - and the new one is presented front and center, with only subtle differences for the various discrete segmented markets.
"Other elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem, such as the abuse of state-funded disinformation outlets and weaponized social media, help push multiple false narratives."
So many media lies - from the phony war on Iraq to the revelations of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Bradley/Chelsea Manning - came through those same outlets. Whatever the motivation, the existence of an alternative to the single voice of the elite that calls itself "the free press" in the US is valuable as hell to those trying to parse reality in an ocean of lies, dissemination and outright bullshit.
"It was clear to the world, for example, that Russia attempted to assassinate former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England, on March 4, 2018. In the four weeks following that incident, Russian state-funded and directed outlets RT and Sputnik disseminated 138 separate and contradictory narratives via 735 articles, according to the Policy Institute at King’s College London."
Actually, the discrediting of this ridiculous and contradictory accusation by western European media has been COMPLETELY absent from the US media and, of course, does not inform the fantasies flowing from Blinken's press secretary.
"Russia has used the same technique of flooding the information space with many false claims following other events, such as the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, and Russia’s 2008 invasion and ongoing occupation of Georgia, to distract conversations from their role in the events. Again, the purpose is to confuse and distract others and manipulate the truth to suit Kremlin interests."
There has been NO evidence produced of ANY Russian role in the shootdown of Flight 17.
The referenced "occupation of Georgia" is ahistoric and an outright lie in the present. One might instead ask Secretary Blinken - at a press conference, with the cameras rolling - about Washington's relationship (and, BTW, his own personal history) with the long-time fugitive ex-President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who, upon fleeing his own country ahead of corruption and larceny charges, was appointed by the US proxies in Kiev as a governor of Odessa in Ukraine following the murder of 39 Russian-speaking Ukrainians by Neo-Nazis loyal to the Kiev coup.
As for the rest, I won't try to impute intent or purpose where it is difficult to locate sanity - or even basic sentience - with any certainty.
"Russia’s Top Five Persistent Disinformation Narratives
"FACT SHEET
"OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON
JANUARY 20, 2022
"Over many years, Russia has fabricated a set of false narratives that its disinformation and propaganda ecosystem persistently injects into the global information environment. These narratives act like a template, which enables the Kremlin to adjust these narratives, with one consistency – a complete disregard for truth as it shapes the information environment to support its policy goals.
"Russian military and intelligence entities are engaging in this activity across Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem, to include malign social media operations, the use of overt and covert online proxy media outlets, the injection of disinformation into television and radio programming, the hosting of conferences designed to influence attendees into falsely believing that Ukraine, not Russia, is at fault for heightened tensions in the region, and the leveraging of cyber operations to deface media outlets and conduct hack and release operations.
"Here are five major reoccurring Russian disinformation themes that the Kremlin is currently readjusting in an attempt to fill the information environment with false narratives about its actions in Ukraine.
"Theme #1: “Russia is an Innocent Victim”
"Russian government officials falsely portray Russia as a perpetual victim and its aggressive actions as a forced response to the alleged actions of the United States and our democratic allies and partners. To further these claims, Russia turns to one of its favorite labels to attempt to hit back: 'Russophobia.'
FACT: The US has been in a de facto war with Russia since the 1917 revolution. It sent troops to crush it. It refused to recognize the USSR for SIXTEEN years. It refused to enter into an agreement with the USSR to form a joint defense against Hitler, as did the UK and France, forcing Russia to act to buy time with a treaty with Hitler, which actually saved the Soviet Union and also denied Hitler the power that would have come with a conquest of its wealth.
The US spent more mony to take down the USSR, over the period from 1917 until 1991, than anyone, or any government, or any corporation, has spent on any other project in the history of mankind.
"After invading Ukraine in 2014..."
Russia did NOT invade Ukraine in 2014, and still hasn't invaded. The US DID incite, back and direct (ON A RECORDED TELEPHONE CALL) a coup against Ukraine's elected government.
But the US denies it all and says instead that "the Russian government and state-controlled disinformation outlets began to accuse anyone who questioned Russia’s actions of being xenophobic Russophobes."
"For example, Russia claims that the international community’s negative reaction to its invasion of an independent country was simply because people feared and hated Russia. According to the chart below, Russophobia was not an issue of major concern to the Russian Foreign Ministry or state-funded disinformation outlets until the Russian military invaded Ukraine. Claims of 'Russophobia' persist across a range of topics and are employed whenever the Russian government wants to play the victim, when it is actually the aggressor."
The CIA, the BBG's news outlets, the entire corporate and foundation media spent billions of dollars ($5 Billion in Ukraine alone, as admitted by Victoria Nuland) peddling the fabricated "Russiagate" for FIVE YEARS.
Need one say more?
"Theme #2: Historical Revisionism
"When history does not align with the Kremlin’s political objectives, Russian government officials and their proxy voices deny historical events or distort historical narratives to try to cast Russia in a more favorable light and serve its domestic and geopolitical agenda. For example, the 1939 non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which helped precipitate World War II, is politically inconvenient for the Putin regime. In 2020, in an attempt to minimize and rationalize Stalin’s decision to align himself with Hitler, Putin published a twisted version of the start of World War II, downplaying the Soviet role and shifting blame for the war to other countries. Russia often takes this a step further by labeling those who disagree with its twisted version of history as Nazis or Nazi sympathizers."
Again, as stated above regarding the non-aggression agreement with Hitler - the US, UK and France refused to enter into an agreement with the USSR to form a joint defense against Hitler, forcing Russia to act to buy time with the signing of the treaty with Germany.
France actually signed such an agreement with Germany the year before (in 1938) and in 1940 welcomed Hitler into Paris. The governments, military forces and industrial base in each of those two countries were thereafter allied against the USSR, the UK and, ultimately, the US.
The USSR's 1939 agreement with Hitler bought the Soviets an almost two-year repreive from the (1941) Nazi attack, actually saving the Soviet Union from destruction and denying Hitler the decisive power that would have come with a conquest of its massive lands and wealth.
Also note - and see the MANY HOURS and YEARS of coverage in international and social media thereof - the actual rallies and legislation of the Right Sector and Azov groups in the Ukrainian government and on the front lines in the east, where they carry swastikas, hold Nazi-style candle-light marches (with goosestepping militias) and made Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera a national hero.
"The Kremlin also applies this formula to the history of Ukraine’s statehood, NATO’s conduct during the collapse of the Soviet Union, its GULAG prison system, the famine in Ukraine known as Holodomor, and many other events where the Kremlin’s historical actions do not serve its current political goals."
The Holodomor was a product of the Nazi occupation and the OAU/Bandera collaboration. Read the actual history.
"Theme #3: 'The Collapse of Western Civilization is Imminent'
"Russia pushes the false claim that Western civilization is collapsing and has strayed from 'traditional values' because it works to ensure the safety and equality of LGBTQI+ people and promotes concepts such as female equality and multiculturalism."
Actually, Russia has been the most advanced European society in the history of the world with respect to female equality. This criticism mostly deals with the legal and cultural fiction in the US that men can be women and women can be men. This is a biological absurdity. This is not the same as a condemnation of trans-people or their social identities. It is rather statement of an objective biological reality, and the social and cultural and political rejection of this reality is the item referenced as a marker of decay.
"The demise of Western civilization is one of Russia’s oldest disinformation tropes, with claims of 'the decaying west' documented since the 19th century."
Over the period from the end of World War II to the present, there has been a substantial decay of the position of workers and the middle class and, since 1963, there has been a steady decay of democratic values, supplanted by political assassination, war, union-busting, Cointelpro, spying on Americans and more.
Further, polling data accumulated over the last decade has shown a steady trend of public opinion that considers the institutions of the country as lacking legitimacy. Congress (20+/-% positive), the media (15-20% positive) and election integrity (40+/-% positive) all fail the test of public confidence, according to almost every US poll conducted since 2015. And a Congress with such a meager approval rating that nevertheless has an approximate 98% reelection rate is hardly a convincing carrier of the banner of democracy.
"This 'values'-based disinformation narrative evokes ill-defined concepts including 'tradition,' 'family values,' and 'spirituality.' Russia argues it is the bastion of so-called 'traditional values' and gender roles and serves as a moral counterweight to the 'decadence' of the United States and Western countries."
Read on.
"For example, President Putin has claimed the West has practically cancelled the concepts of 'mother' and 'father,' and instead has replaced them with 'parent 1 and 2,' while Foreign Minister Lavrov wrote that Western students 'learn at school that Jesus Christ was bisexual.'"
Perhaps it was a translation problem. Can you say "person with ovaries" instead of woman? "He/him"? "She/her"? "They/them"? Etc.
Or perhaps he was referring to this offering at Amazon.
"Theme #4: 'Popular Movements are U.S.-sponsored ‘Color Revolutions’
"The Kremlin has difficulty accepting that all individuals should have the human right to freedom of expression, and that the government should be accountable to its people. Russia has accused the United States of either instigating uprisings or plotting 'color revolutions' in Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Ukraine, and throughout the Middle East and Africa."
This turns history - and reality - on its head.
Historically, the US claimed - with legislation and more - that each and every indigenous independence movement in Asia (e.g., Korea and Vietnam), Africa (e.g., Angola, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, Congo, et al) and Latin America (e.g., Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc., etc.) was either instigated by the Soviet Union or was a Soviet "communist plot" AND, BTW, took military action against each and every one of these, and dozens more, with MILLIONS of casualties as the result.
Meanwhile, each of the "revolutions" listed by Secretary Blinken (in five former Soviet republics and in those former colonies of Europe and the US in Africa and Asia and Latin America that had achieved independence) was CLEARLY a product of US direction and financial support, instigated by US propaganda outlets, and enabled and empowered by US arms and military assistance. Outside of the bubble of the US government, these are not even controversial statements. These facts are known by almost everyone on Earth but the American people.
"If a popular movement is pro-democracy and pro-reform and not deemed to be in Russia’s geopolitical interests, the Kremlin will often attack its legitimacy and claim that the United States is secretly behind it. These baseless accusations often target local and international civil society organizations, as well as independent media that expose human rights abuses and corruption. The Kremlin seeks to deny that people in neighboring countries could have agency, dignity, and independent aspirations to advocate for themselves, just as it denies these qualities to the people of Russia."
A simple visit to Russia demonstrates, actually, that more people there feel that they are free than the people here do.
But forgetting that for a moment, it is the US that has crushed popular movements in countries across the world, from Afghanistan in 1979 to Zimbabwe in 2017 et seq., and many dozens of countries in between.
And it is the US, not Russia, that has its military deployed across the world in more than EIGHT HUNDRED FOREIGN BASES, and has a military budget of $750 BILLION vs Russia's military budget of $70 BILLION.
In other words the US spends TEN TIMES MORE THAN RUSSIA ON ITS MILITARY. (Look it up.)
"Theme #5: Reality is Whatever the Kremlin Wants It to Be
"The Kremlin frequently tries to create multiple false realities and insert confusions into the information environment when the truth is not in its interests. Often intentionally confusing, Russian officials make arguments designed to try to shift the blame away from the Russian government’s role, even if some of the narratives contradict one another."
Actually, Russia's officials speak about their views and their positions quite clearly and consistently. Notice that you never see any unedited presentation of their perceptions, claims or concerns in any US media. Instead, hysterical, inaccurate and largely comical characterizations of "what Putin wants" dominate the narrative.
To speak plainly, who is bullshitting whom?
"However, in time, presenting multiple conflicting narratives can itself become a technique intended to generate confusion and discourage response."
Only if the media covers it that way, OR presents conflicting narratives, unmediated, for the viewers to see. Instead, the old version (e.g., Russiagate) goes down the memory hole, across ALL media - corporate (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX), foundation (PBS, NPR, Pacifica, Democracy Now) and government (BBG outlets, e.g., Radio free Europe) - and the new one is presented front and center, with only subtle differences for the various discrete segmented markets.
"Other elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem, such as the abuse of state-funded disinformation outlets and weaponized social media, help push multiple false narratives."
So many media lies - from the phony war on Iraq to the revelations of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Bradley/Chelsea Manning - came through those same outlets. Whatever the motivation, the existence of an alternative to the single voice of the elite that calls itself "the free press" in the US is valuable as hell to those trying to parse reality in an ocean of lies, dissemination and outright bullshit.
"It was clear to the world, for example, that Russia attempted to assassinate former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England, on March 4, 2018. In the four weeks following that incident, Russian state-funded and directed outlets RT and Sputnik disseminated 138 separate and contradictory narratives via 735 articles, according to the Policy Institute at King’s College London."
Actually, the discrediting of this ridiculous and contradictory accusation by western European media has been COMPLETELY absent from the US media and, of course, does not inform the fantasies flowing from Blinken's press secretary.
"Russia has used the same technique of flooding the information space with many false claims following other events, such as the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, and Russia’s 2008 invasion and ongoing occupation of Georgia, to distract conversations from their role in the events. Again, the purpose is to confuse and distract others and manipulate the truth to suit Kremlin interests."
There has been NO evidence produced of ANY Russian role in the shootdown of Flight 17.
The referenced "occupation of Georgia" is ahistoric and an outright lie in the present. One might instead ask Secretary Blinken - at a press conference, with the cameras rolling - about Washington's relationship (and, BTW, his own personal history) with the long-time fugitive ex-President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who, upon fleeing his own country ahead of corruption and larceny charges, was appointed by the US proxies in Kiev as a governor of Odessa in Ukraine following the murder of 39 Russian-speaking Ukrainians by Neo-Nazis loyal to the Kiev coup.
As for the rest, I won't try to impute intent or purpose where it is difficult to locate sanity - or even basic sentience - with any certainty.
