American Internet Surfers Run Away from American Internet

Now they prefer European and Arab webpages

The American militarist propaganda does not bring any results, which seems obvious by the end of the third week of the war. Mass anti-war and anti-American demonstrations can serve a very expressive example of that. However, it is too early to experience the premature euphoria too. Various nations keep getting stronger and louder in the expression of protest, although nations’ leaders keep getting weaker and unintelligible. This is the visibility of the American counteraction vs. miserable attempts of a country’s government to stand for its positions so as not to lose its face.

“It is necessary to solve the Iraqi issue within the framework of the United Nations Organization. Russia is not interested either in the moral or political defeat of the United States in Iraq.” This is what President Vladimir Putin believes. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that American troops are supposed to win the war as soon as possible.

Anyway, let’s talk about spokes in the wheels here, about the obstacles, that might hinder the Pax Americana realization. Wired.Com reported ten days ago that American Internet users that were especially drawn to surf only the American part of the world wide web change their priorities now. American Internet surfers keep paying more and more of their attention to foreign online media. For example, 50 percent of the British site Guardian Unlimited (Guardian) is comprised of American users now. The situation is the same with the BBC (BBC) and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) websites – Americans make up about 25 percent of their visitors. What’s the matter?

Russian Journal set forth the following version to explain the situation. The American audience is not capable of reading between the lines, so people turn around from those online media outlets, which became propaganda outlets. American mass media do not provide anything, but the governmental point of view, while non-American news services usually present something else, both negative and positive. It is hard not to agree upon that – every human being wants to know the truth. Al-Jazeera (Al-Jazeera) website is also a priority webpage for American Internet surfers. In difference to CNN and Fox New, Al-Jazeera offers a lot more information, not the PR-kind of comments. The site has been launched recently and it has already become extremely popular. The site had to take a lot of efforts to stand American hackers’ attacks, which made it rather hard to access the English version of the webpage.

Here is another interesting thing. Vlast magazine wrote that thousands of Internet users visited the online diary that was published by a resident of Baghdad nicknamed as Salam Pax (site is down). The man published the diary in the English language, writing about the situation in the Iraqi capital and his own impressions about it. Unfortunately, the site does not work on account of the war - there is no more Internet in Iraq.

It is also worth mentioning that the scandal with American reporter Peter Arnett, who was fired from CNN, did good to the rating of the British tabloid Daily Mirror. The rating went up owing to American surfers for the truth.

The Russian part of the Internet can offer a lot of interesting information to American users as well, albeit presumably to those Americans, who know the Russian language. Every now and then Russian websites publish the information about the actions that coalition forces might take in Iraq in the nearest future. More importantly, such suppositions often become real. This considerable informational assistance is reportedly rendered by anonymous agents of the Russian Central Intelligence Department. There is a good example to give – some person known as Ramzaj. This is the nickname of Russian intelligence officer in Japan, Richard Zorge. This anonymous surfer publishes daily news about the Iraqi war on the Russian part of the Internet. Here is an example: Ramzaj's Report. Ramzaj is either a Central Intelligence Department or a General Headquarters agent, who manipulates the military information. The news from Ramzaj is translated into English, it is cited by newspapers and television channels. Thus, a lot of American users, who are fed up with the propaganda machine, can dig up a lot of interesting and objective information, if they fish for it on the net.

Sergey Stefanov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov