Eric Zuesse (updated and expanded from my article at strategic-culture.org)
INTRODUCTION
Americaâs announcement that Russia has committed âaggressionâ against America, is an announcement that America is at war against Russia; and here is how Americaâs ânewsâ media have said that itâs the case â that Russia has aggressed â even as the U.S. government is still only preparing to attack Russia, and isnât yet ready actually to invade that country.
Right now, this propaganda is only psychological warfare, preparation of the U.S. public to accept that Americaâs invasion of Russia, when it comes, will be âdefensive,â not âoffensiveâ. This psychological framing of the big invasion, in advance, is important in order for the American people to believe, when the invasion comes, that itâs some sort of âjustâ war, not an aggression, and conquest, by NATO â America and its allies â against Russia. (At least some people in the global aristocracy are already buying nuclear-proof bomb-shelters, because theyâre sufficiently well-connected to know whatâs not being published.)
DISSECTING A KEY DECEPTION
On June 16th, Adam Johnson at FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) headlined “âAllegedlyâ Disappears as Russians Blamed for DNC Hackâ, and he broke an enormously important news story about the Washington Postâs propaganda for the U.S. to go to war against Russia. It concerned the question of whether the Russian government had been, as the Postâs reporter Ellen Nakashima alleged, caught red-handed in a cyberattack against both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the U.S. government (particularly former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton).
In Adam Johnson’s opening, here was his blockbuster:
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While the Post story by Ellen Nakashima was sourced to âcommittee officials and security experts who responded to the breachâ â i.e., CrowdStrike, the security firm hired by the DNC â that attribution dropped out of the headline, presenting Russian government culpability as an unquestioned fact. This framing was echoed by dozens of media outlets who picked up on the story and uncritically presented Russian guilt in their headlines without qualification:
⪠Russian Government Hackers Broke Into DNC Servers, Stole Trump Oppo (Politico, 6/14/16)
⪠Russia Hacked DNC Network, Accessed Trump Research (MSNBC, 6/14/16)
⪠Russians Steal Research on Trump in Hack of US Democratic Party (Reuters, 6/14/16)
⪠Russian Government-Affiliated Hackers Breach DNC, Take Research on Donald Trump (Fox, 6/14/16)
⪠Russia Hacks Democratic National Committee, Trump Info Compromised (USA Today, 6/14/16)
⪠Russian government hackers steal DNC files on Donald Trump (The Guardian, 6/14/16)
⪠Russians Hacked DNC Computers to Steal Opposition Research on Trump (Talking Points Memo, 6/14/16)
⪠Russian Spies Hacked Into the DNCâs Donald Trump Files (Slate, 6/14/16)
⪠What Russiaâs DNC Hack Tells Us About Hillary Clintonâs Private Email Server  (Forbes, 6/15/16)
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Here was the opening sentence of Nakashimaâs ânewsâ report:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
Here was the headline: âRussian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trumpâ.
No evidence has ever been published indicating that either the storyâs opening clause or its headline is true; and, the person who did the hacking says heâs not associated with the Russian government. Consequently, this ânewsâ story in the Washington Post is at least dubious, and is likely false. The real question about the story, however, is: why was it published by a prominent U.S. ânewsâ medium, and then trumpeted in other prominent U.S. ânewsâ media, as if this allegation were established as being true, or even as if there were any sound reason to believe it to be true? Or, to put this matter another (and broader) way: Are the U.S. major ânewsâ media as untrustworthy now as they were when they stenographically transmitted to the U.S. public, as being ânewsâ, the U.S. governmentâs mere propaganda line, that Saddam Husseinâs weapons of mass destruction still existed, and that he was only six months away from having a nuclear weapon? (The attack against Iraq was thus, likewise, portrayed as being a âdefensiveâ act â not as being 100% aggression and unjustifiable, which it was.) Going back now to the first version of that question (why it was published by a prominent U.S. ânewsâ medium):
As I had reported on June 15th:
On Tuesday, June 14th, NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATOâs Article V âcollective defenseâ provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country.Â
Or, as Germany’s Die Zeit had headlined the matter: âNATO Declares Cyberspace War Zone.â (You didnât see that reported in U.S. ânewsâ media, did you? Itâs very important news â as my report about the matter explained in detail, but Die Zeitâs did not. But at least they reported the fact â namely, that NATO had just announced a new policy: that a cyberattack constitutes now an act of war, an invasion which triggers Article V; that, for Russia to cyberattack a NATO country, would be Russian aggression, and would trigger NATOâs mutual-defense provision.)
In other words: the Washington Postâs story, which was immediately spread by other ânewsâ media, was alleging something to have occurred, that in NATOâs new doctrine constitutes an act of war against the United States by Russia. (Never mind: espionage is actually routine, and the U.S. government commits it even against allies such as Germany, and even taps into phone conversations of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is more of a soldier for the U.S. than an enemy of the U.S. â but Germany is a fellow NATO member and so this new NATO doctrine doesnât provide authorization for U.S. espionage against Germany to be treated as cause for Germany to invade the U.S. and to be joined by the rest of the NATO alliance in attacking the United States. NATO is the anti-Russia military club; itâs designed to conquer Russia, certainly not to defend one NATO member against another. When a nation joins NATO, theyâre already slaves of the U.S. government. Like Obama repeatedly says, âThe United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.â The government in any nation that joins or stays in NATO, knows that their nation is âdispensable,â and they accept this: they have to, in order to be a part of NATO, which the U.S. controls. So: Obama could publicly tell this to Americaâs military, and no one would even blink at it; Americaâs exceptionalism is accepted as being not only real, but good.)
And, since what the Washington Postâs story was alleging there, has been called false by the person who did the hacking, the Postâs implication that Russia committed an act which NATOâs new policy labels as an act of war against the United States, isnât only unfounded and likely false; itâs also mentally preparing the American public to go along marching toward nuclear oblivion, on that dubious basis â like America had marched into war against Iraq in 2003, on the basis of lies from the government and its stenographic press, but an invasion of Russia would be much worse than George W. Bushâs invasions were.
American ânewsâ media â the same ânewsâ media that had been in 2002 âreportingâ about âSaddamâs WMDâ etc. â are now speculating that the person who claims to have done the hack is lying to say heâs not an agent of the Russian government. In other words, the presumption by the U.S. government and its agents, is simply taken as fact. No mention is being made by these ânewsâ media, that NATO simultaneously with that hacking-event, has changed its policy so as to enable NATO to invade Russia on the basis of the presumption that Russia did the hack. Are those two eventsâ simultaneity â the policy-change, and the âRussianâ hack â merely coincidental? And are the public not supposed to notice that NATOâs policy-change is declaring espionage to be aggression â âjustificationâ for NATO to launch an attack, essentially NATOâs outlawing espionage on the part of any nation that isnât in NATO? People arenât supposed to even notice this?
THAT LIEâS BROADER CONTEXT
All of this goes back to NATOâs alleged âjustificationâ for its now (very provocatively) pouring U.S. troops and nuclear weapons onto and near Russiaâs borders with Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland (nations selected by Obama for their having rabidly anti-Russian leaderships): that âjustificationâ being Russiaâs having supposedly âseizedâ Crimea from Ukraine â which allegation against Russia is a lie, and which isnât even NATOâs business, because Ukraine isnât yet a NATO member, and therefore isnât covered by NATOâs promise (Article V) to go to war to defend any NATO member against any invader. (The aristocracyâs propaganda is based upon the assumption that the public are simply fools: people arenât supposed to recognize that even if Russia had invaded Ukraine, NATO has no business in this matter.)
And all of that goes back, in turn, to “How America Double-Crossed Russia And Shamed The Westâ â yet another lie by the U.S. government, that one having been made by U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1990, and now threatening to blossom into a full-fledged nuclear war: World War III.
Are these essential facts, including the relevant historical facts, being reported by the ânewsâ media to the American public, so as to enable us to vote knowledgeably in elections? Hillary Clinton supports â and Donald Trump, that âdangerousâ man, opposes â Americaâs overthrowing Russiaâs allies, such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al Assad, and Viktor Yanukovych, but do most voters know anything about the realities here? Can a person reasonably say that such a country as the U.S. is a democracy, if the voters have no idea of what the main issue in this âelectionâ actually is? The main issue, this time around, is the buildup to World War III â and Clintonâs campaign says that the nation will be safer with her finger on the nuclear button, than with Trumpâs finger on it. Both of the Presidential candidates are disliked by the American public; Bernie Sanders and John Kasich were liked by the American public (they were the only two Presidential candidates who had net-positive approval-ratings from the American public), but Americaâs âdemocracyâ has eliminated Sanders and Kasich and includes only those two candidates â Clinton and Trump â neither of whom is liked and respected by the public. This is todayâs American âdemocracyâ, in which the preferred candidates get eliminated from the competition.
So: is our government trying to drive the world into a âpretextâ to âjustify’ the U.S. to invade Russia?
Why would it be doing that?
The same ânewsâ media that served the U.S. government to âjustifyâ, on the basis of lies, an invasion of Iraq in 2003, is now âjustifyingâ an invasion of Russia, perhaps to occur in 2017. Why would they be doing that?
Here is information about why U.S. academics are highly dependent upon not publishing, nor accepting for publication, anything that would reveal to the public whatâs really going on.
It seems that, every day, the real news is looking more and more like âThe End of M.A.D. â The Beginning of Madnessâ. But most Americans donât even know what âM.A.D.â (the system that has been preventing nuclear war) was. Meanwhile, the U.S. ânewsâ media are keeping these developments as secret, as hidden from and misunderstood by the public, as is possible to do.
Two things the U.S. aristocracy are essentially united upon are: (1) the U.S. governmentâs effort to conquer Russia; (2) not allowing their ânewsâ media to report either about that fact, or about any news-mediumâs reporting about either that effort, or the pervasive control of Americaâs ânewsâ media by the aristocracy, which ânewsâ media not only are owned by members of the aristocracy, but are funded by advertisements from other members of the aristocracy, whose companies pay to advertise in them. So: none of them want to cover this â and they donât cover it. For example, how many Americans know that it was a U.S. coup that in February 2014 overthrew the democratically elected President of Ukraine next-door to Russia, and replaced him with a fascist, rabidly anti-Russian, regime, appointed by the Obama Administration, and that Crimeans had voted 75% for that overthrown President and so sought to abandon Ukraine and to rejoin Russia (from which they had been yanked by the Soviet dictator in 1954) â more than 90% of them voted for that, because they were terrified of the U.S.-installed regime: how many Americans know that? Itâs not reported in America, because the U.S. aristocracy donât want the public to know it â they want Americans to think that Russia âseizedâ Crimea. That deception is essential because itâs the alleged reason for NATOâs being at war against Russia. There is no truthful reason for NATOâs war against Russia â none whatsoever.
In other words, the reality of the ânewsâ media in the United States is: in order for a ânewsâ medium to be able to acquire a large audience, whatâs key is financial support of that ânewsâ medium by the aristocracy. Without that, no ânewsâ medium in the U.S. can acquire a large audience. American ânewsâ media are virtually entirely controlled by the U.S. (and allied) aristocracy. They separate themselves from the public, even more than masters were separated from their serfs. Though in rhetoric they express caring and concern about the public, in reality they have none whatsoever. In fact, the invasion that their agent Barack Obama is working towards would harm the public enormously more than even the invasions by their agent George W. Bush did. But the public know little to nothing about it, and misunderstand the little that they do know about it. And this ignorance and misunderstanding by the public provides the aristocracy the freedom they want, to surround Russia with nuclear weapons and hostile armies, until Russia will give in to the U.S. governmentâs demands â as if Russia will have no alternative but to do that. (But thatâs why aristocrats are buying bomb-shelters, their Plan B, just in case.)
If it sounds crazy, it is; but the pattern for this was set in the buildup toward World War I. Aristocrats are simply crazy about their power. Thatâs what Obama was displaying when he said, âThe United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.â In other words: Russia is âdispensable,â just like any other country (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Brazil, etc.) that refuses to be controlled by the U.S. aristocracy. The only difference this time around is nuclear weapons; but, now, with the concept of ânuclear primacyâ, even that is now considered, by the U.S. aristocracy, to be no fundamental change, after all, away from the pre-nuclear era; and, so, Obama is playing the role in the buildup to WW III that Kaiser Wilhelm had played in the buildup to WW I â heâs the demander who wonât even take âyesâ for an answer: he needs to conquer any foreign power who resists him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is terrified by Obama, but has made clear that he will never allow Russia to become a U.S. vassal state like Ukraine and the other ones that America has taken are (like Hillary Clintonâs exultation at conquering one of Russiaâs allies â the killing of Gaddafi â was: âWe came, we saw, he died. Ha, ha!!â). Putin is now saying flat-out no to that: heâs saying, Americaâs aristocracy might get rid of other governments that donât become Americaâs stooges, but not of Russiaâs government. He is saying that Russia will not be conquered, that itâs not going to become part of Americaâs empire.
On June 18th, Russiaâs Tass News Agency published this about Putinâs statements that day (he was talking then about Americaâs building an anti-missile system to eliminate the nuclear missiles that Russia would be sending in retaliation against a NATO blitz-invasion of Russia â an anti-missile system that Obama has always promised is to protect against missiles from Iran or North Korea, not from Russia â Putin was saying that itâs actually being built in order to disable Russiaâs ability to defend itself, Russiaâs ability to strike back against a NATO-U.S. invasion):
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“Thereâs no [nuclear] threat [from Iran], and the missile defense system [in Europe] is still being built, so we were right when we said they are deceiving us, they are not sincere with us [by] referring to the alleged Iranian nuclear threat during the construction of the missile defense system,” Putin said.
“It is like this actually â they tried to deceive us once again,” he said at a meeting with the heads of global information agencies.
“We know approximately which year the Americans will get a new missile that will have a range of not 500 kilometers but more, and from that moment they will start threatening our nuclear potential. We know what will be going on by years. And they know that we know,” Putin underscored.
He stated that the United States, “despite all our objections, all our proposals on real cooperation, does not want to cooperate with us, rejects our proposals and acts in accordance with its plan.”
“You may believe me or not, but we have suggested specific variants of cooperation, they have all really been rejected,” Putin said.
He recalled that missile defense system elements have been built in Romania. “What have they constantly said? ‘We need to protect ourselves from Iranâs nuclear threat.’ Whereâs the Iranian nuclear threat? Thereâs none!” Putin said.
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Obama simply ignores Putinâs objections, and refuses to speak with him. And his ânewsâ media (both Democratic and Republican) refuse to report the matter. So, the reality is publishable only outside the Western mainstream (and even most of its âalternativeâ) press. Westerners know only what their aristocracy allow them to know. And the buildup to nuclear war isnât publishable, in the West. The closest that we come to it is a puff-piece book review in the New York Review of Books about a former U.S. Secretary of Defenseâs memoir espousing the need to get rid of nuclear weapons: itâs like Obamaâs Nobel Peace Prize â it is divorced from the reality of Americaâs aggressive plan, since 1990, to surround and ultimately conquer Russia; itâs divorced from the plan that Obama himself is now racing forward, âPeace Prizeâ or no. Youâre not supposed to know anything about it. But you do know now, even if you didnât before. And word of it can be spread to people who donât know about it, only by sending them the URL of this article, so that they (just like you) can click onto the links here, on any allegation they doubt, and find out for themselves, what the documentation behind any questionable allegation here is. And then, each of you can discuss it, and come to your own individual conclusions about these matters.
Americaâs ânewsâ media are like those in the Soviet Union were: only by means of samizdat (prohibited literature) can the truth come to be known. Thatâs the reality: the reality is unpublishable, in the West. What the Soviet Union was â a dictatorship â the U.S. now is. The economy isnât like the Sovietsâ, but the political rule, by some form of crony aristocracy, is, regardless of whether one calls it the nomenklatura, or the fasces. Anyway: When the U.S.S.R. ended in 1991, Russia and the U.S.A. switched sides. And weâre not supposed to know this. But now we do.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of Theyâre Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRISTâS VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.