Media on Ukraine: What Happened to Journalism?

By Reginald Johnson

                             

            As the United States continues to ramp up the manufactured “Ukraine Crisis” to gain geopolitical advantage over Russia, mainstream press outlets have once again abandoned their role as impartial purveyors of vital news.

             Major media operations like The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC, have become virtual propaganda machines for the Obama administration as it seeks to paint Russia as the villain in the Ukraine situation. Every outrageous statement or claim by Secretary of State John Kerry or President Barack Obama about Ukraine is dutifully reported by these media, with little attempt to give a countervailing view or put the claims in context. Crititical reporting has basically gone out the window.

   The one-sided reporting has gone on pretty much unabated since a putsch took place in February in which militants, led by neo-Nazis, ousted the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, from power. The American government, whose representatives had openly encouraged protests leading up to coup, quickly recognized the new regime. The new leaders pledged to seek closer ties to the West and join the European Union.

   Coverage of both the rebellion and the establishment of a new government has been decidedly positive. Press reports have largely glossed over the presence of fascists in the uprising and in the new regime. There was wide acceptance in the mainstream press of the claim by the rebels that government snipers had shot and killed Ukrainian citizens participating in the protests, and no investigation of reports that right-wing militants had in fact, done the shooting.

    When Russia moved into Crimea in Ukraine to protect its Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol, Russia was denounced by both the Kiev government, the Obama administration and the press for breaking international law and being “expansionist.” It was true that Russia was breaking international law, and that’s wrong. But media reports on this issue rarely brought up, or brought up only sparingly, Russia’s legitimate security interests in taking back Crimea, which had been part of the old Soviet Union until 1954.

   In the 1990s, American leaders promised former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev that after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO would not expand its borders to the east. But under the Clinton and Bush administrations, former Soviet bloc countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Baltic states were asked to join the western alliance, and they did. Now NATO’s borders are much farther east.

    With a potential enemy alliance inching closer to their borders and an anti-Russian government now in control in Ukraine, what were Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin supposed to think? Status quo is fine? No potential military threats?  This is absurd.

   Yet the drumbeat goes on by the administration and key members of the media that Russia is a villain, not to be trusted, and bent on expansion. America has led the way to impose economic sanctions on Russia for their actions in Crimea, and now for allegedly fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine, where the Russian-oriented population seeks to break away from Kiev. The U.S. has accused the Russian Federation of secretly sending in military agents to train the east Ukrainian militants, who have taken over government buildings in various cities..

  In an echo of their shoddy reporting prior to the Iraq War, the Times recently ran a front-page piece making the case that Russian military personnel had unlawfully gone into Ukraine to train east Ukrainian rebels. The story came with photographs purportedly showing Russian soldiers training militia. In one case, the story showed a photograph of a group of men previously taken in Russia, and then photos of some of the same men doing training in Ukraine.

   But the story quickly fell apart when the free lance photographer who took the picture of the trainers stepped forward and said the group photo was shot in Ukraine, not Russia. He also said he not given permission for use of his photos, which he had posted on Instagram.

  The Times issued a limited retraction of the story some days later, with a short piece buried inside the paper.

  The Times has had other questionable stories, most recently a lengthy 1500-word Sunday article which mused about Putin’s possible substantial fortune and how it could be hit by sanctions, too. The piece on April 27 enititled “Sanctions Revive Search for Secret Putin Fortune,” offers no hard facts or evidence, just speculation.

   It’s amazing the Times would devote so much space to a piece that’s just speculation, but this fits in with the paper’s consistent portrayal of Putin as the “bad guy” in the Ukraine situation.

  Other press outlets like The Washington Post also have been on the bandwagon running Russia-bashing stories, and adopting the position of the administration and of the Kiev regime on events in Ukraine, without any questioning.

    Robert Parry, the editor of Consortiumnews.com, detailed in an article recently how Washington Post reporter Lally Weymouth, in an interview with Ukrainian internal affairs minister Arsen Avakov on the regime’s efforts to deal with the protesters in east Ukraine, referred to “Russians” in occupied buildings, and at another point called the protesters “terrorists.”

   There has been no proof presented by the U.S. government that there are Russians taking part in the occupations, but here you have a journalist, so-called, adopting the language of the administration which continues to claim that Russians are guiding the protests and Russia is masterminding the secessionist movement.

  In using the word “terrorist,” Weymouth picked up the language of the Kiev regime, which said they have to conduct “anti-terrorist” campaigns against the militants in eastern Ukraine.

   Parry writes:  “For their part, those eastern protesters have said they are resisting the imposition of power from Kiev, which has included the appointment of  billionaire “oligarchs” as regional administrators, and are rejecting a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund that will make their hard lives even harder.

 “Yet, Official Washington has largely banished those realities to the great memory hole. Many in the U.S. government and the mainstream press corps seem to be licking their lips over the prospect of unleashing hell on the eastern Ukrainians.”  http://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/22/prepping-for-a-ukrainian-massacre/

 Other outlets, usually called liberal, seem to be buying into the administration view of “Russia bad, U.S. good” on Ukraine. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC in a recent segment on the sanctions wondered whether the “escalating tactics” short of war by the U.S. against Russia, were working. Then she interviewed former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who referred to Russia “escalating tensions” in Ukraine, and said the sanctions were aimed at stopping “further aggression” by Russia.

    The whole tenor of the interview was that both Maddow and McFaul were in agreement that Russia was at fault in Ukraine, and needed to be punished. Maddow didn’t raise any contrary views, or note that the U.S. had a role in fomenting the February coup, which led to the tensions in the first place.

  To top off the poor reporting and analysis of the events in Ukraine, major media --- following the administration --- have criticized any media (such as RT or alternative media) that has brought up Russian perspectives on Ukraine, for spouting Russian propaganda.

   Parry has done an excellent job in recent weeks spotlighting the media bias on Ukraine.

  In his piece, “Ukraine, Through the U.S. Looking Glass,” he wrote,  “In my four-plus decades in journalism, I have never seen a more thoroughly biased and misleading performance by the major U.S. news media. Even during the days of Ronald Reagan – when much of the government’s modern propaganda structure was created – there was more independence in major news outlets. There were media stampedes off the reality cliff during George H.W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War and George W. Bush’s Iraq War, both of which were marked by demonstrably false claims that were readily swallowed by the big U.S. news outlets.

 “But there is something utterly Orwellian in the current coverage of the Ukraine crisis, including accusing others of “propaganda” when their accounts – though surely not perfect – are much more honest and more accurate than what the U.S. press corps has been producing.” http://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/16/ukraine-through-the-us-looking-glass/

  As for me, I can’t say for sure what’s going on with some of the media. It may be in some cases top people in certain organizations agree with the “Neo-con” foreign policy of the Obama and Bush administrations and the utterly backwards and arrogant notion of “American exceptionalism.”  If so, reporters and editors below feel obliged to fall in line with the slanted coverage, or else. Probably a few reporters are neo-cons themselves, and write accordingly. In other cases, reporters feel a need, again for the sake of their careers, to play along with the administration they’re covering, otherwise they’ll lose access.

  A really good report on Ukraine would start with this central question: why is the United States so obsessed with something going on in a country that is 8,000 miles away from our borders?

   What are our motives in aiding an unelected, far-right wing regime in Ukraine and constantly demonizing Russia and its leader Mr. Putin? It’s certainly not about preserving the sanctity of international law, since we break it all the time. Stopping expansionism? How many bases do we have around the world?

   Aren’t we trying to undermine Russia, and possibly someday force regime change? And in effecting regime change, aren’t we paving the way for private corporations to gain access to the vast mineral, oil and gas wealth of Eurasia, while at the same time removing a powerful patron of Iran and Syria --- enemies of both the U.S. and Israel?

   That’s the way I see it.

  But I don’t know for sure, I’m just asking.

 I hope some people in the mainstream media, those who haven’t totally sold-out, will finally stand up and start asking similar questions.

 It's critical that they do, because the Ukraine situation --- with two nuclear-armed nations at odds with each other --- is fraught with incredible danger.

 

  

   For more in-depth news stories on Ukraine, you can go to a number of good, non-mainstream websites. Among them are: www.btlonline.org; www.consortiumnews.com; and www.commondreams.org.

  

  

    

                       

           

Targeting Syria

By Reginald Johnson



 It’s a like bad movie that keeps coming back.

 The first time you saw it, you said, ‘I never want to see this again.’

 But it keeps getting shown because, unfortunately, it’s on the news. You don’t want to watch it, but you’re forced to. And every time, you get the same sick feeling.

 The movie is actually part of a long-running series that might be called “America Makes War on a Bad Country.”

The latest installment is now playing. It’s called “America Makes War on Bad Syria.”

 It is probably number 20 in the movie series involving different nations. Or is it 30, or 40? I’ve lost count.

 In a script similar to the other shows, America says it doesn’t like Syria because its leader, Bashar al-Assad, is bad to his people. His regime has committed human rights violations. Locking up dissenters and allowing torture in his prisons. Indeed, there is independent verification to support this claim.

 Now America --- because its own human rights record is so good (talk to Pakistani or Afghan villagers following bombing attacks, or men waterboarded in U.S. prisons, they’ll tell you) --- feels so strongly about bringing freedom to the Syrian people, that it’s begun an urgent campaign to get rid of the Assad government.

 Through other countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the U.S. is supplying weapons to the rebels in Syria. CIA personnel have been sent to Turkey to train the insurgents, according to the New York Times.

 This indirect, war-by-proxy against a sovereign nation is illegal under international law, because it’s not sanctioned by the UN, and the U.S. has not been attacked by Syria. But who cares about international law? The U.S.A has done this so many time before, hardly anyone blinks an eye.

 Led by their constitutional lawyer and now President, Barack Obama, America is still trying to get some sort of resolution through the UN to authorize a wider military action against Bad Syria, but things are a bit slow because Russia and China, allies of Syria, keep balking.

 While the UN stalls, the U.S. has turned to Old Faithful --- NATO--- to get more pledges of support. Yes, just as Britain and France helped out with the humanitarian bombing campaign against Libya last year, these loyal allies from the days of the Cold War, plus Turkey, have come to the rescue again. Like the U.S., they care deeply about human rights and have the records to prove it --- just ask the Irish and Indians about Britain, or the Algerians about France, or the Kurds or Armenians about Turkey, and they will all sing praises.

 As noted, the freedom-loving monarchy of Saudi Arabia, along with Qatar, have also joined in this noble effort.

 Just call this the “Coalition of the Benevolent to Help Syria!”

 In another echo from previous movies in the series, friendly media outlets in the U.S. have joined in the campaign to justify action against this year’s bad country. CNN has helped by running screaming reports every night, showing footage from opposition cell phone videos showing alleged Syrian government massacres. No real effort has been made to obtain a government response to the claims of indiscriminate violence.

 The movie on Syria is still in progress, and we don’t know for sure how it will end. But there’s a good chance that Assad will suffer the same fate as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi did last year --- lying in a roadside ditch with an American bullet in his head.

***********************

 OK, let’s turn on the lights, turn off the propaganda that passes for news and take a critical look at the situation in Syria.

 The conflict there has nothing to do with human rights or alleged atrocities by the Assad regime. It has everything to do with a geopolitical power struggle over who controls the oil-rich region of the Middle East.

 Syria is allied with Iran, which sits on the world’s third-largest supply of oil. Through the insurgency it is supporting, the U.S. aims to topple the Assad regime in Syria, get a more friendly group in power, and isolate Iran, which the U.S. has been at odds with for sometime. From the springboard in Syria, the U.S. can more easily bring down the government in Iran, either through constant pressure tactics or direct military action.

 Then the U.S. will have primacy in the Middle East and control over the flow of oil --- the most critical resource in the world, a resource which is getting more scarce by the year.

 This is the game plan.

 But it is game plan fraught with risk.

 Russia and China, which covet oil just as much as we do, are not going to sit idly by while the Americans take control over so much of the planet’s most vital resource.

 That’s why the two countries are resisting strong action on Syria at the UN, and why Russia has been arming Syria.

 It would be potentially catastrophic if the U.S. and its NATO partners unilaterally take military action against Syria.

 Undoubtedly, the U.S. will continue to try to get some sort of UN resolution condemning Syria for human rights abuses together with a provision for limited intervention. That will provide cover for an open, Libya-style attack.

 The Security Council is due to meet Wednesday to discuss Syria, and new allegations of civilian killings by Syrian government forces.

 People need to stand up and speak out about American duplicity in Syria.

 The American press has to do a better job of investigating the truth about allegations of mass killings and brutality by the Syrian government and be more questioning about America’s motives in connection with Syria.

 It is well known and absolutely true that the Syrian regime for a number of years has been committing human rights abuses against its citizens. Assad, like Gaddafi, is a despotic leader. The UN Human Rights Council last fall condemned Syria for a number of abuses. Many Syrian citizens have legitimate grievances against the government.

 It’s also true that the Syrian government military has sometimes been brutal in its effort to quell the rebellion.

 But opposition forces have been guilty of brutality against innocent people as well in a civil conflict which is pitting different sectarian groups against one another.

 Reports of “massacres” by government forces have been exaggerated. In May there were accusations of a slaughter of 100 people by the government in the village of Houla. The opposition group, the U.S. backed Free Syrian Army, repudiated a UN truce plan on the grounds that the government had used the ceasefire to carry out the attack.

 But according to an analysis on Syria in the World Socialist Web Site, the leading German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, reported that “multiple eyewitness accounts of the killings in Houla reported that the massacre was actually carried out by FSA fighters who had targeted minority Shiites, Alawites and Christians who had refused to join the Sunni-based opposition.”

 The German story got no attention in the U.S. press.

 In conclusion, Americans do need to speak about human rights abuses wherever they occur, whether at the hands of our government or at the hands of another. But we cannot allow our government to manipulate democratic uprisings in various countries and pretend we are siding with a certain group to achieve a more humane condition for people, when in fact the goal is far different.