© REUTERS/Jason ReedThe logo of the Central Intelligence Agency is swept clean in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia March 3, 2005.
I mean, right now the mass media are churning out stories about "intelligence" which says Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine very soon, citing government officials and anonymous sources. We are never shown the "intelligence", and we are never shown any evidence of its veracity; we're simply told what opaque and unaccountable government agencies want us to believe about a foreign government. We're not even reminded by the publishers of these CIA press releases that western intelligence agencies have a very extensive history of lying about exactly this sort of thing, and we're certainly not informed that Kyiv appears to be ramping up aggressions in eastern Ukraine.
Seriously, look at this absurd tweet by CNN's Natasha Bertrand:
That's not a "scoop". That's just a news media employee repeating something she was told either directly or indirectly by the western intelligence cartel. She's literally just telling us what an immensely powerful spy intelligence agency told her to say. And that's become the norm for mass media reporting on all nations the western power alliance doesn't like, especially Russia.
So why mess around? Why not just move CNN's office into the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley and have the CIA just publish its reports directly from there? I hear CNN needs a new president anyway. That way nobody needs to pretend they're doing news reporting instead of intelligence agency stenography, the general public is clear that they're being fed whatever story about reality the CIA wants them to believe, nobody feels like they're being treated like a fool, plus it saves a commute for all the intelligence agency insiders who already work in the mass media.
Comment: And a lengthy list it is:
Mass media outlets now openly employ intelligence agency veterans like John Brennan, James Clapper, Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall, Samantha Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano, Jeremy Bash, Susan Hennessey, Ned Price and Rick Francona, as are known CIA assets like NBC's Ken Dilanian, as are CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like Tucker Carlson.
Because it must get pretty tedious, right? Where instead of just having your CIA employer tell you to run a story you have to go through this whole song and dance where an agency officer contacts you and says "Ooh buddy, have I got a scoop for you!" and then you type up what they say in newsy-sounding language citing "sources familiar with the matter" and present it as a news story.
Clearly that's not news reporting. Clearly it's nothing other than garden variety state propaganda. So why not just be forthright about it? I know the CIA has a lot going on right now, but surely it can make some space in all its domestic surveillance, lying, torturing, drug trafficking, coup-staging, warmongering and assassinations for a little more state media news punditry?
And of course we already know the answer. Propaganda doesn't work if its targets know they are being propagandized. It needs to be administered by institutions who the public trusts to tell them the objective truth about what's going on in the world. If the US and its Five Eyes allies simply controlled all media through the government like overtly totalitarian regimes, their propaganda would actually be far less effective than the systems of domestic perception management they have in place currently.
The CIA is officially forbidden from operating in the United States (though as we've seen many times since its creation and up to the present day this is treated more as a guideline than a restriction), but what it is not officially forbidden to do is contact the media directly or through a proxy under the pretense of feeding them a news story which just so happens to advance the interests of the agency. The plutocratic media who benefit from the same status quo that the CIA protects then uncritically funnel that information into the minds of the unsuspecting public, and before you know it they're rending their garments over a foreign government they'd previously not thought much about.
In an actual free society with an actual free press, the very idea of this would be outrageous and if such a thing ever occurred it would be immediately condemned as journalistic malpractice with severe consequences for everyone involved. In an inverted totalitarian dystopia with the most effectively propagandized population on earth, it's just treated as normal.
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Reader Comments
This can quickly become a war that cannot be controlled.
"On our side, the same generals who couldn't defeat the Taliban, fighters in sandals who don't use toilet paper, will go to war," Carlson said wryly.
"In connection with recent events, it is difficult to say who is most afraid of Russia, the United States or Ukraine," says Tucker Carlson. But as soon as you question the threat of a Russian invasion, you are already included in Vladimir Putin's agent list.
Watch Tucker Carlson's evening show in Russian translation, after seeing Americans call the offices of members of Congress to persuade them not to fight Russia "
In the United States, the general public and the mainstream media refuse to believe the government about the Russian "invasion" of Ukraine and demand evidence, which the White House does not provide. According to experts, the US reputation crisis is due to Washington's many lies, deceptions and errors, as well as the American authorities' difficulties in collaborating with intelligence agencies. How do the American authorities intend to compensate for this total loss of confidence?
According to the Associated Press, American journalists are unwilling to take Washington's word when it comes to military and intelligence affairs. This was particularly evident when it came to statements regarding Russia's alleged preparation of a video showing explosions, fake corpses and mourning actors. US authorities say this is how Moscow wants to create a pretext to invade Ukraine.
When reporters asked for evidence to support that claim, Washington replied: "You'll have to trust us on this." The US authorities also stated that "journalists lend themselves to foreign propaganda even by asking such questions". Ultimately, the AP article continues, "the lack of transparency has put a strain on Washington's already depleted reserves of credibility, a fundamental resource diminished over the decades by cases of lies, deceptions and errors". As a result, there have been "bitter interactions with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and State Department Spokesperson Ned Price who have also excelled in the usually contradictory relationship between government and the press.
Also, on Thursday, while aboard Air Force One en route to New York, Jen Psaki spoke about the US special forces raid on the hideout of Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, in Syria, which took place. concluded with his death.
Upon hearing the news, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe said that "there may be people skeptical" of US authorities' claims that the terrorist died in a bomb blast and that the US has nothing to do with it.
American politicians often promise to restore confidence in Washington, but this has remained rare since the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Bill Clinton was particularly prejudiced by outright lying about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
After the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush declared that the United States had to carry out an armed operation in Iraq to destroy the weapons of mass destruction produced by Saddam Hussein's regime.
During a speech to the United Nations Security Council in 2003, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a vial - to show the amount of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction needed to kill thousands - as proof of the legitimacy of the invasion. of Iraq. But, in the end, no ADM was found. "
In April 2018, an NGO known as White Helmets (funded by the United States and Great Britain) accused the Bashar al-Assad regime of using chemical weapons in the Syrian city of Douma. A week later, and without waiting for the conclusions of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the United States, the United Kingdom and France attacked the territory under the control of the legitimate Syrian government.
But, as evidence presented to the UN by Russia shows, the bodies of the victims killed due to the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons were actually the bodies of people who had already died, and the entire alleged chemical attack. of Al Assad's troops were a farce.
In August 2021, the United States Air Force, acting on intelligence in real time, launched a drone strike on a car loaded with explosives that may have been used by Islamic State fighters in Khorassan. In reality, the attack killed Zemari Ahmadi, an Afghan civilian who worked as an engineer for Nutrition and Education International (NEI), a humanitarian organization based in the United States. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet later said that a total of ten civilians had been killed in the attack, including seven children.
It should also be noted that US intelligence misjudged the Taliban's offensive capabilities, which led to the escape of the Americans and their allies from Kabul after its capture. The images of chaos and panic at Kabul airport have been discussed in detail around the world.
After replacing Trump, Biden vowed to restore confidence in White House statements, but a year after his inauguration, the level of confidence has not increased.
The turning point was Jen Psaki's statement that US officials had changed their minds about calling the future Russian invasion of Ukraine "inevitable". The situation is interesting because Washington urgently needs to change its information policy, but in which direction it is not clear at all. To back up its accusations against Russia, Washington did not change tactics, it just escalated the tension and spread reports that Russia was shooting a fake video about Ukraine.
The State Department refers to "intelligence information" to support baseless allegations, but this information is not always credible. The State Department encounters some difficulties when working with the intelligence services. First of all, sometimes the American authorities cannot really corroborate their claims, because in that case they would have to disclose the source of the information and the extent of the work of the American intelligence services.
In fact, intelligence itself often fails when analyzing the reliability of information. For example, US intelligence was unable to predict the speed of the Taliban advance while they were present and on the ground in Afghanistan. The same can be said for the success of the US missile attacks on Syria in April 2018.
Sometimes US intelligence deliberately provides incomplete or unverified information to the State Department. The long battle between US intelligence and the State Department has not disappeared. In fact, both involve groups oriented towards reducing escalation in various sectors of foreign policy and creating tensions. This also has an impact on the information provided.
The current outburst by the PA and a number of other media outlets against the White House and the State Department is virtually unprecedented, but it will not cause the US authorities to change the principles of their security policy. Washington will not spend long reflecting on these protests. Instead, it will continue to spread nonsense fake news, but through loyal and funded media outlets like CNN. Although there may be some less unverified allegations.
The reason for the decline in the level of information is the reduced number of alternates in the current administration and the quality of the political staff. Biden's team is largely made up of career agents, none of whom have foreign policy backgrounds. It is clear that there is no one like Kissinger or Rice in the United States anymore.
When it comes to intelligence failures, US authorities often take raw information that can be shaped to fit any agenda and use it to their advantage.
When accusing Russia of creating fake videos about Ukraine, US officials probably took one of the dozen predictions about how the situation would unfold, the one that would have garnered the most hype and potentially had the most resonance with the public.
The behavior of the media itself, which is beginning to show the US government in its true light, is fueled by the waning confidence of ordinary Americans. According to Pew Research and Gallup, only 15-20% of Americans trust Congress and 20-25% of the media. Of course, the media also have an interest in reestablishing themselves as information touchpoints that they were fifty years ago.