Using a Goebbels-style mechanism to whitewash the truth, repeating lies and inventing non-existent threats to perpetuate itself, NATO uses the media to brainwash a gullible western public, employing a manipulation of fear to implement its trans-national policies, parading Russia as the eternal ogre. Let us take a look behind the scenes.
It is difficult to know whether it is more sad, or ridiculous, to hear Western commentators speaking about Vladimir Putin as a tyrant, and Russia as a threat. It is even sadder to hear a gullible western public, fed on a menu of barefaced lies, reiterating such utter nonsense as if they had received the Truth from some kind of oracle. As NATO's rhetoric reaches hysterical proportions, perhaps it is time to search for this Truth by examining the facts, rather than believing in fairy stories.
The NATO ploy is in fact quite primary, and runs along the lines of a medieval witch-hunt, or a mass-lynching in a primitive society after someone has pointed at a passer-by and shouted out "He's a wizard!" or "She's a witch!". The story goes like this: (drum roll) (dramatic orchestrated music, beginning piano and reaching a crescendo) Russia has threatened all its neighbors. Russia has seized Crimea from Ukraine after attacking Georgia and forcing Chechnya into submission. Russia then invaded Ukraine. Now Russia is threatening the Baltic States. Next stop... Manchester. Then (drum roll) Texas!! Silence. (violins) But NATO is here to protect you (Vivaldi's 4 seasons). NATO has the clout to rout, to install democracy over plutocracy, to usher Russia into a corner, to protect Europe and European values, NATO values, against the hordes from the East. (Large photo as a backdrop, showing Tony Blair grinning inanely among a hundred Albanian boys named ToniBler in his honor. Camera pans into his face. Something sinister lunges behind his eyes, which burn red as he hisses "Told you so! I got that trillion-dollar deal!"
"Cut!! Cut!! Cut that Blair bit out! Finish it on the word East, put it on track seven, and give it an echo, like East east east east and fade out. Cool. OK that should do the trick".
Funny? Not really, they actually managed to sell the story, because supposedly intelligent, cultured and informed people are repeating it with great authority. Sky News is even today peddling Theresa May as the best option for the next Prime Minister of the UK because she has the authority "to stand up to Putin over the Baltic States" or some such nonsense.
As Goebbels did, if you invent a lie and repeat it ad nauseam, people get brainwashed into believing it, and we see this on the pages of this very newspaper, Pravdareport, in the "freedom of expression" comments section, where Russophobic messages of hatred accompany every single article, complete with insults against Russia and its people and President. OK such is par for the course when you practice freedom of expression but the intention is clear.
So let us tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but and out NATO's strategy for what it is, namely an attempt to create a raison d'être, an exercise in self-perpetuation because after all, what is NATO? It is the cutting edge of the Sinister Six Sisters, the BARFFS (Banking, Arms, Energy, Finance, Food, Pharmaceuticals Lobbies), implementing their policies in its target states and at the same time paying the bills of its board of directors, those involved in the arms trade. NATO's official budget, it announces, is around one billion USD - quite obviously this would not fill a cavity in a crocodile's tooth but it serves to pull the wool over the eyes of the willing gullible fools who swallow everything NATO says without question. The real figure is the collective military spending of all NATO countries, which is around one point two trillion USD each and every year, that is one point two thousand billion dollars, or 1.2 x 10 to the power 12 or 1,200,000,000,000 USD. No money for your healthcare, Mr. Tomlinson? No place at school for little Johnny, Mrs. Browne? No funding for Master Bates' dental plan?
So with a budget three times higher, annually, than the amount of cash it would take to eradicate global poverty, for good, in a single payment, it makes sense that NATO wishes to perpetuate itself, does it not? And let's be honest, Serbia was small fry. Iraq was a foreign policy disaster (did anyone hear them speaking about Russia invading people back in 2003?), the intervention in Libya was a re-run of Iraq and the country with the highest Human Development Index in Africa is today a failed State crawling with terrorists. Burkina Faso? Chad? Too small, no resources. So then they remembered Russia.
The intercepted radio messages during the Chechen Wars revealed some classic American English accents while under Eltsin, the whole affair was bungled as some people were more interested in making business by prolonging the war, until a real leader appeared, sorted out the mess and organized a free and fair referendum. Over 95% of the Chechen population voted to remain inside the Russian Federation. Fast Forward, after Iraq, to Georgia. Remember 2008? The western media outlets showed footage of missiles fired by the Georgian Armed Forces traveling north into Russian-held positions, labeling them as Russian missiles firing southwards.
Again, the clear soundbites among the Georgian Armed Forces in American English as the NATO-led protégés were routed "OK Come on guys, get back inside!" Georgia attacked and murdered the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, Russia responded with a very measured reply which re-established order.
Now Ukraine. An illegal coup staged in Kiev in what is known as Maidan Square ousted the democratically elected President, Yanukovich, and installed a motley group of Ukrainian politicians, some of which had links to Fascist groups, another boasted about links to Al-Qaeda. They remained silent while Ukrainian Fascists perpetrated massacres against Russian-speaking Ukrainians, forcing the people of Donbass to take up arms to defend themselves. For the ignorant, Russian-speaking Ukrainians equals Russians, so any soldier speaking Russian is a Russian soldier.
It is simply not the case. While there may have been unofficial visits by Russians to their family in south-east Ukraine to help out, or visits by Russian militants to help out their fellows, this does not mean Russia invaded Ukraine, any more than it means the USA is fighting for ISIS just because a handful of volunteers turn up in Syria and declare themselves as terrorists.
As regards Crimea, in the absence of the legal entity in force, namely the democratically elected President, the entity with the due authority was the Crimean Legislative Assembly, which decided to hold a free and fair referendum on status outside Russia or inside Russia, and the people expressed their will to rejoin Russia.
Nobody in NATO complained when the USA was giving logistical support to the United Kingdom when Argentina invaded/reclaimed the Falklands/Malvinas, nobody complained in the UK when the population of these islands voted in a referendum to retain their British status.
So as we see, each and every one of the accusations levelled against Russia are totally untrue. The Soviet Union always had good relations among its member states and always fostered friendly relations with its neighbors. Actions taken in the COMECON States were taken by the governments of those States, formed by nationals of these states allied with the USSR and any such actions must be taken in context, namely when NATO was spending trillions of dollars annually in plans to assassinate leaders, support fascist dictatorships which perpetrated massacres across the globe, perpetrating acts of sabotage, terrorism and provocation.
In the 1990s, footage shown by Italian TV station RAI UNO of NATO warplanes strafing the Iraqi fields of cereals to burn the crops to starve the civilians were zapped off the internet, but they were seen. Let us entertain the notion that NATO is not what it claims to be.
Remember the lies over Iraq? The Weapons of Mass Destruction? The forged documents linking Saddam to Yellowcake Uranium and Nigeria? Remember the chemical warfare facilities, which were powdered milk plants? Remember the stories about Gaddafi bombing his own people? Remember when Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi took SKY News to the locations they said the Libyan Air Force had bombed, with the cameras, and asked them where the damage was? Remember the photos copied and pasted from the Net showing hundreds of Syrian children murdered by Assad, when in fact they were taken from a decade earlier in Iraq, the victims of NATO bombing? Remember when they showed mass protests against Russian banks, when in fact the backdrop showed Athens and Greek banks?
So why should we believe NATO, when their accusations are totally false and when they have a history of shitfaced lies?
And now let us examine these "plans" to over-run the Baltic States. Er...why would Russia want to assimilate the Baltic States? These three States during the second world war had a human rights record which vied with Hitler's in terms of cruelty. In Latvia the Latvian Waffen SS Division was staffed by Latvian officers and troops, not Germans, and these carried out acts of almost indescribable cruelty in the concentration and extermination camps. Indeed, the Latvians began building concentration camps long before Hitler arrived on the scene - the Fascist dictator Karlis Ulmanis began building one in 1934.
The concentration and extermination camps in Latvia were not one or two. Apart from the infamous Mezaparks Camp at Kaiserwald near Riga, there were Daugavpils, Lenta, Liepaja, Strazdu Manor, Dundaga, Jelgava, Valmiera, Salaspils and Jumpravmuita. Between 70,000 and 85,000 Latvian Jews were exterminated in these camps, which counted on the willing collaboration and active participation of a substantial number of Latvians.
Now Estonia. Most of Estonia's 4,500 Jews managed to escape before the Nazi Panzers rolled over the border. However, sadly most of the 1,000 to 1,500 who remained were murdered. As in Latvia, this extermination policy counted on the willing participation of national citizens, the Estonian SS Division and the 287th Estonian Police Battalion bearing witness to this.
Estonia had even more concentration and extermination camps than Latvia: Auvere, Aseri, Dorpat, Ereda, Goldfields, Idu-Virumaa, Illinurme, Jagala, Johvi, Kalevi-Liiva, Kivioli, Klooga, Kukruse, Kunda, Kuremae, Lagedi, Narva, Narva-Joesuu, Petschur, Putki, Saka, Stara Gradiska, Sonda, Soski, Tartu, Vaivara, Viivikonna and Wesenburg. A violent anti-Romany policy was also carried out in this country, virtually annihilating all the country's gypsy population.
And Lithuania. Here, complicity with the Germans in annihilating the Jewish population saw the extermination of between 135,000 and 220,000 people. Few survived the horrors of the camps at Kovno (Kaunas), Kauen, Slobodka, HKP at Vilna and Prawienischken.
Groups of Lithuanian youths began attacking Jews in Kovno even before the Germans invaded on 24th June 1941 and during the occupation, the Lithuanian auxiliaries of the Einsatzgruppe and the Lithuanian Security Police willingly carried out acts of mass butchery.
So rather than assimilate these countries, Russia would much rather build a wall and a fence and stock up thousands of canisters of disinfectant. There are no plans whatsoever to attack these countries, and looking at the vast territory of the Russian Federation, what possible purpose would the "invasion" of such territories serve? Russia has access to the Baltic through the Russian territory of Kaliningrad and further north, from Russian territory in the Gulf of Finland.
As regards fly-bys with military aircraft, it is NATO's aircraft on Russia's borders, not Russian aircraft off the coast of Liverpool or Florida that we are speaking about... and anyway these games have been played by pilots on both sides for decades. For those of us in the know, it's a bit of fun.
NATO breached international law in invading Iraq. NATO has breached international law in several locations during the last two decades, involving itself in the internal affairs of sovereign States, breaching the terms of the UN Charter itself. Let us see the criminal record of NATO.
It has breached the UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 46: "Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee" every time military action took place without this Committee being convened.
In its intervention in domestic affairs of sovereign states, NATO breached UNSC Resolution 2131 (XX) of 21 December 1965, containing the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States, backed up by Resolutions 31/91 of 14 December 1976, 32/153 of 19 December 1977, 33/74 of 15 December 1978, 34/101 of 14 December 1979 and 35/159 of 12 December 1980 on non-interference in the internal affairs of States.
In its bombardment of undefended buildings and structures, NATO breached Article 3 of the Statute of The Hague International Penal Court which states clearly that one criterion for indictment for war crimes is:
"Attack or bombardment, by whatever means, against undefended cities, towns, villages, buildings or houses".
Also, the same Article 3 cites "Massive destruction of cities, towns or villages or destruction not justified by military necessity".
NATO has attacked civilian structures with military hardware, including electricity grids and water supply networks. NATO has supported terrorist groups on its own liss of proscribed organizations.
Under the UN Charter, Chapter VI, Article 33, member states must "seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice". NATO has systematically refused to adhere to this.
In using mercenaries, NATO breached UNSC Resolution 1973 (2011), in its Chapter on Protection of Civilians, in paragraph 4, which states: "4. Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council.
In the transportation of rebel forces to enter the theatre of operations:
UNSC Resolution 1970 (2011): In the Chapter on Enforcement of the arms embargo, Paragraph 13. NATO has also breached the Geneva Conventions. Article 14 of the second Protocol to the Geneva Conventions states, "Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations, and supplies and irrigation works."
The 4th Geneva Convention prohibits all forms of attacks on civilians and the collective punishment of civilian populations.
To sum up, NATO's record is not that good, is it? Compare that with the lies invented against the next intended victim, Russia, which has done not one single act in the long list levelled against it, and we see the one with a lot of explaining to do is NATO, not Russia.
NATO is a criminal organization which serves as a front for the sinister lobbies that control its policy. Its lies are the siren's song, the harbinger of the war lobby which wishes to grow rich on the back of the misfortune of others. Russia has the right to conduct military operations within its own territory, wherever it chooses, whenever it chooses and however it chooses. The fact that Russia is willing to accommodate NATO and its arrogance is a telling example of attempted diplomacy in the face of shitfaced arrogance.
Thank goodness for the international community that Vladimir Putin is so patient and that the Russian Federation insists on following international law.
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Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey
*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.