Lies, lies, lies - the US Propaganda machine in action

[David Guyatt]

Paul Craig Roberts on making RT a terrorist organization and how the USA's rating agencies are propagandistic.

Russia In The Cross Hairs. Washington's Threats have moved Into the Realm of Insanity

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, January 27, 2015
PaulCraigRoberts.org

Region: Russia and FSU
Theme: Media Disinformation

Washington's attack on Russia has moved beyond the boundary of the absurd into the realm of insanity.
The New Chief of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, Andrew Lack, has declared the Russian news service, RT, which broadcasts in multiple languages, to be a terrorist organization equivalent to Boko Haram and the Islamic State, and Standard and Poor's just downgraded Russia's credit rating to junk status.
Today RT International interviewed me about these insane developments.
In prior days when America was still a sane country, Lack's charge would have led to him being laughed out of office. He would have had to resign and disappear from public life. Today in the make-believe world that Western propaganda has created, Lack's statement is taken seriously. Yet another terrorist threat has been identifiedRT. (Although both Boko Haram and the Islamic State employ terror, strictly speaking they are political organizations seeking to rule, not terror organizations, but this distinction would be over Lack's head. Yes, I know. There is a good joke that could be made here about what Lack lacks. Appropriately named and all that.)
Nevertheless, whatever Lack might lack, I doubt he believes his nonsensical statement that RT is a terrorist organization. So what is his game?
The answer is that the Western presstitute media by becoming Ministries of Propaganda for Washington, have created large markets for RT, Press TV, and Al Jazeera. As more and more of the peoples of the world turn to these more honest news sources, Washington's ability to fabricate self-serving explanations has declined.
RT in particular has a large Western audience. The contrast between RT's truthful reporting and the lies spewed by US media is undermining Washington's control of the explanation. This is no longer acceptable.
Lark has sent a message to RT. The message is: pull in your horns; stop reporting differently from our line; stop contesting the facts as Washington states them and the presstitutes report them; get on board or else.
In other words, the "free speech" that Washington and its EU, Canadian, and Australian puppet states tout means: free speech for Washington's propaganda and lies, but not for any truth. Truth is terrorism, because truth is the major threat to Washington.
Washington would prefer to avoid the embarrassment of actually shutting down RT as its UK vassal did to Press TV. Washington simply wants to shut up RT. Lark's message to RT is: self-censure.
In my opinion, RT already understates in its coverage and reporting as does Al Jazeera. Both news organizations understand that they cannot be too forthright, at least not too often or on too many occasions.
I have often wondered why the Russian government allows 20 percent of the Russian media to function as Washington's fifth column inside Russia. I suspect the reason is that by tolerating Washington's blatant propaganda inside Russia, the Russian government hopes that some factual news can be reported in the US via RT and other Russian news organizations.
These hopes, like other Russian hopes about the West, are likely to be disappointed in the end. If RT is closed down or assimilated into the Western presstitute media, nothing will be said about it, but if the Russian government closes down Washington's agents, blatant liars all, in the Russian media, we will hear forever about the evil Russians suppressing "free speech." Remember, the only allowable "free speech" is Washington's propaganda.
Only time will tell whether RT decides to be closed down for telling the truth or whether it adds its voice to Washington's propaganda.
The other item in the interview was the downgrading of Russian credit to junk status.
Standard and Poor's downgrade is, without any doubt, a political act. It proves what we already know, and that is that the American rating firms are corrupt political operations. Remember the Investment Grade rating the American rating agencies gave to obvious subprime junk? These rating agencies are paid by Wall Street, and like Wall Street they serve the US government.
A look at the facts serves to establish the political nature of the ruling. Don't expect the corrupt US financial press to look at the facts. But right now, we will look at the facts.
Indeed, we will put the facts in context with the US debt situation.
According to the debt clocks available online, the Russian national debt as a percentage of Russian GDP is 11 percent. The American national debt as a percentage of US GDP is 105 percent, about ten times higher. My coauthors, Dave Kranzler, John Williams, and I have shown that when measured correctly, the US debt as a percent of GDP is much higher than the official figure.
The Russian national debt per capita is $1,645. The US national debt per capita is
$56,952.
The size of Russia's national debt is $235 billion, less than one quarter of a trillion. The size of the US national debt is $18 trillion, 76.6 times larger than the Russian debt.
Putting this in perspective: according to the debt clocks, US GDP is $17.3 trillion and Russian GDP is $2.1 trillion. So, US GDP is 8 times greater than Russian GDP, but US national debt is 76.6 times greater than Russia's debt.
Clearly, it is the US credit rating that should have been downgraded to junk status. But this cannot happen. Any US credit rating agency that told the truth would be closed and prosecuted. It wouldn't matter what the absurd charges are. The rating agencies would be guilty of being anti-american, terrorist organizations like RT, etc. and so on, and they know it. Never expect any truth from any Wall Street denizen. They lie for a living.
According to this site: [1] the US owes Russia as of January 2013 $162.9 billion. As the Russian national debt is $235 billion, 69 percent of the Russian national debt is covered by US debt obligations to Russia.
If this is a Russian Crisis, I am Alexander the Great.
As Russia has enough US dollar holdings to redeem its entire national debt and have a couple hundred billion dollars left, what is Russia's problem?
One of Russia's problems is its central bank. For the most part, Russian economists are the same neoliberal incompetents that exist in the Western world. The Russian economists are enamored of their contacts with the "superior" West and with the prestige that they image these contacts give them. As long as the Russian economists agree with the Western ones, they get invited to conferences abroad. These Russian economists are de facto American agents whether they realize it or not.
Currently, the Russian central bank is squandering the large Russian holdings of foreign reserves in support of the Western attack on the ruble. This is a fools' game that no central bank should play. The Russian central bank should remember, or learn if it does not know, Soros' attack on the Bank of England.
Russian foreign reserves should be used to retire the outstanding national debt, thus making Russia the only country in the world without a national debt. The remaining dollars should be dumped in coordinated actions with China to destroy the dollar, the power basis of American Imperialism.
Alternatively, the Russian government should announce that its reply to the economic warfare being conducted against Russia by the government in Washington and Wall Street rating agencies is default on its loans to Western creditors. Russia has nothing to lose as Russia is already cut off from Western credit by US sanctions. Russian default would cause consternation and crisis in the European banking system, which is exactly what Russia wants in order to break up Europe's support of US sanctions.
In my opinion, the neoliberal economists who control Russian economic policy are a much greater threat to the sovereignty of Russia than economic sanctions and US missile bases. To survive Washington, Russia desperately needs people who are not romantic about the West.
To dramatize the situation, if President Putin will grant me Russian citizenship and allow me to appoint Michael Hudson and Nomi Prins as my deputies, I will take over the operation of the Russian central bank and put the West out of operation.
But that would require Russia taking risks associated with victory. The Atlanticist Integrationists inside the Russian government want victory for the West, not for Russia. A country imbued with treason inside the government itself has reduced chance against Washington, a determined player.
Another fifth column operating against Russia from within are the US and German funded NGOs. These American agents masquerade as "human rights organizations," as "women's rights organizations," as "democracy organizations," and whatever other cant titles that serve in a politically correct age and are unchallengeable.
Yet another threat to Russia comes from the percentage of the Russian youth who lust for the depraved culture of the West. Sexual license, pornography, drugs, self-absorption. These are the West's cultural offerings. And, of course, killing Muslims.
If Russians want to kill people for the fun of it and to solidify US hegemony over themselves and the world, they should support "Atlanticist integration" and turn their backs on Russian nationalism. Why be Russian if you can be American serfs?
What better result for the American neoconservatives than to have Russia support Washington's hegemony over the world? That is what the neoliberal Russian economists and the "European Integrationists" support. These Russians are willing to be American serfs in order to be part of the West and to be paid well for their treason.
As I was interviewed about these developments by RT, the news anchor kept trying to confront Washington's charges with the facts. It is astonishing that the Russian journalists do not understand that facts have nothing to do with it. The Russian journalists, those independent of American bribes, think that facts matter in the disputes about Russian actions. They think that the assaults on civilians by the American supported Ukrainian Nazis is a fact. But, of course no such fact exists in the Western media. In the Western media the Russians, and only the Russians, are responsible for violence in Ukraine.
Washington's story line is that it is the evil Putin's intent on restoring the Soviet Empire that is the cause of the conflict. This media line in the West has no relationship to any facts.
In my opinion, Russia is in grave danger. Russians are relying on facts, and Washington is relying on propaganda. For Washington, facts are not relevant. Russian voices are small compared to Western voices.
The lack of a Russian voice is due to Russia itself. Russia accepted living in a world controlled by US financial, legal, and telecommunication services. Living in this wold means that the only voice is Washington's.
Why Russia agreed to this strategic disadvantage is a mystery. But as a result of this strategic mistake, Russia is at a disadvantage.
Considering the inroads that Washington has into the Russian government itself, the economically powerful oligarchs and state employees with Western connections, as well as into the Russian media and Russian youth, with the hundreds of American and German financed NGOs that can put Russians into the streets to protest any defense of Russia, Russia's future as a sovereign country is in doubt.
The American neoconservatives are relentless. Their Russian opponent is weakened by the success inside Russia of Western cold war propaganda that portrays the US as the savior and future of mankind.
The darkness from Sauron America continues to spread over the world.

[Tracy Riddle]

http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world...cle/424470

Editor of major newspaper says he planted stories for CIA

By Ralph Lopez Jan 26, 2015 in World

Becoming the first credentialed, well-known media insider to step forward and state publicly that he was secretly a "propagandist," an editor of a major German daily has said that he personally planted stories for the CIA.


Saying he believes a medical condition gives him only a few years to live, and that he is filled with remorse, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, the editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers, said in an interview that he accepted news stories written and given to him by the CIA and published them under his own name. Ulfkotte said the aim of much of the deception was to drive nations toward war.
Dr. Ulfkotte says the corruption of journalists and major news outlets by the CIA is routine, accepted, and widespread in the western media, and that journalists who do not comply either cannot get jobs at any news organization, or find their careers cut short.
Dr. Ulfkotte is the author of a book currently available only in German, "Bought Journalists" (Kopp 2014.) Aged 55, he was also once an advisor to the government of German Chancellor Helmet Kohl.
The book has become a bestseller in Germany but, in a bizarre twist which Ulfkotte says characterizes the disconnect caused by CIA control of the western media, the book cannot be reported on.
Ulfkotte says:

"No German mainstream journalist is allowed to report about [my] book. Otherwise he or she will be sacked. So we have a bestseller now that no German journalist is allowed to write or talk about."
Among the stories Ulfkotte says he was ordered to plant in his newspaper over the years was a story that Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi was building poison gas factories in 2011. Ulfkotte also says he was an eyewitness to Saddam Hussein's use of poison gas against Iranians in the war between Iran and Iraq, but that the editors he worked for at the time were not interested, because Iraq was a US ally at the time.
Ulfkotte says he is better positioned to come forward than many journalists because he does not have children who could be threatened. Ulfkotte told the Russian newspaper Russian Insider (RI):
"When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulfkotte's nwspaper) that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets but I don't mind. You see, I don't have children to take care of. And you must know I was severely injured during the gas attack I witnessed in Iran in 1988. I'm the sole German survivor from a German poison gas attack. I'm still suffering from this. I've had three heart attacks. I don't expect to live for more than a few years."
Ulfkotte says that remorse of having "lied" to mass audiences over the years drove him to come forward. He told RI that he was:
"taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public."
Ulfkotte says:

"I'm ashamed I was part of it. Unfortunately I cannot reverse this."
Among the admissions that Ulfkotte makes in the interview are putting his own name to articles completely written by intelligence agencies. He said:

"I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service."
Ulfkotte detailed the pattern of cajolery and outright bribery used by the CIA and other US-allied intelligence agencies, for the purpose of advancing political agendas. Ulfkotte said:
"once you're connected, you make friends with selected Americans. You think they are your friends and you start cooperating. They work on your ego, make you feel like you're important. And one day one of them will ask you 'Will you do me this favor'..."
Ulfkotte noted that a journalists on international press trips paid for by organizations close to the government are unlikely to submit a storyline not favorable to the sponsor.
Dr. Udo Ulfkotte

hungarytoday.hu

Of the gassing of Iranians he had witnessed in the Eighties, Ulfkoppe said:

"they asked me to hand over the photo's that I had made to the German association of chemical companies in Frankfurt, Verband der Chemischen Industrie. This poison gas that had killed so many Iranians was made in Germany."
In an interview with Russia Today, Ulfkotte said that it was "not right" what he had done, and that his fear was that politicians were actively driving the world toward war:
"it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, all over Europe. … I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don't like to have this situation again, because war is never coming from itself, there is always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too. … We have betrayed our readers, just to push for war. … I don't want this anymore, I'm fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic, and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom..."
In his book "The CIA and the Media," Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein quotes William B. Bader, former CIA intelligence officer, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Baeder said:
"There is quite an incredible spread of relationships. You don't need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level."
Bernstein writes:

"The Agency's relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper's late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policyset by Sulzbergerto provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible."

[Magda Hassan]

Heartbreaking that it takes a terminal illness to feel they can go public with this and not just be professional journalists as a matter of course. Who is going to listen to this though?