Putin unmasked as anti-fracking activist

That tidbit comes from NATO boss Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a man who sees all the top secret files and therefore knows what he's talking about.

This assertion is obviously intended to besmirch the anti-fracking movement in Europe by tarring them as Putin sympathizers.

It could however have the opposite effect...

"Say what? Putin is against fracking? Well, by jove, I knew he was against freedom and apple pie, but by golly... against fracking you say? Maybe he's not such a bad sort after all!"

Principles of Propaganda 101: only tell half the story

This story at CBC News by Trinh Theresa Do makes an interesting case study. It is interesting in the main because it appears to go beyond the usual anti-Putin boilerplate that we have come to expect from Western media.

Why lookee, there's even a quote from David Carment, Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, advising the US to butt out of Ukraine! What could be more fair and more balanced?

What makes the story a propaganda classic is what it includes and what it doesn't. Included is the Turkey-Russia economic relationship. And yes, we are told that Turkey has been since 1952 and remains today a NATO member and therefore our staunch ally.

All true.

Not mentioned is President Erdogan's concerns over America's efforts to undermine his democratically elected government, concerns he voiced on the Charlie Rose Show just a few days ago.

And he has a point. The US has been actively working to undermine and eventually overthrow Erdogan for years. That's the NATO big dog working against the democratically elected government of another NATO nation.

Erdogan should be pissed off.

Also not mentioned is the Gulen gambit. America has been grooming Erdogan's successor, providing Fethullah Gulen with a lot more than sanctuary in the US for many years. Gulen is destined to be more than an Erdogan replacement; in fact, simply being leader of Turkey is probably far too trivial a trinket to entice Gulen at this point.

Gulen is destined to become the face of moderate Islam world-wide, fully endorsed by the CIA, Pentagon, and the beltway think-tankers.

So there's at least a couple of angles that escaped this otherwise well-balanced progaganda piece.

Which is why it's propaganda and not news.

Proof that Syria's evil dictator will use CHEMICAL WEAPONS on his own people

Here it is, straight from the Telegraph. Syrian troops seen packing bombs with sarin gas. If it's in the Telegraph it must be true...

Oh, wait a minute... I see they got the story from NBC.

NBC never has true stories. Or hardly ever.

How does the Telegraph know this story is true?

They don't, and they admit they don't.

So in what way is this "news?"

It isn't.

But you have to admit it makes for a compelling headline.

Why Nations of Virtue need to coordinate propaganda efforts

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, one of the top Global Thinkers of 2012, is being quoted all over the world today to the effect that his government knows where every one of Syria's 700 missiles is located, and who is in control of each one.

That should be making red flags with big question marks emblazoned on them pop up in the mind of every reader. Syria has 700 missiles?

For many years we have been hearing about how Syria is a conduit for the traffic in Iranian missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon. I don't believe there is any reason to doubt that, although it is well possible that Hezbollah has more missiles sourced elsewhere.

Estimates of the number of missiles held by Hezbollah number anywhere from 30,000 into the hundreds of thousands. What we know for sure is that in the last Lebanon war they fired off thousands and showed no signs of running low, and no one doubts they have vastly more today.

But Syria, the conduit for tens of thousands of missiles to Hezbollah, only kept back 700 for herself?

File that under "highly unlikely".

I have my doubts about Davutoglu's claim on "Global Thinker" status, but there is no question he is a world class bullshitter.