Propaganda

Propaganda is something our enemies do. We in the Nations of Virtue (ie Uncle Sam’s club) trade only in true facts and hard truths. After all, when you’re on the side of freedom, human rights, and democracy, you don’t need to bullshit anybody… Bullshit! Case in point: the saga of tanks for Ukraine. Back in March and April, Western media were circulating triumphalist tales of Ukraine having captured so many Russian tanks that the AFU had more tanks in their inventory than when the war started. Soon after, Ukraine sprung a massive counteroffensive that put the run to the Russians, pushing them back with one battlefield rout after another, until December, when they had the Russians trapped in Bakhmut and were systematically destroying the Russian army with their superior valour and military prowess etc…. Oops… all of sudden, after months of winning, Ukraine desperately needs hundreds of tanks, or it’s all over. Freedom and democracy will have been slaughtered on the altar of Putin’s imperialistic ambitions… UNLESS UKRAINE GETS TANKS NOW! Ya right. Weapons weapons weapons. The future of civilization depends on it. We know. Shut-up already! Let’s think this tank thing through. Ukraine had 2000+ tanks at the outset. They added hundreds of captured Russian tanks to their forces. But now they’re out of tanks? But 300 fresh ones from NATO will allow final glorious victory? Something doesn’t add up. I think somebody’s been bullshitting us! The tank demand has exposed some rifts within “united as never before” (according to Sec-Gen Stoltenberg) NATO. Everybody wants to donate tanks but nobody wants to go first. Apparently they’re all afraid of the almost-defeated Putin. UK finally broke the ice with the promise of 14 obsolete Challenger tanks, relics from an era when the UK still had an armaments industry. Zelensky was not impressed. Right now there’s a big push to deliver German-made Leopard tanks. The Germans have been reluctant. After all, the last time German tanks went to Ukraine to fight Russia, it didn’t end well for Germany. Unexpectedly showing a hint of backbone in the face of pressure from their American occupiers (true fact; Germany has been occupied by the US Army since 1945), the Germans have said they’ll permit the transfer of Leopards if the Americans send the vaunted Abrams M-1. That’s where we are at the moment. You can bet there’s some heavy-duty arm-twisting going on in the background. In the last two days The Globe and Mail has run two “news” stories and an opinion piece on the matter. None of them mentioned Germany’s offer to send Leopards IF the Americans send the Abrams. The German position seems perfectly reasonable to me. The reason Americans are reluctant to send their latest and best weapons into actual combat are not a mystery. Weapon sales are one of the few bright spots for the US economy. Why jeopardize those sales if you don’t absolutely have to. It’s not just The Globe shaping its reporting to support a narrative. Today I spent ten minutes at CBC listening to a guy from the Ukrainian NGO StopFake explaining Russian disinformation. Yup, nobody better than Ukrainians to explain Russia to a Canadian audience! StopFake’s Wikipedia entry tells me their funders include the Foreign Ministry of UK and Washington’s National Endowment for Democracy. More reliable sources for what’s what in the Ukraine war! The Globe and the CBC are two media outlets most Canadians view as credible, which they are to a point. But when it comes to preserving USA hegemony over the planet, they are every bit as propagandistic as their Russian counterparts.