Russophobia: propaganda in international politics
by Glenn Diesen
Palgrave Macmillan £89.99.

THIS is an exceptionally important book. It exposes the Nato campaign, led by the British and US governments, to whip up hatred of Russia.

In 2015, the British government launched the Integrity Initiative, “dedicated to revealing and combating propaganda and disinformation.” According to its website 95 per cent of its funding comes from the government, the US State Department, Nato and Facebook.

The Initiative was largely aimed at Russia, although it could also target domestic dissent. In December 2018, the Sunday Mail reported that the Initiative was targeting the Labour Party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn. That is, the government was using public funds to attack the official opposition.
 
The US government cynically used vaccines for propaganda purposes. The US Department of Health and Human Services’ annual report revealed that the government had tried to persuade the Brazilian government to reject Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, despite the Bolsonaro government’s appalling failure to provide enough vaccines, which led to the deaths of 605,000 of its citizens.

As usual the EU marched in lockstep with Nato. Its foreign policy chief, Charles Michel, also rejected the Russian vaccine, saying hypocritically: “We should not let ourselves be misled by China and Russia — both regimes with less desirable values than ours... Europe will not use vaccines for propaganda purposes. We promote our values.”

In the US the Democratic Party created the infamous Russiagate allegation, that WikiLeaks and the Republican 2016 presidential election campaign team conspired with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

It replayed the anti-Russia card in 2020. That summer, the New York Times first published the story that the Russian government was paying the Taliban to kill US soldiers.

The Biden campaign used this lie as a key part of its propaganda, contrasting Biden’s firm stance against Russia with Trump’s alleged weakness (or worse). The lie also stopped Trump from carrying out his sensible pledge to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan — a policy later implemented, incompetently, by Biden.

The CIA and other state agencies pushed the story. The National Security Agency (NSA) dissented, and the Pentagon stated there was “no corroborating evidence.”

After winning the election, the Biden administration admitted that the US agencies involved had had only “low to moderate” confidence in the story.     

Now we have the lie that in February 1990, US secretary of state James Baker never assured Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze that “there would, of course, have to be iron-clad guarantees that Nato’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.”

Nato think tanks like Chatham House dismiss this and other documented pledges as “myths and misconceptions.”
 
We have the lie that Ukraine is some paragon of democracy. President Vlodymyr Zelensky had Ukraine’s main opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuck arrested for treason and former president Poroshenko indicted. He ordered the closure of opposition media. He retroactively annulled the appointment of the head of the Constitutional Court and ignored the Supreme Court’s verdict that he should be reinstated.

We have the lie that the US government never threatened war against Russia. Evelyn Farkas, the former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration, and former senior adviser to Nato’s supreme allied commander, wrote in January 2022 an op-ed: “The US must prepare for war against Russia over Ukraine,” in which she urged: “We must not only condemn Russia’s illegal occupations of Ukraine and Georgia, but we must demand a withdrawal from both countries by a certain date and organise coalition forces willing to take action to enforce it... the horrible possibility exists that Americans, with our European allies, must use our military to roll back Russians — even at the risk of direct combat.” Say no more.