"In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information, the Washington Post reported that the national security state had swelled into a “fourth branch” of the federal government - with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security organizations, and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year." Alfred W. McCoy
You'd probably have to know about CIA's unimaginable history of infiltration in the world, not least in the Western world in the twentieth century, to even consider that the esteemed Alternet could be involved with the CIA. So let me begin by referring a bit history from another time, where people also had no idea of the extent of the CIA infiltration and dirty influence in the Western states.
It is well documented how CIA had an incredibly big and dirty anti-democratic influence all over the world. But that was also true, perhaps more surprisingly, when it comes to CIA's role in the Western states. Everybody should know that throughout the twentieth century the CIA systematically sponsored and played, if not everybody and everything in the Western world, then at least so much that it begs belief. CIA's (corporate) agendas were about destroying left wing politics and political views and about protecting and covering up US imperialism as if it was a rational policy. CIA needed people and writing that would cover up for the Western mass murders and destructions of democracies and nations worldwide and the very real robbing of the peoples' resources. CIA was also working systematically to destroy all understanding and sympathy for communist, socialist, and even social democratic political ideas and philosophies. Here is an excerpt from Edward Said's review of
Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, 1999 Frances Stonor Saunders (
Book link):
"E.P. Thompson called it the ‘Natopolitan’ world: that is, not just Nato plus all the Cold War military and political institutions that were integral to it, but also a mentality whose web extended over a lot more activity and thought, even in the minds of individuals, than anyone at the time had suspected. Of course there were the revelations in the mid-Sixties about Encounter and the CIA, and later in the US and Britain a stream of disclosures about covert counter-insurgency in every form, from secretly underwritten academic research to assassinations and mass killings.
Yet it still gives me an eerie feeling to read about people like George Orwell, Stephen Spender and Raymond Aron, to say nothing of less admirable characters of the Melvin Lasky stripe, taking part in surreptitiously subsidised anti-Communist ventures – magazines, symphony orchestras, art exhibitions – or in the setting up of foundations in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. One of the rare dissenters, Charles Burton Marshall, is quoted here as saying that this bizarre operation to ‘counter Communism’ by trying ‘to break down ... doctrinaire thought patterns’ and anti-American attitudes throughout the world was ‘just about as totalitarian as one can get’." 'Hey, Mister, you want dirty book?' Edward Said, LRB,1999 Link
Western Media function like in a Totalitarian State
"Dr. Ulfkotte says the corruption of journalists and major news outlets by the CIA is routine, accepted, and widespread in the western media, and that journalists who do not comply either cannot get jobs at any news organization, or find their careers cut short. (..) I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligen-ce services, especially the German secret service." Editor of major German newspaper [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung] Says He Planted Stories for the CIA, Link 2015
There is no doubt that the CIA today, more than ever, has an enormous power over the Western media. Yet, most Western people do not have the faintest idea about CIA's involvement in the media. This is as it should be, seen from CIA's desks, for to be able to exert the most effective influence it is crucial that it is done in the dark. It must be done in a manner, so that the CIA's planted stories and controlled narratives are seen as the natural outcome of actual journalism. And this is clearly done so perfectly that even the mentioning of CIA with regard to influence in our media would be disregarded as laughable 'conspiracy theorizing' by most people. In short, CIA has managed to make it a taboo to talk about them in relation to the Western media. Just as it is a taboo to talk about CIA's dirty role in current foreign policy. And of course, unless people are officially employed by the CIA, we never see anyone, journalists or academics admitting in the public that they work for the CIA. So, as everybody knows, we never see any Western politician, journalist or academic criticize CIA's role in the world.
On the other hand, we have a reality where the Western media more than ever sing in concert and never come up with reports and view points that contradict NATO's agenda and constructed narratives. This is obviously not to say that all the different media say precisely the same thing on each (fabricated) narrative. Already Goebbels was acutely
aware of the necessity of a big orchester playing tunes from an apparently plethora of independent source.
Alternet is one of the more respected American media sites with often important critical journalism. Ben Norton has a reputation as a particularly critical minded journalist, when it comes to US foreign policy. Given that Norton exists in a very large choir of Western media completely non-critical and subservient to the US offical line, it is easy to understand Norton's reputation. And it is easy to understand the sympathy his writings get from like-minded readers critical about US foreign policy.
My case-study critique here of Ben Norton's recent report on Western media, NATO and Libya's alleged slave trade can best be understood as a symptom of how much our media generally work for NATO's agendas and provides legitimacy for illegal wars. My hope is that by showing how problematic one of the most critical journalist is on an important issue, people can begin to appreciate that we need much, much more critical reporting if we shall be able to counter NATO's narratives - and 'interventions'.
The problem is that NATO's and CIA's narratives to legitimize 'interventions' [read: wars] are so completely false and deceitful that unless one contradicts them completely, one supports them. Only the most cynical analytical approach to NATO's motives, lies and fabricated 'evidence' can do justice to what the Western nations actually do around the world. It is here that we need to scrutinize and criticize the most apparently critical journalism, for if it do not do the job, it is most likely helping the very agendas and narratives that it purports to go against.
If we shall have any hope of putting a stop to NATO's nation destructions, people must understand the very deadly consequences of Western media, when they legitimize NATO 'interventions'. It is a sociological fact that all the late NATO interventions would be impossible without our journalists' willingness to support the lies. The Western media's support of the lies is a necessity for Western imperialism and NATO interventions. If the journalists began reporting the critical information available they would stop the wars. But the journalists cannot do it by themselves. They need academic support to be able to gain the necessary social power. A more concerted intellectual dismantling of the lies provided by corrupt journalism can therefore, in principle, save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. It is no accident that journalists were also convicted at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
The totalitarian Character of the Western Media
People finally need to realize that Western journalists work so completely together to legitimize the rationality if not necessity of NATO interventions - as if they were controlled to do so. Now, such a complete conspiracy behind Western media is exactly what the former German editor of Frankfurter Allgeimene Zeitung said is the reality. And after having followed the Western media close the past couple of years, everything suggest that the German editor told us the truth.
how can we realize this .. will write tomorrow..
Media Lens, Fair and Sputnik are tricked by the overt semantics
Ben Norton has written an article on NATO's responsibility for the alleged 'slave trade' in Libya today. In the article he criticizes the Western mainstream media for not telling about the slave trade and for not reporting on NATO's responsibility creating the situation in Libya today. It is certainly true that NATO bears the responsibility for the situation in Libya today (but there is more to the story than meets the eye). And Media Lens, Fair and Sputnik enthusiastically shares his story and explanations. Here is what Media Lens wrote on their Facebook wall (November 29, 2017):
"This is a superb piece by Ben Norton about the shocking slave trade in Libya: a consequence of Nato's bombing campaign in 2011 and Nato's support for extremist racist 'rebels'. And how the corporate media has essentially buried these uncomfortable facts.===Media Erase NATO Role in Bringing Slave Markets to Libya
'Twenty-first century slave markets. Human beings sold for a few hundred dollars. Massive protests throughout the world.
'The American and British media have awakened to the grim reality in Libya, where African refugees are for sale in open-air slave markets. Yet a crucial detail in this scandal has been downplayed or even ignored in many corporate media reports: the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in bringing slavery to the North African nation.
'...to acknowledge NATO’s complicity in empowering these racist extremist militants, corporate media would have to acknowledge NATO’s role in the 2011 regime change war in Libya in the first place'."
Norton leaves out the most critical points for a true explanation of NATO's agenda and dirty involvement i Libya. While he in effect come to support the CNN narrative and opens up for yet another NATO 'intervention'.
I have great respect for Media Lens, so this is just what it is: a critique of Norton's explanations. To help Media Lens, Fair and Sputnik spreading truth instead of lies. Below is my sociological reasoning for accusing Ben Norton and - consequently - Alternet.
Below his words Norton asks for new NATO Intervention in Libya
“Omission is the most powerful form of lie.” – George Orwell
Let me begin by telling you what Ben Norton actually did tell us of importance. The then move on the focusing on what he did not but should have told us. I will use his article in Fair and his interview on Sputnik: 'All things Middle East on today's episode of By Any Means Necessary. Show favorite Ben Norton joins Eugene and Sean for the hour." Nov 29, 2017
Enough for today. More tomorrow.
