Western Media Propaganda Threatens Peace and Prolongs the Deadly Conflict in Eastern Ukraine
Western Media Propaganda Threatens Peace and Prolongs the Deadly Conflict in Eastern Ukraine
September 2, 2016
by Roger Annis
Western media is becoming unhinged as its anti-Russia propaganda struggles to keep a hold on its consumers. Two recent examples provide evidence.
Pro-peace conspiracy emanating from Moscow
On August 28, the New York Times published an article by its Moscow bureau chief about the troubling news (from the Times‘ viewpoint) that the people of Sweden are not happy with their government’s wish to join up with the NATO military alliance.
The ruling elites in Sweden and Finland have been quietly pushing for NATO membership for years. In May, the Swedish government pushed through the Riksdag a proposal for a ‘cooperation agreement’ with NATO, allowing it freer access to Swedish territory for transit and training. Finland already has such an agreement in place. In July, government leaders of the two countries proudly joined the NATO summit dinner in Warsaw.
But as a Reuters report at the time of the Warsaw summit explained, “An SvD/SIFO opinion poll showed 49 per cent of Swedes opposed joining NATO, with 33 in favor. Most Finns are against entering, and a government report said in April any such move would trigger a crisis with Russia.”
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/02/western-media-propaganda-threatens-peace-and-prolongs-the-deadly-conflict-in-eastern-ukraine/
= new reply since forum marked as read
The swedish and finnish governments are lamenting that there's a misinformation-campaign, supposedly perpetrated by Russia. So, how does the author of the article above handle this?
Does he give an example of such a misinformation?
Does he give information about well-documented cases of russian misinformation, e.g. how russian journalists confirmed the existence of russian state-sponsored internet-trolls?
Does the author look into Finland's history with Russia?
Far from any of that. He laments that the NYT failed to look into a very specific argument that he just thought of. Therefore the whole thing must a lie. 
* “Disinformation most famously succeeded in early 2014 with the initial obfuscation about deploying Russian forces to seize Crimea.”
Where did the unmarked, green-clad soldiers come from if it weren't russian soldiers???
* “… the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 plane with a missile supplied by Russia.”
So who downed it????
* “… the Kremlin’s English-language news outlets heavily favored the campaign for [Britain] to leave the European Union, despite their claims of objectivity.”
* “[The Russian state-owned television channel] RT often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish.”
Read RT, start looking for typical signs of propaganda and you can see those traces all over the place in almost every article.
(RT bothered to turn an article about russian and british hoologans clashing into propaganda by strategically leaving out information and painting the russian hooligans as victims when they had actually infiltrated the other fans and attacked first.)
“Fighting in eastern Ukraine” is Western news-speak for “We don’t’ wish to name the protagonist in the conflict in eastern Ukraine because it happens to be our friend and ally. And what’s more, we are hoping that you don’t notice that it is the army of Ukraine that has invaded and occupied parts of Donbass in eastern Ukraine, not the other way around.”
The Donbass is ukrainian territory. A military fighting secessionists is not the same as invading a territory.
Hey, remember when Russia "invaded" the russian provinces of Chechnya and Ingushetia?
What does all this have to do with Russia, apart from the obvious facilitation role which Russia (and other regional powers) could fulfill? Is Russia supposed to take over Ukraine so that Minsk-2 may be implemented?
Let's see:
- russian soldiers "on vacation" in eastern Ukraine and Russia going to great pains to prevent Russians from finding out whether russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine
- russian convoys permanently and liberally passing in and out of Eastern Ukraine and nobody knows what they are transporting back and forth
- some leaders of the secessionists being Russians
Recently, they led the European Union in extending EU economic sanctions against Russia, including Crimea. They are silent about the provocative action of the United States, Britain and Canada in providing military training and equipping of the Ukrainian army and paramilitary irregulars, which is then applied to the illegal and criminal war against the citizens of Donbass.
Because Russia fucking invaded Crimea and is currently conducting ethnic cleansings against the crimean Tartars.
Illegal war? Does that mean that Russia's wars in Chechnya and Ingushetia were also illegal?
What’s more, Ukraine conducts an ongoing military occupation of Donetsk and Lugansk territory
Because they are legally still ukrainian territory.
the refusal of Kyiv to grant the slightest decentralization of power in the highly-centralized Ukrainian constitutional setup whereby regions of Donbass could achieve a desired autonomy.
Bad, bad government is trying to uphold the constitution.
