LA Times: A classic example of Disinformation

The opinion piece in the online version of the Los Angeles Times (2008.08.12) is a clear and classic example of the type of material western readers are being bombarded with in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign of disinformation to shape public opinion against Russia. As was the case in Iraq, the Western public is being duped by what amounts to a perverse act of manipulation... and is guzzling the bait hook, line and sinker

The piece “Stand up to Russia” was shown to me by a Russian friend, who asked me to reply in PRAVDA.Ru, which was quoted in this two-page schmuckfest of unadulterated bilge. It could almost have been printed by the British Bullshit Corporation or written by that other insolent female who got a Pulitzer. Max Boot, “Senior fellow in National Security Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations” is the name of the author in this case.

We now see clearly why the National Security Agency was so adept in defending the people of America on 9/11, as adept in fact as Washington’s (chuckle) military advisors were in Georgia.

When I read through this article last night, I thought, “Where does one begin?” I mean, it is one nonsensical piece of drivel from beginning to end, a tissue of lies and insults directed at Russia without one iota of truth from the first letter to the final period.

For a start, the piece opens with a childish chortle, comparing the Russian Army to the “Red Army”, a clear attempt to paint the modern Russian Federation with the Soviet brush, then, wait for it, yeah here it is, line 2 of paragraph 2, the “collapse” of the Soviet Union. It’s like those animal documentaries where you have three failed hunting scenes then finally the kill, where the lionesses get the gazelle and cart it off to daddy. And it is so predictable as to be boring.

True, like the Red Army, the Russian Army has the capacity to carpet nuke all countries, be they NATO or anything else, which commit acts of aggression against Russia but unlike the USA, Russia does not deploy atomic weapons or Depleted Uranium against civilians. And for Max Boot’s information, and that of his readers, once and for all, the Soviet Union did not “collapse” (there was no confrontation after all, not even a stand-off; relations with the West were at their highest point at the time, with perestroika and glaznost in full swing). The voluntary dissolution of the Soviet Union was forecast and accounted for in its Constitution. When the members wished to leave, they did and most of them formed alternative and looser trading organizations such as the CIS, among others.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/13-08-2008/106083-latimes-0