Promoting Confrontation With Russia

By Stephen Lendman
8-18-14

Washington's rage for war may end up targeting Russia next. Major media propaganda and disinformation seem inexorably heading in this direction.

Madness explains what's happening. Truth is systematically buried. It's turned on its head. Big Lies, distortions and deception substitute.

Western readers and viewers get a daily diet of outrageous managed news misinformation. America's so-called MSM are worst of all.

From The New York Times to Fox News, a systematic drumbeat of anti-Russian propaganda drowns out real news, information and analysis.

Winston Churchill once said "(a) lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

Today it circulates instantly. Joseph Goebbels once said "(i)f you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

He called truth "the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Corporate media giants, so-called US public broadcasting and radio, Britain's BBC, Qatar's Al Jazeera, and similar operations regurgitate, hype, and proliferate state-sponsored lies, misinformation, distortions and deception.

The bigger the lie, the more often it's featured and repeated ad nauseam. Russia-bashing is outrageous. It substitutes for real news, information and analysis.

Readers and viewers are carpet-bombed with a daily drumbeat of misinformation. It doesn't rise to the level of bad fiction.

It's ideologically driven. It's one-sidedly biased. It's over-the-top rubbish. It's gross hypocrisy.

It turns heroes into villains. It blames victims for perpetrator crimes. It justifies the unjustifiable.

It spurns peace and conflict resolution. It heads inexorably toward East/West confrontation. It risks global war.

MSM culprits play major roles in influencing public opinion. Propaganda wars precede hot ones.

Deception, popular fiction and Big Lies launch them. Intense Russia bashing risks international peace, stability and security.

Washington's rage for war is humanity's greatest threat. Its permanent war policy deplores peace and stability.

Presidents wage wars at their discretion. Rule of law principles don't matter. Imagine risking conflict with Russia.

Imagine promoting it irresponsibly. Imagine a worst case scenario. Imagine risking humanity's survival.

Putin bashing never quits. It's relentless. The most outrageous Big Lies repeat ad nauseam. Truth is systematically buried.

Putin defends Russian sovereignty. He opposes US imperial lawlessness. Washington considers him public enemy number one. World peace hangs in the balance.

The New York Times suggests Russian humanitarian aid may be more a Trojan horse than a gift one.

Clearly it's the latter. Russia would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by trying to deliver arms and munitions to beleaguered Southeastern Ukrainians instead of promised humanitarian aid.

Don't expect The Times and other MSM members to explain. Instead, they regurgitate Kiev misinformation about covertly supplying Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters "men and weapons even if Moscow denies the charge."

A 280 truck convoy of desperately needed aid remains halted on Ukraine's border. Ukrainian officials began inspecting it.

It will take days or longer for completion. Delay advantages Kiev. Its terror war on civilians continues.

Around 70 or more lives are lost daily. Human misery is extreme. Lugansk and Donetsk have no electricity or water. Medicines and fuel are running out.

Food is in short supply. Heavy shelling continues. Civilian neighborhoods are targeted. Conditions are dire. Human misery worsens daily.

The Times and other MSM contributors blame victims for Kiev crimes. Washington supports them unequivocally.

On August 13, Vice President Joe Biden told Ukraine's illegitimate president Petro Poroshenko that Washington "would continue working with its international partners to press Russia to de-escalate the crisis, and end all support, arming, and financing of the separatists."

The NYT and other media scoundrels repeated the Big Lie and others like it. Washington's role in replacing Ukraine's democratically elected government with neo-Nazi fascists is entirely ignored.

So is explaining Kiev's war without mercy against its own Southeastern citizens. Murdering them in cold blood continues.

White phosphorus able to burn flesh to the bone and perhaps other illegal terror weapons are used.

Washington, its rogue Western allies and media scoundrels turn a blind eye to atrocities too grave to ignore.

Kiev fascists take full advantage. They're free to commit mass murder and destruction with impunity.

Desperately needed humanitarian aid is blocked. Preventing it is lawless collective punishment.

In collusion with Washington, a provocative EU statement turned truth on its head.

It called on Russia "to put an immediate stop to any form of border hostilities, in particular to the flow of arms, military advisors and armed personnel into the conflict region and to withdraw its forces from the border."

Washington bears full responsibility for Ukrainian crisis conditions. Rogue EU partners share it.

Ordinary Ukrainians suffer most. Don't expect The New York Times and other media scoundrels to explain.

On August 16, Foreign Policy headlined "Putin's New Clothes," saying:

"Russia's president is nakedly invading Ukraine. Why won't anybody say anything?"

Putin faced these outrageous charges many times before. He's gone all-out for peaceful conflict resolution.

He's shown remarkable restraint in doing so. He shames his Western counterparts. He's a master chess player. He's a world class leader.

You'd never know from the merciless bashing he takes. Big Fat Lies substitute for truth, all of it, and nothing else.

Foreign Policy repeated the fiction about a column of Russian APCs and tanks entering Ukraine.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen outrageously called it an "invasion."

Ukraine's oligarch president Petro Poroshenko said it was confronted and destroyed.

He provided no evidence proving what Russia's Defense Ministry called either a "phantom" or Ukrainian forces mistakenly at war with itself.

Foreign Policy invented its own truths. Real ones don't matter.

It outrageously accused Russia of "nakedly dispatch(ing) columns of armored vehicles into Ukraine, and stag(ing) a piece of pseudo-humanitarian theater to legitimate a more open form of warfare."

Imagine it by not crossing Ukraine's border. Without firing a shot. With food, clean water, sleeping bags and blankets, as well as medicines, medical supplies, and other vital aid.

Imagine countering Kiev atrocities with kindness. Imagine calling delivering humanitarian aid a crime.

Imagine depriving desperate people of vital aid to stay alive. Imagine Washington's dirty hands covertly orchestrating the worst of what's ongoing.

Imagine media scoundrel complicity by failing to report what demands headlines. Imagine coverup and denial of appalling high crimes against peace.

On August 16, the Wall Street Journal headlined "Some Realism on Russia," saying:

Ukraine's Poroshenko claims a Russian invasion could happen any day.

Journal editors repeated the Big Lie about "Putin's dreams of restoring Greater Russia."

Not a shred of evidence suggests it. He's been Russia's president from May 2000 to May 2008 and since May 2012.

In over 10 years as head of state, he did nothing to expand Russia's borders. He accommodated near Crimean unanimity to be part of Russia again. He acted responsibly doing so.

He didn’t invade. He deplores wars and violence. He supports peace and stability.

He believes nation-state sovereignty is inviolable. He opposes interfering in the internal affairs of other nations.

He respects rule of law principles. He deplores Washington's imperial agenda. That puts him at odds with Obama and rogue elements around him.

Journal editors accused Obama of letting his "adversaries advance at minimal cost or resistance."

With his multiple direct and proxy wars raging, suggesting he's soft rings hollow.

Not hardline enough, say Journal editors. Perhaps they favor hot war with Russia and humanity next.

Perhaps they prefer destroying humanity to save it. Confronting Russia belligerently risks what no rational leader would dare.

Yet events seem headed inexorably for trouble. Cool heads are absent when most needed. Will humanity survive the onslaught?

A Final Comment

Stanley Kramer's 1959 apocalyptic film "On the Beach" is must viewing. It's about nuclear radiation destroying life on earth following WW III.

The film stars Gregory Peck as US submarine commander Dwight Lionel Towers. Ava Gardner is his love interest.

Fred Astaire is Australian scientist Julian Osborn. He commits suicide to avoid the agony of radiation poisoning.

The final scene is chilling. Viewers won't ever forget. Earlier Melbourne streets showed normal life.

The end shows them empty, devoid of life and windblown. A church banner ironically reads: "There is Still Time…Brother."

No longer. Radiation poisoning is unforgiving. It has final say. Kramer's film explains the madness of nuclear war.

If waged, there's no coming back. No second chance. No salvation from slow painful death worldwide.

If that's not reason enough for peace and good will, what is?

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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