Why Russ Baker's Wrong on Arab Spring & Media

Russ Baker Writes: 

The Hijacking of Arab Spring, and the Media’s Complicity - WhoWhatWhy

Russ, while I usually like and agree with most of what you write, I think you are really off base on Libya (a topic I really know something about) and Syria and your take on the Arab Spring revolutions. Now I also usually agree with my friends John Judge, Peter Dale Scott, Cynthia McKinney and Wayne Madsen, but disagree with their knee-jerk reactionary response to USA policy on the Arab Spring revolts. They weren’t interested at all until the USA and NATO got involved in Libya and then suddenly took notice and took the typical leftist anti-war position without putting it into the context of the Arab Spring regional revolutions and the protests against the police states these people live(d) in. While I disagree with them and argue with them, they have remained my friends, and I hope you can take this in the same spirit. But I feel that I have to set you straight on this issue. -

Russ Baker wrote:

For those versed in the black arts of propaganda, the hijacking of Arab Spring must be a beauteous thing to behold.

Bill Kelly responds: Russ, I do consider myself well versed in the black arts of propaganda, and have written extensively about the black propaganda operations conducted in league with the assassination of JFK at Dealey Plaza, a covert operation.

I don’t believe the hijacking of the Arab Spring is beauteous thing to behold, and question whether it has been hijacked or just temporarily bogged down in Syria, Yeman and Bahrain.

First came evidently spontaneous uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Then some up-and-comer in Washington or London or Paris had a brainstorm, a new twist on a very old idea: if you can’t beat em, join em. Or even better, co-opt them, and use them for your own purposes.

BK: I think the change in US policy from blind allegiance to dictators who backed US anti-communist and anti-terrorist policies, to one of support for democratic revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and hopefully Syria, is a major change in policy and it wasn’t made by some unknown “up-and-comer” in some unknown city who had a brainstorm. It was a clear and calculated change to a long held decades-long policy that was wrong. Supporting these democratic revolutions is the right thing to do.

The old way of getting rid of “inconvenient” leaders was so 20th-century — in the case of Saddam Hussein, a monstrous lie followed by a massive bloodletting on both sides.

BK: Indeed Iraq was a major misdeed, one that I vocally opposed, just as I had opposed the Vietnam War, something for which I was beaten and tear gassed and arrested in the Chicago riots at the 1968 Democratic National convention.

Tahrir Square suggested how to bring down a regime in a manner far less costly and far more palatable to the public: lots of medium-sized and little lies, war through Twitter, war through expendable proxies. Provide financial incentives to key figures to publicly renounce the old leadership, create a steady stream of heart-rending moments and photos and allegations, generate endless “human rights violations” by baiting the government into a military response, then very publicly petition international bodies for redress of humanitarian concerns.

BK: Wait a minute Russ, what were the lots of lies at Tahrir Square? The USA, especially the US military supported Mubarak and his regime, just as they supported the dictators of Tunisa and Bahrain and Gadhafi, they were “Our Guys,” already, and the CIA and the US military and the State Department and the oil companies were all honky-dory with the dictators they already had in their pocket. That the Egyptian students, women, intellectuals, professionals used non-violent protest techniques and did not have the support of the Muslim Brothers, is not a lie. They were real and sincere and are still fighting for a liberal, open, secular democratic society, not something that the CIA or the USA or anyone outside of Egypt wanted or sought. As a victim of police state violence myself, I object to your insinuation that the Egyptian state’s violence against the Egyptian people were instigated or baited by anyone as fake “human rights” violations. Many hundreds of young people in Egypt and thousands in Libya and Syria have died for what they believe in - an end to the police state and the creation of a free, open, secular, democratic society.

Muammar Qaddafi, a fiercely independent, quasi-socialistic African transnationalist, was the guinea pig.

BK: I have been studying the history of US-Libyan relations for over a decade now, and have personally dealt with Saif Qaddafi and know people who have personally dealt with his father, and he was not a “a fiercely independent, quasi-socialist African transnationalst,” though he may have been a guinea pig. His wealth was dependent on oil, he was not a socialist but spread the oil money around to family and cronies, and he wanted to expand his power to all Africa, if that’s what you call “transnationalist.” He was a sociopath mass murder, who on this day – June 29, some years ago, killed over a thousand political prisoners, whose families’ protests in Benghazi began the revolution that ended in his execution by his own people. I started a blog – http://revolutionaryprogram.blogspot.com a few weeks after the Tunisia and Egyptian revolutions began and predicated, knowing the history,  that the revolution in Libya would begin in Benghazi, as it did, two weeks later.

A brilliant disinformation campaign isolated him, authentic domestic grievances were encouraged, and a whole war was conducted on behalf of the West with nary a Western soldier putting boots to ground.

BK:  If it was a “brilliant disinformation campaign” then someone must have been the “brilliant” person, but you can’t identify the person just as you don’t identify who had the “brainstorm” to “join” the revolution (I believe it was Chris Stevens) or what the lies of Tahrir Square are. The US had at least two boots on the ground, those worn by Chris Stevens, the US State Dept. liaison to the rebels who was sent to Benghazi to evaluate the situation, and his reports led to the switch in U.S. policy from support of the government to support to the rebels. Stevens is now the new US ambassador to Libya, though that has been kept quiet for some reason. For photos of Stevens as Ambassador see my blog: http://remembertheintrepid.blogspot.com 

Next up: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. So began, again, the covert arming of real domestic opponents, and an extensive and variegated propaganda campaign.

As with Libya, Western countries were covertly overthrowing a Middle East regime, just as they have done over the decades. And, as before, the media said not a word about what was really going on. So the public did not really understand, and there was practically no debate at all.

BK: What’s to debate? Assad, like Qaddafi, is a psychopathic mass murder responsible for the death of thousands through his artillery barrages, a tactic he borrowed from Qaddafi, and will hopefully suffer the same fate. He’s a barbaric tyrant who will someday meet his fate, but clings to power in the false belief that he owns the country, and doesn’t care if he totally destroys it to maintain his power. Death to tyrants! Was what the US military officers said in 1804 when they fought the Barbary Pirates and that holds true today.

A Diverse Media, But a Single Message

Thanks to the Internet, we have what appears to be a more diverse range of media offerings than ever before.

BK: Including my blogs and the blogs of those on the scene, two of whom won Nobel Peace prizes and Youtube videos of the action that aren’t filtered through the mainstream media.

We know the corporate-owned American media won’t take any kind of risks to warn us about what is going on. We are lucky we have alternatives: easy access to high quality foreign media (BBC, Guardian, Al Jazeera and the like). And we have a plethora of “alternative” media, from Left to Right to Other.

With this cornucopia of competing entities, we have every reason to expect that we will get good, hard-hitting, tough-minded reporting and analysis. Right? Wrong. Almost no news organization of any note, of any kind, has called Libya and Syria for what they really are.

The reasons may be various, but perhaps the most decisive one is this: All have seemingly fallen victim to a superb propaganda strategy that associates critical reporting and critical thinking on Syria with defending a regime (that is of course dictatorial and brutal) against “the people.”

When almost no media anymore question these barely disguised coups against uncooperative standing governments, we are in very deep trouble.

BK: These revolutions aren’t “barely disguised coups” like the JFK assassination was, as the Diem coup was, as the Chile coup was, as the Valkyrie plot against Hitler was, these are revolutions by the people, mainly young people, many women involved, and their purpose isn’t to assume power, but to strip those with the power of it, and install some sort of democracy. That’s not a “barely disguised coup.” And Tunisia, Libya and Egypt were not “uncooperative standing governments,” they were all cooperative with the US and received much money and military support, supplies and training.

Because if we can’t count on the media to tell us what is going on in far-off places, what may we expect of them closer to home?  We are witnessing a crisis for journalism that is nothing less than a crisis for democracy itself.

BK: I don’t count on the media to tell me anything. Why are you surprised at the mainstream media? They still don’t have the JFK assassination right, and I don’t depend on them for anything. I have personal friends on the ground in Libya and Turkey and have many sources for my information.

The “Limited Hangout”

Yet one more example of how this debilitating game is played was on display the other day in the New York Times, just one of many news organizations that have essentially acquiesced in this sophisticated Western power propaganda operation.

BK: I don’t read the NY Times, but they read my blogs, as a NY Times photo editor tracked me down after reading one of my articles that identified a photo they had posted on their web site as being a fabrication. They contacted me to confirm it was a composite, thanked me and removed it. So they at least strive for accuracy on some counts.

The paper, whose reporting on Syria has been lackluster at best, finally provided us with a peek at what is actually going on. But the revelations were spun so as to benefit those seeking to depose Assad—and bury the matter of foreign sponsorship in plain sight.

The Times piece, under the headline, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” begins:

A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

Let’s stop and consider what is being said here. If the CIA is “operating secretly,” then what are “American officials and Arab intelligence officers” doing publicizing their efforts? Are these leakers courageous whistleblowers, risking a nice visit to the Bradley Manning Hall of Detention? Don’t bet on it.

The reason we are being told about this, in all likelihood, is that they want us to know.Why? Because this is, in spy jargon, a “limited hangout” that hides the real truth.

By “leaking” potentially controversial material, they get ahead of the curve, and by framing it in the most benign possible way, they control any discussion. Read on, please:

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.

So there’s another soft spin: covert American operatives are helping keep weapons “out of the hands” of terrorist groups. Or, to be precise, out of the hands of terrorist groups opposed to American interests, while channeling them to terrorist groups more amenable to our policies in that region. The identity of these friendly “opposition fighters” is not stated, but they are presumably groups the CIA approves of — perhaps because they were originally created or at least co-opted by these very same CIA people. Of course, the history of Western support for selected terrorist groups in this region is not encouraging; recall the extensive CIA funding of anti-Soviet mujahedeen who morphed into anti-American fighters (including Taliban and Al-Qaeda) after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ended in 1989.

The Times article goes on to say that the US is not providing arms but that US allies—particularly Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar—are. What it neglects to mention is that the US provides arms to these allies, and all but tells these countries what to do with those arms. The trick: Washington uses these intermediaries in order for the US to say that it is not involved in overthrowing the Assad regime.

That’s why the US government can hypocritically chastise Russia for sending in helicopters to the beleaguered Assad government. Perhaps Russia should, Western-style, simply look the other way (wink, wink) while its own allies send in weapons?

BK: But you are not hypocritically chastising the USA for providing arms yet saying its okay for Russia to give Assad weapons to kill his own people? The USA, NATO and the UN are trying to allow the Syrians to resolve their own political situation without foreign military intervention, but its okay for Russia to intervene? Whose the hypocrite again?

Unfortunately for Russia, it is increasingly isolated, and, since the end of the Soviet bloc, has nothing comparable to the Western alliance. All it can do is provide direct aid to the regime and raise objections at the UN to those arming the opposition.

BK: Unfortunate for the people of Syria who being shelled by Assad’s Russian artillery and tanks, as they have nothing comparable to what Assad has amassed, thanks to the Ruskies. Edward Lutwak, in his book Coup d’etat – A Practical Handbook (1968), wrongly wrote that such popular insurrections and revolutions are obsolete because of the modern mechanized army that is arrayed against it, but the Arab Spring has proven this analysis false. Lightly armed civilians can defeat a mechanized army, though it would help if a no-fly zone was established and the revolutionaries had an air force like they did in Libya.

The fact that the United States government, and notably a Democratic administration, is waging war against another government through surrogates is a really, really big deal.

BK: What is really, really a big deal is that the USA administration has ended the long standing policy of supporting foreign dictators who backed their anti-Communist anti-terrorist policies, and instead is supporting fledgling, democratic revolutionaries who oppose those tyrants that are propped up by US military machines and money. How come nobody wants to talk about that?

Yet our media—almost all of it, Left, Right and Other—walks in lockstep with a shared dubious narrative of an essentially spontaneous uprising being crushed by a ruthless government and of a West helping “the people” purely for humanitarian purposes.

BK: It’s not “purely for humanitarian purposes,” it’s supporting the right side for a change, not the fascist  police states but ordinary people fighting for what they want – freedom from tyranny.

It turns out that the US government really did learn a lesson from Vietnam. Win those hearts and minds. But not in foreign jungles or deserts. The real battle is right here at home.

BK: I don’t think most American give a damn what happens in Syria, Tunisia, Libya or Egypt, as long as their gas prices keep going down.