{"id":129267,"date":"2019-03-25T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=129267"},"modified":"2019-04-01T11:54:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T10:54:02","slug":"nyts-expose-on-the-lies-about-burning-aid-trucks-in-venezuela-shows-how-u-s-government-and-media-spread-pro-war-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/03\/nyts-expose-on-the-lies-about-burning-aid-trucks-in-venezuela-shows-how-u-s-government-and-media-spread-pro-war-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT\u2019s Expos\u00e9 on the Lies about Burning Aid Trucks in Venezuela Shows How U.S. Government and Media Spread Pro-War Propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 Mar 2019 – <\/em>Every major U.S. war of the last several decades has begun the same way: the U.S. government fabricates an inflammatory, emotionally provocative lie which large U.S. media outlets uncritically treat as truth while refusing at air questioning or dissent, thus inflaming primal anger against the country the U.S. wants to attack. That\u2019s how we got the Vietnam War (North\u00a0Vietnam attacks U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin<\/a>); the Gulf War (Saddam ripped babies from incubators<\/a>); and, of course, the war in Iraq (Saddam had WMDs<\/a> and formed an alliance with Al Qaeda<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This was exactly the tactic used on February 23, when the narrative shifted radically in favor of those U.S. officials who want regime change operations in Venezuela. That\u2019s because images were broadcast all over the world of trucks carrying humanitarian aid burning in Colombia on the Venezuela border. U.S. officials who have been agitating for a regime change\u00a0war in Venezuela \u2013 Marco Rubio, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, the head of USAid Mark Green \u2013 used Twitter to spread classic Fake News: they vehemently stated that the trucks were set on fire, on purpose, by President Nicolas Maduro\u2019s forces.<\/p>\n

Each of the trucks burned by Maduro carried 20 tons of food & medicine. This is a crime & if international law means anything he must pay a high price for this. #23FAyudaHumanitaria<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/IrGzrOUX09<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 23, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Masked thugs, civilians killed by live rounds, and the burning of trucks carrying badly-needed food and medicine. This has been Maduro\u2019s response to peaceful efforts to help Venezuelans. Countries that still recognize Maduro should take note of what they are endorsing. pic.twitter.com\/KlSebd2M5a<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) February 23, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

.@SecPompeo<\/a>: We denounce Maduro\u2019s refusal to let humanitarian assistance reach #Venezuela<\/a>. What kind of a sick tyrant stops food from getting to hungry people? The images of burning trucks filled with aid are sickening. https:\/\/t.co\/zzFNYVly2c<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 USConsulateFrankfurt (@usconsfrankfurt) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

#Maduro<\/a> ordering the firing on and burning of trucks filled with
\nhumanitarian aid & attacking volunteers is unconscionable. I condemn the killings & human rights abuses committed by Maduro. Violent attacks against life-saving aid for #Venezuela<\/a> is despicable. #EstamosUnidosVE<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/BOSuVP1mTL<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Green (@USAIDMarkGreen) February 23, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As it always does \u2013\u00a0as it always has done from its inception when Wolf Blitzer embedded with U.S. troops<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 CNN led the way in not just spreading these government lies but independently purporting to vouch for their truth. On February 24, CNN told the world what we all now know is an absolute lie<\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0that \u201ca CNN team saw incendiary devices from police on the Venezuelan side of the border ignite the trucks,\u201d though it generously added that \u201cthe network\u2019s journalists are unsure if the trucks were burned on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other media outlets endorsed the lie while at least avoiding what CNN did by personally vouching for it. \u201cHumanitarian aid destined for Venezuela\u00a0was set on fire, seemingly by troops loyal to Mr Maduro,\u201d The Telegraph claimed<\/a>. The BBC uncritically printed<\/a>: \u201cThere have also been reports of several aid trucks being burned \u2013 something Mr Guaid\u00f3 said was a violation of the Geneva Convention.\u201d<\/p>\n

That lie \u2013 supported by incredibly powerful video images \u2013 changed everything. Ever since, that Maduro burned trucks filled with humanitarian aid was repeated over and over as proven fact on U.S. news outlets. Immediately after it was claimed, politicians who had been silent on the issue of Venezuela or even reluctant to support regime change began issuing statements now supportive of it. U.S. news stars and think tank luminaries who lack even a single critical brain cell when it comes to war-provoking claims from U.S. officials took a leading role in beating the war drums without spending even a single second to ask whether what they were being told were true:<\/p>\n

This is just evil https:\/\/t.co\/kDOJBZ48td<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Kasie Hunt (@kasie) February 23, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But on Saturday night, the New York Times published a detailed video<\/a> and accompanying article <\/a>proving that this entire story was a lie. The humanitarian trucks were not set on fire by Maduro\u2019s forces. They were set on fire by anti-Maduro protesters who threw a molotov cocktail that hit one of the trucks. And the NYT\u2019s video traces how the lie spread: from U.S. officials who baselessly announced that Maduro burned them to media outlets that mindlessly repeated the lie.<\/p>\n

While the NYT\u2019s article and video are perfectly good and necessary journalism, the credit they are implicitly claiming for themselves for exposing this lie is totally undeserved. That\u2019s because independent journalists \u2013 the kind who question rather than mindlessly repeat government claims and are therefore mocked and marginalized and kept off mainstream television \u2013 used exactly this same evidence\u00a0on the day of the incident\u00a0<\/em>to debunk the lies being told by Rubio, Pompeo, Bolton and CNN.<\/p>\n

On February 24, the day the lie spread, Max Blumenthal wrote from Venezuela<\/a>, on the independent reporting Grayzone site, that \u201cthe claim was absurd on its face,\u201d noting that he \u201cpersonally witnessed tear gas canisters hit every kind of vehicle imaginable in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and I have never seen a fire like the one that erupted on the Santander bridge.\u201d He compiled substantial evidence strongly suggesting that the trucks were set ablaze by anti-Maduro<\/em> protesters, including Bloomberg video showing them using Molotov cocktails<\/a>, to express serious doubts about the mainstream narrative. On Twitter, in response to Marco Rubio\u2019s lie, he wrote:<\/p>\n

I did not see any Venezuelan government forces set fire to US aid trucks on the Colombian side of the border. And neither did you. Actually, the evidence so far is pointing in the other direction. https:\/\/t.co\/AVBPYtFMiR<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This video found by @graffitiborrao<\/a> appears to show the moment when an opposition guarimbero throws a Molotov cocktail on a truck loaded with US aid: pic.twitter.com\/Z4Bg6dL4BR<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, others \u2013 who use their brains to\u00a0critically evaluate <\/em>what the U.S. Government says when it\u2019s trying to start a new war, <\/em>rather than mindlessly\u00a0recite those claims as Truth, as U.S. media stars do \u2013 used the exact same evidence cited by the NYT last night to show that it was\u00a0anti-Maduro protesters<\/em>, not Maduro troops, who set the trucks on fire. But they were able to do it in the\u00a0hours immediately following the incident, not three weeks later \u2013 but, needless to say, they were ignored by U.S. media outlets:<\/p>\n

Here’s the moment when the trucks caught fire from a molotov coming from the Colombian side. https:\/\/t.co\/vlZKzJpbRu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The reports that say the Venezuelan Army (GNB) set humanitarian aid trucks on fire by shooting tear gas canisters at them from afar are a falsemedia stunt. Tear gas will not light anything on fire.<\/em><\/p>\n

Also- look at where the trucks were vs where the GNB line was. pic.twitter.com\/y7tyugOXXj<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

You have no evidence of who set the aid truck on fire and these photos indicate your guarimberos had a hand in it. pic.twitter.com\/VsvMDo2XaS<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

.@marcorubio<\/a>\u2019s lie debunked: This video shows an opposition protester throwing a Molotov cocktail at the aid truck on the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge connecting Venezuela and Colombia. pic.twitter.com\/4IgTt2u4pJ<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) February 24, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those last two tweets \u2013 using video footage to debunk the lies spread by Marco Rubio, CNN and the U.S. Government \u2013 happen to be from a correspondent with RT America. Please tell me: who was acting here as lying propagandists and agents of State TV, and who was acting like a journalist trying to understand and report the truth?<\/p>\n

So everything the New York Times so proudly reported last night has been known for weeks, and was already reported in great detail, using extensive evidence, by a large number of people. But because those people are generally skeptical of the U.S. Government\u2019s claims and critical of its foreign policy, they were ignored and mocked and are generally barred from appearing on television, while the liars from the U.S. Government and their allies in the corporate media were, as usual, given a platform to spread their lies without any challenge or dissent, just like the manual for how to maintain State TV intructs.<\/p>\n

Indeed, none of the people questioning the original claim about the burning trucks, or citing this evidence<\/em> to argue that the U.S. Government and its Venezuelan ally\u00a0Guaid\u00f3 were lying, ever made it onto national television to present their dissent. They weren\u2019t allowed on. To the extent they were acknowledged at all, it was to defame them as Maduro apologists \u2013\u00a0for telling the truth \u2013\u00a0<\/em>just as those who tried to combat the propaganda of 2002 and 2003 were smeared as being pro-Saddam.\u00a0Only Rubio, Bolton, Pompeo, and various other U.S. officials were permitted to spread their lies without any challenge.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s particularly notable since the Russian Government, a long-time ally of the Maduro government, themselves published the evidence showing this was a lie. Claims from the Russian or Venezuelan governments deserves as much skepticism as the claims of any other government, but they at least deserve to be heard. But the corporate U.S. media \u2013 precisely because it is State TV even as it is loves to accuse others of being that<\/em> \u2013\u00a0never airs the views of governments adverse to the U.S. Government except in the most cursory and mocking way:<\/p>\n

#HandsOffVenezuela<\/a> Footage from the Venezuela-Colombia border incident has emerged showing US-backed opposition throwing Molotov cocktails at the @USAID<\/a> trucks + “opposition activists” openly preparing incendiary devices \u2013 https:\/\/t.co\/UIMYNEjAnV<\/a>. Do you believe:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Russia in RSA ?? (@EmbassyofRussia) February 25, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be noted that this is not the first time outrights lies were spread by the U.S. Government and the U.S. media to inflame regime change against Venezuela. A photograph of a bridge between Colombia and Venezuela was broadcast all over the world as proof that Maduro was blocking humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n

But the CBC \u2013 to their great credit \u2013 published a long apology<\/a> noting that they, too, had fallen for this propaganda by publishing the photo of the bridge to support this narrative when, in fact, that bridge had been closed years\u00a0earlier due to tensions between the two countries.\u00a0Few, if any, of the U.S. media outlets that spread that lie offered a similar correction or apology.<\/p>\n

Equally false is the widespread, popular media claim that Maduro has refused to allow any humanitarian aid to enter Venezuela. That, too, is an outright lie.\u00a0The Venezuelan government\u00a0has allowed substantial amounts<\/a> of aid into their country from countries that have not threatened<\/a> to overthrow\u00a0the President with an external coup; Maduro has only blocked trucks and planes from entering that come from those countries (the U.S, Brazil, Colombia) that have been threatening Venezuela<\/a>.\u00a0something any country would do.<\/p>\n

Indeed, both the Red Cross and the United Nations\u00a0expressed concerns about<\/a>\u00a0\u201chumanitarian aid\u201d from the U.S. on the ground that it was a pretext<\/a> for regime change and would politicize humanitarian aid). Even NPR recognized that<\/a> \u201cthe U.S. effort to distribute tons of food and medicine to needy Venezuelans is more than just a humanitarian mission. The operation is also designed to foment regime change in Venezuela \u2014 which is why much of the international aid community wants nothing to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That concern is obviously valid given the history of Elliott Abrams, the envoy leading U.S. policy in Venezuela, of exploiting \u201chumanitarian aid\u201d as a scam<\/a>\u00a0to smuggle weapons and other tools to overthrow Latin American governments he dislikes \u2013 another fact rarely if ever mentioned in U.S. media reports.<\/p>\n

If you want to watch vintage “State TV,” watch this clip: a reporter embedded with US military, uncritically spouting every line from the US Government’s regime change effort, omitting key facts (like Elliott Abrams previously used humanitarian aid pretexts to smuggle weapons): https:\/\/t.co\/T6NOiqMWRr<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 17, 2019<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What we have here is classic Fake News \u2013 spread on Twitter, by U.S. officials and U.S. media stars \u2013 with the clear and malicious intent to start a war. But no\u00a0western proponents of social media censorship will call for their accounts to be cancelled\u00a0nor call for their posts to be deleted. That\u2019s because \u201cFake News\u201d and the war against it is strictly a means of combating propaganda by U.S. adversaries<\/em>; the U.S.\u00a0and its allies<\/a> maintain\u00a0extensive<\/a> programs to spread Fake News online<\/a> and none of those anti-Fake News crusaders call for those to be shut down.<\/p>\n

And the next time claims are made about Venezuela designed to fuel regime change and wars, the\u00a0independent journalists and analysts who were absolutely\u00a0right in this instance \u2013 who recognized and documented the lies of the U.S. Government weeks before the New York Times did \u2013 will again be ignored or, at best, mocked. Meanwhile, those in the media and Foreign Policy Community who uncritically amplified and spread this dangerous lie will be treated as the Serious People whose pronouncements are the only ones worth hearing. With rare exception<\/a>, dissent on Venezuela will continue to be barred.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the U.S. media, by design, does not permit dissent on U.S. foreign policy, particularly when it comes to false claims about U.S. adversaries. That\u2019s why skeptics of U.S. regime change in Venezuela, or dissenters on the prevailing orthodoxies about Russia, have largely been disappeared from mainstream media outlets, just as they were in 2002 and 2003.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not because U.S. media stars are ordered to do this. They don\u2019t need to be ordered. They know propaganda is their job. More to the point, they are \u00fcber-patriotic jingoists who revere U.S. officials and thus do not possess a single cell of critical thinking in their brain. That\u2019s why they have TV programs in the first place. If they weren\u2019t this way, they wouldn\u2019t be on TV, as Noam Chomsky put it to the BBC\u2019s Andrew Marr so perfectly in this short clip from many years ago (the whole three-minute context, well worth watching, is here<\/a>). This tells the whole story of this sordid affair in Venezuela:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Y2EPgix5_5w<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald<\/a> – glenn.greenwald@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 Mar 2019 – Independent journalists skeptical of government claims proved these lies weeks ago, but the propagandistic U.S. media ignored them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":73676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,62,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-media","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}