Dear cj, Two different levels of propaganda are highlighted in the two reports below. The first deals with the illogic behind the media definitions of "terrorism" and "retaliation". The second deals with deception regarding the reprisals, the intent behind them, and the evidence that the reprisals were already planned prior to the bombings that allegedly "caused" them. Note especially: Russian military analysts say that the promptness of this response to terrorism proves the U.S. attack was fully planned and prepared months ago and the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were only a pretext for a final go ahead. It may be far-fetched to allege Western intelligence services actually carried out the bombings, and the evidence now seems to show Bin Laden was responsible, but is it far-fetched to assume Western intelligence was aware the bombings were being planned? Is it credible to believe all the detailed knowledge we're being shown on television regarding terrorist bases and networks was only uncovered subsequent to the bombings? Is it credible to assume that this state of ongoing war the US is so eager to enter into has been a spur-of-the-moment development? Is it not more sensible to take seriously the "Clash of Civilizations" doctrine, long ago articulated, and see current events as a scenario designed to implement that doctrine? yours, rkm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 19:27:53 -0500 To: •••@••.••• From: Mark Douglas Whitaker <•••@••.•••> Subject: Orwellian Logic (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 10:33:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Norman Solomon <•••@••.•••> Subject: Orwellian Logic ORWELLIAN LOGIC 101 -- A FEW SIMPLE LESSONS By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate During the week after U.S. missiles hit sites in Sudan and Afghanistan, some Americans seemed uncomfortable. A vocal minority even voiced opposition. But approval was routine among those who had learned a few easy Orwellian lessons. When terrorists attack, they're terrorizing. When we attack, we're retaliating. When they respond to our retaliation with further attacks, they're terrorizing again. When we respond with further attacks, we're retaliating again. When people decry civilian deaths caused by the U.S. government, they're aiding propaganda efforts. In sharp contrast, when civilian deaths are caused by bombers who hate America, the perpetrators are evil and those deaths are tragedies. When they put bombs in cars and kill people, they're uncivilized killers. When we put bombs on missiles and kill people, we're upholding civilized values. When they kill, they're terrorists. When we kill, we're striking against terror. At all times, Americans must be kept fully informed about who to hate and fear. When the United States found Osama bin Laden useful during the 1980s because of his tenacious violence against the Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan, he was good, or at least not bad -- but now he's really bad. No matter how many times they've lied in the past, U.S. officials are credible in the present. When they vaguely cite evidence that the bombed pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum was making ingredients for nerve gas, that should be good enough for us. Might doesn't make right -- except in the real world, when it's American might. Only someone of dubious political orientation would split hairs about international law. When the mass media in some foreign countries serve as megaphones for the rhetoric of their government, the result is ludicrous propaganda. When the mass media in our country serve as megaphones for the rhetoric of the U.S. government, the result is responsible journalism. Unlike the TV anchors spouting the government line in places like Sudan and Afghanistan, ours don't have to be told what to say. They have the freedom to report as they choose. "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip," George Orwell observed, "but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip." Orwell noted that language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." And his novel "1984" explained that "the special function of certain Newspeak words ... was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them." National security. Western values. The world community. War against terrorism. Collateral damage. American interests. What's so wondrous about Orwellian processes is that they tend to be very well camouflaged -- part of the normal scenery. Day in and day out, we take them for granted. And we're apt to stay away from uncharted mental paths. In "1984," Orwell wrote about the conditioned reflex of "stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought ... and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction." Orwell described "doublethink" as the willingness "to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed." In his afterword to "1984," Erich Fromm emphasized "the point which is essential for the understanding of Orwell's book, namely that `doublethink' is already with us, and not merely something which will happen in the future, and in dictatorships." Fifty-two years ago, Orwell wrote an essay titled "Politics and the English Language." Today, his words remain as relevant as ever: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." Repression and atrocities "can indeed be defended," Orwell added, "but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." National security. Western values. The world community. War against terrorism. Collateral damage. American interests. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 00:59:34 -0300 To: •••@••.••• From: •••@••.••• (Jan Slakov) Subject: Russian view of bombings ---<fwd>--- Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 05:24:52 -0400 From: Eric Fawcett <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• [and others] Subject: s4pNewsletter Subject: U.S. bombs scared Russia: extract from CDI Russia Weekly I have selected one item from several of great interest in the current CDI Russia Weekly, a newsletter that you may like to subscribe to yourself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CDI Russia Weekly #12, 28 August 1998, Edited by David Johnson, Center for Defense Information, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036, USA The CDI Russia Weekly is an e-mail newsletter that carries news and analysis on all aspects of today's Russia, including political, economic, social, military, and foreign policy issues. With funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, CDI Russia Weekly is a project of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information (CDI), a nonprofit research and education organization. CDI's web page: http://www.cdi.org e-mail: <•••@••.•••> as in the header of this message Contents: 1. Moscow Times editorial: Democracy Lives or Dies With Yeltsin. 2. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, DEFENSE DOSSIER: U.S. Bombs Scared Russia. 3. The Guardian (UK): James Meek, Rebels who will answer only to Islam. 4. RFE/RL: Paul Goble, Russia: Analysis From Washington -- When States Fail. 5. St. Petersburg Times: Leonid Shebarshin, Confronting Russia's Role In Central Asian Conflicts. 6. Sovetskaya Rossiya: "Gennadiy Zyuganov: Compromises Are Impossible." 7. IntellectualCapital.com: Dmitry Trenin, Crossing the Swamp. 8. RFE/RL: Floriana Fossato, Russia: Crisis Wipes Out People's Savings. 9. RFE/RL NEWSLINE: LOW EXPECTATIONS FOR RUSSIAN-U.S. SUMMIT. ***************************************************************************** For more articles from The Moscow Times, check out their website at www.moscowtimes.ru #2: Moscow Times, August 27, 1998 DEFENSE DOSSIER: U.S. Bombs Scared Russia By Pavel Felgenhauer Last Friday Yeltsin denounced the bombing of alleged terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan by the United States. Yeltsin said "his attitude is negative as it would be to any act of terrorism, military interference or failure to solve a problem through talks." Yeltsin's press secretary, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, watered down Yeltsin's statement and the free fall of the ruble virtually blackened out this news item in Moscow. In Washington, White House national security adviser Sandy Berger predicted those comments would not sour the atmosphere when Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton meet in Moscow early next month. In Moscow many agree. It is reported that more than 70 U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles hit Afghan territory controlled by the Moslem fundamentalist Taliban militia. But Moscow considers the Taliban a serious security threat. For some time the Russian authorities have been helping the anti-Taliban forces and feared that the United States was in its turn secretly supporting the Taliban. This alleged U.S.-Taliban alliance has surely been broken. It is reported that as a result of the Tomahawk attack, the U.S. Unocal Corp. has postponed all work on building a $2 billion pipeline to bring Turkmen natural gas via Afghanistan to the Pakistan Indian Ocean port of Karachi for export. This leaves the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom in full control of all Turkmen gas exports. With Viktor Chernomyrdin back at the helm in Moscow, what is good for Gazprom will also be, mostly, officially considered good for Russia. Badly bruised by scandal and crisis at home, Yeltsin and Clinton will, most likely, do their best to make the coming summit a success the same way former U.S. President Richard Nixon indulged in foreign policy and detente with the Soviet Union as the Watergate scandal unfolded. However, it should be remembered that Yeltsin made his uncompromising remarks on board the Russian navy's flagship -- the Pyotr Veliky nuclear cruiser -- after conferring with his military chiefs. The Russian military also does not particularly like the Taliban. Still, the U.S. military action is seen as setting a very dangerous precedent and also as an example of possible future threats Russia may face. The U.S. attack happened less than two weeks after the terrorist bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The Washington Post has reported that plans to attack the alleged terrorist targets linked to the Saudi dissident millionaire Osama bin Laden were approved by a White House national security team five days after the embassy bombings. Clinton officially approved the plan of attack one week after the terrorist bombings and one week before U.S. military action was taken. Russian military analysts say that the promptness of this response to terrorism proves the U.S. attack was fully planned and prepared months ago and the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were only a pretext for a final go ahead. The sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missile is not a weapon that one can fire at an unforeseen enemy. This "smart" missile has a guidance system with components that make course corrections for pinpoint accuracy. To determine the missile's location, one component compares terrain with satellite photographs of Earth stored in on board computers. Another component receives data from GPS satellites that provide guidance. This means that any Tomahawk attack should be preceded by a long period of intelligence gathering and accurate spy satellite mapping to determine the exact target positions and missile approach routes. Persistent fog or low clouds can postpone targeting procedures for weeks, sometimes months. It took months to prepare Tomahawk missile attacks against Iraq after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, since the previously prepared U.S. cruise missile targets were all in Russia and not near Baghdad. Even if the U.S. authorities are right and the demolished El Shifa Pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum was indeed involved in making VX nerve gas, it obviously had no connection to the Kenya and Tanzania bombings. No gas was used in those bombs. The plant was a preplanned target and Russian generals are afraid their U.S. counterparts have more such "terrorist targets" in military plans of sudden worldwide "pinpoint" attacks. Future Tomahawk recipients may be Russian friends, not the Taliban. A new, pro-Communist Russian government may demand some response from its military, and that is a prospect the rundown, unfed and unpaid Russian army fears most of all. Pavel Felgenhauer is defense and national security affairs editor of Segodnya [TODAY] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ a political discussion forum - •••@••.••• To subscribe, send any message to •••@••.••• A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance (mailto:•••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org) ---------------------------------------------------------- Non-commercial reposting is hereby approved, but please include the sig up through this paragraph and retain any internal credits and copyright notices. .--------------------------------------------------------- To see the index of the cj archives, send any message to: •••@••.••• To subscribe to our activists list, send any message to: •••@••.••• Help create the Movement for a Democratic Rensaissance ---------------------------------------------- crafted in Ireland by rkm ----------------------------------- A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon
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