"New York Times and the New McCarthyism" by Robert Parry, September 7, 2016
Special Report:
The New Cold War and its fellow-traveler, the New McCarthyism, are
arriving on the hawkish wings of The New York Times and other mainstream
U.S. media outlets, writes Robert Parry.
Traditional U.S. journalism and the American people are facing a
crisis as the preeminent American newspaper, The New York Times, has
fully lost its professional bearings, transforming itself into a
neoconservative propaganda sheet eager for a New Cold War with Russia
and imposing a New McCarthyism on public debate.
The crisis is particularly acute because another top national
newspaper, The Washington Post, is also deeply inside the neocon camp.
The Times’ abandonment of journalistic principles has become most
noticeable with its recurring tirades about Russia, as the Times offers
up story after story that would have embarrassed Sen. Joe McCarthy and
his 1950s Red-baiters.
Operating without any actual evidence, a recent Times article
by Neil MacFarquhar sought to trace public challenges to official U.S.
government narratives on world events to a massive “disinformation”
campaign by Russian intelligence. Apparently, it is inconceivable to the
Times that independent-minded people might simply question some of the
dubious claims made by Official Washington.
Perhaps most stunningly, the Times sought to prove its point by
citing the slogan of Russia’s English-language television network,
saying: “RT trumpets the slogan ‘Question More.’”
So, now, presumably if someone suggests questioning a claim from the
U.S. government or from the NATO alliance, that person is automatically a
“Russian agent of influence.” For a major newspaper to adopt such a
position is antithetical to the tenets of journalism which call on us
journalists to question everything.
The Times’ position is particularly outrageous because many key
claims by the U.S. government, including some used to justify aggressive
wars against other countries, have turned out to be false. Indeed, the
Times has been caught peddling some of these bogus claims, often fed to
the “newspaper of record” by U.S. government officials or from think
tanks funded by American military contractors.
Disinformation Conduit
Most memorably, in 2002, the Times pushed disinformation about the
Iraqi government reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, a lie that
was then cited by Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials
to help stampede the American people behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Lesser known moments of the Times serving as a disinformation conduit include a discredited assertion
about the 2013 sarin attack in Syria, in which the Times purported to
show how the flight paths of two missiles traced back to a Syrian
military base, only later to grudgingly acknowledge that aeronautical
experts judged that the one missile found to be carrying sarin had a
maximum range of about one-fourth the required distance.
During the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the Times accepted photographs
from the U.S. State Department which purported to show Russian military
personnel in Russia and then later inside Ukraine, except that it
turned out that the photograph supposedly taken in Russia was actually
taken in Ukraine, destroying the premise of the Times article.
Yet, the Times holds itself out as some paragon of objectivity.
This delusion further underscores how out of control and indeed
dangerous the Times has become as a source of U.S. government
disinformation, while accusing others of spreading Russian
disinformation which often isn’t disinformation at all.
In its recent article, the Times cites reasonable questions raised by
Swedish citizens about a proposal for the country entering into a
military association with NATO and dismisses these concerns as proof of
Russian government propaganda and lies:
“The claims were alarming: If Sweden, a non-NATO member, signed the
deal, the alliance would stockpile secret nuclear weapons on Swedish
soil; NATO could attack Russia from Sweden without government approval;
NATO soldiers, immune from prosecution, could rape Swedish women without
fear of criminal charges.”
Yet, all these worries raised by Swedish citizens – and cited by
MacFarquhar in the Times – are not unreasonable concerns since nuclear
weapons often are stored in NATO countries, NATO members are obliged to
go to war to protect allies, and there have been problems with rape
cases in countries with NATO or other foreign bases.
How those realities might affect a country agreeing to a NATO
military association are reasonable concerns for Swedes to raise, but
instead these worries are dismissed as Russian disinformation without
any evidence to support the charge.
No Evidence
MacFarquhar even concedes the point that his lead allegation lacks
evidentiary support, writing: “As often happens in such cases, Swedish
officials were never able to pin down the source of the false reports.”
MacFarquhar then adds: “But they, numerous analysts and experts in
American and European intelligence point to Russia as the prime suspect,
noting that preventing NATO expansion is a centerpiece of the foreign
policy of President Vladimir V. Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008
largely to forestall that possibility.”
Though MacFarquhar cites the Russian “invasion” of Georgia supposedly
to thwart its entrance into NATO as a flat fact to support his thesis,
that historical reference is a far more complicated issue since it was
Georgia that launched an attack on South Ossetia, a breakaway province,
and killed Russian peacekeepers stationed there.
An investigation by the European Union laid most of the blame on Georgia
for initiating the conflict, with the Russians then reacting to the
Georgian assault. A 2009 report on the E.U. mission led by Swiss
diplomat Heidi Tagliavini rejected Georgian claims about self-defense,
finding that Georgia, not Russia, started the conflict.
“None of the explanations given by the Georgian authorities in order
to provide some form of legal justification for the attack lend it a
valid explanation,” Tagliavini said.
The E.U. report stated: “There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia
before the start of the Georgian operation. Georgian claims of a
large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to
the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated by the mission. It
could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major
attack.”
In other words, Putin’s military did not “invade” Georgia in 2008
“largely to forestall” Georgia’s entrance into NATO, but as a reaction –
arguably an over-reaction – to Georgia’s violent offensive into South
Ossetia.
Yet, MacFarquhar cites this dubious point as some sort of indirect
“evidence” that Putin is responsible for questions posed by Swedish
citizens about what a NATO association would mean for them.
After acknowledging no real evidence and citing a historical “fact”
that really isn’t a fact, MacFarquhar expands his conspiracy theory into
more recent events claiming that Putin “has invested heavily in a
program of ‘weaponized’ information, using a variety of means to sow
doubt and division. …
“The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian
disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of
events — even the very idea that there is a true version of events — and
foster a kind of policy paralysis.”
The MH-17 Case
As an example, MacFarquhar cites the case of the shoot-down of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014,
claiming “Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories.” The Times
correspondent then asserts as flat fact that “The cloud of stories
helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had
accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia.”
But, according to official investigations that have been underway for
more than two years, MacFarquhar’s claim is not “the simple truth,” as
he put it. Last year’s report by the Dutch Safety Board reached no
conclusion about who was responsible for shooting down the plane,
killing 298 people.
Indeed, the DSB’s report included a statement by Dutch intelligence
(reflecting NATO’s intelligence data) that the only powerful
anti-aircraft-missile systems in eastern Ukraine on that day – capable
of hitting MH-17 at 33,000 feet – were under the control of the
Ukrainian military. (Though an official document, this Dutch
intelligence report has never been mentioned by The New York Times,
presumably because it conflicts with the favored Russia-did-it
narrative.)
The U.S. government, which in the five days after the crash did rush
to a judgment blaming ethnic Russian rebels supposedly using a
Russian-supplied Buk missile, then went silent on the issue after CIA
analysts had a chance to examine the evidence in more detail.
Despite appeals from the families of Dutch victims, including the
father of the one young American citizen who died in the crash, the U.S. government has refused to release its radar, satellite images and other intelligence information that presumably could establish exactly who was responsible.
Why the U.S. government would obstruct the investigation into this
tragedy if indeed the evidence proved Putin’s responsibility doesn’t
make any sense. Indeed, it is the kind of question that a responsible
journalist would press the U.S. government to answer, but MacFarquhar
and the Times take the pressure off by simply reaffirming the impression
that the U.S. government wants the public to have: the Russkies did it.
In the weeks after the crash, I was told by a source briefed by U.S.
intelligence analysts that the secret U.S. data points the finger of
guilt at a rogue Ukrainian military operation, which would fit with the
statement by Dutch intelligence. But whatever the ultimate finding, it
is simply bad journalism to state as flat fact something that remains
seriously in doubt, a professional failure reminiscent of how the Times
and Post treated Iraq’s WMD as a certainty in 2002-2003.
More Insidious
But there is something even more insidious about what The New York
Times and The Washington Post have been up to. They are essentially
saying that any questioning of the official U.S. government narrative on
any international topic puts you in league with Moscow in its purported
attempt to “weaponize” information, whatever that is supposed to mean.
The two newspapers are engaging in a breathtaking form of
McCarthyism, apparently in some twisted effort to force a
neoconservative ideological conformity on the American people in support
of the New Cold War.
There is also a stunning lack of self-awareness. While MacFarquhar
sees a Russian desire to portray U.S. life as “hellish,” including RT’s
decision to show protest demonstrations – rather than some speeches –
during the Republican and Democratic conventions, he and other writers
who have picked up this theme consistently present the situation in
Russia in the darkest possible terms.
Relatively innocent actions, such as the Kremlin seeking to make its
case to the world, are transformed into evil deeds, using buzzwords like
“weaponized” information and “hybrid war.” Yet, there is no reference
to the billions upon billions of dollars that the U.S. government has
invested in disseminating propaganda and funding political
activists around the world.
NATO has even established what it calls a “Strategic Communications
Command,” or Stratcom, in Riga, Latvia, which – as veteran war
correspondent Don North has written
– views “the control and manipulation of information as a ‘soft power’
weapon, merging psychological operations, propaganda and public affairs
under the catch phrase ‘strategic communications.’
“This attitude has led to treating psy-ops manipulative techniques
for influencing a target population’s state of mind and surreptitiously
shaping people’s perceptions as just a normal part of U.S. and NATO’s
information policy. …
“And, as part of this Brave New World of ‘strategic communications,’
the U.S. military and NATO have now gone on the offensive against news
organizations that present journalism which is deemed to undermine the
perceptions that the U.S. government seeks to convey to the world.”
In other words, the U.S. government and NATO are engaged in what
psychologists call “projection,” accusing someone else of one’s own
behavior. Yet The New York Times has never investigated Washington’s and
NATO’s involvement in “strategic communications.” Only the Russians do
such dirty deeds.
A Darker Side
But there is even a darker side to the Times’ recent propaganda
barrage about Russian propaganda. On the heels of MacFarquhar’s
indictment of Russia for questioning Washington’s official narratives,
the Times published a vicious attack
on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, entitled “How Russia
Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets.”
The article portrays Assange as a participant, wittingly or
otherwise, in Russia’s allegedly nefarious scheme to release truthful
information, such as the Democratic National Committee’s emails
confirming what many had long suspected, that some party officials were
favoring Hillary Clinton over her rival, Bernie Sanders. No one has
suggested that the emails aren’t real.
However, without presenting any real evidence proving that Russian
intelligence was responsible for the hack, the Times and the rest of the
mainstream U.S. news media have made that assumption conventional
wisdom based on the opinions of some unnamed U.S. officials.
Or as the Times’ takedown of Assange wrote, “United States officials
say they believe with a high degree of confidence that the Democratic
Party material was hacked by the Russian government. …That raises a
question: Has WikiLeaks become a laundering machine for compromising
material gathered by Russian spies? And more broadly, what precisely is
the relationship between Mr. Assange and Mr. Putin’s Kremlin? …
“Among United States officials, the emerging consensus is that Mr.
Assange and WikiLeaks probably have no direct ties to Russian
intelligence services. But they say that, at least in the case of the
Democrats’ emails, Moscow knew it had a sympathetic outlet in WikiLeaks,
where intermediaries could drop pilfered documents in the group’s
anonymized digital inbox.”
Though it’s nice that some U.S. officials acknowledge a lack of
evidence proving an operational relationship between Assange and Russian
intelligence, the fact that a high-profile journalistic institution,
such as WikiLeaks, has been under that sort of U.S. government
investigation should be troubling to the Times and other news
organizations.
However, instead the newspaper appears disappointed that it cannot
declare outright that Assange is a “Moscow stooge.” (Also note that in
the last passage, the Times treats the suspicion that Russian
intelligence hacked the Democratic emails as flat fact when U.S.
intelligence officials say they don’t know for sure.)
Verify, Don’t Moralize
The usual rule of thumb for journalists is to accept and verify
information regardless of where it comes from. While occasionally you
get a selfless leaker, it’s more common to get leaks from interested
parties seeking to undermine their rivals. We see that in legal
proceedings when lawyers supply documents helpful to their cases and in
political contests when campaigns dig up dirt on their opponents.
Yet, journalists don’t throw away newsworthy information because it
may be self-serving. We check it out and – if it checks out – we use it.
The only real problem would be if you run the material as flat fact,
without caveats, and it turns out to be false, as has happened
repeatedly with material that the U.S. government has leaked to the
Times and the Post.
What is particularly unprofessional about how the Times is treating
Assange is that no one is saying that the Democratic Party emails are
disinformation; they appear to be quite real and reflect a newsworthy
concern, which is: Did the Democratic National Committee seek to throw
the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton?
But the Times’ unprofessional treatment of truthful information from
WikiLeaks as well as the Times’ disdain for legitimate debate about the
New Cold War with Russia has contributed to another dangerous
development – a McCarthyistic launching of official U.S. government
investigations into people who question the official Washington
narratives.
An Official Investigation
The Washington Post reported
on Tuesday that “U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are
investigating what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the
United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential
election and in U.S. political institutions. …
“The aim is to understand the scope and intent of the Russian
campaign, which incorporates cyber-tools to hack systems used in the
political process, enhancing Russia’s ability to spread disinformation. …
A Russian influence operation in the United States ‘is something we’re
looking very closely at,’ said one senior intelligence official,” while
admitting that there is no “definitive proof” of such a Russian scheme.
The danger of this investigation – and what a normal news media would
focus on – is the U.S. government taking an unfocused look at how
Russia supposedly influences the U.S. public debate, a probe that could
easily cross the line into questioning the loyalty of Americans who
simply dispute what the U.S. government is claiming about current
events.
The Post reported, “U.S. intelligence officials described the
[Russian] covert influence campaign here as ‘ambitious’ and said it is
also designed to counter U.S. leadership and influence in international
affairs. …
“Russia has been in the vanguard of a growing global movement to use
propaganda on the Internet to influence people and political events,
especially since the political revolt in Ukraine, the subsequent
annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the imposition of sanctions on
Russia by the United States and the European Union. …
“‘Our studies show that it is very likely that [the influence]
operations are centrally run,’ said Janis Sarts, director of the NATO
Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, a research organization
based in Riga, Latvia.”
Yes, that is the same NATO Stratcom complex that, as Don North
reported, blends psychological operations with traditional public
relations. Yet, you wouldn’t know that from reading The Washington
Post’s article, which cites Stratcom as a source for accusing Russia of
running influence operations.
A Vast Conspiracy
According to the Post, Sarts “also said there is ‘a coordinated
effort involving [groups using] Twitter and Facebook and networks of
bots to amplify their message. The main themes seem to be orchestrated
rather high up in the hierarchy of the Russian state, and then there are
individual endeavors by people to exploit specific themes.’
“Sarts said the Russian propaganda effort has been ‘successful in
exploiting the vulnerabilities within societies.’ In Western Europe, for
instance, such Russian information operations have focused on the
politically divisive refugee crisis.”
In other words, any reporting or commenting on significant foreign
policy issues could open a journalist or a citizen to a U.S. government
investigation into whether you are part of some nefarious Russian
propaganda/disinformation scheme.
This McCarthyistic investigative style has already begun to have a
chilling effect on public debate in the United States where dissident
views on Russia, Syria or other hot topics are quickly disparaged as
enemy propaganda. Almost anyone who questions whether a new, costly and
dangerous Cold War is necessary is immediately tagged as a “Russian
agent of influence,” a “Putin apologist,” or a “Moscow stooge.”
In this case, the Democrats have been particularly aggressive in
playing the Joe McCarthy role by denouncing Republican presidential
nominee Donald Trump in such overheated terms, even suggesting his
disloyalty for suggesting that he could, as President, get along with
Putin.
During the McCarthy era of the 1950s, defense of freedom of thought
required courageous journalists, most notably Edward R. Murrow, to stand
up to the often unfounded smears against the patriotism of Americans.
In 2016, however, it is the prestige news media, particularly The New
York Times and The Washington Post, that have been leading the rush into
the New Cold War and into the New McCarthyism.
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Related: Robert Parry, 68; reporter who exposed details of Iran-Contra affair
Also see:
NYT Editors Support Provocative US Actions in Asia
"The Times long ago lost credibility, proliferating misinformation and Big Lies, suppressing hard truths on major issues, supporting America’s ruthless imperial agenda, betraying its readers deserving better...."
They should be ashamed of themselves.
"You know when you see something like this
that it becomes clear that they actually are trying to kill us, if we
are stupid enough to drink their Evil Ice Queen Death Potions. It also
becomes clear that Monsanto really is My Satan; not actually 'my Satan'
but Satanic fer sure.
The Crass Media says that Death Star Shit Magnet, Hillary Clinton is
ahead in the polls by a few points but... when you go to right wing
alternative news sites like What Really Happens in Our Heads, you find
that Trump is ahead by a few points. Meanwhile, based on the drooling
drama queen imprecations of the same Hillary, Russia is hacking the
election machines and trying to control the election outcome this
November. The thing is, we have plenty of cabals trying to hack the
election right here in the good old USA and they have been at it for
decades. They kill without conscience. They steal with impunity. They
exercise every evil possibility and their only imperative is that
somebody must get hurt.
I am daily stunned at the way the planet lumbers and careens like a
drunken clown, through its erratic course of rotation and never seems to
run into anything and keeps coming back for more of whatever it had
last time; probably a cocktail of Winner's Cup Vodka (five dollars a
fifth) with a Drano chaser. Or it might be some kind of a Boilermaker
where you drop a shot of Clorox into a can of Pabst 'no ribbon' beer.
Every day I get up and ask myself, “Is this the day when the world flies
off of its invisible hinges?” “Is this the day that puts paid to every
other day in this long time, free range, stupid chicken dance, where the
music sounds like the gear shift on a blown manual transmission?”
Reverse has been gone for some time. We'll see...
It really is an amazing thing... wave after wave of bullshit a hundred feet high keeps rolling in on the following wind....
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I'm tired of government poodles, and he is not one.
Time for breakfast.
