PBS has joined the anti-Russia propaganda
stampede with a five-part documentary series
that recycles the false and deceptive claims
that have become Official Washington’s dangerous
new groupthink, reports Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
July 29,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- The
U.S.-government-supported Public Broadcasting
System (PBS) recently ran a five-part series
dubbed
“Inside Putin’s Russia”.
With a different theme each night, it purports
to give a realistic look at Russia today. The
image conveyed is of a Russia that is
undemocratic with widespread state repression,
violence and propaganda. Following are
significant distortions and falsehoods in the
five-part documentary.
Episode 1:
“How Putin Redefined what it means to be
Russian”
In this
episode, the documentary:
–Claims that Russian identity is
based on “projection of power.”
In reality, “projection of power” characterizes
the U.S. much more than Russia. For the past two
centuries the United States has expanded across
the continent and globe. The last century is
documented in the
book
Overthrow: American’s Century of Regime Change
from Hawaii to Iraq. The U.S. currently has
nearly 800 foreign military bases in over 70
countries. In contrast, Russia has military
bases in only two countries beyond the former
Soviet Union: Syria and Vietnam.
–Ignores crucial information
about events in Ukraine.
Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine and
Crimea are presented as examples of “projection
of power.” But basic facts are omitted from the
documentary. There is no mention of the violent
February 2014 coup in Kiev nor the involvement
of neoconservatives such as Sen. John McCain and
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria
Nuland in supporting and encouraging the
overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government. In a
December 2013 speech,
Nuland outlined her intense involvement in
Ukraine including U.S. insistence that Ukraine
choose a “European future” since the U.S. had
“invested $5 billion to assist.” Days before the
coup in February 2014, Nuland was captured on
audio
planning the
composition of the coup leadership.
–Ignores Crimea’s historic
connections with Russia and the Ukrainian
violence. The
documentary says, “In 2014 in
Crimea, Russia helped install separatist leaders
who rushed through a referendum that led to
Crimea’s annexation.” This gives the misleading
impression the decision was Russian, not
Crimean.
Even the New York Times
report on March
16, 2014, acknowledged that, “The
outcome, in a region that shares a language and
centuries of history with Russia, was a foregone
conclusion even before exit polls showed more
than 93 percent of voters favoring secession.”
The documentary fails to mention the fear of
violence after Crimean travelers to Kiev were
beaten and killed
by Ukrainian hyper-nationalists. One of the
first decisions of the Kiev coup government was
to declare that Russian would no longer be an
official language. A good overview including
video interviews with Crimeans is in
this video,
contrasting sharply with the implications of the
PBS documentary.
–Trivializes Russian opposition
to NATO expansion.
The documentary suggests Russians feel
“humiliated” by NATO expanding to their borders.
This distorts a serious military concern into a
subjective, emotional issue. In 2002, the U.S.
unilaterally withdrew from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
and started construction of missile defense
systems which could be used in tandem with a
nuclear first strike. In recent years, NATO
troops and missiles have been installed at
Russia’s borders. Imagine the response if
Russian troops and missiles were placed at the
U.S. border in Canada and Mexico.
–Falsely
claims that coup violence in Odessa was
“exaggerated.”
The documentary says that Russians who went to
help defend civilians in eastern Ukraine were
convinced by Russian “propaganda” where “dozens
of pro-Russian separatists died in Odessa,
Ukraine” but “Russian media exaggerated the
attack.” In reality, the Odessa attack killed at
least 42 people and injured 100. This
video shows the
sequence of events with the initial attack on
peaceful protesters followed by fire-bomb
attacks in the building. Fire trucks were
prevented from reaching the building to put out
the fire and rescue citizens inside.
Episode 2:
“Inside Russia’s Propaganda Machine.”
In this
episode, the documentary:
–Suggests Russians are aggressive
and threatening.
The documentary highlights a Russian TV
broadcaster who is translated to say, “Russia is
the only country in the world that is
realistically capable of turning the United
States into radioactive ash.” And later, “If you
can persuade a person, you don’t need to kill
him … if you aren’t able to persuade, then you
will have to kill.” We do not know the context
or accuracy of these translated statements.
However on the basis of my own travels in Russia
and the experience of many other Americans,
these statements are strange and
uncharacteristic.
At the
popular and government level, Russians are
typically at pains to call the U.S. a “partner”
and to wish for peace and better relations. With
27 million killed in World War 2, most Russians
are very conscious of the consequences of war
and deeply want peace. Russians vividly recall
the Russia-U.S. alliance during WW2 and seek a
return to friendly collaboration. The film
producers must have heard this message and
desire for peace expressed by many Russians many
times. But the documentary only presents this
uncharacteristic aggressive message.
–Inaccurately suggests that
producers of a private TV network received angry
public messages because they were exposing
corruption. In
reality, the angry public response was because
the TV station ran a poll asking viewers if the
Soviet Union should have surrendered to Nazi
Germany to save lives during the siege of
Leningrad.
–Falsely suggests that RT (Russia
Today TV) typically features Holocaust deniers
and neo-Nazis.
This is a grotesque distortion Anyone who
watches RT will know that American personalities
such as Chris Hedges, Larry King and Ed Schultz
are regulars on RT. Interviewees on
international affairs generally come from the
left side of the political spectrum – the
opposite of what is suggested.
–Uncritically repeats the
conspiracy theory that Russia hacked the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary
Clinton emails.
The findings have been disputed by the publisher
of the emails,
Julian Assange
of Wikileaks , as well as
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
A
recent forensic examination
confirms that this was a leak not a hack (inside
job done by local data transfer NOT a hack over
the internet) and points to “Guccifer
2.0”,
the presumptive “hacker,” being a hoax
intentionally created to implicate Russia.
–Falsely suggests that
anti-Clinton social media messaging during 2016
was significantly caused by Russian government
trolls. Hillary
Clinton was strongly opposed by significant
portions of both the left and right. There were
probably hundreds of thousands of Americans who
shared anti-Clinton social media messages.
–Claims that research showing a
Google search engine bias in favor of Hillary
Clinton was “quickly debunked.”
The documentary ignores the original
article
describing the potential effect of search-engine
bias, which was published in the prestigious
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The author is Dr. Robert Epstein, former
editor-in-chief of Psychology Today
magazine. Contradicting the claim that this
research was “debunked,”
this academic article
estimates the effect of the Google bias and how
the bias went away AFTER the election. The
response from Google and very shallow
Snopes ”fact
check” are effectively rebutted by the lead
author
here. In neo-McCarthyist
style, the documentary smears the findings and
claims they were “laundered” after being
published by the Russian “Sputnik” media.
–Suggests the “idea that
President Kennedy was killed by the CIA” was
“planted” by the Soviet intelligence agency KGB.
Many impressive American books have been written
supporting this contention, from New Orleans
District Attorney Jim Garrison’s book to David
Talbot’s 2015 book Devil’s Chessboard: Allen
Dulles, the CIA and Deep State. Claiming
that this accusation is based on KGB
“disinformation” is another grotesque
distortion. It is not revealing disinformation;
this is an example of disinformation.
Episode 3:
“Why are so many from this Russian republic
fighting for Isis?”
In this
episode, the documentary:
–Rationalizes and almost
justifies Russian Muslims traveling to join
ISIS. The
documentary suggests that religious repression
and discrimination is a cause of ISIS
recruitment and that “Dagestanis who fought for
ISIS continue a decades-old legacy here of
radicalism and militancy.”
–Ignores the role of the U.S.,
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in promoting Islamist
fundamentalism in Dagestan.
As described by Robert Dreyfus in
the book Devil’s Game: How the United States
Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam: “the
Casey-ISI (CIA and Pakistan Secret Service)
actions aided the growth of a significant
network of right-wing, Islamist extremists who,
to this day, plague the governments of the
former Soviet republics … In particular, the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic
Liberation Party, the powerful Islamist groups
in Chechnya and Dagestan.”
–Ignores the role of the US and
allies in facilitating ISIS.
As journalist
Patrick Cockburn has
written,“In the 20 years between 1996
and 2016, the CIA and British security and
foreign policy agencies have consistently given
priority to maintaining their partnership with
powerful Sunni states over the elimination of
terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and
Isis.”
Journalist Nafeez Ahmed exposed the role of
Turkey
here, “A
former senior counter-terrorism official in
Turkey has blown the whistle on President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s deliberate sponsorship of the
Islamic State (ISIS) as a geopolitical tool to
expand Turkey’s regional influence and sideline
his political opponents at home.”
Elements of the U.S. military/intelligence
suggested the establishment of ISIS to “isolate
the Syrian regime.” This was revealed in the
classified 2012 report
of the Defense Intelligence Agency that “THERE
IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR
UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN
SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY
WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION
WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME”
In
short, ISIS recruitment from Muslim communities
in Russia and worldwide has been spurred by the
policies and actions of the U.S. and allies such
as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. This is what Dreyfus
calls The Devil’s Game, but is ignored
in the documentary.
Episode 4:
“The Deadly Risk of Standing up to Putin”
In this
episode, the documentary:
–Suggests that critics of Putin
and the Russian government face “consequences”
including death.
These accusations are widespread in the West but
largely based on the claims of different
U.S.-supported “activists.” One of the most
famous cases, and the one on which U.S.
congressional sanctions against Russia are
based, is that of Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky’s
death was the subject of a documentary, which
has been effectively banned in the U.S. In the
course of researching what happened, the
filmmaker learned that the truth was very
different than has been told in the West and
promoted by hedge-fund executive William
Browder. Gilbert Doctorow outlines what happens
in his review of the film
here:
“‘Magnitsky Act: Behind the
Scenes’ is an amazing
film which takes us through the thought
processes, the evidence sorting of the
well-known independent film maker Andrei
Nekrasov as he approached an assignment that was
at the outset meant to be one more public
confirmation of the narrative Browder has sold
to the US Congress and to the American and
European political elites. That story was all
about a 36 year old whistle-blower ‘attorney’
(actually a bookkeeper) named Sergei Magnitsky
who denounced on Browder’s behalf the theft of
Russian taxes to his boss’s companies amounting
to $230 million and who was rewarded for his
efforts by arrest, torture and murder in
detainment by the officials who perpetrated the
theft. This shocking tale drove legislation that
was a major landmark in the descent of
US-Russian relations under President Barack
Obama to a level rivaling the worst days of the
Cold War.
“At
the end of the film we understand that this
story was concocted by William Browder to cover
up his own criminal theft of the money in
question, that Magnitsky was not a
whistleblower, but on the contrary was likely an
assistant and abettor to the fraud and theft
that Browder organized, that he was not murdered
by corrupt Russian police but died in prison
from banal neglect of his medical condition.”
The PBS
documentary quotes an opposition leader,
Vladimir Kara-Murza, saying “We have no free and
fair elections. We have censorship in the media.
We have political prisoners, more than 100
political prisoners now in Russia, today.” Kara-Murza
now lives in Washington “for his safety” but
returns to Russia periodically. He claims to
have been poisoned several times.
Opponents of the Russian government are quick to
accuse but the evidence is largely hearsay and
speculation. Public polls of citizens in Russia
repeatedly indicate that Putin and the
government have widespread popularity, in
contrast with the accusations in this
documentary that they rule by intimidation and
violence.
Episode 5:
“What Russians think about Trump and the
U.S.”
Based
on the content, the final episode should be
titled “What the U.S. establishment and media
thinks of Putin and Russia.” In this episode,
the documentary:
–Features accusations by CIA
Director Mike Pompeo that Russian President
Putin, “ is a man for whom veracity doesn’t
translate into English.”
An
objective documentary would take CIA claims
about “veracity” with a healthy dose of
skepticism. Just a few years ago, former
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
was confirmed to have
lied under oath
to Congress. Former CIA chief of
counterintelligence James Angleton
said in his
dying days, “Fundamentally, the founding fathers
of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you
lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely
you got promoted.” So it is curious to see the
PBS documentary uncritically presenting the new
CIA director as a judge of veracity.
–Implies that President Trump is
out of line to question “the U.S. intelligence
community’s unanimous assessment that Russia
hacked the 2016 election.”
It has been
recently
exposed that
the “unanimous assessment” was, in reality, by
“hand-picked” analysts at three agencies, under
DNI Clapper’s oversight, not all 17 agencies and
that the National Security Agency did NOT have
“high confidence” in a key finding. The
“assessment,” which the Jan. 6 report
acknowledged was NOT an establishment of fact,
was based on the forensics of a private company,
Crowdstrike, with a checkered record in this
field, and the dubious Christopher Steele
dossier, a collection of “opposition research”
reports against Donald Trump, paid for
unidentified allies of Hillary Clinton and
compiled by Steele, an ex-British intelligence
agent.
In March 2017, Crowdstrike was
found to have
made false claims in another investigation of an
alleged Russian “hack.” Yet, neither the CIA nor
FBI examined the Democratic National Committee’s
computers. If the issue was as important as it
supposedly has now become, the FBI should have
issued a subpoena to do its own examination. Why
the DNC rejected the FBI request, and why the
FBI did not insist, raises serious questions
given the enormous publicity and accusations
that have followed.
–Uncritically features two US
politicians making loose accusations and
effectively criminalizing “contacts” with
Russians.
Sen. James
Lankford, R-Oklahoma, says President Trump is
“pushing out some messages that are consistent
with the Kremlin policies … there’s no question
that the Russians were trying to hack into our
elections.” Yet, former U.S. intelligence
officers with experience in these areas recently
presented evidence
raising significant questions about this
conventional wisdom.
On the
Democratic side, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia
indicates the Senate investigation reached its
conclusion before it began. He said, “The goal
of this investigation is not only to reconfirm
Russian intervention and explain that to the
American public, but to also see if there were
any contacts between Trump and the Russians.”
In the
current environment, to have “contacts” with
Russians has been criminalized. Instead of
questioning the validity or wisdom of this
position, the documentary presents it with
seeming approval.
–Uncritically promotes false
statements and reckless threats.
Sen. Lankford says “We believe strongly
that what Russia continues to do to be able to
threaten Ukraine, threaten its neighbors,
threaten NATO, to continue to pry into not only
our elections, but other elections, is
destabilizing, and it demands a response. They
have yet to have a consequence to what they did
in the election time. And they should.”
Lankford’s assertions are presented as facts but
are debatable or false. For example, security
services in
Germany,
France and the
U.K. all found
that – despite the international accusations –
there was NO evidence of Russian interference in
their recent elections.
–Justifies and promotes
“punishment” of Russia.
The belligerent approach of Lankford and Warner
is continued by PBS host Judy Woodruff and
narrator Nick Schifrin. The U.S. is portrayed as
a vulnerable victim with a future that is
“foreboding”. Russia is portrayed as threatening
and needing some punishment soon: “The
Russian government doesn’t feel like the United
States government really penalized them for what
happened last year…. a lot of officials here in
Washington agree with that… Russia should have
paid for what they did last year.”
This
threatening talk is then followed by the
following assessment from the narrator: “There
are analysts in Moscow who think the only thing
we can hope is that we avoid war.”
In
2002-2003, American mainstream media failed to
question or challenge the assertions of the CIA
and politicians pushing for the invasion of
Iraq. At that time, the false pretense was that
Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a
threat to the U.S.
Much of
the media and many of the same politicians are
now claiming Russia is an adversary that has
“attacked us.” This claim is being widely made
without serious question or challenge. “Liberal”
media seems to be in alliance with hawkish
neoconservatives on this issue. Virtually any
accusation against Russia and its leader can be
made with impunity and without serious evidence.
The PBS
documentary “Inside Putin’s Russia” aims to
expose Russian repression, aggression and
disinformation. As shown in the many examples
above, the five-part documentary is highly
biased and inaccurate. While it shows some
features of Russia, it also demonstrates
American propaganda in the current tumultuous
times.
Rick
Sterling is an investigative journalist based in
northern California. He can be contacted at
rsterling1@gmail.com
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