We are in a dangerous place, the black and white areas defined by The Global Thinking Project…and the Fake News story.
We are in a dangerous place, where the term Fake News has been hijacked to censor out everything that does not follow the Global Thinking Project, which is basically a unilateral straight-.line-on-a-map dogma defining This Is How We All Think.
The Internet was praised for bringing us a wide range of information in real time, enabling us to think for ourselves and choose our sources. I myself was one of the pioneers of Intervention Journalism, telling it as it is, as it really is, including my opinion sometimes, but outside the tidy little news package edited to follow the editorial line of the Mainstream Media, funded and financed and made viable by media companies which would not toss a cent to any publication deemed outside the little box. I would take great offence at being classified over the years as a vendor of Fake News, since I do a lot of reading and listening before starting to write and speak and only write when I am sure I know what I am speaking about.
It is perfectly simple. It is the presentation of news which paints a pretty picture of the West, an ugly picture of Russia and China and Iran and a derisive picture of developing countries in the Global South, from where there aboud stories of disease, disaster, poverty, wars and misery. This is done in two ways, by demonology or by simply ignoring a story.
A Western act of intrusion or terrorism will be preceded by demonology, creating a negative picture of a leader such as Saddam Hussein (trying to hold his country together in the face of takfiri terrorists unleashed against him) or Muammar al-Gaddafy, who turned Africa’s poorest nation into the one with the highest Human Development Index, who fostered pan-African development projects, education for all, healthcare, technology and African resources for Africans. Look what happened to him and look what happened to Libya, today a failed state crawling with terrorists and racists. Congratulations to the FUKUS Axis (France, UK, US). Sterling job.
Good examples of where stories have been ignored are the USS Liberty, the Chagos Isles and Israel’s murderous war crimes against civilians. How many people know the full details of these stories? Why do US citizens not know about the USS Liberty, why does the population of the UK not know about the Chagos Isles and how many people know what Israeli thieves and terrorists are doing in Palestinian lands, on a daily basis?
USS Liberty. This US intelligence vessel was attacked by Israel on June 6, 1967, murdering 34 Americans and injuring a further 171. This is not propaganda, it is fact.
Chagos Isles. Between 1967 and 1973, the population of these Indian Ocean isles was deported forcibly by the United Kingdom so that the islands could be used by the USA to house a military base (Diego Garcia). The pets of the islanders were gassed. I repeat, the pets of the islanders were gassed. This is not propaganda, it is fact.
Israel. The two-state solution in the Middle East is about the State of Israel cohabiting peacefully with the State of Palestine, composed of Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza is currently being systematically destroyed by the Israeli military, including thousands of children, pets, and innocent civilians in the quest to root out HAMAS operatives. This is common knowledge and the carnage is such that nobody in the West can hide the horrific events. But how many people know about the systematic act of stealing Palestinian lands, of attacking Palestinian civilians, in the West Bank and building Israeli colonies for settlers (terrorists and thieves)? This is not propaganda, it is fact.
The same entities which create demonology and practise censorship (try to find a story from the Russian State Media about Ukraine, and you cannot because it has been banned, at least in the European Union, which practises a Fascist policy of censorship), do something far worse.
They not only spread lies as the truth (Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, Gaddafy was bombing his own people), they not only ignore stories which are sensitive, they purposefully hide and destroy evidence, closing websites and zapping information from the Net. The comments section under my article of 2011 Law Case of the Century, an indictment against the NATO military and political leadership at the time over the act of terrorism against Libya, reached several thousand comments with a lot of information. Several times. These vanished time and time again. Not a single entity to which the indictment was sent even showed the courtesy of providing a reply and the Facebook account which I used at the time to document war crimes perpetrated by NATO forces was taken over by one jooj30 at hotmail.com and I could never enter the page again. Fortunately, I had everything documented elsewhere and further attempts over the years to hack into my router, or computers, or send me death threats, threatening to burn my dog in acid for instance, were registered yet rendered useless since I have several laptops in stock, unconnected to the Net.
Today, the onslaught continues, with videos, photographs and texts regarding the truth in Syria, in Ukraine and elsewhere, taken down and hidden from the public domain. My readers can believe what I am saying or choose not to, but how many times over the years have I published a single piece of news that was not the whole truth? Never.
So we may conclude that information is not free and Fake News is not always fake. What we have is a clique of corporate media enterprises controlled or in tandem with dark sinister invisible and unelected forces behind the scenes (the barons heading the BARFFED, Banking, Arms, Resources, Finance, Food, Energy, Drugs Lobbies), subjectively and unilaterally deciding what is news and what is not to manipulate public opinion into going along with their murderous schemes.
It is the Global Thinking Project, creating the notion of a black and white world which whitewashes horrific and barbaric acts of terrorism by some yet labelling the reaction of others as the root cause of incidents which in fact they were the victims of.
So let us examine some truths from the last two decades. Not propaganda, truth.
Kosovo. FACT KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) terrorists were targeting the Serbian emergency services trying to fight against a rise in terrorist atrocities, including the beheading of civilians, shooting at ambulances and murdering policemen. The West made these savages out to be little darlings and blamed the Serbs. In which civilised country are the emergency service workers attacked and which civilised country condones such attacks or turns a blind eye to them, taking the side of the perpetrators? And nobody has been hauled before a court of law? Aiding and abetting terrorists?
Afghanistan. FACT Afghanistan per se had nothing to do with 9/11, which was indeed a terrorist atrocity perpetrated by Islamist fanatics. The USA was in my opinion right to go after those who perpetrated the horrific attack in New York but totally misunderstood the fabric of Afghan society and ended up strafing civilians, destabilising a country and sowing chaos.
Iraq. FACT an utter shame for the Western countries participating in this terrorist outrage. There was no evidence at all linking Iraq to 9/11 or to any Weapons of Mass Destruction programme, because such never existed. The act of butchery was based on lies and the United Nations Organization was insulted and ignored. As I said at the time, this attack rendered the perpetrators unable to claim any moral high ground for many decades to come.
Georgia. FACT a provocation engineered by outside forces. Elements speaking American English were heard in and among the invading Georgian forces after Georgian elements murdered Russian peacekeepers, forces which planned an invasion of Abkhazia. Russia’s reaction was limited so as not to humiliate Georgia, as President Putin said at the time. Imagine if he had done a NATO and bombed the crap out of the place, as was the case in Iraq, Serbia and Libya?
Libya. FACT. Another outrage perpetrated by terrorists against a sovereign state which was trying to defend itself against marauding hordes of takfiri savages. A total disgrace and a shame for those who destroyed a successful state which was doing much to curb the immigration crisis in Europe, much to aid Africa and Africans and nothing whatsoever against the murderous terrorist forces which attacked..
Syria. FACT. President al-Assad was accused of doing what his opponents (again, takfiri Islamist terrorists) were doing and evidence pointing to his innocence was removed from the Net. Those supporting the terrorists unleashed against Assad hid the atrocities they were perpetrating. For example, beheading a little girl after forcing her to watch her parents being raped and murdered and before her severed head was used as a football. For example, raping nuns after slicing their breasts off, in public. This was not Assad, it was the terrorists financed, aided and supported by forces against him. And backed ultimately by whom? Need I say more?
Ukraine. FACT. In 2014 a Fascist coup d’état took place which saw groups of armed thugs take to the streets in Kiev bawling “Death to Russians and Jews”, along with hostile actions against Russian-speaking Ukrainians, which turned into Fascist massacres in the East of the country (since zapped from the Net), a movement started to ban the use of Russian language and culture and restrict the Russian Orthodox Church and to ban political parties. It is obvious that the next step would be to hand over Russia’s naval bases in the Crimea to NATO, so in the absence of the democratically elected head of state, Yanukovich, deposed in the coup, in Crimea the organism with executive power was the legislative assembly which voted to hold a referendum on status. The population, Russians mostly, voted to rejoin Russia. As for the rest, Russia’s reaction was to propose the Treaty of Minsk which would keep Donbass inside Ukraine but with the cultural, linguistic and religious rights of the population intact.
Ukraine agreed, and signed. Someone told them not to implement the terms. Why? Because the one pulling the strings in Kiev had no intention of good neighbourly relations of Ukraine with Russia, indeed step 2 would be to implant NATO along Russia’s western flank to finish the puzzle. Step 3, with a vice around its throat, with NATO in the north, centre and south…Russia could see another incursion from the West coming, for step 4 would be to foster a colour revolution, divide Russia up and steal its considerable resources. So what would anyone else have done if those speaking their language were being massacred and harrassed, called sub-humans, with their rights denied, amid calls for Death to Russians and Jews? Nothing?
Obviously, nobody enjoys being invaded and having their homes destroyed, be they Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians because it has happenbed to both, not only one side. And obviously, not all Ukrainians are guilty of perpetrating the horrors which provoked Russia’s campaign. Yet the accepted media version in the Mainstream Media paints a picture of Russians as ogres and Ukrainians as defenceless victims attacked without any reason at all. This is simply not the case, and obviously not.
This does not mean that one enjoys seeing people being killed on any side, anywhere. Personally I favour development over deployment and I call for my readers to remember all victims on all sides of all conflicts, together with their families and loved ones. I repeat, all victims of all sides in all conflicts.
However, we must think about the other side of the coin and not let ourselves be whitewashed by sheer and utter barefaced lies, which proclaim to be the truth and have the insolence and audacity to label those telling the truth as propagandists.
We must take a stand against the arbitrary closing of social media pages and websites which are not committing any crime. Indeed, those closing the sites and pages belong to those who perpetrate terrorist acts themselves, or else support others who do so, or at least turn a blind eye when they do. And we should start pressing for those telling lies and hiding behind censorship to be closed down, or simply ignored.
I for one am going to continue writing the truth.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at [email protected]
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