No matter how bleak the picture seems, coming into a new calendar year raises hopes. Resolutions are made and lists of 'to be accomplishments' are created with anticipation that, somehow, this year will be 'the' year.
And, in the United States we have a new president. This alone raises hopes. And in the case of Donald Trump, at this early point, almost anything is possible. Nobody really expects that he will do many if any of the things he said he would do. More than most new presidents coming into office, this is a wait and see episode for sure.
There is the potential for more war, but that particular expectation is lessened with Hillary Clinton moving into the dust-bin of history rather than into the White House. There are the consecquences of global warming and climate change staring mankind in the face. If Trump follows through on his campaign speeches, we can expect to move backwards in that regard. Perhaps we will turn a climate corner that cannot be turned again during human tenure on this planet. Or, perhaps Trump will listen to science and will move us to action against global warming.
On the domestic level, there is rampant racism as the dominate force in our national character. It remains to be seen what that will mean in the Trump presidency.
Also important domestically is the economic health of the nation. There can be lots of speculation about what this will ultimately mean in Trump's agenda and administration. The election itself was a mass of confusion (intentionally planted) as to whether Trump was economically brilliant or whether he was a fortunate and lucky economic idiot. How often he was bankrupt and what that says about him was kept in front of the public.
Trump says that NAFTA, the free-trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States that was signed into law by Bill Clinton is “the worst trade deal ever”. The evidence seems to support his statement. This is why he says the United States will withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office.
Trump’s argument against these trade agreements is that they hurt American workers and undercut US companies. He is being a protectionist. The average American farmer and auto worker has lost to cheap labor in developing countries. He views these trade agreements as unbridled capitalism. He sees that jobs that used to be in American industrial towns have been shipped overseas. He understands that profit-driven corporations will reduce production costs by continuing to move jobs overseas. This seems basic. His statements along these lines are probably a major reason for his election victory. He certainly carried areas that were formerly industrial. Maybe the American people will actually benefit from this side of a Trump presidency.
At the beginning of this year and at the beginning of this presidency, we can wait with hope and see how things unfold.
Clearly the oligarchy is against Trump. As citizens, there is absolutely no reason to assist the establshed order by being anti-Trump? To borrow from Dr. Roberts, "If Trump sells out Americans, we can turn on him then, or we can decide whether Chris Hedges is correct that only revolution can rectify the situation." 
Can Trump Fix The Economy In 2017?
From Paul Craig Roberts The offshoring of jobs benefits only a small number of shareholders and executives. Former prosperous manufacturing states are in long term depression. Median real family incomes have fallen. Real estate values in abandoned manufacturing areas have fallen. The tax base has eroded. State and local government pension systems cannot meet their obligations. The social safety net is unraveling. In the West Junk Information And Junk Judgment Prevail The Western world and that part of the world that partakes of Western explanations live in a fictional world. We see this everywhere we look -- in the alleged machinations of Russia to elect Donald Trump president of the US, in claims that Saddam Hussein and his (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction were a threat to the United States (a mushroom cloud over American cities), that Assad of Syria used chemical weapons against his own people, that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, that a few Saudi Arabians outwitted the entirety of the US, EU, and Israeli intelligence services and delivered the greatest humiliation to the "world's only superpower" in the history of mankind, that Russia invaded Ukraine and could at any moment invade the Baltics and Poland, that the US rate of unemployment is 4.6%, that China's trade surplus with the US is due to Chinese currency manipulation, and so on and on. Allegedly we live in a scientific era of information, but what good can come from faulty orchestrated information? As long as fake news delivered by presstitutes serves powerful private and governmental interests, how can we know the truth about anything? For example, consider the claim found everywhere in US government and US media statements that the massive US trade deficit with China is the result of Chinese currency manipulation, keeping the yuan underpriced relative to the US dollar. This false claim, which is widely accepted as truth even by Russian writers on Russian websites, is nonsense. China's currency is pegged to the US dollar. It moves with the dollar. China pegged its currency to the US dollar in order to create confidence in the Chinese currency. Over the past decade China has adjusted the peg of its currency to the dollar and permitted a rise in the value of the Chinese currency from 8.1 yuan to 6.9 yuan to the US dollar. (The yuan reached a strength of 6 to the dollar, but a rising dollar was pulling up the yuan, causing China to widen the float in order to avoid undue appreciation because of the US dollar's rise to other Asian and European currencies.) How is a rising yuan "currency manipulation"? Don't expect an answer from the presstitute financial media or the junk economists who comprise the neoliberal economics profession. The function of the myth of Chinese currency manipulation is to hide from view the fact that the massive US trade deficit with China is due to US corporations offshoring their production for US markets to China. When US corporations bring goods and services produced offshore back to the US for sale, they enter as imports, thus swelling the trade deficit. The myth about currency manipulation shifts the blame from US corporations to China, while in fact it is the return of off-shored production, such as Apple computers, for sale to Americans that swells the US trade deficit. US corporations produce offshore because the much lower labor costs result in higher profits, higher stock prices for shareholders, and in performance bonuses for executives. One of the main causes for the high Dow Jones averages and the worsened income and wealth distribution in the US is the offshoring of jobs. In 2016 the richest people added $237 billion to their wealth, while the rise in student loan, auto loan, and credit card debt combined with stagnant or declining income left ordinary Americans poorer. During the 21st century, household indebtedness has risen from about 70% of GDP to about 80%. Personal income has not risen in keeping with personal debt. The offshoring of jobs benefits only a small number of shareholders and executives, and it imposes massive external costs on American society. Former prosperous manufacturing states are in long term depression. Median real family incomes have fallen. Real estate values in abandoned manufacturing areas have fallen. The tax base has eroded. State and local government pension systems cannot meet their obligations. The social safety net is unraveling. To get an idea of the external costs that offshoring imposes on the American population, go online and look at the pictures of decrepit Detroit, formerly an industrial powerhouse. Schools and libraries are abandoned. Public buildings are abandoned. Factories are abandoned. Homes are abandoned. Churches are abandoned. Here is one four-minute video. And it is not only Detroit. In my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism (Clarity Press, 2013), I report the 2010 US Census data. The population of Detroit, formerly America's fourth largest city, declined by 25 percent in the first decade of the 21st century. Gary, Indiana, lost 22 percent of its population. Flint, Michigan, lost 18 percent. Cleveland, Ohio lost 17 percent. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania lost 7 percent. South Bend lost 6 percent. Rochester, New York, lost 4 percent. St. Louis, Missouri, lost 20 percent. these cities were once the home of American manufacturing and industrial might. Instead of telling the truth, the presstitute financial media and the corrupt US economics profession have hidden the massive social and external costs of jobs offshoring under the totally false claim that offshoring is good for the economy. In my book, I take to task corporate shills such as Dartmouth's Matthew Slaughter and Harvard's Michael Porter, who produced through incompetence or complicity erroneous reports of the great benefits to Americans of having their jobs given to Chinese and American cities left in ruins. Throughout its history the US has suffered from public lies, but not until the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes did lies become so ubiquitous that truth disappeared. Consider the November jobs report. We were told that the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6% and that 178,000 new US jobs were created in November. The recovery is on course, etc. But what are the real facts? The unemployment rate does not include discouraged workers who have been unable to find employment and have ceased job hunting, which is expensive, exhausting and demoralizing. In other words, unemployed people are being pushed into the discouraged category faster than they can find jobs. That is the explanation for the low official unemployment rate. Moreover, this reported low rate of unemployment is inconsistent with the declining labor force participation rate. When jobs are available, people enter the work force in order to take advantage of the employment opportunities, and the labor force participation rate rises. The reporting by the financial presstitutes adds to the deception. We are given the number of 178,000 new jobs in November. And that is it. However, the data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows many problematic aspects of the data. For example, only 9,000 of the claimed 178,000 jobs are full-time jobs (defined as 35 hours or more per week). October saw a loss of 103,000 full-time jobs from September, and September had 5,000 fewer full-time jobs than August. No one explains how an economy losing full-time jobs is in recovery. The age distribution of the November new jobs is disturbing -- 77,000 of the jobs went to those 55 and over. Only 4,000 jobs went to the household forming ages of 25-34. The marital status distribution of the jobs is also troubling. In November there were 95,000 fewer employed married men with spouse present and 74,000 fewer employed married women with spouse present than in October. In October there were 331,000 fewer married men and 87,000 fewer married women employed than in September. One can conclude from these large differences month to month that the official statistics are not good, which might well be the case. For example, as I have stressed in my reports on the monthly payroll employment releases, there is always a large number of new jobs for waitresses and bartenders. Yet restaurant traffic has declined for nine consecutive months. Why do restaurants hire more employees as traffic declines? As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has informed us, the monthly payroll jobs claims might consist entirely of add-ons from estimates from a flawed birth/death model and manipulations of seasonal adjustments. In other words, the reported new jobs might only be statistical illusions. John Williams also emphasizes that the claimed real GDP growth numbers might be entirely the products of the under-measurement of inflation. Some years ago the inflation measures were "reformed" in order to cheat those on Social Security out of cost-of-living adjustments. In place of a weighted index that calculated the cost of a constant standard of living, substitution was introduced. In the reformed index, if the price of an item in the index rises, a lower-priced item is substituted in its place, thus negating the inflationary impact of the price rise. Also, price rises are defined away as "quality improvements." Clearly, this is an index designed to under report rising prices. The bottom line is that the recovery allegedly underway since June 2009 might be a statistical illusion produced by a flawed measure of inflation. What can Americans expect from the economy in 2017? First, some perspective. The defeat of stagflation by President Reagans supply-side policy gave the Clinton regime a good economy. The improved US economy was not entirely a good thing, because it masked the adverse consequences of jobs offshoring that began in earnest after the Soviet collapse in 1991. The Soviet collapse encouraged the change in attitude of the Indian and Chinese governments toward foreign capital. Wall Street and big box retailers such as Walmart forced the relocation of much of US manufacturing to China, to be followed after the rise of the high speed Internet by offshoring professional skill jobs such as software engineering to India. These relocations of US economic activity to foreign locations hollowed out the US economy and reduced the job opportunities for Americans. The growth of real median family income ceased. Without increases in consumer spending to drive the economy, the Federal Reserve substituted a growth in consumer debt for the missing growth in real median family income. But the growth of consumer debt is limited by the lack of growth in consumer income. Thus, an economy dependent on debt expansion is limited in its ability to expand. Unlike the federal government, the American people cannot print money with which to pay their bills. Alone among those contending for political office, president-elect Trump has fingered jobs offshoring as a blow to the American people and the US economy. It remains to be seen what he can do about it, as jobs offshoring serves the interests of the global corporations and their shareholders. For many years now the monthly payroll jobs reports show the US descending into Third World status, with the vast bulk of the claimed new jobs in lowly paid, non-tradeable domestic services. The BLS 10-year job projections show few new jobs that require a university degree. If high value-added, high productivity middle class jobs cannot be brought back to the US, the American economic future is one of continuing decline into Third World status. Considering the constraints on the consumer, a large share of corporate profits has come from labor cost savings from jobs offshoring. For corporations such as Apple, whose products are almost entirely produced in Chinese factories, there are no more profits to be secured from jobs offshoring. To keep the profits flowing, Apple plans to replace the inexpensive Chinese labor with robots, which do not have to be paid any wage. What better shows the disconnect between capital and labor than to robotize Chinese factories in the face of an excess supply of labor? Paul Samuelson's economic textbook taught the fallacy of composition, what is good for the individual might not be good for the group. The Keynesian economists applied this to savings. Saving is good for the individual, but if aggregate saving exceeds investment, aggregate demand falls, pulling down income, employment, and saving. This is the case with jobs offshoring. It can increase profits for the firm, but in the aggregate it decreases aggregate income of the population and limits sales growth. What jobs offshoring does in this respect will be done in spades by robotics. When I read economists and financial presstitutes glorifying the cost savings of robotics, I wonder where their mind is or if they have one. Robots don't purchase housing, home furnishings and appliances, cars, food, clothing, vacations, entertainment. When robots have the jobs, where do humans get the incomes with which to purchase the products produced by robots? This unexamined question has extraordinary implications for property rights and the social organization of society. Ralph Gomory told me a few years ago that a handful of people hold the robotic patents. Therefore, in a robotized world, the distribution of income and wealth would be concentrated in the hands of a few dozen people. Indeed, would there be any income or wealth of any magnitude? The only way humans could survive would be to again become self-sufficient farmers with no monetary income to purchase products made by robots. As few would be able to purchase products made by robots, there would be no source for income and wealth for the patent holders. I am convinced that if robotics is going to supplant human labor, the patents will have to be socialized, and income distributed on a relatively equal basis throughout society. So, can Trump fix the economy in 2017? There can be no fix unless the ladders of upward mobility that made the US an opportunity society can be put back in place. This will require bringing home the off-shored middle class jobs or, assuming that new high value-added jobs could somehow be created, preventing the new jobs from being moved offshore. There is a way to do this: Base the corporate tax rate on the geographical location where corporations add value to their product. If corporations add value domestically with US labor, the tax rate would be low. If the value is added abroad, the tax rate would be high. The tax rate can be adjusted to offset the benefits of lower costs abroad. Despite the progaganda about globalism and free trade, the US economy was built on protection, and its strength was the domestic market. US prosperity was never dependent on exports. And as the US dollar is the world reserve currency, the US doesn't need exports in order to pay for its imports. This is why the US can tolerate the trade deficits caused by jobs offshoring. Globalism is a concoction by the neoliberal junk economists in complicity with the big banks, Wall Street, and multinational corporations. Globalism is a disguise for the exploitation of the many in behalf of the few. The alleged benefits of globalism were used to justify the offshoring of jobs and to enrich corporate executives and shareholders. It is the domestic economy that is important, not the global economy. The suffering population in flyover America finally learned this lesson and elected Trump. Can Trump script "The Escape From Globalism?" He could lose the fight. Globalism has been institutionalized. The large corporations that have off-shored their production for US markets would oppose moves against jobs offshoring. So would all their shills in the economics profession and financial media. I don't know the extent to which globalism has taken root in people's minds in Asia, Africa, and South America, but in Europe -- even some in Putin's Russia -- people are brainwashed in the belief that they can't exit globalism without paying a large economic price. Consider, for example, the Greeks. For the sake of the balance sheets of a handful of northern European (and perhaps US) banks, the Greek and Portuguese peoples have been forced into extreme austerity, resulting in such high unemployment and plummeting living standards that women have been forced into prostitution in order to survive. This totally unnecessary outcome has occurred because the Greek and Portuguese peoples and governments are so brainwashed that they believe they cannot survive as independent countries without globalism and the entry to globalism provided by EU membership. In the UK 45% of the population suffers from the same misconception. Globalism is the latest technique by which capitalism loots and destroys. In the Western world it is the working and middle classes that are looted of their jobs and careers. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America self-sufficient farming communities are looted of their land and forced into monoculture as laborers who produce an export crop. Countries formerly self-sufficient in food become dependent on food imports, and their currency, which carries that burden, is subject to endless speculation and manipulation. Was it universal ignorance or bribes that compelled governments everywhere to ransome their populations to globalism? Frontline journalists, such as Chris Hedges, who have seen and reported a lot, have concluded that the fate of the world is in such few hands that act only in their narrow self-interests that only revolution can correct the imbalance between the interest of a handful of oligarchs and the mass of humanity. Hedges' position is not an easy one with which to argue. Trump descending into the snakepit that is Washington, D.C., needs to remember what happened to President Jimmy Carter. In fact, the best thing Trump can do for his presidency is to go spend some time with Carter prior to taking office. Carter was an outsider, a principled person, and the Washington establishment did not want him. They reduced his effectiveness by framing up his budget director and chief of staff. The same thing can happen to Trump, assuming he is able to get his appointees confirmed by the Senate, members of which are allied with the CIA against Trump. Reaganites had a similar experience in the Reagan adminisration. Reagan had political experience as governor of California, the largest state, but he was an outsider to the Republican establishment, whose candidate for the presidential nomination was George H.W. Bush. Reagan defeated Bush for the nomination, but was advised by Republicans, who remembered the Goldwater wipe-out when the Rockefeller forces turned on Goldwater for not choosing the defeated Rockefeller as his VP running mate, costing Goldwater the election, to select Bush as VP. Otherwise, Reagan would find himself, like Goldwater, running against both the Democratic and Republican establishments. Reagan's first term took place with George H.W. Bush's main operative as chief of staff of the White House. This confronted me with problems as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy where I was the point man for Reagan's supply-side economic policy. Both political party establishments are more interested in controlling the party than in doing well for the country. During President Carter's four years, the main concern of the Democratic establishment was in regaining control of the party from the forces that had sent an outsider to the White House. During Reagan's eight years, the main concern of the Republican establishment was in regaining control of the Republican party from Reaganites. It is likely that Trump will now experience in spades what presidents Carter and Reagan experienced. The effort will be made to force him into compromises and to neuter his agenda. Ironically, this determined attack on Trump is being aided by the left-wing, progressive forces that stand to gain by Trump's standing up for the working and middle classes and for peace with Russia. Many of the liberal, progressive, left-wing websites are already soliciting donations in order to fight against Trump. So, even when we get a president who might try to represent the interests of the American people, those who claim to speak in behalf of the people join in the oligarchs' attack on Trump. The left side of the spectrum seems always, like the extreme right-wing side, to defer to their hatreds: Trump is a billionaire = hatred. Trump appointed an energy magnate = hatred. Trump appointed two three-star generals = warmonger and more hatred. The liberal, progressive, left wing cannot get beyond their bogeymen. Of course, they might be correct. However, as I have emphasized, Trump has chosen mavericks who have gone against the establishment. Moreover, these are strong men, like Trump, which is what it takes to bring change from above. The Exxon CEO wants energy deals, not war, with Russia. Gen. Flynn is the one who exposed on TV Obama's use of ISIS to overthrow Syria against the recommendation of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Gen. Mattis is the one who challenged the effectiveness of torture. Trump's main appointments are people who have challenged the Establishment. The usual assortment of establishment-approved appointees cannot bring change to Washington. The liberal, progressive, left-wing should be happy at the prospect of a government on the outs with the Establishment. Instead, the liberal, progressive, left has aligned with the Establishment in opposition to Trump. Every day I receive a half dozen requests for donations to "help us fight Donald Trump." What are these people thinking? Why do they want to fight someone that the entire US political establishment opposes? What they should first try is to gain Trump's confidence and win him to their agenda, as General Mattis did. I cannot assure you that Trump is not another fake like Obama. But it is a mistake to begin with this assumption. Why write off in advance the only person with the courage to put his life on the line and take on the corrupt and evil Washington establishment? Why help the Establshment defeat Trump? If Trump sells out Americans, we can turn on him then, or we can decide whether Chris Hedges is correct that only revolution can rectify the situation. Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He is a contributing editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. He has had numerous university appointments. His books, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is available here, and How America Was Lost, can be ordered here. His latest book, The Neoconservative Threat To International Order: Washington's Perilous War For Hegemony, can be ordered here.  |
One only has to read history to learn the truth. Eventually, as historians get farther from the actual time of a national involvement in certain activities, they look more closely at the evidence and start to publish the truth about those activities. Those things proclaimed in the headlines as accurate reporting, are later seen as the fabrications and distortions that they really are.
Current 'history' is always about propaganda... and always has been. Perhaps the propaganda machine as it currently exists is viewed as inefficient and needing improvement. Perhaps that is why Obama signed the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act" into law. The idea seems to be to counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests and to coordinate with friendly countries so that the whole world receives the same American lies at the same time.
Can one imagine a prison sentence for simply telling the truth? Keep watching.
The lies and fabrications of the mainstream corporate media are not the result of “sloppy journalism”. They are deliberate and intentional and the goal is to mislead the public. They often fan the flames of emotions with the use of fake images and videos in its coverage, especially when showing the supposed enemy in some violent or distasteful act.
This new 'law' seems to be part of a campaign against alternative and independent media to limit freedom of expression. It seeks to shut down the truth on the internet.
Today there is an abundance of information on this subject available for the reader. As the 'system' becomes more and more effective at blocking alternative information and alternative sources of news, there may be less and less of this information easily found. Here are some related articles. Read them while you can.
This new 'law' seems to be part of a campaign against alternative and independent media to limit freedom of expression. It seeks to shut down the truth on the internet.
Today there is an abundance of information on this subject available for the reader. As the 'system' becomes more and more effective at blocking alternative information and alternative sources of news, there may be less and less of this information easily found. Here are some related articles. Read them while you can.
Who is Behind “Fake News”? Mainstream Media Use Fake Videos and Images by Prof Michel Chossudovsky
The Western War On Truth — Paul Craig Roberts
By David Swanson, War Is a Crime | News Analysis: the lies and the consecquences of our wars
The West’s Lies To Russia Will Lead To War: By Polina Tikhonova - U.S. Analyst
Read past any religious over-tones and look at the history as Louis Farrakhan offers this information on the subject.
The War Against Alternative Information
January 1, 2017 - From Consortium News by Rick Sterling
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, writes Rick Sterling.
The U.S. establishment is not content simply to have domination over the media narratives on critical foreign policy issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and Russia. It wants total domination. Thus we now have the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act" that President Obama signed into law on Dec. 23 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017, setting aside $160 million to combat any "propaganda" that challenges Official Washington's version of reality.
The new law mandates the U.S. Secretary of State to collaborate with the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence and other federal agencies to create a Global Engagement Center "to lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests." The law directs the Center to be formed in 180 days and to share expertise among agencies and to "coordinate with allied nations."
The legislation was initiated in March 2016, as the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia was already underway and was enacted amid the allegations of "Russian hacking" around the U.S. presidential election and the mainstream media's furor over supposedly "fake news." Defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for the bill: "It's imperative that leaders in both the private sector and the public sector step up to protect our democracy, and innocent lives."
The new law is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because it merges a new McCarthyism about purported dissemination of Russian "propaganda" on the Internet with a new Orwellianismby creating a kind of Ministry of Truth -- or Global Engagement Center -- to protect the American people from "foreign propaganda and disinformation."
As part of the effort to detect and defeat these unwanted narratives, the law authorizes the Center to: "Facilitate the use of a wide range of technologies and techniques by sharing expertise among Federal departments and agencies, seeking expertise from external sources, and implementing best practices." (This section is an apparent reference to proposals that Google, Facebook and other technology companies find ways to block or brand certain Internet sites as purveyors of "Russian propaganda" or "fake news.")
Justifying this new bureaucracy, the bill's sponsors argued that the existing agencies for "strategic communications" and "public diplomacy" were not enough, that the information threat required "a whole-of-government approach leveraging all elements of national power."
The law also is rife with irony since the U.S. government and related agencies are among the world's biggest purveyors of propaganda and disinformation -- or what you might call evidence-free claims, such as the recent accusations of Russia hacking into Democratic emails to "influence" the U.S. election.
Despite these accusations -- leaked by the Obama administration and embraced as true by the mainstream U.S. news media -- there is little or no public evidence to support the charges. There is also a contradictory analysis by veteran U.S. intelligence professionals as well as statements by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, that the Russians were not the source of the leaks. Yet, the mainstream U.S. media has virtually ignored this counter-evidence, appearing eager to collaborate with the new "Global Engagement Center" even before it is officially formed.
Of course, there is a long history of U.S. disinformation and propaganda. Former CIA agents Philip Agee and John Stockwell documented how it was done decades ago, secretly planting "black propaganda" and covertly funding media outlets to influence events around the world, with much of the fake news blowing back into the American media.
In more recent decades, the U.S. government has adopted an Internet-era version of that formula with an emphasis on having the State Department or the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy supply, train and pay "activists" and "citizen journalists" to create and distribute propaganda and false stories via "social media" and via contacts with the mainstream media. The U.S. government's strategy also seeks to undermine and discredit journalists who challenge this orthodoxy. The new legislation escalates this information war by tossing another $160 million into the pot.
Propaganda and Disinformation on Syria
Syria is a good case study in the modern application of information warfare. In her memoir Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that the U.S. provided "support for (Syrian) civilian opposition groups, including satellite-linked computers, telephones, cameras, and training for more than a thousand activists, students and independent journalists."
Indeed, a huge amount of money has gone to "activists" and "civil society" groups in Syria and other countries that have been targeted for "regime change." A lot of the money also goes to parent organizations that are based in the United States and Europe, so these efforts do not only support on-the-ground efforts to undermine the targeted countries, but perhaps even more importantly, the money influences and manipulates public opinion in the West.
In North America, representatives from the Syrian "Local Coordination Committees" (LCC) were frequent guests on popular media programs such as "DemocracyNow." The message was clear: there is a "revolution" in Syria against a "brutal regime" personified in Bashar al-Assad. It was not mentioned that the "Local Coordination Committees" have been primarily funded by the West, specifically the Office for Syrian Opposition Support, which was founded by the U.S. State Department and the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
More recently, news and analysis about Syria has been conveyed through the filter of the White Helmets, also known as Syrian Civil Defense. In the Western news media, the White Helmets are described as neutral, non-partisan, civilian volunteers courageously carrying out rescue work in the war zone. In fact, the group is none of the above. It was initiated by the U.S. and U.K. using a British military contractor and Brooklyn-based marketing company.
While they may have performed some genuine rescue operations, the White Helmets are primarily a media organization with a political goal: to promote NATO intervention in Syria. (The manipulation of public opinion using the White Helmets and promoted by the New York Times and Avaaz petition for a "No Fly Zone" in Syria is documented here.)
The White Helmets hoax continues to be widely believed and receives uncritical promotion though it has increasingly been exposed at alternative media outlets as the creation of a "shady PR firm." During critical times in the conflict in Aleppo, White Helmet individuals have been used as the source for important news stories despite a track record of deception.
Recent Propaganda: Blatant Lies?
As the armed groups in east Aleppo recently lost ground and then collapsed, Western governments and allied media went into a frenzy of accusations against Syria and Russia based on reports from sources connected with the armed opposition. CNN host Wolf Blitzer described Aleppo as "falling" in a "slaughter of these women and children" while CNN host Jake Tapper referred to "genocide by another name."
The Daily Beast published the claims of the Aleppo Siege Media Center under the title "Doomsday is held in Aleppo" and amid accusations that the Syrian army was executing civilians, burning them alive and "20 women committed suicide in order not to be raped." These sensational claims were widely broadcast without verification. However, this "news" on CNN and throughout Western media came from highly biased sources and many of the claims -- lacking anything approaching independent corroboration -- could be accurately described as propaganda and disinformation.
Ironically, some of the supposedly "Russian propaganda" sites, such as RT, have provided first-hand on-the-ground reporting from the war zones with verifiable information that contradicts the Western narrative and thus has received almost no attention in the U.S. news media. For instance, some of these non-Western outlets have shown videos of popular celebrations over the "liberation of Aleppo."
There has been further corroboration of these realities from peace activists, such as Jan Oberg of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research who published a photo essayof his eyewitness observations in Aleppo including the happiness of civilians from east Aleppo reaching the government-controlled areas of west Aleppo, finally freed from areas that had been controlled by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its jihadist allies in Ahrar al-Sham.
Dr. Nabil Antaki, a medical doctor from Aleppo, described the liberation of Aleppo in an interview titled "Aleppo is Celebrating, Free from Terrorists, the Western Media Misinformed." The first Christmas celebrations in Aleppo in four years are shown here, replete with marching band members in Santa Claus outfits. Journalist Vanessa Beeley has published testimonies of civilians from east Aleppo. The happiness of civilians at their liberation is clear.
Whether or not you wish to accept these depictions of the reality in Aleppo, at a minimum, they reflect another side of the story that you have been denied while being persistently force-fed the version favored by the U.S. State Department. The goal of the new Global Engagement Center to counter "foreign propaganda" is to ensure that you never get to hear this alternative narrative to the Western propaganda line.
Even much earlier, contrary to the Western mythology of rebel "liberated zones," there was strong evidence that the armed groups were never popular in Aleppo. American journalist James Foley described the situation in 2012 like this:
"Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition -- one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups. The rebels in Aleppo are predominantly from the countryside, further alienating them from the urban crowd that once lived here peacefully, in relative economic comfort and with little interference from the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad."
On Nov. 22, 2012, Foley was kidnapped in northwestern Syria and held by Islamic State terrorists before his beheading in August 2014.
The Overall Narrative on Syria
Analysis of the Syrian conflict boils down to two competing narratives. One narrative is that the conflict is a fight for freedom and democracy against a brutal regime, a story-line promoted in the West and the Gulf states, which have been fueling the conflict from the start. This narrative is also favored by some self-styled "anti-imperialists" who want a "Syrian revolution."
The other narrative is that the conflict is essentially a war of aggression against a sovereign state, with the aggressors including NATO countries, Gulf monarchies, Israel and Jordan. Domination of the Western media by these powerful interests is so thorough that one almost never gets access to this second narrative, which is essentially banned from not only the mainstream but also much of the liberal and progressive media.
For example, listeners and viewers of the generally progressive TV and radio program "DemocracyNow" have rarely if ever heard the second narrative described in any detail. Instead, the program frequently broadcasts the statements of Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and others associated with the U.S. position. Rarely do you hear the viewpoint of the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, the Syrian Foreign Minister or analysts inside Syria and around the world who have written about and follow events there closely.
"DemocracyNow" also has done repeated interviews with proponents of the "Syrian revolution" while ignoring analysts who call the conflict a war of aggression sponsored by the West and the Gulf monarchies. This blackout of the second narrative continues despite the fact that many prominent international figures see it as such. For example, the former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua and former President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel D'Escoto, has said, "What the U.S. government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State."
In many areas of politics, "DemocracyNow" is excellent and challenges mainstream media. However in this area, coverage of the Syrian conflict, the broadcast is biased, one-sided and echoes the news and analysis of mainstream Western corporate media, showing the extent of control over foreign policy news that already exists in the United States and Europe.
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 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.
Rick Sterling is former electronics engineer and an independent investigative journalist. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
January 1, 2017 - From Consortium News by Rick Sterling
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, writes Rick Sterling.
The U.S. establishment is not content simply to have domination over the media narratives on critical foreign policy issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and Russia. It wants total domination. Thus we now have the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act" that President Obama signed into law on Dec. 23 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017, setting aside $160 million to combat any "propaganda" that challenges Official Washington's version of reality.
The new law mandates the U.S. Secretary of State to collaborate with the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence and other federal agencies to create a Global Engagement Center "to lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests." The law directs the Center to be formed in 180 days and to share expertise among agencies and to "coordinate with allied nations."
The legislation was initiated in March 2016, as the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia was already underway and was enacted amid the allegations of "Russian hacking" around the U.S. presidential election and the mainstream media's furor over supposedly "fake news." Defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for the bill: "It's imperative that leaders in both the private sector and the public sector step up to protect our democracy, and innocent lives."
The new law is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because it merges a new McCarthyism about purported dissemination of Russian "propaganda" on the Internet with a new Orwellianismby creating a kind of Ministry of Truth -- or Global Engagement Center -- to protect the American people from "foreign propaganda and disinformation."
As part of the effort to detect and defeat these unwanted narratives, the law authorizes the Center to: "Facilitate the use of a wide range of technologies and techniques by sharing expertise among Federal departments and agencies, seeking expertise from external sources, and implementing best practices." (This section is an apparent reference to proposals that Google, Facebook and other technology companies find ways to block or brand certain Internet sites as purveyors of "Russian propaganda" or "fake news.")
Justifying this new bureaucracy, the bill's sponsors argued that the existing agencies for "strategic communications" and "public diplomacy" were not enough, that the information threat required "a whole-of-government approach leveraging all elements of national power."
The law also is rife with irony since the U.S. government and related agencies are among the world's biggest purveyors of propaganda and disinformation -- or what you might call evidence-free claims, such as the recent accusations of Russia hacking into Democratic emails to "influence" the U.S. election.
Despite these accusations -- leaked by the Obama administration and embraced as true by the mainstream U.S. news media -- there is little or no public evidence to support the charges. There is also a contradictory analysis by veteran U.S. intelligence professionals as well as statements by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, that the Russians were not the source of the leaks. Yet, the mainstream U.S. media has virtually ignored this counter-evidence, appearing eager to collaborate with the new "Global Engagement Center" even before it is officially formed.
Of course, there is a long history of U.S. disinformation and propaganda. Former CIA agents Philip Agee and John Stockwell documented how it was done decades ago, secretly planting "black propaganda" and covertly funding media outlets to influence events around the world, with much of the fake news blowing back into the American media.
In more recent decades, the U.S. government has adopted an Internet-era version of that formula with an emphasis on having the State Department or the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy supply, train and pay "activists" and "citizen journalists" to create and distribute propaganda and false stories via "social media" and via contacts with the mainstream media. The U.S. government's strategy also seeks to undermine and discredit journalists who challenge this orthodoxy. The new legislation escalates this information war by tossing another $160 million into the pot.
Propaganda and Disinformation on Syria
Syria is a good case study in the modern application of information warfare. In her memoir Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that the U.S. provided "support for (Syrian) civilian opposition groups, including satellite-linked computers, telephones, cameras, and training for more than a thousand activists, students and independent journalists."
Indeed, a huge amount of money has gone to "activists" and "civil society" groups in Syria and other countries that have been targeted for "regime change." A lot of the money also goes to parent organizations that are based in the United States and Europe, so these efforts do not only support on-the-ground efforts to undermine the targeted countries, but perhaps even more importantly, the money influences and manipulates public opinion in the West.
In North America, representatives from the Syrian "Local Coordination Committees" (LCC) were frequent guests on popular media programs such as "DemocracyNow." The message was clear: there is a "revolution" in Syria against a "brutal regime" personified in Bashar al-Assad. It was not mentioned that the "Local Coordination Committees" have been primarily funded by the West, specifically the Office for Syrian Opposition Support, which was founded by the U.S. State Department and the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
More recently, news and analysis about Syria has been conveyed through the filter of the White Helmets, also known as Syrian Civil Defense. In the Western news media, the White Helmets are described as neutral, non-partisan, civilian volunteers courageously carrying out rescue work in the war zone. In fact, the group is none of the above. It was initiated by the U.S. and U.K. using a British military contractor and Brooklyn-based marketing company.
While they may have performed some genuine rescue operations, the White Helmets are primarily a media organization with a political goal: to promote NATO intervention in Syria. (The manipulation of public opinion using the White Helmets and promoted by the New York Times and Avaaz petition for a "No Fly Zone" in Syria is documented here.)
The White Helmets hoax continues to be widely believed and receives uncritical promotion though it has increasingly been exposed at alternative media outlets as the creation of a "shady PR firm." During critical times in the conflict in Aleppo, White Helmet individuals have been used as the source for important news stories despite a track record of deception.
Recent Propaganda: Blatant Lies?
As the armed groups in east Aleppo recently lost ground and then collapsed, Western governments and allied media went into a frenzy of accusations against Syria and Russia based on reports from sources connected with the armed opposition. CNN host Wolf Blitzer described Aleppo as "falling" in a "slaughter of these women and children" while CNN host Jake Tapper referred to "genocide by another name."
The Daily Beast published the claims of the Aleppo Siege Media Center under the title "Doomsday is held in Aleppo" and amid accusations that the Syrian army was executing civilians, burning them alive and "20 women committed suicide in order not to be raped." These sensational claims were widely broadcast without verification. However, this "news" on CNN and throughout Western media came from highly biased sources and many of the claims -- lacking anything approaching independent corroboration -- could be accurately described as propaganda and disinformation.
Ironically, some of the supposedly "Russian propaganda" sites, such as RT, have provided first-hand on-the-ground reporting from the war zones with verifiable information that contradicts the Western narrative and thus has received almost no attention in the U.S. news media. For instance, some of these non-Western outlets have shown videos of popular celebrations over the "liberation of Aleppo."
There has been further corroboration of these realities from peace activists, such as Jan Oberg of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research who published a photo essayof his eyewitness observations in Aleppo including the happiness of civilians from east Aleppo reaching the government-controlled areas of west Aleppo, finally freed from areas that had been controlled by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its jihadist allies in Ahrar al-Sham.
Dr. Nabil Antaki, a medical doctor from Aleppo, described the liberation of Aleppo in an interview titled "Aleppo is Celebrating, Free from Terrorists, the Western Media Misinformed." The first Christmas celebrations in Aleppo in four years are shown here, replete with marching band members in Santa Claus outfits. Journalist Vanessa Beeley has published testimonies of civilians from east Aleppo. The happiness of civilians at their liberation is clear.
Whether or not you wish to accept these depictions of the reality in Aleppo, at a minimum, they reflect another side of the story that you have been denied while being persistently force-fed the version favored by the U.S. State Department. The goal of the new Global Engagement Center to counter "foreign propaganda" is to ensure that you never get to hear this alternative narrative to the Western propaganda line.
Even much earlier, contrary to the Western mythology of rebel "liberated zones," there was strong evidence that the armed groups were never popular in Aleppo. American journalist James Foley described the situation in 2012 like this:
"Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition -- one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups. The rebels in Aleppo are predominantly from the countryside, further alienating them from the urban crowd that once lived here peacefully, in relative economic comfort and with little interference from the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad."
On Nov. 22, 2012, Foley was kidnapped in northwestern Syria and held by Islamic State terrorists before his beheading in August 2014.
The Overall Narrative on Syria
Analysis of the Syrian conflict boils down to two competing narratives. One narrative is that the conflict is a fight for freedom and democracy against a brutal regime, a story-line promoted in the West and the Gulf states, which have been fueling the conflict from the start. This narrative is also favored by some self-styled "anti-imperialists" who want a "Syrian revolution."
The other narrative is that the conflict is essentially a war of aggression against a sovereign state, with the aggressors including NATO countries, Gulf monarchies, Israel and Jordan. Domination of the Western media by these powerful interests is so thorough that one almost never gets access to this second narrative, which is essentially banned from not only the mainstream but also much of the liberal and progressive media.
For example, listeners and viewers of the generally progressive TV and radio program "DemocracyNow" have rarely if ever heard the second narrative described in any detail. Instead, the program frequently broadcasts the statements of Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and others associated with the U.S. position. Rarely do you hear the viewpoint of the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, the Syrian Foreign Minister or analysts inside Syria and around the world who have written about and follow events there closely.
"DemocracyNow" also has done repeated interviews with proponents of the "Syrian revolution" while ignoring analysts who call the conflict a war of aggression sponsored by the West and the Gulf monarchies. This blackout of the second narrative continues despite the fact that many prominent international figures see it as such. For example, the former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua and former President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel D'Escoto, has said, "What the U.S. government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State."
In many areas of politics, "DemocracyNow" is excellent and challenges mainstream media. However in this area, coverage of the Syrian conflict, the broadcast is biased, one-sided and echoes the news and analysis of mainstream Western corporate media, showing the extent of control over foreign policy news that already exists in the United States and Europe.
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 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.
Rick Sterling is former electronics engineer and an independent investigative journalist. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
