Fake News Lies From Iraq to Serbia & Ukraine

The short memory of Ursula von der Leyen

In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the media broadcast sad images of the population fleeing the conflict: they are the defenseless victims before whom any war can only be unjust, obscene. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, recalled that children are the first victims, and accused Putin of having brought war back to Europe after the Second World War. However, she has a short memory: the war in Europe had already taken place in the Balkans in the 1990s, culminating in the NATO bombardment of Belgrade, also the European capital.

As Luciana Castellina recalls in the Manifesto: “On March 24, at 8:25 p.m., the first bombing of Belgrade; on the 26th the “operations”, called humanitarian interventions, already numbered 500. They will last 78 days and will unload 2,700 tonnes of explosives”.

Humanitarian bombings in Belgrade

Several thousand civilians died in these 'humanitarian bombings', many of which departed from Italy, including buses full of people injured crossing bridges, including the same Kosovars they were supposedly fighting for, massacred by bombers as they fled the war. Were there no children in Belgrade? There were, but their faces did not appear in our newspapers; not even years later, as they continued to be decimated by the unusual spike in childhood cancers caused by the depleted (humanitarian?) uranium that NATO bombs were made of.

Castellina continues: “This is the first time that selective enforcement of rights has been done with such shamelessness. In this case, the self-determination of peoples, recognized, in Europe, only to Kosovars, who therefore automatically become “patriots”, although resolution 1160 of March 3, 1998 of the UN Security Council defines them as “ terrorists”. At the same time, and therefore, the assumption of ethnically-based states is supported against any principle enshrined in the treaties of the European Union, according to which the dangerous link between ethnicity and citizenship must be rejected”.

Not to mention Iraq

In short, the precedent is there, and we have given it. And I'm not even talking about the distant wars, outside of Europe, like the invasion of Iraq on bases which we all now know are completely specious (weapons of mass destruction), we also know by whom such gigantic lies have been built (the Bush Jr. and Blair governments), we know that they caused at least half a million deaths, we know that weapons prohibited by international conventions were used (white phosphorus on civilians in Fallujah ), none of the creators of such colossal fake news (use a fashionable term today) are known to have ever been prosecuted (indeed they all live rich and peaceful), but I don't recall having seen around the pictures of social media profiles with the Iraqi flag,

Of course, not all deaths are the same; obviously the media play a role in influencing our reactions. Today, photos of Ukrainian citizens rescuing dogs and cats pass on our screens or on social networks, as well as the classic of incubators with newborns, already the mainstay of American propaganda on Kuwait before the 1993 Gulf War: for each war the same propaganda images are repeated and Westerners with short memories and tears on command pull out their handkerchiefs. If the images are not there (see Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Belgrade) no one is moved.

Amnesic media

The media, with few exceptions, play an important role in this story. Whatever our memory, forgetting plays a major role. All the steps that were taken by a Ukraine that relied on American support seem to have fallen into oblivion: but did that help you? It was of no use to Georgia in the early 2000s, which went from an alliance with Russia (with which it had excellent economic relations and where it sold its excellent products that no one buys anymore ) to that with the United States of Bush Jr.; there too it was made to believe that harboring American weapons and waging wars on the border, where the Russian population was most present, would have given reason to the country, which now finds itself with an impoverished population, largely diasporic, with pensions and wages to the starving, with fine wines and unsold foodstuffs, for European and American friends do nothing. And yet, at least among young people, the belief circulates that the enemy is Russia.

The Georgian example and friend Saakashvili

The president who initiated this virtuous process, Mikheil Saak'ashvili, in office between 2004 and 2013, was indicted in 2014 by the justice of his country, for trifles including fraud and murder; of course, the United States and the European Union spoke out against the judicial system, but in the meantime Saak'ashvili moved to Ukraine.

Here the government of the country saw fit to give him the government of the Odessa region. With the mediation of French EU politician Raphaël Glucksmann, with whom Saak'ashvili wrote a book on (guess what?) "freedom", Glusksmann who first married Eka Zgouladze, deputy interior minister in Georgia. Glucksmann is interested in the human rights of everyone except Georgians, since before the escape of Saak'ashvili and Zgouladze, videos of the torture suffered by prisoners in the country's prisons were released; in short, the beautiful couple receives Ukrainian citizenship and will govern Odessa. Due to his good government, Saak'ashvili was also expelled from Ukraine, becoming stateless, as no one wanted to return his passport to him: until the new Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, in 2019, reinstated him and appointed him head of the National Reform Council. (…)

2014 Odessa massacre

On the other hand, the same Azovian militias massacred dozens of Russian civilians in 2014, killed in cold blood as they took refuge in an apartment building to escape street riots. In addition, the war in Ukraine took place from 2014, since the conflict in the east of the country left thousands dead, with the obvious desire of the militias to carry out ethnic cleansing against the Russians, who in this represent a significant part of the population. In this case, apparently, the ethnic cleansing does not stop at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. There was even the case of Andrea Rocchelli, the Italian reporter-photographer killed by the Ukrainian militiamen themselves, still in 2014, in the Donbass: a murder investigated by Italian justice, which identified specific responsibilities ,

The beginnings of Maidan

Just as the sensational massacre of February 20, 2014 no longer echoes, during protests against the pro-Russian government, government forces are said to have fired into crowds, killing civilians and even policemen. It was the episode that decreed the end of government and triggered everything that happened after, up to contemporary events. In 2018, an episode of The Matrix, as well as the Italian press (at least the Manifesto and the Giornale talked about it a lot) and the Israeli press, revealed how Georgian snipers were in fact hired by an American infiltrator. Also in this case, Mikheil Saak'ashvili is the protagonist. Excerpt from the Manifesto: “The reactionary mass Maidan movement which shook Kiev just 4 years ago and led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government, reached its climax on February 20 and 21, 2014 during the exchange of fire between the Berkut police (the guard chosen by the government) and the demonstrators, more than a hundred people died. […] One of the two Georgians, interviewed a few days ago by two European television stations and also yesterday by the Moscow news agency Interfax, Alexander Revazishvili remembers: “Mamulashvili arrived at our tent on Maidan square ( a close associate of Michail Shakashivili, former president of Georgia, editor's note) with a Ukrainian who called himself Andrea, but especially with an American in camouflage uniform, a former army soldier, who introduced himself as Christopher Brian”.

A mysterious Bryan

The mysterious Bryan was introduced as an “entrepreneur instructor”. The circumstance is confirmed by the other Georgian "entrepreneur", Koba Nergadze, who met Bryan separately but this time in the presence of Shakashivili himself. Nergadze said: “Current national security chief Sergey Pashinsky was also present at the meeting. Orders were given by Bryan and translated to us into Georgian by Mamumashvili. A group of “entrepreneurs” led by Pashinsky and made up of Lithuanians, Poles and Georgians should have gone to the Conservatory building, but we didn't know what to do. […] ”

“Early in the morning — Nergadze still remembers — around 8 o'clock I heard gunshots coming from the Conservatory. After three or four minutes, Mamulashvili's group also started shooting from Hotel Ukraine. The two groups of snipers fired at both the police and the protesters, trying to kill as many people as possible”. “Pashinsky helped me choose the shooting positions. Around 7:30 a.m. (or possibly later), Pashinsky ordered everyone to prepare to open fire. Should have fired 2 or 3 shots and then changed position to make the shots look random. We continued for about 10–15 minutes. Afterwards, we were ordered to abandon our weapons and leave the building”.

Some sources on Maidan

If you search the web for information about the massacre, you will find denials from the “Stopfake” group, in which pro-government Ukrainians are active. You will also find the analyzes of Ivan Katchanovski, a researcher at the University of Ottawa, Canada, who has published many reconstructions of these events in open access, translating the testimonies of survivors who speak clearly of the snipers on the surrounding buildings. [Editor's note:  Snipers place Maidan in Kiev ]Or, to get an idea, I advise you to read Western Mainstream Media and the Ukraine Crisis: A Study in Conflict Propaganda by Oliver Boyd-Barrett, of the very American Bowling Green University of Kentucky, published by the publishing house English Routledge in 2016. Introduction: “This book explores contemporary propaganda and Western mainstream media, with reference to the Ukrainian crisis. Examine Western media accounts of the immediate causes of the crisis, the respective roles of those who attended or otherwise supported the 2013–2014 protests—including US-backed NGOs and right-wing militias—and s whether or not they have been legitimized. The democratically elected Yanukovych government. Evaluate reports on the role of Russia and ethnic Russian Ukrainians in Crimea,

An assault on Parliament, but democratic

Let us recall that following this massacre, the government of Yanukovych, an elected government, was forced to flee the country after armed militias had invaded the parliament: all that follows finds its origin in an act of profound illegality; why we are outraged by the far less bloody assault on Capitol Hill, when this US-EU backed coup, led by militiamen with in the lead a country “ethnically” Ukrainian, we consider is this a proof of democracy? Calls for reasonableness had already come in 2014 from politicians little suspected of being pro-Russian like Henry Kissinger, who said that assuming Kiev's entry into the European Union and NATO would inevitably lead to war. , and wishing Ukraine a situation similar to that of Finland, which cooperates economically with Western Europe, but remains neutral. And instead, today, once again, Raphaël Glucksmann, Mikheil Saakashvili's French adviser, appears, signing an appeal with a hundred other French politicians and "intellectuals" to ask for the official recognition of the Ukraine as a candidate state to the European Union. It's enough, I think, to try to get an independent idea, which goes beyond the one-sided narrative that crosses Western media these days. 

There is no doubt that Ukrainians are largely, like Georgians before them, victims. But from whom? And instead, today, once again, Raphaël Glucksmann, Mikheil Saakashvili's French adviser, appears, signing an appeal with a hundred other French politicians and "intellectuals" to ask for the official recognition of the Ukraine as a candidate state to the European Union. It's enough, I think, to try to get an independent idea, which goes beyond the one-sided narrative that crosses Western media these days. There is no doubt that Ukrainians are largely, like Georgians before them, victims. But who are the real victimisers? 

Translation of an article of February 27, 2022 published by Marina Montessano on the blog of the Italian medievalist Franco Cardini of the University of Florence, published in open forum by L'Observatoire du Journalisme chaired by Claude Chollet .

Source: francocardini.it via ojim.fr

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