Yet, once the false narrative got rolling, there was no stopping it. The New York Times, The Washington Post and other leading Western publications played the same role that they did during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, accepting the U.S. government's propaganda as fact and marginalizing the few independent journalists who dared go against the grain.
Though Obama, Merkel and other key leaders know how deceptive the Western propaganda has been, they have become captives to their governments' own lies. For them to deviate substantially from the Official Story would open them to harsh criticism from the powerful neoconservatives and their allied media outlets.
Even a slight contradiction to NATO's "strategic communications" brought down harsh criticism on German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier after he said: "What we shouldn't do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering. ... Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance's eastern border will bring security is mistaken."
Excoriating Russia
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg opens the NATO Warsaw Summit in Poland, July 8, 2016. NATO heads of state agreed to send reinforced, multinational battalions to the eastern part of the alliance's border with Russia.
(Image by (NATO photo)) Details DMCA
So, at the Warsaw conference, the false NATO narrative had to be reaffirmed -- and it was. The communique declared, "Russia's aggressive actions, including provocative military activities in the periphery of NATO territory and its demonstrated willingness to attain political goals by the threat and use of force, are a source of regional instability, fundamentally challenge the Alliance, have damaged Euro-Atlantic security, and threaten our long-standing goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. ...
"Russia's destabilising actions and policies include: the ongoing illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, which we do not and will not recognise and which we call on Russia to reverse; the violation of sovereign borders by force; the deliberate destabilisation of eastern Ukraine; large-scale snap exercises contrary to the spirit of the Vienna Document, and provocative military activities near NATO borders, including in the Baltic and Black Sea regions and the Eastern Mediterranean; its irresponsible and aggressive nuclear rhetoric, military concept and underlying posture; and its repeated violations of NATO Allied airspace.
"In addition, Russia's military intervention, significant military presence and support for the regime in Syria, and its use of its military presence in the Black Sea to project power into the Eastern Mediterranean have posed further risks and challenges for the security of Allies and others."
In the up-is-down world that NATO and other Western agencies now inhabit, Russia's military maneuvers within it own borders in reaction to NATO maneuvers along Russia's borders are "provocative." So, too, is Russia's support for the internationally recognized government of Syria, which is under attack from Islamic terrorists and other armed rebels supported by the West's Mideast allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and NATO member Turkey.
In other words, it is entirely all right for NATO and its members to invade countries at will, including Iraq, Libya and Syria, and subvert others as happened in Ukraine and is still happening in Syria. But it is impermissible for any government outside of NATO to respond or even defend itself. To do so amounts to a provocation against NATO -- and such hypocrisy is accepted by the West's mainstream news media as the way that the world was meant to be.
And those of us who dare point out the lies and double standards must be "Moscow stooges," just as those of us who dared question the Iraq WMD tales were dismissed as "Saddam apologists" in 2003.
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