{"id":265483,"date":"2024-07-01T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=265483"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:19:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:19:50","slug":"did-the-west-provoke-the-ukraine-war-sorry-that-question-has-been-cancelled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/did-the-west-provoke-the-ukraine-war-sorry-that-question-has-been-cancelled\/","title":{"rendered":"Did the West Provoke the Ukraine War? Sorry, That Question Has Been Cancelled"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

26 Jun 2024 <\/em>– Is it possible for an entire \u2018mainstream\u2019 media system \u2013 every newspaper, website, TV channel \u2013 to completely suppress one side of a crucial argument without anyone expressing outrage, or even noticing? Consider the following.<\/p>\n

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In February 2022, Nigel Farage, former and future leader of the Reform UK party, tweeted<\/a> that Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine was:<\/p>\n

\u2018A consequence of EU and NATO expansion, which came to a head in 2014. It made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a recent interview, the BBC reminded Farage of this comment. He responded<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man [Putin] a reason to his Russian people to say they\u2019re coming for us again, and to go to war.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ve provoked this war \u2013 of course it\u2019s his fault \u2013 he\u2019s used what we\u2019ve done as an excuse.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The BBC quickly made this a major news story by publishing a front page, top headline piece <\/a>by BBC journalist Becky Morton who cited, and repeated, high-level sources attacking Farage. Morton wrote:<\/p>\n

\u2018Former Conservative Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who is not standing in the election, told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme Mr Farage was like a \u201cpub bore we\u2019ve all met at the end of the bar\u201d.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

\u2018Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly said Mr Farage was echoing Mr Putin\u2019s \u201cvile justification\u201d for the war and Labour branded him \u201cunfit\u201d for any political office.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Morton then repeated both criticisms:<\/p>\n

\u2018Mr Wallace \u2013 who oversaw the UK\u2019s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 \u2013 said Mr Farage \u201cis a bit like that pub bore we\u2019ve all met at the end of the bar\u201d and often presents \u201cvery simplistic answers\u201d to complex problems.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

\u2018Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly said, Mr Farage was \u201cechoing Putin\u2019s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine\u201d.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Morton piled on the pain:<\/p>\n

\u2018Labour defence spokesman John Healey said Mr Farage\u2019s comments made him \u201cunfit for any political office in our country, let alone leading a serious party in Parliament\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Former Nato Secretary General Lord Robertson accused Mr Farage of \u201cparroting the Kremlin Line\u201d and \u201cproducing new excuses for the brutal, unprovoked attack\u201d.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wallace, Cleverly, Healey and Robertson are all, of course, influential, high-profile figures; compiling their criticisms in this way sent a powerful message to BBC readers. Remarkably, one might think \u2013 given the BBC\u2019s supposed devotion to presenting \u2018both sides\u2019 of an argument \u2013 Morton offered no source of any kind in support of Farage\u2019s argument.<\/p>\n

The BBC intensified its coverage by opening a \u2018Live\u2019 blog<\/a> (reserved for top news stories, disasters and scandals) on the issue, titled:<\/p>\n

\u2018Farage \u201cwon\u2019t apologise\u201d for Ukraine comments after Starmer and Sunak criticism\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The BBC reported:<\/p>\n

\u2018Keir Starmer has called Nigel Farage\u2019s comments on Ukraine \u201cdisgraceful\u201d as Rishi Sunak says they play into Putin\u2019s hands\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, nowhere in the \u2018Live\u2019 blog coverage did the BBC cite arguments in support of Farage\u2019s argument. Is it because they don\u2019t exist?<\/p>\n

In June 2022, Ramzy Baroud interviewed <\/a>Noam Chomsky:<\/p>\n

\u2018Chomsky told us that it \u201cshould be clear that the (Russian) invasion of Ukraine has no (moral) justification.\u201d He compared it to the US invasion of Iraq, seeing it as an example of \u201csupreme international crime.\u201d With this moral question settled, Chomsky believes that the main \u201cbackground\u201d of this war, a factor that is missing in mainstream media coverage, is \u201cNATO expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018\u201dThis is not just my opinion,\u201d said Chomsky, \u201cit is the opinion of every high-level US official in the diplomatic services who has any familiarity with Russia and Eastern Europe. This goes back to George Kennan and, in the 1990s, Reagan\u2019s ambassador Jack Matlock, including the current director of the CIA; in fact, just everybody who knows anything has been warning Washington that it is reckless and provocative to ignore Russia\u2019s very clear and explicit red lines. That goes way before (Vladimir) Putin, it has nothing to do with him; (Mikhail) Gorbachev, all said the same thing. Ukraine and Georgia cannot join NATO, this is the geostrategic heartland of Russia.\u201d\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We know people are interested in Chomsky\u2019s views on the Ukraine war because when we posted<\/a> a comment from him on X it received 430,000 views and 7,000 likes (huge numbers by our standards).<\/p>\n

In 2022, John Pilger commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018The news from the war in Ukraine is mostly not news, but a one-sided litany of jingoism, distortion, omission.\u00a0 I have reported a number of wars and have never known such blanket propaganda.<\/p>\n

\u2018In February, Russia invaded Ukraine as a response to almost eight years of killing and criminal destruction in the Russian-speaking region of Donbass on their border.<\/p>\n

\u2018In 2014, the United States had sponsored a coup in Kiev that got rid of Ukraine\u2019s democratically elected, Russian-friendly president and installed a successor whom the Americans made clear was their man.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pilger added:<\/p>\n

\u2018Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine is wanton and inexcusable. It is a crime to invade a sovereign country. There are no \u201cbuts\u201d \u2013 except one.<\/p>\n

\u2018When did the present war in Ukraine begin and who started it? According to the United Nations, between 2014 and this year, some 14,000 people have been killed in the Kiev regime\u2019s civil war on the Donbass. Many of the attacks were carried out by neo-Nazis.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In May 2023, economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Regarding the Ukraine War, the Biden administration has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the Ukraine War started with an unprovoked attack by Russia on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In fact, the war was provoked by the U.S. in ways that leading U.S. diplomats anticipated for decades in the lead-up to the war, meaning that the war could have been avoided and should now be stopped through negotiations.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Recognizing that the war was provoked helps us to understand how to stop it. It doesn\u2019t justify Russia\u2019s invasion.\u2019 (Our emphasis)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sachs has previously been presented as a credible source by the BBC on other issues. In 2007, Sachs gave<\/a> five talks for the BBC\u2019s Reith Lectures.<\/p>\n

The New Yorker magazine described <\/a>political scientist Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago as \u2018one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War\u2019. Mearsheimer commented:<\/p>\n

\u2018I think the evidence is clear that we did not think he [Putin] was an aggressor before February 22, 2014. This is a story that we invented so that we could blame him. My argument is that the West, especially the United States, is principally responsible for this disaster. But no American policymaker, and hardly anywhere in the American foreign-policy establishment, is going to want to acknowledge that line of argument\u2026\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are numerous other credible sources, including Benjamin Abelow, author of How The West Brought War to Ukraine<\/em> (Siland Press, 2022) and Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands<\/em> (Yale University Press, 2022). Journalist Ian Sinclair, author of The March That Shook Blair (<\/em>Peace News, 2013), published<\/a> a collection of material titled:<\/p>\n

\u2018Testimony from US government and military officials, and other experts, on the role of NATO expansion in creating the conditions for the Russian invasion of Ukraine\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sinclair cited, for example, current CIA Director William Burns:<\/p>\n

\u2018Sitting at the embassy in Moscow in the mid-nineties, it seemed to me that NATO expansion was premature at best and needlessly provocative at worst.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And George F. Kennan, a leading US Cold War diplomat:<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026something of the highest importance is at stake here. And perhaps it is not too late to advance a view that, I believe, is not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters. The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We can understand why the BBC might want to cite Sunak, Starmer, Wallace, Cleverly, Healey and Robertson, but we can\u2019t understand why it would ignore the counterarguments and sources cited above.<\/p>\n

It gets worse. A piece<\/a> in the Daily Mail essentially repeated the BBC performance with endless vitriolic comments again cited from Sunak, Starmer, Cleverly, Healey, Robertson and several others. And again, no counterarguments.<\/p>\n

A Reuters report<\/a> quoted Sunak and Healey but no counterarguments.<\/p>\n

ITV cited <\/a>former prime minister Boris Johnson:<\/p>\n

\u2018To try and spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin\u2019s lies.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No counterarguments were allowed, other than from Farage himself. At a recent rally, he held up a front-page headline from the i newspaper in 2016, which read, tragicomically:<\/p>\n

\u2018Boris blames EU for war in Ukraine\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That about sums up the state of both Boris Johnson and UK politics generally.<\/p>\n

The Telegraph cited Cleverly and other high-profile sources attacking Farage:<\/p>\n

\u2018Tobias Ellwood, the former Tory defence minister, told The Telegraph: \u201cChurchill will be turning in his grave. Putin, already enjoying how Farage is disrupting British politics, will be delighted to hear this talk of appeasement entering our election debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Lord West of Spithead, the former chief of the naval staff, said: \u201cAnyone who gives any seeming excuse to president Putin and his disgraceful attack \u2026 is standing into danger as regards their views on world affairs.\u201d James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: \u201cJust Farage echoing Putin\u2019s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Liam Fox, the former Tory defence secretary, told The Telegraph: \u201cThe West did not \u2018provoke this war\u2019 in Ukraine and it is shocking that Nigel Farage should say so.\u201d\u2019 (Daily Telegraph, \u2018Farage: West provoked Russia to attack Ukraine\u2019, 22 June 2024)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, all alternative views were ignored as non-existent.<\/p>\n

In the Independent, journalist Tom Watling packed his article <\/a>with comments from Sunak, Starmer and Wallace. Again, no counterarguments were allowed.<\/p>\n

The Guardian cited Sunak, Healey and Cleverly. Again, no counterarguments were included. (Peter Walker, \u2018Nigel Farage claims Russia was provoked into Ukraine war\u2019, The Guardian, 21 June 2024)<\/p>\n

With such limited resources, it is difficult for us to wade through all mentions of this story, but we will stick our necks out and suggest that it is quite possible that no sources supporting Farage\u2019s argument have been cited in any UK national newspaper.<\/p>\n

By any rational accounting, this \u2018mainstream\u2019 coverage is actually a form of totalitarian propaganda. It has denied the British public the ability to even understand the criticisms. Most people reading these reports will simply not understand why Farage made the claim \u2013 it is a taboo subject in \u2018mainstream\u2019 coverage \u2013 and so they have no way of making sense of either his argument or the backlash. This is deep bias presented as \u2018news\u2019. It is fake news.<\/p>\n

And this suppression of honest journalism in relation to one of the most dangerous and devastating wars of our time, in which our own country is deeply involved, is happening in the run up to what is supposed to be a democratic election.<\/p>\n

None of the above is intended as a defence of Farage\u2019s wider political stance. On the contrary, we agree <\/a>with political journalist Peter Oborne:<\/p>\n

\u2018Farage, a close ally of Donald Trump, who has supported Marine Le Pen in France and spoken at an AfD rally in Germany, fits naturally into the rancid politics of the far-right movements making ground across Europe and in the United States.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Farage and his far-right views have been endlessly platformed by the BBC.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the Ukraine war is only one of many key issues that are off the agenda for our choice-as-no-choice political system. In a rare example of dissent, Owen Jones commented <\/a>in the Guardian:<\/p>\n

\u2018Is this a serious country or not? It is egregious enough that this general election campaign is so stripped of discussion about the defining issues facing us at home for the next half decade, whether that be public spending, the NHS or education. But it is especially shocking how quickly the butchery in Gaza \u2013 and the position of this imploding government and its successor \u2013 has been forgotten.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jones noted:<\/p>\n

\u2018On Thursday night\u2019s BBC Question Time leaders\u2019 special, there was not a single question or answer on Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u2018Seriously? Clearly this is an issue that matters to many Britons.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier this month, Professor Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018The most astonishing thing about the UK election campaign is not what the leaders and parties are saying, but what they are NOT saying<\/p>\n

\u2018It beggars belief that the #climate is simply not an issue and \u2013 as far as I have heard \u2013 has not been addressed by either leader<\/p>\n

\u2018Just criminal\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It works like magic: two major political parties ostensibly representing the \u2018left\u2019 and \u2018right\u2019 of the political spectrum, but both actually serving the same establishment interests, naturally ignore issues that offend power. Establishment media can then also ignore these issues on the pretext that the party-political system covers the entire spectrum of thinkable thought, and that any ideas outside that \u2018spectrum\u2019 have no particular right to be heard at election time. Indeed, to venture beyond the carefully filtered bubble of party politics is seen as actually undemocratic. As one ITV journalist reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Outrage at Nigel Farage\u2019s comments about the war in Ukraine has drawn criticism from all corners of British politics.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not quite. They drew criticism from the select few corners of British politics that are allowed to exist in our \u2018managed democracy\u2019.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. In 2007,<\/em> Media Lens was awarded the <\/em>Gandhi Foundation International Peace Prize<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0We have written three co-authored books<\/em>:\u00a0Guardians of Power-The Myth of the Liberal Media <\/a>(Pluto Press, 2006),<\/em> Newspeak-In the 21st Century<\/a> (Pluto Press, 2009), and<\/em> Propaganda Blitz<\/a> (Pluto Press, 2018)<\/em>. Contacts: David Edwards: <\/em>editor@medialens.org<\/em><\/a> – David Cromwell: <\/em>editor@medialens.org<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 medialens.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Jun 2024 – Is it possible for an entire \u2018mainstream\u2019 media system–every newspaper, website, TV channel–to completely suppress one side of a crucial argument without anyone expressing outrage, or even noticing? Consider the following.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":121823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[2365,2314,1268,1392,378,1855,234,2462,91,2571,372,278,961,70,1365,172],"class_list":["post-265483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-cancel-culture","tag-corporate-media","tag-european-union","tag-john-pilger","tag-journalism","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-media","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-nato","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-propaganda","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-war-journalism","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265483","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=265483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265485,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265483\/revisions\/265485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}