McCarthyism
2.0 – part 5
The
U.S. government is creating a new $160 million bureaucracy to shut
down information that doesn’t conform to U.S. propaganda
narratives, building on the strategy that sold the bloody Syrian
“regime change” war.
by
Rick Sterling
Suppressing
and Censoring Challenges
Despite the widespread censorship
of alternative analyses on Syria and other foreign hotspots that
already exists in the West, the U.S. government’s new “Global
Engagement Center” will seek to ensure that the censorship is even
more complete with its goal to “counter foreign state and
non-state propaganda and disinformation.” We can expect even
more aggressive and better-financed assaults on the few voices daring
to challenge the West’s “group thinks” – smear campaigns that
are already quite extensive.
In an article titled “Controlling
the Narrative on Syria”, Louis Allday describes the criticisms and
attacks on journalists Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal for straying
from the “approved” Western narrative on Syria. Some of the
bullying and abuse has come from precisely those people, such as
Robin Yassin-Kassab, who have been frequent guests in liberal Western
media.
Reporters who have returned from
Syria with accounts that challenge the propaganda themes that have
permeated the Western media also have come under attack. For
instance, Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett recently returned to North
America after being in Syria and Aleppo, conveying a very different
image and critical of the West’s biased media coverage. Bartlett
appeared at a United Nations press conference and then did numerous
interviews across the country during a speaking tour. During the
course of her talks and presentation, Bartlett criticized the White
Helmets and questioned whether it was true that Al Quds Hospital in
opposition-held East Aleppo was attacked and destroyed as claimed.
Bartlett’s recounting of this
information made her a target of Snopes, which has been a mostly
useful website exposing urban legends and false rumors but has come
under criticism itself for some internal challenges and has been
inconsistent in its investigations. In one report entitled “White
Helmet Hearsay,” Snopes’ writer Bethania Palmer says claims the
White Helmets are “linked to terrorists” is “unproven,”
but she overlooks numerous videos, photos, and other reports showing
White Helmet members celebrating a Nusra/Al Qaeda battle victory,
picking up the bodies of civilians executed by a Nusra executioner,
and having a member who alternatively appears as a rebel/terrorist
fighter with a weapon and later wearing a White Helmet uniform. The
“fact check” barely scrapes the surface of public evidence.
The same writer did another
shallow “investigation” titled “victim blaming” regarding
Bartlett’s critique of White Helmet videos and what happened at the
Al Quds Hospital in Aleppo. Bartlett suggests that some White Helmet
videos may be fabricated and may feature the same child at different
times, i.e., photographs that appear to show the same girl being
rescued by White Helmet workers at different places and times. While
it is uncertain whether this is the same girl, the similarity is
clear.
The Snopes writer goes on to
criticize Bartlett for her comments about the reported bombing of Al
Quds Hospital in east Aleppo in April 2016. A statement at the
website of Doctors Without Borders says the building was “destroyed
and reduced to rubble,” but this was clearly false since photos
show the building with unclear damage. Five months later, the
September 2016 report by Doctors Without Borders says the top two
floors of the building were destroyed and the ground floor Emergency
Room damaged yet they re-opened in two weeks.
The many inconsistencies and
contradictions in the statements of Doctors Without Borders resulted
in an open letter to them. In their last report, Doctors Without
Borders (known by its French initials, MSF) acknowledges that “MSF
staff did not directly witness the attack and has not visited Al Quds
Hospital since 2014.”
Bartlett referenced satellite
images taken before and after the reported attack on the hospital.
The images do not show severe damage and it is unclear whether or not
there is any damage to the roof, the basis for Bartlett’s
statement. In the past week, independent journalists have visited the
scene of Al Quds Hospital and report that the top floors of the
building are still there and damage is unclear.
The Snopes’ investigation
criticizing Bartlett was superficial and ignored the broader issues
of accuracy and integrity in the Western media’s depiction of the
Syrian conflict. Instead the article appeared to be an effort to
discredit the eyewitness observations and analysis of a journalist
who dared challenge the mainstream narrative.
U.S. propaganda and disinformation
on Syria has been extremely effective in misleading much of the
American population. Thus, most Americans are unaware how many
billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on yet another “regime
change” project. The propaganda campaign – having learned from
the successful demonizations of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s
Muammar Gaddafi and other targeted leaders – has been so masterful
regarding Syria that many liberal and progressive news outlets were
pulled in. It has been left to RT and some Internet outlets to
challenge the U.S. government and the mainstream media.
But the U.S. government’s near
total control of the message doesn’t appear to be enough.
Apparently even a few voices of dissent are a few voices too many.
The enactment of HR5181,
“Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation,” suggests that
the ruling powers seek to escalate suppression of news and analyses
that run counter to the official narrative. Backed by a new infusion
of $160 million, the plan is to further squelch skeptical voices with
operation for “countering” and “refuting” what the U.S.
government deems to be propaganda and disinformation.
As part of the $160 million
package, funds can be used to hire or reward “civil society
groups, media content providers, nongovernmental organizations,
federally funded research and development centers, private companies,
or academic institutions.”
Among the tasks that these private
entities can be hired to perform is to identify and investigate both
print and online sources of news that are deemed to be distributing
“disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda directed at the
United States and its allies and partners.”
In other words, we are about to
see an escalation of the information war.
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