This Is Not News, This Is Propaganda

The U.S. and U.K press have failed to cover the continuing skirmishes without suggesting Russia is behind the fighting, which now presumably is just between Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Georgia.

Perhaps, it would be worth asking if the Heritage Foundation has been sending Ariel Cohen's assessment of the situation around to news outlets, which wrongly characterizes the situation by blaming the situation on the separatists, despite the fact that Georgia violated a ceasefire by embarking on a military adventure:

As the Olympic Games opened, the tragic and ominous conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted as well. On Thursday of last week, South Ossetian separatists, supported by Moscow, escalated their machine gun and mortar fire attacks against neighboring Georgian villages. This past Thursday and Friday, Georgia attacked the separatist capital Tskhinvali with artillery to suppress fire. Tskhinvali suffered severe damage, thus providing the pretext for Moscow's long-planned invasion of Georgia.

What does it mean when you Google "Ariel Cohen Heritage Foundation Russia Georgia" and return over 10,000 articles related to the "Georgia crisis"? I'm not big on making arguments with Google results, but I do wonder how much stock has been put in Cohen's assessment especially since it is posted on Pravda.

By being able to control the propaganda---the information being read---it’s difficult for one to grapple with the stark differences in the reports coming out of China and Russia, allies which oppose an attack on Iran and have stalled U.S. foreign policy goals in the past few years that the Bush Administration has been in power.

Is Xinhua, a news source out of China, telling the truth when it reports, “On Friday, Georgian troops began a military action against South Ossetia's forces in an attempt to re-establish control over the region”? If so, why didn’t that fact appear at the top or better, why were the first stories on the conflict from the region in the U.S. and U.K press stories of Russian aggression?

Is Pravda, a Russian news media outlet, wrong when it makes the point this article is attempting to make?

“The evidence to proof the USA’s hand behind the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia can be found in Western media. Western news agencies, Reuters, for example, have been distributing countless photographs depicting Russia’s supposed atrocities in Georgia. Such photos along with adequate headlines can be found in practically all US newspapers (The New York Times is the best example for it). All of them unanimously accuse Russia of aggression against Georgia, but they do not say a word about Georgia’s actions against civilians in S. Ossetia.”

In fact, Pravda has published several articles that are worth considering.

Particularly, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has been writing up a slew of opinion editorials that attempt to highlight “the truth” of the matter. Each article makes points that are tough to refute.

Illuminating a divide that existed between Georgia and Russia since Saakashvili took power, Hinchey writes:

The Russian Foreign Ministry has been issuing daily reports about the escalating tension in the area, and while Moscow has bent over backwards to find a peaceful and mutually acceptable solution, the Western media have consistently ignored the story while Georgia has consistently snubbed all efforts towards peace, while carrying out cowardly underhanded and treacherous attacks such as we have seen today.

Hinchey opens another article stating:

If the people of the world are being asked to judge the actions of the Russian Federation through press reports based on the information that is presented to them, then it would be a good idea to begin from a viewpoint whereby the international media presents the truth and not some half-baked subjective attempt to package the story in a way that is hostile to Moscow.

In closing, I wish to draw attention to three articles that I think get this struggle right. By that I mean these articles accurately cover the situation.

Right now, Americans are tuned in to the Olympics largely uninterested in this conflict (I presume). And why should they?

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