dagblog - Comments for "Russian TV sees US plot behind Ukraine and IS militants"

Russians Re-write History to

artappraiser — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 04:45:28 +0000

In reply to Russian TV sees US plot behind Ukraine and IS militants

Russians Re-write History to Slur Ukraine Over War
Simon Shuster / Moscow / Time, Oct. 29, 2014

Vladimir Putin has turned the idea of fascism into a political tool, and now Russian historians are adapting to the Kremlin line....

Practically every arm of the Russian state, from the education system to the national police, has since taken up this message. The state media have consistently painted Ukrainian authorities as “fascists” in the service of the U.S. government. In late September, Russia’s main investigative body even opened a criminal probe accusing Ukraine’s leaders of committing “genocide” against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. But the more recent involvement of the nation’s historians has marked a worrying turn in this endeavor.

It suggests a willingness to reinterpret even the most sacred chapters of Russian history, as the venue for last week’s conference seemed to suggest....

I recall arguing with someone

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 06:28:17 +0000

In reply to I like the Woodward piece. I

I recall arguing with someone at the time of Libya that I'd take some principle, any principle, over the complete lack of what precedent we thought we were setting.

As Libya hasn't turned out peaches 'n creme, I'm still waiting for some positive spin on this or a lesson learned as Libya disintegrates (& no, I don't think it significant that we lost an ambassador in an ambush - I did think it significant we were knocking out a foe-turned-ally for unstated reasons - to make the French or Italians happy? someone really thought we were getting Democracy in the Mideast through the barrel of a gun?).

I read the McClatchy piece as

Anonymous LULU — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:15:57 +0000

In reply to I like the Woodward piece. I

I read the McClatchy piece as evidence supporting Greenwald’s conclusion that the Khorasan group was largely an ad hoc invention.

Woodward, whom I appreciate and read most days, sets the tone of his critique when he refers to Greenwald and Hussain as conspiracy theorists at least two times. He uses the term in its common pejorative way. In my opinion, Greenwald develops and supports his case with a lot of evidence. Woodward then offers a counter theory which if true requires just as much a conspiracy by the very same entities as does Greenwald’s but which is only argued with suppositions. Greenwald concludes that it was a propaganda exercise aimed at the American public and Woodward supposes that it was a propaganda exercise aimed at the Syrian public but of course does not call his idea a ‘conspiracy theory’.

... when it comes to propaganda, [the Obama administration is] probably too complicated and subtle for their own good.

Despite the administration's un-subtle and failed attempts at complicated subtlety, we seem to agree that what was put out was in fact propaganda. Need I say that if it was propaganda that it involved people conspiring to form a message and make one group or another believe it.

Woodward pays very little, if any, attention to a major theme of Greenwald's piece which is the U.S. medias unquestioning advancement of the propaganda.

I like the Woodward piece. I

artappraiser — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 05:38:01 +0000

In reply to Tom Woodward at War in

I like the Woodward piece. He may or may not have all the details right but I think he gets the Obama administration: when it comes to propaganda, probably too complicated and subtle for their own good. The thing with 12-dimensional chess is that so few will join in, it gets too complex. Like I am always pointing out, Obama is not Bush and things are probably therefore never going to be "deja vus allover again" while he is president.

Woodward's summary line is really good Least of all is there any evidence that Obama has anything that barely resembles a coherent strategy. Need I say that this is basically the opposite of a grand conspiracy plot?I felt the same thing with the whole first threat of intervention in Syria. I remember reacting strongly to a post at the time by Orion that was basically complaining "'they're' doing it again; this is Iraq dejas vus allover again." And I was instead seeing a president and his staff making threats and then backing down from them, and embarrassing themselves by grabbing onto limbs thrown out by Russia, etc. Obama is just not a grand conspirator, nor does he stick to any one 'strategery" like it's the Bible.

He's going to continue to be criticized for this from the left side of the aisle, too:

The former secretary of state, and probable candidate for president, outlines her foreign-policy doctrine. She says this about President Obama's: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."

From what I recall we created

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 05:08:01 +0000

In reply to Tom Woodward at War in

From what I recall we created Al Qaeda connections in other lands where they didn't exist (to allow the AUMFs to be used, among other things). Apparently we thought we could avoid the Hizbollah situation (a group that takes care of its local population) through simple rebranding - think that only works on Americans (Tea Party, Compassionate Conservativsm, et al)

Tom Woodward at War in

A Guy Called LULU — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 22:31:31 +0000

In reply to That is an interesting and

Tom Woodward at War in Context has a critical review of Greenwald's article

http://warincontext.org/2014/09/29/glenn-greenwalds-khorasan-conspiracy-...

Then there is this McClatchyDC article that fits somewhere in the story.

Europeans say U.S. never briefed them on plot by al Qaida group

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/26/241222_europeans-say-us-never-brie...

That is an interesting and

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 14:57:00 +0000

In reply to Russian TV sees US plot behind Ukraine and IS militants

That is an interesting and maybe an enlightening article. It might be completely accurate and might be strictly informational with no spin or bias. In that, it may be unlike so much of the news we hear in the U.S. My guess is that it is largely accurate but that the same sorts of distortions are put out by opinion leaders here. But then again, I am wrong a lot and maybe almost everything we hear in the media stories developed in the West is accurate and unbiased. Or possibly there are liars on all sides along with others who try honestly and get a lot of things right but sometimes get other things wrong. Like with religion, it is hard for me to believe any individual story with confidence approaching certainty but many stories over years that have 'the ring of truth', which is quite obviously a subjective method of evaluation, tend to form my own biases. Not often do I have first person experience to guide my thinking about things happening thousands of miles away.
A couple articles linked below have something to say about the U.S. media coverage of significant events. Read with caution if you take the chance. The authors, heretics from the one 'true' religion, actually suggest that our news is sometimes flawed and sometimes the flaws are deliberately orchestrated.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-med...

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/greenwald/