I
Predict a 'RIOT' as Dissent in American Media
Becomes Illegitimate
By Bryan MacDonald
August
27, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Since
the German Marshall Fund of the United States
unveiled its “Alliance For Securing Democracy (AFSD),"
I’ve resisted commenting, simply because the
lobby group’s “Hamilton 68 dashboard” is too
preposterous to merit serious analysis.
It has rightly been ridiculed by journalists
and activists who
never tire of knocking the Kremlin.
The portal purports to use “600 Twitter accounts
linked to Russian influence efforts online” to
prove how Moscow is trying to sow seeds of doubt
in the Western political system, via the social
network. However, the creators won’t reveal the
users concerned, and results seem to suggest
they are mostly members of the US alt-right and
alt-left. Meaning this is yet another attempt to
pass off American dissent as some Kremlin “Psy-op.”
Which is beyond ridiculous.
Furthermore, the names behind AFSD betray the
project’s real purpose: to shift blame from
internal American and European factors to the
convenient Russian bogeyman. Which, of course,
suits its financial backers,
including the State Department, NATO, and the
ubiquitous weapons maker Raytheon. All of whom
benefit commercially and politically from
strained ties between Moscow and Washington.
To achieve these goals they’ve hired the usual
roll call of reliably anti-Russia blowhards.
Including Estonian-American politician Ilves
Toomas and rent-a-quote talking head Michael
McFaul, the 'Mother Theresa of the Russia beat.'
Those two are joined by neoconservative windbag
William Kristol and ex-CIA chief Michael Morell.
Convert zeal
The dashboard itself is helmed by a chap named J.M.
Berger, who was
apparently an expert on ISIS and the Middle
East, before discovering the Russia-bashing
gravy train this summer. This week, he’s taken
to the pages of Politico to explain his
plaything. What follows is best described as an
inept and ignorant form of thrift-store
McCarthyism.
Berger tells us how his dashboard displays “the
near-real-time output of Russian Influence
Operations on Twitter.” Something he calls RIOT,
for short. And he cites things like RT’s
coverage of Vladimir Putin’s recent pike fishing
trip, a jaunt also prominently featured in
The New York Times, The
Daily Mail and
The Sun, which incidentally described Putin as a
“beefcake.” Meaning, either Paul Dacre and
Rupert Murdoch are Russian agents, or this
contention is just farcical.
The lobbyist also frets over this network’s
widely-shared report on Oliver Stone’s Facebook
post “condemning US sanctions against Russia and
claiming US intelligence agencies are engaged in
a 'false flag' war against Russia.” Which
exposes a total lack of comprehension of how
news works. Because Stone is one of Hollywood’s
most famous figures and his name attached to a
perspective like this was bound to attract
plenty of attention, regardless of the
messenger. It’s also worth pointing out (for the
really obtuse) that RT obviously doesn’t control
Stone’s Facebook and was merely bringing to a
wider audience the American writer and
director’s personal beliefs.
The examples become ever stranger. Berger
bemoans “conspiracy theories seeking to
discredit Bana al-Abed, a young girl in Syria
who tweeted about the civil war.” But it doesn’t
seem unreasonable to suggest the then
seven-year-old was manipulated to serve a
propaganda effort. Especially after a press interview revealed
how the child couldn't understand even
rudimentary English, despite issuing hundreds of
perfectly crafted tweets in the language.
Rock Bottom
Our hero descends further into hogwash when
observing how “the most retweeted Russia Today
stories recorded by the dashboard involved
scaremongering videos appearing to show refugees
swarming into Spain.” But, two weeks ago, a
boatful of migrants did
land on a Spanish tourist beach, near Cadiz, and
quickly scattered to evade police detection. And
numerous outlets, including The New
York Times, The
Guardian and
the BBC prominently
reported the story. But apparently, it's only an
issue when RT gives it coverage.
But the garrulous quack isn’t finished,
asserting how RT “treads relatively carefully in
their flirtation with the far right, and they
devote a significant amount of space to the far
left as well.” Hardly news, given how the
channel openly admits offering a platform for
alternative voices, regardless of their
political compass. Incidentally, a mirror image
of what America’s state broadcaster’s RFE/RL and
VOA do in Russia where they laboriously detail
the travails of nationalist politicians
like Alexei Navalny and their leftist
counterparts, such as Sergei Udaltsov. This is
what alternative media does in every market, but
it seems to be only unusual when “the Russians”
are involved.
Berger does concede one salient point: “it is
important to note here again that we are not
asserting Russia is responsible for creating or
shaping this content,” he writes. Which suggests
he fully understands how his project is geared
to smear anybody who opposes US policy as
working for Moscow’s interests.
Yellow press
But, not content with mulching around the bottom
of the barrel, he reaches into the depths when
he states “while the alt-right has a very real
base of support in the United States, it also
enjoys deep and undisputed ties to Russia, many
of which can be found offline in the real
world." Amazingly, the link he uses to justify
his contention is a Daily Beast article on
how American white supremacist Richard Spencer
was married to an ethnic Russian. The lady
involved has no profile in Russia, doesn’t live
in the country and is a follower of a fringe
philosopher called Alexander Dugin. Who is so
far outside the Russian mainstream that he can't
even hold down a job in Moscow.
The fact Berger has to descend to such
irrelevant tittle-tattle to score a few points
tells us all we need to know about the moral
bankruptcy of the Alliance For Securing
Democracy. This is pathetic, miserable and
feeble stuff and the German Marshall Fund of the
United States should be ashamed of themselves
for financing this sort of muck.
This article was first published by
Ron Paul Institute
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