As if our modern lives are not complicated enough, not already filled with doubt regarding what is worthy of belief, what is a sham and what a confidence trick with conspiracy theories abounding… we now have a situation where truth may have suffered a terminal blow.
The necessity for the USA and UK along with most elements within Europe to defeat Russia (and later China) and replace their leaders and systems with something conductive to western political elites, has made for an all-encompassing propaganda war where truth, as usual in war, became the first casualty.
Social media is awash with claim and counterclaim, assertions fly, condemnations are hurled in an information war that should by rights be named a disinformation war. This was is being carried out at all levels within the western world. As to Russia many of her supporters wonder why there is not a similar psychological operation to counter that of the West. This absence even extends to Russian military reporting on the day to day events in Ukraine. Only an antiseptic report containing figures relating to Ukrainian casualties and loss of materiel is supplied without further commentary.
It has been reported that the Kiev authorities have enlisted the help of some one hundred public relations companies to assist in what must surely be the most ubiquitous and all-pervasive advertising campaign ever seen in relation to any war. In the western world the influence bought via this campaign and through official Ukrainian channels has been immense and has dovetailed very well with the western goals in respect of Russia (and no doubt a similar campaign against China later regarding Taiwan).
Naturally to win any information war claims, no matter how false, must have an element of believability behind them and in this respect the CIA has a good seventy years of experience in this art. Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) have been at the heart of many attempts by the U.S. government over the years to undermine target nations. ‘Operation Mockingbird’, the CIA operation to have U.S. state narratives and talk points be mirrored in every major U.S. (and European) media outlet, was exposed by the Church Committee in 1975. The goal encompassed finding “journalists” willing to produce the required content and even writing articles for them which were then seeded across the world as containing factual information.
The precursor of a sort to all these attempts to frame false narratives was a small group set up in the United Kingdom during world war two. This created false narratives concerning the sex life of Hitler and his close associates in an effort to undermine Nazi morale. When Churchill discovered its activities he was minded to shut it down as “not cricket”, i.e. not British and immoral. However, when told of its successes he left it to continue its work.
Seeding misinformation across the world has almost become a western art form in recent decades, especially after Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech in 2007 where he disavowed the concept of the USA and its allies having global control in a unipolar world. The lie machine very decidedly started rolling ever faster against him from that point onward. Why? Because he had voiced opposition to the very thing that the political elites of the USA (and its allies) had decided was absolutely necessary after 9/11, a global hegemony for them that would ensure such an event would never again reoccur.
Now we have the Ukraine war, the central point and focus of the struggle prefigured above, the nexus where the existential issues of both east and west are to be settled and the war of words has become hugely fierce and threatens to become all-pervasive dividing the world into two primary camps.
Much to the surprise of the elites of the western world however, many supposed allies and neutral nations generally well-disposed (or seeming to be) to western interests are refusing to play ball and continue to maintain good trading relations with Russia and refuse to convey the narratives and talking points the West urges upon them.
It seems clear that we are witnessing a further movement toward the multipolar world that Vladimir Putin posited as the true reflection of global democracy when he refused to accept the de facto dictatorship of a West-based worldwide hegemony of surveillance, control, regulation and, where deemed required, punishment.
With the above being the case we see tentative attempts to bring certain concepts into being against all those who are refusing to accept the western view of reality. Suddenly certain human rights issues in reference to India come to the fore similar to those which arose regarding Russia and China. The big stick is being waved by the West if not quite brought fully down on those disobedient souls who deign to contradict its views and diktat.
All the while the sanctions war blowback is serving to weaken the ability of the West to threaten others into submission to its will. The answer to this, as ever for the West, is to double down rather than reassess. This bodes ill for any hope that the war of words will lessen. The most likely consequence is that it will be ever-increasingly intensified leaving the world ever more aware of exactly who is lying to them and why… with ever less reason to respect and obey that source with ever-lessening reasons to do so.
The above being the case and with Russia winning on the ground in Ukraine if not across western social media the hyperbole, false claims and all-pervasive propaganda across the western world appears here to stay, even if most of the rest of the world remains immune to it.
UKRAINE: THE MODERN TOWER OF BABEL IS ONE BUILT UPON WESTERN PROPAGANDA
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