The New York Times Pushes Propaganda War Against Russia by Publius Tacitus

 

There is no longer any doubt that the New York Times is nothing more than a willing cog in the establishment war machine and is happy to serve as a propaganda platform. While there are times that newspapers and electronic media outlets are unwitting dupes for propaganda, the article penned by  MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT (published on 31 July 2017) is the work of willing puppets masquerading as journalists:

Russia’s Military Drills Near NATO Border Raise Fears of Aggression

This screed starts with this piece of artful dishonesty:

Russia is preparing to send as many as 100,000 troops to the eastern edge of NATO territory at the end of the summer, one of the biggest steps yet in the military buildup undertaken by President Vladimir V. Putin and an exercise in intimidation that recalls the most ominous days of the Cold War.

Since when is it an act of "aggression" for a country--Russia in this case--to conduct military exercises in its own territory? Gordon and Schmitt also conveniently omit the facts that the United States has been engaged in a variety of military exercises on the border of Russia for the last year. Yet, rather than acknowledge that truth, Gordon and Schmitt push the lie that this is an unprovoked action by a militaristic Russia hell bent on conquering the world. 

How else is one to interpret the following quotes:

The military exercise . . . .is part of a larger effort by Mr. Putin to shore up Russia’s military prowess, and comes against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive Russia. Beyond Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election in support of the Trump campaign, which has seized attention in the United States, its military has in recent years deployed forces to Syria, seized Crimea and intervened in eastern Ukraine, rattled the Baltic States with snap exercises and buzzed NATO planes and ships. . . .

“There is only one reason you would create a Guards Tank Army, and that is as an offensive striking force,” General Hodges said. “This is not something for homeland security. That does not mean that they are automatically going to do it, but in terms of intimidation it is a means of putting pressure on allies.”

If you read only this article you would be excused for assuming that Russia is on the prowl for no good reason. Fortunately, our media is not totally subservient to the war machine. NPR reported last week that the United States is actually carrying out the largest military operations on Russia's border in 27 years:

The U.S. and NATO are staging their largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, and they're doing it in countries of 3 former members of the Warsaw Pact: Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary

DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Yes, I did. This is all part of what's been called the European Deterrence Initiative, and it's a reinforcement of U.S. forces that had been depleted in Eastern Europe before Russia annexed Crimea three years ago. And as part of this sort of hardening of the U.S. presence here, there was an armored combat brigade team of about 4,000 Army troops from Fort Carson, Colo., that arrived here in Eastern Europe early this year. And they're here in Romania, and they're taking part in military exercises along with about 20,000 other troops.

On Saturday, I was in the Carpathian Mountains, and I watched a pretty impressive live fire, land and air assault there on an imagined enemy. And then yesterday, along the banks of the Danube River here, there was another assault staged to retake the other side of the river from another imagined enemy.

GREENE: You keep saying imagined enemy. Who is the imagined enemy?

WELNA: Well, no doubt it's Russia. And, you know, while this wasn't really a D-Day invasion along the Danube - there was no fire return from the other side - there was a lot of sound and fury. And here's a bit of what it sounded like.

The US military exercise is dubbed Saber Guardian:

Exercise Saber Guardian 17 is a U.S. European Command, U.S. Army Europe-led annual exercise taking place in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in the summer of 2017. This exercise involves more than 25,000 service members from over 20 ally and partner nations. The largest of the Black Sea Region exercises, Saber Guardian 17 is a premier training event for U.S. Army Europe and participating nations that will build readiness and improve interoperability under a unified command, executing a full range of military missions to support the security and stability of the Black Sea Region. It is deterrence in action.

Some of the more notable aspects of SG17 include: the massing of 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division (3/4ID) from several locations across the Operation Atlantic Resolve area of operation to the exercise joint operations area (JOA) in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria; and the movement of 2nd Cavalry Regiment (2CR) from Vilseck, Germany, to numerous locations throughout the JOA.

But that's not all. The United States also has been busy in the Baltics in early June 2017:

The U.S.'s European Command, which is based in Germany, said Thursday it had deployed an unspecified number of F-16 Fighting Falcons from Aviano Air Base in Italy to the Krzesiny Air Base in Poland in support of Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) and Saber Strike, two massive annual drills intended to boost the U.S.'s military presence in Europe and to support regional allies. European Command's statement came a day after it said a number of B-1B Lancers had been sent from Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota to join three B-52H Stratofortresses at the Royal Air Force base in Fairford, U.K. Meanwhile, 800 U.S. airmen in Europe were poised to train with NATO allies this month as the Western military alliance escalates its rivalry with Russia.

And there was US activity in Poland in January:

U.S. troops arrived in the small town of Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, as part of the largest armed military brigade deployed in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

The U.S. troops, along with 53 track vehicles, including the M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer, reached Poland after a three-day journey through Germany. The show of force falls under Operation Atlantic Resolve, designed to show the United States' commitment to its European allies in the face of what NATO sees as Russian aggression.

This is not a comprehensive list. If you take time to do further research you will discover that the United States military in tandem with other countries has carried out several military exercises from the Black Sea in the south, all along the western border of Russia and in the Baltic Sea in the north. 

If you are Russia and you are witnessing repeated deployments of U.S. infantry, armor, air and naval units on the frontier that produced that last military invasion of Russia (which left at least 20 million dead) would you sit back and do nothing?

What would the United States do if Russia managed to convince Mexico to sign a mutual defense treaty and then proceeded to conduct tank and military air exercises along our southern border? Would we do nothing?

Gordon and Schmitt are an embarrassment to the profession of journalism. Rather than actually report facts and place them in their proper context, they chose instead to push lies as truth and try to help shape public opinion into believing that Russia poses an imminent threat to the west.

One other point worth remembering--Russia spends $60 billion annually on defense spending while the United States is slated for $650 billion. How much is the US spending on just EUCOM exercises targeted at Russia? Sadly, there is bipartisan stupidity and ignorance when it comes to the issue of properly assessing Russia and the threat it does (or does not) pose to the United States. My cynical conclusion is that as long as Russia is portrayed as the great Red menace bent on world domination we can justify spending $650 billion dollars to thwart an invasion that is not coming.

Comments

[Gene O]

Thanks PT. This is one of your saner pieces. Keep it up.

[Anna]

The two presstitutes, and the NYT at large, do their job for the propagators of Wolfowitz the Trotskyist' doctrine, according to which "Washington must conserve its advance over the rest of the world by hindering the development of all potential competitors." http://www.voltairenet.org/article197288.html
Meyssan writes, "We therefore find ourselves faced with the equation with which we started – one one side, the outsider President of « the People’s America », and on the other, all of the Washington ruling class supported by the deep state (meaning that part of the administration charged with the continuity of the state over and above political alternances). It is apparent that this coalition is supported by the United Kingdom and Israël."

[Kooshy]

PT- incase you missed it, Michael Gordon and Judith Miller are the two NYT propaganda sonography couple to go to, in case you need to start and sell a war choice that the American public will have to pay with blood and savings.

[Peter AU]

All western media singing in tune. All US senate minus two singing in tune. All US house of representatives minus three singing in tune.
With the latest Russia/Iran/NK sanctions, the US president has just been rendered obsolete.
Whoever owns US 'democracy' now must be congratulating themselves.

[Dr. K.]

Please include VP Pence stirring the pot in the Baltic States.

[Lemur]

it all makes sense once you understand from the perspective of the Washington borg, the world is comprised of semi-autonomous zones subject to broad oversight from the 'benign' hegemon.

From time to time, some of these zones assert their sovereignty, which is a clear aggression against the Global Administrative Political Economy. The small ones are District Thirteen-ed, the large ones are treated as malevolent beasts who have seceded from humanity.

[Grazhdanochka]

If I may. Having looked at this a while, I noticed a synchronicity that manifests itself often in the intellectually barren Corridors of NYT, WaPo and CNN. All 3 seem to operate almost like a mutually supporting Machine with each sharing similar Naratives, getting convenient 'Leaks' that help these Naratives and each often quoting the others reporting.

There is Quote some here will be familiar with - «Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action» , whenever they each start to sing the same Tune I take more particular note.

For this Reason, I while ago suggested they represent a Media Form of the 3 Horsemen

[Lemur]

What are examples of his 'insane' pieces, prey?

[iffen]

Beginning of NPR story:
After Russia annexed Crimea three years ago, the U.S. started reversing a military pullout from Eastern Europe.
From the body of the story:
PRESIDENT KLAUS IOHANNIS: This is living proof of the fact that our soldiers not only talk together. They are able, when it is necessary, to fight together.
WELNA: Could they deter Russia?
IOHANNIS: Of course they could. And I think they do it.
WELNA: But Romania's top military official, General Nicolae Ciuca, is less sanguine.
You are on the shore of the Black Sea. So is Russia. How worried are you about Russia?
NICOLAE CIUCA: I am as worried as the alliance is. We are not apart from the alliance.
WELNA: But is there reason to worry?
CIUCA: Always there's a reason to worry. We are not living in a full peace environment.
If our allies, who are quite familiar with an invasion from Russia, are worried, isn’t the least we can do is act like we are prepared to act?

[VietnamVet]

PT

Russiagate shows that American citizens don’t matter. Not a shred of evidence has been made public to document a Russian involvement. A war that could annihilate mankind could break out any second with no justification. Even, Germany staged the Gleiwitz Incident with Nazi S.S. troops wearing Polish uniforms to feed their propaganda machine to start WWII. With the rise of Major General (ret.) John F. Kelly to Chief of Staff, the military now controls the White House. To end the global media/intelligence community coup attempt; perhaps, a diversionary war with Iran is in the cards. North Korea has nuclear weapons. It is not clear if the relative sanity of General Martin Dempsey and Admiral Mike Mullen has returned to DC. Still, absolutely no one advocates for Peace and Prosperity.

[blowback]

Aaah, Michael R Gordon, the s**t who didn't resign over the aluminium tubes story used as fake evidence to support the invasion of Iraq. And he and the NY Times have been spouting fake news ever since.

https://thinkprogress.org/after-propagating-false-iraq-intel-nyts-michael-gordon-now-echoing-bush-claims-on-iran-40881c2ed9fe

[English Outsider]

A valuable over-view of where we are now in what has become a dangerous and unnecessary confrontation. Many thanks.

I'd like to ask about the Russian populations in the Baltic states.

Their position could be similar to that of the Russians in the Donbass in 2014. The Russian or pro-Russian population of the Donbass was at risk from the post-coup Ukrainian Government. That put the Russian Government in a cleft stick. It couldn't abandon the Donbass Russians even had it wanted to because Russian public opinion wouldn't let it. Nor could it simply order the Russian armed forces to move in to the Donbass and protect them. The compromise solution of assisting the rebels to the extent of not allowing them to be over-run was eventually adopted.

That task was simplified in that some of the Donbass Russians were trained soldiers and had been able to form effective fighting units on their own. It's also said that they were initially more or less self-sufficient in weapons and ammunition.

Although the Donbass resistance was initially piecemeal and uncoordinated it had the advantage of being unexpected and the further advantage that the forces sent against it were also poorly coordinated. The regular Ukrainian army was ill-prepared and the only Ukrainian forces eager to fight were untrained street fighters. NATO participation was initially restricted to advisers and covert assistance.

The position would be entirely different now in all respects. What happens if the Russians living in the Baltic states were similarly at risk from their governments? It would be difficult now for the Russian Government to assist them. Are the Baltic Russians in a position to protect themselves as the Donbass Russians did? Do they have access to arms? Or would we see what was avoided in the Donbass, forced expulsion of Russians living in the near-abroad?

[RogerSpenser]

This is it. It's another Cold War or probably worse.
The US Congress has spiked our future.

[mike]

Trump's sidekick, Mike Pence, visited blisis where he stated: "US strongly condemns the occupation" that "sees Russian tanks parked on Georgian soil". Then visited Podgorica as a show of support after Montenegro's entrance into the NATO sparked bitter opposition from Moscow.

[Lyttenburgh]

"One other point worth remembering--Russia spends $60 billion annually on defense spending while the United States is slated for $650 billion. "

Actually, I'm against such blanked exercises in the monetary phallometry. The amount of money spent doesn't mean anything without the context. It was here, on SSC, when I read about a multi million $ waste on overpriced DoD office equipment and such. How much $ does the US spend on TP compared to Russia? Whatever the answer, I can safely predict that US will be winner here as well. But... but... [you see what I'm doing here? ;)] does the overpriced US military TP is somehow better than the one we used in Russian military? Does it have some hitherto unknown properties, which might explain its higher cost? Some, pardon me, "magickal power"?

Once again, unadjusted flat budget numbers mean nothing. They might make someone feel good, that's for sure. But let me remind you of a something. Throughout the 2016 a certain wing of the political spectrum in the US flaunted their budget. They had more time on the TV. More so - the Intelligence community sympathetic to them had more money than the "potential enemy"... Now they are claiming that FSB (or whatever the crazy scheme of the week says) hacked them. Now they say that RT and Sputnik managed to (SOMEHOW!) dupe the populace of the Republic using a tiny fraction of CNN's budget alone.

Makes you feel... useless, doesn't it?

P.S.

Relax! Remember that Saudi Arabia military still spends humongous amount of money, more than the supposedly “traditional” powers of yore. It doesn’t translate into the battlefield prowess. Money =/= assured victory.

[Lyttenburgh]

"If our allies, who are quite familiar with an invasion from Russia, are worried, isn’t the least we can do is act like we are prepared to act?"

Are you aware when and under which circumstances did Romania experienced "an invasion from Russia", whose ally it have been at the moment etc.?

Btw, what do you understand by "our ally" pertaining to Romania? A sattelite state?

[Grazhdanochka]

Situations for Russians in Donbass and Baltics differs of course...

Without going so deeply to this Matter, simply in Ukraine Russians and well all People sympathetic to Russian Identity were not only significant in Demographic and Political Weight but also have considerably involvement in Security Establishment....

When Events of Maidan through Crimea Events and into early Days of Donbas happened you saw the defections of Berkut, Interior Ministry (Regionally) and in case of Khodakovskiy and his Men - Regional SBU Unit...

This Groups made the Nucleus of Indigenous Resistance that expanded as Times went by (Ukrainian Military also defected with some Armor), this also helped to gain access to Arms and provided direct Inspiration regardless Moscow.

Russian Government support simply ensured that they would never lose...

Baltics by comparison has a Military which is far more Homogenous, Manned and Structured and Culturally distinct from most Post Soviet Militaries, it also carries NATO Membership making even just basic Perception of Support from Moscow a more risky consideration...

I think in general Russians in Baltics simply will do as always.... Sit and Deal with it demoralised, Emigrate, in some cases Assimilate or simply be flattened by local Power Structures should they express to much Anger.

For Russia, the Priority I think should be to how best bring them Home

[georgeg]

Attempted to post link to Facebook. I guess SST is no longer welcome.....

[Cortes]

Delightful to see the use of maskirovka in the names of the two authors of the NYT article. Anyone might think that they're not Zionist.

[Keith Harbaugh]

Speaking of "the establishment war machine",
this seems relevant:

“Shall We Fight Them All?”
by Patrick Buchanan, 2017-07-31
http://buchanan.org/blog/shall-we-fight-them-all-127408

The title gives away Buchanan's message, and concern.
An excerpt:

While wary of a war with North Korea,
Washington seems to be salivating for a war with Iran.

[Anna]

and in Ukraine: "Adding fuel to the fire’: Russia blasts US plans to supply lethal arms to Ukraine"
https://www.rt.com/news/398253-us-weapon-supplies-ukraine-russia/

[rkka]

"What happens if the Russians living in the Baltic states were similarly at risk from their governments?"

It is surpassingly unlikely that ethnic Russians in the Baltics are similarly at risk from their governments. While they discriminate heavily against their ethnic Russians, they have never shown any propensity to actively harm them, unlike the Banderastanis.

[Anna]

" Michael R Gordon, the s**t who didn't resign over the aluminium tubes story "
The families of the wounded and fallen soldiers -- the victims of the war-profiteers including Michael R Gordon -- should start a nice lawsuit against the scoundrel. There, for sure, is a line in the Nuremberg protocols that addresses the agitators of a war of aggression.

[rkka]

"CIUCA: Always there's a reason to worry. We are not living in a full peace environment."

One wonders whether poor trembling Nicolae was similarly and fearful when the US was bombing Bosnia and Serbia back in the 1990s. The question answers itself.

What really has the Anglosphere Foreign Policy Elite & Punditocracy's (AFPE&P) knickers in a twist is that Russia and China now have the military capacity to deter them conventionally.

The AFPE&P are consumed, indeed, fixated, on having 'leverage' and 'freedom of action' and it drives them utterly out of their minds to be deprived of both.

[rkka]

It was so funny when then Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk announced to the world that the USSR invaded Europe through Ukraine in 1944 and that Ukraine would prevent such an awful event in the future.

So now it appears that the Banderastani mental disease has spread the Romanian general staff...