Washington's Elegant Media Whore; Economist, London
Whore: (verb) To debase one by doing something for unworthy motives, typically to make money.
-The New Oxford American Dictionary
A very distinguished Indian civil service administrator and diplomat, who was well versed about how Washington and London operate, remarked that it was enough to read Economist, London, which represented Washington's viewpoint in elegant English unlike crude US media. In fact, some people have claimed that the Economist is subsidized by various US front organisations, including perhaps CIA.
During my 35 years diplomatic career half as Head of Mission from 1960s to 1990s, according to seniors and others specially for a decade or so ,Economist and other British newspapers and magazines and US newspapers like New York Times and Washington Post were considered a must read for international affairs and events.
In mid-1970s when I was at National Defence College, New Delhi, a speaker who edited a left-wing weekly proclaimed that Europe was right for a revolution. Having just returned from a posting in Paris, I pointed out that as the media in western Europe had nothing much to write about, they were airing their whims and fancies in leftist media. Another speaker, a newspaper editor made doubtful claims about the wages of soldiers in British and French armies. When I asked him, he quoted an English newspaper.
After 15 years in diplomatic live many of us learn how to distinguish between propaganda and truth by exchanging views with diplomats and journalists from different regions and alliances .Around that time and even later ,in Delhi ,those who could get hold of The Newsweek and The Times, the US publications would quote from them as Lord's words at cocktail parties which would be lapped up .It still happens in spite of Russian and Chinese channels and independent website media .On foreign affairs ,Indian media controlled by corporate houses is abysmal and sickening . Obsessed with celebrities and trivialities, Indian TV channels are sickening in parroting CNN, BBC and western media.
As the first ever engineering graduate (BHU) to join the diplomatic service in 1961, aware of my weakness in political science, international relations and history, during my tenure of 35 years, I tried to read as much as possible on these subjects. Since retiring in 1996, perhaps I read twice as much as in my diplomatic career .I spent hours, day in and day out watching lies being sprouted by CNN, BBC etc on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, and now Ukraine, enabling me to accurately predict and tell the truth in my nearly 500 articles and blogs which have been translated into 12 major languages of the world; some of them hosted by many scores of website.
Forget about India's so-called English knowing intelligentsia, who made careers and fortunes on their English language command, even diplomats brought up on the milk of benefits of British colonialism and benign US hegemony cajoled by book grants, scholarships, study tour and well paid seminars, remain faithful to western narrative. Most have their children doing well in USA. During my lectures at India's many universities , cultural centers and other places , after my lectures , say on illegal US invasion of Iraq (2003) and its brutal occupation which has led to deaths of over 1.5 million Iraqis and destruction of that country , quite often couple of Indians would get up and declare that I was anti-American .At one such lecture at IIC, New Delhi ,a very well known economic journalist got up and loudly remonstrated that I was demonizing America ( soon he was rewarded with well paid time at the very conservative US Heritage Foundation).At an Indian university , a faculty member said that US was killing terrorists .When I explained that even CIA and Chatham House and other western studies had shown that US wars had increased terrorists and their areas of operation , he concluded that at least they were killing Muslims .
As a fiercely freelance journalist since 1996, when I read magazines and books, and also on independent websites on international history and events, it became quite clear that Western nations across the north Atlantic have given a false narrative of history covering up their cruel ,brutal and barbaric occupation and exploitation of people they had colonized. Even now, shameless utter lies are sold out by US, British and other Western leaders whether it is on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria or now Ukraine. Even now the so-called Indian intelligentsia and TV channels reproduce blatant lies by Obama, his ministers, lying British and French leaders, and their media publications, accusing Putin and Russia for the shooting down of the MH 17 flight over Eastern Ukraine. The lies are being repeated day in and day out by shameless Western leaders and their media whores and pressitutes. WITHOUT ANY PROOF. Below is a 2004 article on Iraq war (2003) when BBC gave 98% time to war mongers allied with military-industry complex .US channels were not much better .
India was fortunate that PM Modi attended the Brics summit in Brazil and exchanged views with presidents of China, Russia ,Brazil and South Africa and met with leaders of South America , which has been a play ground of Washington , now emerging form US repression and exploitation .Modi, who had visited Russia, China and Japan would not be so easily persuaded by US charm. cajoling, sweet talks and veiled threats .The change was visible in US leaders Kerry 's unsuccessful visit from Washington and West's failure on WTO .
Let India not forget the massive collateral damage to India by US led western policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan , where US and Saudi money , training and personnel created Al Qaeda , Taleban and others ,fully supported Pakistan in its successful quest for the nukes policy and a failed state across India's West and beyond .
Below is an example of how the prestigious British weekly Economist is covering the shooting down of MH 17. There has not been that much propaganda and lies from Holland, Malaysia and even Australia who formed the majority of the passengers in the ill-fated plane. Washington has still not produced and evidence against Moscow except those like against Saddam Hussain, Milosevich, Assad and others whom the West targets for regime change.
After regime changes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine and failed attempts elsewhere in Eurasia, US and British leaders are now hoping for a regime change in Moscow .How absurd! Putin has support of 80% of Russians , while Obama 's is not even half of that in USA .US and Israel have been polled by US pollsters as the most dangerous countries against world peace .
K.Gajendra Singh, 1 August, 2014 Mayur Vihar ,Delhi.
http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2014/02/amb-rtd-k-gajendra-singh-cv-post.html
Russia, MH17 and the West ; A web of lies
Vladimir Putin's epic deceits have grave consequences for his people and the outside world
Jul 26th 2014 | From the print edition
·IN 1991, when Soviet Communism collapsed, it seemed as if the Russian people might at last have the chance to become citizens of a normal Western democracy. Vladimir Putin's disastrous contribution to Russia's history has been to set his country on a different path. And yet many around the world, through self-interest or self-deception, have been unwilling to see Mr Putin as he really is.
The shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, the killing of 298 innocent people and the desecration of their bodies in the sunflower fields of eastern Ukraine, is above all a tragedy of lives cut short and of those left behind to mourn. But it is also a measure of the harm Mr Putin has done. Under him Russia has again become a place in which truth and falsehood are no longer distinct and facts are put into the service of the government. Mr Putin sets himself up as a patriot, but he is a threat—to international norms, to his neighbors and to the Russians themselves, who are intoxicated by his hysterical brand of anti-Western propaganda.
The world needs to face the danger Mr Putin poses. If it does not stand up to him today, worse will follow.
Crucifixion and other stories
Mr Putin has blamed the tragedy of MH17 on Ukraine, yet he is the author of its destruction. A high-court's worth of circumstantial evidence points to the conclusion that pro-Russian separatists fired a surface-to-air missile out of their territory at what they probably thought was a Ukrainian military aircraft. Separatist leaders boasted about it on social media and lamented their error in messages intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence and authenticated by America (see article).
Russia's president is implicated in their crime twice over. First, it looks as if the missile was supplied by Russia, its crew was trained by Russia, and after the strike the launcher was spirited back to Russia. Second, Mr Putin is implicated in a broader sense because this is his war. The linchpins of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic are not Ukrainian separatists but Russian citizens who are, or were, members of the intelligence services. Their former colleague, Mr Putin, has paid for the war and armed them with tanks, personnel carriers, artillery—and batteries of surface-to-air missiles. The separatists pulled the trigger, but Mr Putin pulled the strings.
The enormity of the destruction of flight MH17 should have led Mr Putin to draw back from his policy of fomenting war in eastern Ukraine. Yet he has persevered, for two reasons. First, in the society he has done so much to mould, lying is a first response. The disaster immediately drew forth a torrent of contradictory and implausible theories from his officials and their mouthpieces in the Russian media: Mr Putin's own plane was the target; Ukrainian missile-launchers were in the vicinity. And the lies got more complex. The Russian fiction that a Ukrainian fighter jet had fired the missile ran into the problem that the jet could not fly at the altitude of MH17, so Russian hackers then changed a Wikipedia entry to say that the jets could briefly do so. That such clumsily Soviet efforts are easily laughed off does not defeat their purpose, for their aim is not to persuade but to cast enough doubt to make the truth a matter of opinion. In a world of liars, might not the West be lying, too?
Second, Mr Putin has become entangled in a web of his own lies, which any homespun moralist could have told him was bound to happen. When his hirelings concocted propaganda about fascists running Kiev and their crucifixion of a three-year-old boy, his approval ratings among Russian voters soared by almost 30 percentage points, to over 80%. Having roused his people with falsehoods, the tsar cannot suddenly wriggle free by telling them that, on consideration, Ukraine's government is not too bad. Nor can he retreat from the idea that the West is a rival bent on Russia's destruction, ready to resort to lies, bribery and violence just as readily as he does. In that way, his lies at home feed his abuses abroad.
Stop spinning
In Russia such doublespeak recalls the days of the Soviet Union when Pravda claimed to tell the truth. This mendocracy will end in the same way as that one did: the lies will eventually unravel, especially as it becomes obvious how much money Mr Putin and his friends have stolen from the Russian people, and he will fall. The sad novelty is that the West takes a different attitude this time round. In the old days it was usually prepared to stand up to the Soviet Union, and call out its falsehoods. With Mr Putin it looks the other way.
Take Ukraine. The West imposed fairly minor sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea, and threatened tougher ones if Mr Putin invaded eastern Ukraine. To all intents and purposes, he did just that: troops paid for by Russia, albeit not in Russian uniforms, control bits of the country. But the West found it convenient to go along with Mr Putin's lie, and the sanctions eventually imposed were too light and too late. Similarly, when he continued to supply the rebels, under cover of a ceasefire that he claimed to have organised, Western leaders vacillated.
Since the murders of the passengers of MH17 the responses have been almost as limp. The European Union is threatening far-reaching sanctions—but only if Mr Putin fails to co-operate with the investigation or he fails to stop the flow of arms to the separatists. France has said that it will withhold the delivery of a warship to Mr Putin if necessary, but is proceeding with the first of the two vessels on order. The Germans and Italians claim to want to keep diplomatic avenues open, partly because sanctions would undermine their commercial interests. Britain calls for sanctions, but it is reluctant to harm the City of London's profitable Russian business. America is talking tough but has done nothing new.
Enough. The West should face the uncomfortable truth that Mr Putin's Russia is fundamentally antagonistic. Bridge-building and resets will not persuade him to behave as a normal leader. The West should impose tough sanctions now, pursue his corrupt friends and throw him out of every international talking shop that relies on telling the truth. Anything else is appeasement—and an insult to the innocents on MH17.
