Western mainstream media ‘tremendously dishonest’: Analyst
Western governments have long sought to mislead people by subjecting them to a systematic misinformation campaign through the mainstream media, says an American political analyst.
Scott Rickard, an Orlando-based former intelligence linguist, made the remarks while discussing recent revelations about the US government’s propaganda machine.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported on Sunday that the Pentagon had paid British PR firm Bell Pottinger over half a billion dollars in the wake of the 2003 Iraq invasion to create fake terrorist videos in a covert operation.
According to the report, both the White House and General David Petraeus, who was then commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, signed off on the content produced by the firm.
“It is no surprise here that Bell Pottinger is involved in propaganda and a tremendous amount of fake videos and fake new reports are coming out of not only Iraq, but also Syria and elsewhere,” Rickard said.
The analyst said Bell Pottinger was engaged in such activities in Syria and Libya years before those countries were swept by chaos and the new report amounts to a “declaration of guilt” for the media organization.
Rickard said the UK firm was part of a much larger propaganda network that has been “misleading” the public.
“It is a tremendous validation for all of us who have been saying that the media has been tremendously dishonest with us,” he noted.
According to Rickard, this approach was first adopted by the media during World War I as a tactic to draft more people to fight the war and eliminate whoever governments perceived as enemy.
“So you have a tremendous amount of propaganda that just continues to be poured upon the American people,” he added.
About one million people were killed in Iraq during the course of the US-led invasion and occupation from 2003 until 2011. The US military has returned to Iraq, this time under the pretext of the fight against Daesh terrorists.
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