MH17: The Blaming Putin Game Goes On

Russia Insider

Mike Morrell, who embodies the CIA imperial corporatist man, and once No. 2 at that organization, is now spreading fear and propaganda directly from CBS, as a paid “national security contributor.” The marriage of Big Media and guys like these exemplifies the rottenness at the core of the system—which endangers us all.

US intelligence has not said anything about the MH17 – pressumably because it has nothing to implicate Russia with

But the US will nonetheless go along with the Dutch report which according to leaks suggests Russia is to blame – without offering evidence

This article originally appeared at The Unz Review

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]nce upon a time CIA Stations overseas received what was referred to as an “Operating Directive” which prioritized intelligence targets for the upcoming year based on their importance vis-à-vis national security.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, penetrating Moscow and preventing the KGB’s repaying the favor in kind loomed large as Russia and its allies represented the only genuine threat that could in fact destroy much of the United States.

Today’s Russia retains much of that military capability but somehow the perception that you have to deal with what is important first has been lost on our policymakers, possibly due to a false impression inside the beltway that Moscow no longer matters.

A working relationship with Moscow that seeks to mitigate potential areas of conflict is not just important, it is essential. Russian willingness to cooperate with the west in key areas to include the Middle East is highly desirable in and of itself but the bottom line continues to be Moscow’s capability to go nuclear against Washington if it is backed into a corner.

Unfortunately, U.S. administrations since Bill Clinton have done their best to do just that, placing Russia on the defensive by encroaching on its legitimate sphere of influence through the expansion of NATO.

Washington’s meddling has also led to interfering in Russia’s domestic politics as part of a misguided policy of “democracy building” as well as second guessing its judiciary and imposing sanctions through the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012.

The damage to relations has been aggravated by the ill-advised commentary from American politicians on the make, including Senator John McCain’s dismissal of Russia as “a gas station masquerading as a country.”

One should legitimately be concerned over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inflicting damage on his country’s fledgling democracy through fraud, corruption, media clampdowns and exploitation of a malleable legal system.

One might also object to exactly how Russia asserted its interests using force against neighboring states Georgia and Ukraine. But that does not change the bottom line, which continues to be that functional relations between Moscow and Washington are a sine qua non.

Russia’s domestic politics are none of our business and the alleged grievances of Georgia and Ukraine are undeniably a lot less purely attributable to Russian actions than the White House and Congress would have us believe, with U.S. interference in both countries clearly a major contributing factor to the resulting instability.

Assuming that one accepts that lessening bilateral tension over the Ukraine is a desirable objective, the White House might soon have a good opportunity to demonstrate that it is willing to deal fairly with the Russian leadership in Moscow.

The Dutch Government’s Safety Board will in October make public its long awaited report detailing its assessment of last year’s downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 over Ukraine.

The investigation was conducted with the cooperation of the Ukrainian and Malaysian authorities, but did not include a thorough survey of the crash site, which was and still is considered too dangerous.

“Reported conversations among separatists claiming credit were eventually determined to be composite fakes produced by the Ukrainian intelligence services…”

According to leaks of its conclusions, the report will admit that there is no conclusive evidence regarding who is responsible for the shoot down but it will nevertheless make a circumstantial case that the pro-Russian separatists are the most likely suspects in spite of the fact that there is no hard technical [data] or related intelligence evidence supporting that judgment. Blaming the separatists will, by implication, also blame Moscow.

McCain was naturally on tap to pronounce Putin culpable. The fact that the mainstream media treat this vermin with respect and offer him a constant platform for his lies and warmongering defines the role of the corporate media better than anything else.

The plane was hardly on the ground when the accusations began to spread like wildfire. McCain was naturally on tap to pronounce Putin culpable. The fact that the mainstream media treat this vermin with respect and offer him a constant platform for his lies and warmongering defines the role of the corporate media better than anything else.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t this point, the United States, which together with other interested parties has been reviewing a copy of the report in draft, does not intend to present its own findings but will instead go along with the Dutch conclusions.

Among former intelligence, military and Foreign Service officers there has been considerable discussion of the significance of Washington’s standing on the sidelines regarding the findings.

To be sure, there are a number of rumors and allegations circulating relating to what is actually known or not know about the shoot down.

According to some sources, the U.S. intelligence community disagrees over the likelihood of the alleged Russian role and has suggested as much privately to the Dutch.

Some analysts who have looked at all the considerable body of information that has been collected relating to the downing actually believe that the most likely candidate might well be the then governor of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch billionaire who is an Israeli-Ukrainian dual national.

Kolomoisky is known to employ Israeli mercenaries as advisers and has personally organized and paid for militias fighting the Russian separatists. He would have been strongly motivated to create an incident that could plausibly be blamed on the Russians or their surrogates and he had the means to do so.

The government in Kiev acting independently also had the resources and motive to shoot down the plane and blame it on Moscow.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he dominant narrative that is still circulating widely suggests that either a direct or enabling Russian role is a given based on the claimed origin of the Buk missile, technical analysis of the plume and trajectory, and the military units that were known to be in place or moving at the time.

And there was also the apparent separatist bragging on communications intercepts about shooting down a transport plane. This was the explanation that surfaced shortly after the downing, that was heavily promoted by the Ukrainian government and the media and that has been much favored by the international punditry ever since.

The third option of how to explain the shoot down is, of course, the Dutch approach: we think it was the Russians but we can’t prove it. That is an easy choice to make as it really says nothing, which is possibly why it is being favored by the White House.

But if it is actually true that there has been considerable dissent on the findings, the tacit acceptance of a possibly unreliable and essentially unsustainable report by the White House will have significant impact on relations with Russia.

It constitutes a disturbing rejection of possibly accurate intelligence analysis in favor of a politically safe alternative explanation. It recalls the politicization of intelligence that included Robert Gates’ Soviet assessments of the 1980s, John McLaughlin’s tergiversation regarding Iraq, and, most recently, Michael Morell’s over the top hyping of the threat posed by political Islam.

It is a return to a Manichean view of the world as “them” and “us” with the implication that intelligence professionals are willing to restrain their dissent on an important issue if it serves to advance the current war of words with Russia.

To be sure, deep sixing intelligence assessments that contradict policies that the White House is intent on pursuing anyway buys congenial access to the President and his advisers but it comes at the cost of diminishing the ability of the intelligence community to provide objective and reliable information in a timely fashion, which is at least in theory why it exists at all. Producing honest intelligence will, on the contrary, strengthen both the reputations and credibility of all involved.

If Russia is indeed to blame for the airplane shoot down it should be held accountable, but it is up to the U.S. government to put its cards on the table and be clear about what it does and does not know.

The original claims that Russia was involved were based on snap judgments based on bits of information that had been obtained immediately after the event, little of which has been subsequently corroborated through either satellite imagery or electronic and signal intercepts.

Emotional ceremonies, in this case in the Netherlands, have been played for maximum effect to agitate the public against Russia.

Emotional ceremonies in the Netherlands, another vassal state, played for maximum effect to agitate the public against Russia.

Since that time the German BND intelligence service has expressed its doubts that the missile used in the shoot down could have been supplied by Russia and has also claimed that photos provided by the Ukrainian government as part of the investigation had been “doctored.”

There have also been reports regarding a Ukrainian fighter plane being in the area of the airliner as well as the nearby presence of Ukrainian ground to air missile units.

Reported conversations among separatists claiming credit were eventually determined to be composite fakes produced by the Ukrainian intelligence services.

Presumably U.S. intelligence has also taken a long and hard look at all the evidence or lack thereof but it is being quiet regarding what it has determined.

It is important to get this right because the potential damage goes far beyond the role of intelligence or even who might have been responsible for the downing of an airliner one year ago.

As the relationship with Russia is of critical importance and should be regarded as the number one national security issue for the United States, it is essential that the Dutch conclusions be aggressively challenged if there is even the slightest possibility that Russia is blameless.

One does not have to be a fan of Vladimir Putin to appreciate that the nearly continuous efforts being promoted within mostly neoconservative circles to both delegitimize and confront him and his regime do not serve any conceivable American national interest.

In an Independence Day phone call to President Obama, President Putin called for a working relationship with the United States based on “equality and respect,” which should, under the circumstances, be a given.

Americans have been lied into intervention and war more than once over the past fifteen years and it should be clear to all that any contrived crisis based on an erroneous conclusion regarding a shot down airliner that develops into an armed conflict with Russia will have unimaginable consequences.

A skeptical American public and international community must demand that any MH-17 report should reflect a full assessment, to include any dissent from its conclusions registered by the United States intelligence community.

Any information at variance with the conventional view, particularly anything that suggests that there might be other interested parties who had both the means and compelling interest to shoot down a civilian airliner, must become a part of the discussion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

[box] Philip Giraldi is a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer with over 20 years of service overseas This article originally appeared at The Unz Review[/box]

[printfriendly]

Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s).

What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?

Burying The Greatest Victory in Spite: Rewriting History to demonize Russia

Ulson Gunnar

New Eastern Outlook | Global Research, April 29, 2015

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n efforts to demonize Russia, the history of the Western World is being distastefully rewritten. The monumental sacrifices of the Russian people during World War II are not only being marginalized, but flipped upon their heads. Today, reading through the Western media, one will find a multitude of comparisons between Russia and Nazi Germany, with Russian President Vladimir Putin compared with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Beyond distasteful, this propaganda is dangerous to the point where it borders on exonerating the Nazis, even celebrating their acts of aggression and bolstering those monkeying their ideology today, particularly in Ukraine, Poland and other NATO-oriented Eastern European nations where fascism has been resurrected to once again battle the Russian people.

Right! The vacillating, two-timing Merkel, a Washington stooge so far, as the principled figure in this cartoon implying that Putin and Russia have been “misbehaving”. How absurd can it get?

The most recent example of this can be seen in an ABC News article “Polish Border Guards Refuse Entry for 10 Russian Bikers,” where Russian bikers planned to trace the route of Russian soldiers as they pushed back the Nazi tide in World War 2. Their goal was to visit the grave sites of fallen Russian soldiers (which includes many Polish soldiers who fought alongside them) and honor the sacrifices of tens of millions who resisted and eventually ended fascism in Europe.

Politically Motivated Exclusion: Western Free Speech?

The ABC News article admits that Poland has been unable to explain precisely why the Russian bikers were barred from entering the country. No weapons were found and no danger was described. Instead, ABC claimed:

“This is not a normal bike club. They are tools in the hand of Vladimir Putin to make propaganda,” said Tomasz Czuwara, spokesman for the Open Dialog Foundation, a Polish group that supports Ukraine.

The German government has also expressed unease at the bikers and said they would not be welcome.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said that Germany had decided to revoke the Schengen visas of a small number of people after the government concluded that “there are some people we believe to be in the leadership of the Night Wolves who we do not believe are pursuing a legitimate aim with their actions in Germany.”

Reminding the world of the dangers of fascism and extraterritorial military aggression is particularly inconvenient for the West, particularly NATO and especially the current political orders occupying power in Poland, Ukraine and even Germany. Reminding the world of the gradual encirclement and eventual invasion of Russia during World War 2 would make NATO’s current encirclement and encroachment along Russia’s borders look painfully familiar and could make NATO’s already unpopular agenda even more untenable.

In the style of the Big Lie, reality is completely inverted. This is the kind of propaganda that plays well only when the lies and innuendos are so shameless that defy “common sense” detection in broad daylight. The massive ignorance and confusion of the public is a requirement. That’s why we see so many denunciations of Putin and Russia as “fascist” and “Nazis,” when in reality it is the NATO alliance that is rebuilding Nazism in Eastern Europe. It is only through their overwhelming propaganda machine that the US-led bloc can get away with the cynicism displayed in images like the above. If those distributing this drivel were serious, they’d have to begin the clean-up in Washington and Kiev.

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ince the Russian bikers pose no real threat, it is clear that the decision to bar them from entering Poland, and possibly even barring them from entering Germany to honor fallen Russians in a war that Germany provoked and Polish collaborators helped facilitate, is purely politically motivated.

It is the West itself that often labels nations “dictatorships” and describes them as lacking “freedom” when activities are banned simply for political reasons, yet this is precisely what is being done now along the border of Poland. “Free speech,” an alleged pillar of Western civilization ensures that even unpopular points of view and activism are protected. Honoring those who defeated the Nazis and fascism in Europe is hardly even “unpopular,” though it appears there are concerted efforts to change that.

What’s even more ironic is the fact that the West currently claims Russia constitutes a grave danger to Western civilization and all of the rights and institutions within, yet it is the West itself dismantling these rights and institutions, brick-by-brick to maliciously array its people against Russia.

Russia’s Thanks For Saving Europe

Before launching the invasion of Russia, Nazi Germany was the uncontested master of Western Europe. It had swept away Polish, French and British forces in a lighting-fast war before consolidating everything under a singular fascist supranational state. The island nation of England was all that was left unconquered, and through a blockade and persistent air war, the Germans were confident they could break the British as well.

But in 1941, three massive German armies comprised of millions of soldiers moved east toward Russia. They aimed to seize Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the center, and the oil-rich southern regions in the Caucasus. The ensuing battle soaked Russia with the blood of its people. Over 20 million Russians, soldiers and civilians, would perish in a battle that first confounded, then exhausted the Nazi military machine, before eventually overrunning them and pushing them back to Berlin itself.

It is commonly understood that if the millions of German soldiers committed to the failed conquest of Russia had been concentrated instead in the west, it is likely that Britain would have finally been conquered and the history of the Western World would have from then on been written by the Nazis.

The ingratitude is particularly vexing in the case of Poland, which suffered grievously under the Nazis. But then again Poland had a long tradition of fascism and reactionary politics.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ut because of the monumental sacrifices of the Russian people, followed by sacrifices of Europeans and Americans, the Nazis were defeated.

In the wake of a conflict described as the most expansive military theater of all time, one would expect this sacrifice to lead toward generations of enduring vigilance against fascism. What must those with relatives who perished in this great conflict, in Russia and in both America and Western Europe, think when they see a Ukrainian regime come to power backed by ultra-violent fascist militias wearing the insignia of Adolf Hitler’s notorious Waffen SS divisions?

Hypocrisy and the Shape-Shifting Notion of Freedom

In America, biker clubs too often ride to commemorate the sacrifices of fallen comrades. There have even been events held in Vietnam, a nation the US invaded from almost literally the opposite side of the planet. Yet the Vietnamese have allowed these events to move forward, a nation also described as “not free” by the West, yet apparently more willing to allow such events than the “free” West.

It is clear that the increasing animosity toward, and attempts to defile the sacrifices of millions of fallen Russian soldiers during World War 2 represents not only a temporary political row between the West and Russia, but a dangerous overwriting of history that attempts to obscure the crimes, atrocities and acts of aggression that led up to and lasted throughout the war. Obscuring the warnings taught by history invites history’s repeating itself.

It also represents an increasingly obvious hypocrisy pervading Western society, where the concept of “freedom” is used to label enemies as dictatorships, but is willfully trampled when politically convenient at home to an extent even “not free” nations refuse to entertain.

Barring the Russian bikers is just one of many attempts to disrupt this year’s Victory Day and reframe Russia as the very threat it helped defeat in World War 2. However, while Russian bikers seek to follow the trail of Russian soldiers as they pushed the Nazis back to Berlin, it is NATO that is following the ignoble steps of the Nazi army as it expanded eastward toward Russia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

[box] Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. [/box]

[printfriendly]

What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?

How the Western “Free” Press Enables and Encourages Ignorance

Danielle Ryan | Opinion / Analysis

Danielle Ryan is a regular contributor to RI. This article originally appeared at Journalitico

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]’ve read many pieces — and written some — about the failure of the Western press in how it chooses to cover not only Russia, but Russian media, like RT. None have hit the nail on the head quite as much as this one.

It begins with the story of a journalist fired because his reporting on Maidan and his views on Crimea did not match those of his employer. It’s exactly the kind of story that Politico, Newsweek and BuzzFeed would love.

Really. It has it all. Suppression of the free press. Restriction on free speech. European “values”. Russia, Crimea, Maidan, the whole works. They’d be drooling all over it for at least a week.

There’s just one teeny tiny problem: The journalist in question happened to be fired from an American government-funded news outlet because he supported Crimea’s reintegration into Russia and exposed neo-Nazi atrocities in Ukraine. Oops.

Close your ears, BuzzFeed! This is the kind of ‘suppression of the free press’ story you don’t want to hear about.

Now, you might be thinking well okay, if his views were that far out of line with those of his employer, then is it really that big of a deal that he was fired?

So it might come as a greater shock to learn that the journalist in question spent 25 years airing pro-Western views for this news outlet and, during that time, was also a very harsh critic of Vladimir Putin.

His name is Andrei Babitsky and the outlet that fired him is Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

And this is the sentence that set the ball rolling:

This is not about Crimea – on this question, I’m fully agreed with Vladimir Putin’s main thesis, that Russia has the absolute right to take the peninsula’s population under its protection. I am aware that a significant number of my colleagues don’t share this viewpoint.

Babitsky

As Anatoly Karlin, the author of the brilliant piece which details his firing points out, the rest of Babitsky’s piece returns to his more common criticism of Russia and could in no way be classified as pro-Putin or anti-Western.

Still, a week later he was suspended for one month without pay. He came back after the month only to be fired shortly after for reasons perhaps even more unjustifiable than his support of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

Reporting from Donbas, Babitsky filmed the exhumation of four bodies in Novosvetlovka. The four people had been executed by the Ukrainian Aidar Battalion. He sent it to RFE/RL. It was published. Then, in his own words, the nationalists at the Ukrainian division of RFE/RL “became hysterical”.

All this, just because I had published a video, which only recorded what I saw with my own eyes, without any additional commentary.

The video was deleted and Babitsky was shown the door.

He recently gave an interview to a Czech daily newspaper about the entire affair. Karlin details this all more clearly and exhaustively than I will, but I want to highlight some quotes from Babitsky’s interview and then from Karlin’s own analysis of the ordeal.

Reeking of hypocrisy, it is the Western side that likes to deny it is guided by anything other than an unwavering commitment to the “truth”.

To a clearly hostile interviewer, Babitsky explains his position on Crimea:

I know that many Crimeans have always regarded Ukraine as a foreign state. Crimeans never felt at home there. They were annoyed by Ukrainization policies. They had the Ukrainian language forced upon them in place of Russian. Ever since its independence, Kiev has carried out an incorrect national policy towards minorities, first and foremost, in regards to the Russian one.

The entire peninsula was overtaken in horror by what awaited it, so the separation was an unequivocal reaction to the threat that Euromaidan represented to Crimeans.

Crimea escaped the bloody drama that Donbass didn’t. There were 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers on the peninsula, if some fool in Kiev had given the order, the conversation would have been overtaken by heavy artillery, and Crimea would have been completely destroyed.

It’s pretty clear from Babitsky’s personally informed and trustworthy analysis, that Crimeans to some extent felt like second-class citizens as part of Ukraine and were terrified of the fate that awaited them and which has sadly befallen Donetsk and Luhansk. It is further clear that the vast majority of them regarded Russia, their former home, as a protector, not an invader. This is not fairytale Russian propaganda. This is genuinely how a huge number of Crimeans feel.

Not that I’d suggest for one minute that everything is absolutely rosy for everyone in Crimea. Plenty have (rightly) gone looking for — and found — the 7-10 per cent who aren’t happy to have rejoined Russia. It would be impossible to have an entire population satisfied with the decisions of its government — in this instance, the new one or the old one. But that doesn’t excuse US lies claiming a “reign of terror” in what is actually a peninsula untouched by the war being waged in Donbass.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ack to Karlin’s piece. He points out that since RFE/RL is funded by the American government, they in principle should be allowed to decide how to use those resources.

He writes “If that involves kicking out journalists whose opinions and reporting overstay their welcome, then so be it” …and acknowledges that the same goes for other state-funded news organisations, like the BBC or RT.

I am in agreement with him that, while unfortunate, that’s the way it is. The trouble is, if you can accept it from one side, you have got to accept it from the other. Anything else is pure hypocrisy — and it’s the Western side most guilty of that hypocrisy. It is the Western side that likes to deny it is guided by anything other than an unwavering commitment to the “truth”.

Karlin continues: “It is primarily the Western media organizations that tend to have the chutzpah to deny this and instead claim an altruistic and universal dedication to truth, objectivity, free speech, and fluffy pink rabbits”.

He then quotes RT’s editor in chief who has said: “There is no objectivity – only approximations of the truth by as many different voices as possible.”

With that too, I wholeheartedly agree.

This brutal honesty, he continues, annoys the Western media intensely, “because they view their social arrangements and global hegemony as a revealed truth, and anything that even so much as suggests that it may be just one of many truths is equivalent to heresy“.

That superiority complex is unprofessional at best and dangerous at worst.

As a journalist, writer, blogger (shill, Kremlin troll etc.) — whatever I am — I can feel no other way than to be in support of multiple streams of information, multiple sources, multiple perspectives.

The ability humans have to close their eyes to other perspectives is the root of most of the world’s problems.

For that reason, I can barely comprehend it when I hear “respected” journalists calling for the shutting down or boycotting of RT. Neither can I comprehend the sheer hypocrisy of it, given the story we have just read about Andrei Babitsky, who, so disillusioned with his former employer (of 25 years) admits that it has become “nothing more than an instrument of American propaganda”.

I can’t fathom, that knowing how horrifying the result of group-think in media and politics can be, that there could be any intelligent person able to propose the boycotting of a legitimate news channel.

What happened to #JeSuisCharlie and our outrage over attacks on journalists? Crocodile tears, it would appear.

The same mentality that led those murderers to the Charlie Hebdo offices, leads ignorant people to call for the boycotting of RT. That mentality is simple and it is: I’m right, you’re wrong and I don’t want you to be allowed speak.

Trolling in the deep

Passionate Twitter users spend a lot of time debating each other on this topic of what constitutes “real” or “legitimate” news and what doesn’t. Unsurprisingly, quite the majority feel that the “real” news organisations are the ones reporting the news to their liking and the “propaganda” news organisations are the ones reporting things they don’t like very much.

Mostly though, if we stick with Twitter, the debate revolves around who is a “troll”, which precise views indicate trollish qualities, who is a shill, who is a liar and who is a “real” journalist etc. I’ve been labelled all of them at one point or another by various factions.

But to me the distinction between troll/non-troll is crystal clear.

“Trolls” …for want of a better word — and I mean that, I really do want a better word — are those that bombard users they are in disagreement with, with non-stop, unwanted messages, failing ever to give consideration to anything other than their own bias, which they push in bullish, aggressive and often abusive ways.

In other words, trolls can’t understand that it is not the views that make the troll, it’s the behavior.

Non-trolls (do we have a better word yet?) …usually ignore them and rarely, if ever, are the ones to initiate contact. They express their views, defend themselves when necessary, consider alternative viewpoints and then leave it at that.

Any massive media organisation that pushes the idea that the “truth” is my way or the highway and that it’s okay to disregard other human perspectives, adds no value to anything or anyone. That goes for Russian media and Western media alike.

All that mindset does is empower the mindless masses and Twitter lunatics into thinking they need not use their brains for anything other than the daily confirmation of their own bias. It keeps them stupid, uninformed and makes them feel justified in their hateful and abusive behavior.

Unsurprisingly, RFE/RL never responded to Karlin’s request for comment on Babitsky’s firing.

They don’t feel the need to justify themselves — and they can rest assured, that none of the Western bastions of free speech they hold so dear will hold them to account either.

Must be nice living in that world.

[printfriendly]

What is $1 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?

HYBRID WARFARE: PUTIN JUST PLAYED A VERY INTERESTING CARD

In one stroke Russia has named and shamed the culprits of the Information War waged against her and dealt multiple blows in years to come. Now, look at the top 15 and ask yourself what it tells you?

RUSSIA INSIDER

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]ermany is fooling no one while it tops the list and the so-called International Community is just a bunch of corrupt politicians in western capitals bidding for big capital.

This Index is here to stay as a constant reminder of which nations show duplicitous behaviour in their coverage of Russia. An ever improving sophisticated propaganda (Read the Russian definition) tool developed to counter a sophisticated Mass Media campaign and render it useless in one blow.

According to this methodology, there are two countries that currently engage in an “information war” against Russia: Germany and the U.S. The countries that follow after them but are less aggressive in their media policies include Austria, France, the UK and Poland. — According to this methodology, there are two countries that currently engage in an all-out “information war” against Russia: Germany and the U.S. The countries that follow after them but are less aggressive in their media policies include Austria, France, the UK and Poland.

The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies introduced its first-ever World Mass Media Hostility Index, which measures potential anti-Russian bias in the media publications of different countries, and then assigns each country an overall score.

On Feb. 18 the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS), a think tank established by the Russian President in 1992, presented its new “World Mass Media Hostility Index,” the main goal of which is to rank how friendly countries are to Russia by analyzing their mass media content. It aims to identify the states that exercise the most aggressive media policy towards Russia and threaten its “information security.”

This analytical report is the result of detailed analysis of the media policies of different countries in 2014, when crucial shifts in the rhetoric employed by Western media about Russia occurred. The author of the mass media hostility index is a senior fellow at RISS, Dr. Igor Nikolaichuk. He suggests that, over the course of 2014, Western media started to “spread anti-Russian propaganda more actively than ever,” which he calls the beginning of “the global information war” against Russia.

The RISS positions its index as the first-ever comprehensive analysis of the world’s media content pertaining to Russia. The analysis is based on complex statistical data (provided by Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya) that is examined via a new applied discipline known as “political mediametrics.” A unit for analysis is a significant media publication that gives a reader certain assessments of Russia or its leadership. Ordinary news was excluded from the analysis.

The origins of the World Mass Media Hostility Index

As the world entered the information age, the mass media took on a big part in our lives, and over the last decade, started to influence it to an even greater degree. The mass media contributes to the formation of public opinion and leads to the creation of certain narratives in the political discourse in a country, in a region or even in the world.

The word ‘propaganda’ in recent years has become a new favorite word in the media world. Google Trends show that interest in the word ‘propaganda’ has been rising over time in the ‘news search category’.

The conflict in Ukraine, which erupted in 2014, galvanized a struggle in the media space and contributed to the broad usage of the word ‘propaganda,’ which mostly referred to the information reported by state-owned media, particularly Russian state-owned media.

Propaganda, as defined by the Oxford dictionary, is “the information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.” The Russian dictionary of Ozhegov defines it as “spreading in society an explanation of ideas, thoughts, knowledge or learnings.”

The difference in the definitions is quite obvious, as is the perception of different types of information. From a Russian linguistic point of view, propaganda mostly serves as a tool for explanation of certain ideas, thoughts and policies. The Anglo-Saxon definition stresses the biased or misleading nature of the promoted information. Herein lies the main dichotomy in understanding the information war between Russia and the West.

However, there is a factor that contributes to the misunderstanding between both Russia and the West. In fact, Anglo-Saxon and Western countries dominate the global media world. This puts the Russian media in a sort of defensive position, forced to explain an alternative, different view of events that may not be popular in the West.

This inevitably led to a clash in the type of information the media promotes, especially at a time of geopolitical controversy. In such circumstances, information warfare became a real fact and the world media started to be engaged in a struggle for “hearts and minds” as never before.

The methodology and findings of the new index

Dr. Nikolaichuk says that the volume of analyzed data is about 70 thousand media pieces that were published between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 30, 2014. The data was monitored for 60 countries. Before the introduction of the research results, Dr. Nikolaichuk touched on the topic of – information security – that has turned into a top agenda issue in the world over the past 12 months. In the light of the Ukrainian crisis, hostile rhetoric in the world media towards Russia, predominantly Western, increased.

The index is calculated as the ratio of negative publications to neutral publications. The author defines a ratio of more than one neutral to five negative publications as an indicator that the country wages information warfare against Russia.

According to this methodology, there are two countries that currently engage in an “information war” against Russia: Germany and the U.S. The countries that follow after them but are less aggressive in their media policies include Austria, France, the UK and Poland.

Here are some findings of the report. Based on the analysis of the media space around Russia in 2014, it became evident that the media front against Russia was comprised first of all by the Anglo-Saxon countries, EU states, Japan, Ukraine, Georgia and Jordan, reports Nikolaichuk. During 2014, Germany had the largest amount of significant publications about Russia – 8,929, followed by the U.S. – 5,771, the UK – 5,209, France – 4,810, and Switzerland – 4,105.

Among the European countries, Italy is out of the picture with its traditionally friendly rhetoric towards Russia. Belgium follows this example. Sweden and Denmark are dominated by the negative media approach; Norway and Iceland are predominantly neutral. The only country with a dominant positive trend in its media was Syria. If one were to compare 2014 with 2013, in 2013 the UK and Georgia had a neutral media policy towards Russia, and the mass media of South Africa, Canada, Japan, and Ukraine did not have strong anti-Russian tendencies. In general, the report concludes that the media environment for Russia worsened in 2014.

A comprehensive report on the Media Hostility Index will be released annually with a detailed description and analysis of trends that changed during the year. RISS also produces short weekly reports on changes in the Media Hostility Index to track how the media environment reacts to different international or domestic events.

RISS views this new index as the start of a comprehensive, statistically-backed product that intends to underscore the biased nature of Western media reporting on Russia, consequently raising this issue to a higher degree of attention and discussion.

Russia Insider

[printfriendly]

What is $1 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?

The great illusion of free press

Mike Walsh
Euro Weekly News | SOTT.NET

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] regularly enjoy coffee with two mainstream media editor friends. Neither will carry my articles because of my ‘pro-Russian leanings.’ I won’t play a part in mainstream media’s orchestrated anti-Russian rhetoric. Be proud of me; my candid nature suggests that, in the Euro Weekly News at least, you enjoy a free press.

A fiction usually directed at Russia is that it doesn’t have a free Press; rhetoric without substance. Let us instead take a look at the so-called free Press in the West.

The sinister Colby, suddenly turned truth-teller, died under sordid circumstances.

William Colby, ex-director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a man who should know Western media: prepared to speak in favour that they ended up planting people in the (Question Time) audience.”

BBC bias is well documented: Many years ago, Roy Bramwell of Inter-City Research, disclosed: “I have heard MPs and senior political aficionados complain that if they were to say on BBC what they really think, they would never be invited again, and not to be invited again could make a quick end to an aspiring politician’s prospects.”

Udo Ulfkotte, former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, caused a sensation when, in his best-seller, Bought Journalists, he revealed; “We are taught to lie, to betray and not tell the truth to the public.” He went on to describe how the CIA pays German media professionals to spin stories to follow US government goals.

In an interview with a Dutch journalist, Ulfkotte says, “some media are nothing more than propaganda outlets of political parties, secret services, international think tanks, and high finance entities. I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I’ve been educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. The German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia.

“We have betrayed our readers, just to push for war. I don’t want this any more, I’m fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic, and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom.”

This top German journalist challenged his former employers to prove him wrong or sue him. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung refuses to do so, but banned journalists from mentioning their former editor. A word of advice. Read between the lines and you will be far better informed.

What is $1 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?