I published a story on my blog for The Interpreter on Russia This Week about the debunking of the claims of the "white phosphorus bombs" supposedly used by the Ukrainian military, and discussed the coerced confession of two journalists who said they had been forced to lie about the phosphoros story. I followed up here with another post.
Indeed, while acknowledging the issue of their confession being made under duress, it seems that their basic story line of being out of Slavyansk when the TV show was made was a red flag.
I then got a threatening email in my email box — more on that in the next post. I'm told this story about me "allying with the Nazis in Ukraine is going to be sent out to all these web sites, from Drudge Report to the AP, the revelation of my, um, embracing of Nazi Judeo-Masonic junta in Ukraine…or something.
The next day, sure enough, this story appeared on the usual websites that serve as echo-chambers for every Kremlin disinformation, anti-West op, and active measure or one sort or another:
Global Research — which is a pro-Kremlin think tank and outlet for all Kremlin disinformation
Occupy — did you know they faithfully regurgitate Kremlin propaganda? Of course they do!
Infowars – best known extremist conspiracy site
So, this "massive denunciation" by the "people's republic of the Internet" of me and my colleagues was supposed to make me cringe and cower over my "lies" — but…I think I saw about 4 ping-backs and one hit from these sites although the Kremlin resonator team on Twitter was busy with it for a few days.
US Propaganda Site Accidently Exposes Nazi Crimes in Ukraine
Really, the headline should have been:
US News Site Reports Accurately on Allegations in Ukraine — and Accidently Exposes Kremlin Troll Network
Some people say "don't feed the trolls," except these aren't just one-off kids on forums. This is a very adult, organized, escheloned, funded, cadre network and in addressing it, I think the first thing you always have to do is set the record straight and push back on the lies. Otherwise, they bleed into every source and you show up in search called a "Nazi" forever and some people start to think there's something to it.
My rebuttal:
Evidently because your ability to copy and paste Kremlin propaganda is better than your ability to understand Russian and Russian affairs, you failed to realize three key things about this story:
1) Zvezda is a Defense Ministry TV station. It is owned and operated by the Russian Defense Ministry. The journalists are state employees. The journalists sent their letter of apology *after* they were released, and sent it from their editorial offices in Moscow. Now, why did they do that when they really objectively had no need to, since they were freed — and the day before, had even said their confession was coerced?!
2) The presence of the Right Sector in this story isn't something we've "accidently" released because it was reported from the get-go by Russian and Ukrainian media. Indeed, as we noted, the confession the journalist made on tape uploaded to Youtube and broadcast by regional media took place while he was in captivity, and when he possibly may have been beaten. Therefore it really can't be accepted as credible given the setting — and we said that. On the other hand, after the journalist was released, he said he wasn't mistreated, his bruises came from a bar fight before his detention, and he had no complaints. He then sent the apology two days later.
3) In a story dated 17 June (translated here www.interpretermag.com/russia-this-week-protesters-in-moscow-respond-to-events-in-ukraine/#0718), Vesti then claims these two journalists recanted their confession and that the Russian Investigative Committee was opening an investigation into the allegations that Right Sector, an ultranationalist group, not the official Ukrainian authorities made the detention, although the journalists did end up in the hands of the SBU.
But here's what's interesting: although they had every opportunity in that story or any other story about them since they got back to Moscow to say they weren't lying about the "white phosphorus", THEY DID NOT. They are mum. They have nothing to say. They didn't even "call for an investigation." Their apology stands. They didn't disavow it when it was aired on Ukraine's Channel 5. And that's because Rossiya 24 was caught in a blatant propaganda escapade, airing footage from the Iraq war in 2004, not Slavyansk in 2014. And no evidence was found of the use of "white phosphorus" — the conversation leaked on YouTube between two rebels told by their bosses to look for such evidence because it was needed, and their clear indication that they didn't think it existed, lets us know further what a concoction it is.
Perhaps the Investigative Committee — which is heavily discredited for making false arrests of legitimate peaceful demonstrators such as at Bolotnaya Square — will come up with some genuine case against Right Sector. After all, if some paramilitary group has wrongfully detained journalists and beaten them, it's a matter for not only Russia and Ukraine but the OSCE and UN to investigate, condemn, and remedy. But that's a very different story than the "white phosphorus" canard that the journalists couldn't confirm — among other reasons, because they conceded they weren't even in Slavyansk when the broadcast was made.
Your propaganda horses got out of the barn too fast today, as neither Zvezda or these two journalists or any other media are persisting in whipping the already-dead "white phosphorus" horse. They don't have to. They can afford to do the right thing and look like they are more professional than one thought, because they have you to continue to flog the previous Kremlin line.
As for the rest of the hoary nonsense about government-run propaganda operatives — a mirror-image problem because the Kremlin and its media and social-media outlets suffer from that problem — Radio Liberty [where I worked as a freelancer from 2002-2004) is funded by Congress, and under the oversight of a separate agency, so that means it has more checks and balances on it than anything remotely equivalent in Russia. It also hasn't been found lying about events in the region or posting fake photos and videos the way RT.com and others are found routinely to do.
The Interpreter is a separate, independent, non-government organization with non-profit status. It has no relationship to the US government or NED or Freedom House, although they are considered colleagues. Neither the State Department or they "direct" us. Mirror-imaging again, are you?
***
Here's the paragraph that libels me and these organizations by claiming that we are part of some conspiracy that enables human rights abuse:
It includes contributors such as Catherine A. Fitzpatrick who literally worked for the US State Department’s propaganda arm, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and convicted financial criminal George Soros’ faux-rights advocate Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Soros’ Open Society Institute itself.
RFE/RL as noted is funded by Congress. As for Soros, where I worked at various jobs over the course of a decade, or HRW, where I also spent a decade before that — these conspiracy crazies hate this leftist philanthropist funding a vast network of left-wing and "progressive" think-tanks that give some of them jobs — I guess any wealthy businessmen is by generic category someone for these anti-capitalists to hate. There's nothing the rabid left hates and loathes more than liberals just a few degrees away from them who keep them from realizing their plans for crypto anarchy and violent revolution.
Most of these conspiracy sites have no comments sections for articles like this, have you noticed? They are meant merely to be sounding boards for the Kremlin on topics like Ukraine. There are tons more copies of this article all over.
And when you do try to put a comment on them, they either block it or it is devoured by thousands of other myrmidons. Hence my long refutation here.
People say, why care about this? These web sites are obvious conspiracy sites and hard leftwing or right-wing crazies, who sane listens to them? Ignore them. They don't count.
Except, collectively, they have an influence, and the Kremlin knows that, and that's why they use these networks, even if they have to give airtime to some of their loonier representatives. James Miller, managing editor of The Intepreter, explained the problem very well in a piece about trying to fight the Kremlin troll media with the facts.
He's writing about the Kremlin's propaganda arm RT.com, but he could be writing about any of its echo chambers like Infowars or PrisonPlanet as well:
While it’s easy to dismiss the channel as a propaganda outlet (it is) with no real credibility, the fact is that it appeals to wide segments of the populace spanning both the East and the West. In countries with democratic systems that are already bitterly divided over politics and policy, influencing just a small part of the populace could be enough to tip the scales and change the course of geopolitics.
Tippage. That's what this is about. Nudges.
Note that all of these articles backed away from the original hoax to appear credible and did some fancy footwork to distract from that fact:
Regarding the alleged use of white phosphorus, RT’s report and Russian officials themselves clearly call for an investigation, and nothing more. And while the use of white phosphorus is being contested by Western media houses, the aerial and artillery bombardment of populated regions in eastern Ukraine is confirmed, and ongoing.
RT.com is hardly a "confirmation." But even if HRW and others might eventually make these confirmations of Ukrainian army shelling, so what? They didn't unilaterally start shelling; they started shelling because Kremlin-backed separatists with heavy, imported weapons began taking over buildings by force, kidnapping and killing people, and even executing their own comrades — oh, and shooing and shelling villages, too.
It's simply not true that the Russian government here merely "called for an investigation" when they *spun lies on television for days*. As for artillery bombardment, again, both sides have heavy artillery to shell villages and both do shell. RT.com is hardly a source on who is doing what to whom here. But now there's the result of HRW's arms panel.
Today, Human Rights Watch declared that the "white phosphorus story" was false.
I wonder if Human Rights Watch will not get the same treatment from this bunch as I have — likely not, even though they reference the confession and make the same statement as I do about it, that coerced confessions can't stand. But the hard left has been backlashing somewhat against HRW lately, accusing it of having a "revolving door" in the US government, even though it has…one…employee who has gone into the US State Department in some 36 years of its existence. HRW is awfully gun-shy about criticism from the hard left of its lefty-liberal self, however, which is why it was stampeded into taking up Snowden and Assange lately — awful.
You can see that skittishness in the way they prepared this story. First, the tweet:
#Russia claims #Ukraine used white phosphorous in the east; Ukraine denies it. Whom to believe? @Rachel_Denber http://t.co/ucVtcNJyaa
— carrollbogert (@carrollbogert) June 22, 2014
Well, hmm, you could start with believing your own arms panel of experts, as Rachel Denber of HRW reported, in an article that never implied there was some difficulty of choice between believing in the HRW arms panel or Kremlin propaganda mills:
After analyzing the LifeNews video clip, Human Rights Watch arms researchers concluded that it didn’t show a white phosphorous – or an incendiary weapon – attack (emphasis added). What the video actually appears to show is an illuminant or a pyrotechnic. First, the intensity of the burning and the mount of smoke it generated aren’t consistent with white phosphorus. Second, the substance falling from the sky in the video has a haphazard pattern, unlike an incendiary weapon. Third, there is no flash of an explosive bursting charge, no instantaneous uniform ignition of the substance, both characteristic of white phosphorus munitions. Whatever is falling from the sky is breaking apart in a non-uniform manner, more akin to crumbling or disintegrating – incendiary weapons don’t do this. "
But she, too, felt she couldn't open with that very clear, unambiguous statement, and instead needed a "balance-our-saddlebags" hedge in the headline: "Dispatches: White Phosphorus, White Lies, or What?
Well, I'll tell you what: plain old "black lies" would do the trick as a term to explain this: the Kremlin TV faked the video footage and made false claims about the use of "white phosphorus" in another video.
They know just by making the fake claims, and indignantly crying for an investigation, they will get dozens of skittish liberals in NGOs and the UN and OSCE to go through miming impartiality and credibility even though everybody knows from the get-go, deep down, that this is a Soviet-type "Big Lie" thing. This is like the Soviets constantly trying to claim the West has committed this or that atrocity or gross violation of international law — when they themselves are the culprits.
Denber wrote very clearly about this Kremlin propaganda gambit:
It all started on June 11 when the privately owned, pro-Kremlin Russian news outlet LifeNews posted a segment citing anti-Kiev insurgent claims of a white phosphorous attack on Semyonovka, a village near Slovyansk, the insurgency’s stronghold. The footage showed a luminous substance raining through a night sky. The next day, apparently reporting on the same incident, several Russian state media outlets said incendiary weapons were used in Ukraine, showing very different video footage. Ukrainian media (correctly) claimed that this footage was from a 2004 US white phosphorous attack in Iraq. The Russia state media refuted this.
But then curiously, she asks:
Are you confused enough yet? And why does it matter?
Well, no, we're not confused because you just told us the Kremlin TV station used fake footage to make a fake claim, and another video they used wasn't what they claimed. What was confusing about that? Nothing.
So why pretend ambiguity? This is the rhizomatic mental construct that every HRW ends up internalizing: balance, balance, balance. Adversarial stance toward governments, responsible for human rights compliance; neutral or supportive stance toward non-state actors who are human rights victims, even if they are militants and terrorists.
This construct of non-bias which serves to obliterate the truth of violent movements and their incitement again and again endlessly replicates in every conflict and produces the same results in many places from Israel to Nigeria to Ukraine that in fact hinder analysis and action by Western democracies: governments struggling with violent, extreme Islam or Moscow or Teheran-backed insurgents and terrorists are accused of "excessive use of force" and failure to "protect civilians," and the perpetrators who commit the terrorism and armed mayhem, well, don't have a place in the frame. That is, sure, there might be a thin report about them and their abuses, but the real power-punches are reserved for the governments who can be pressured more easily than terrorists.
If you try to complain about this paradigm internalized and replicated by HRW and the entire international justice set, they merely complain that you aren't willing to hold your own government to the same standards as others. This is nonsense, of course, because are government, if anything, is held to higher standards. But it's amazing how impervious this magic circle is — so often, in so many situations, and even in this one in Ukraine, we can't admit that its hostile neighboring powers and their proxies in violent movements that are the problem at the get-go, and not "excessive use of force" by those fighting them, whatever the crimes they do end up committing.
Well, even so, this piece is as good as it gets, and it also helpfully explains international law — "white phosphorus" use itself in war is not illegal, as many an indignant Infowars troll has claimed. It's lawful to use it for the purpose of masking troop and tank movements, but not on people. Neither LifeNews or Rossiya 24 or Vesti or any Russian state-controlled media found any evidence it was used on people — they only have videos of the night sky in Iraq in 2004 and apparently Slavyansk this month, but it wasn't phosphorus.
Then Denber turns to the issue of how the debunking of this story was achieved — forcing journalists in captivity to confess, and possibly, through beatings and threats.
In other words, exactly the same things I wrote in my articles here and here on their kidnapping and confession. I said a) such confessions then won't be seen as valid b) they later said the were forced to perjure themselves.
Denber doesn't say they were detained by the Right Sector; that was a claim of the Russian media but I don't have a problem with that claim; it might very well be how things were done. BTW, the much ballyhooed ultranationalist Right Sector is diminished since EuroMaidan, since one of its leaders was killed — actually by the Ukrainian SBU (security police). They poll in the very low single digits with the public and did not win the elections. They are not popular, they don't have mass support, but they are allowed to exist and their militant arm is used in the anti-terror operation — perhaps even to give plausible deniability to certain things like picking up journalists.
So let Bastrykin, who is on the US Magnitsky List for his human rights violations, who has human rights crimes galore on his hands, go and investigate the forced captivity of these journalists. After all, that's way more important than finding some of the journalists kidnapped by the separatists, you know? But sure. Go hard.
But what's interesting, as I noted, is that the Defense Ministry, Zvezda, those journalists, others — are all mum about the phosphorus. The story seems to be over for now. And no, a leaked tape doesn't further it because this is likely a leak by Ukrainian intelligence of separatists talking about their bosses telling them to find phosphorus, and feeling put upon because they didn't think it was there.
I don't either.
HRW leaves the door open for somebody to still agitate with this hoax, however, by saying "accusations are still flying".
And then finishing up this way:
This certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Russian state media has manufactured montages about eastern Ukraine, twisted the truth, or outright misstated facts. It’s difficult to avoid the impression that aside from mobilizing public outrage in Russia about Ukraine, these manipulations aim to distract and exhaust the experts whose job it is to sift between fact and fiction. It’s like an incendiary weapon that explodes, leaving in its wake anger and disorientation until the media cycle moves on. The Ukrainian media is also no stranger to this tactic.
You see, Ukraine is bad, too. We can never say Moscow is bad without in the same breath saying "oba khuzhe," as they say in Odessa.
And here's the problem with a Dispatch that gets its pants on June 20th, when arms panels can do do their slow due diligence, after the lie has already gone half way around the world on June 13th.
Look at Google search results if you don't grasp what I mean.
The reason all those sites exist that "don't matter" and "nobody reads or believes" is that they then can get lots of clicks and show up at the top of Google. RT.com's false claim that there is phosphorus is still at the top, with no correction. The Kremlin-tied Global Research is high up with its ridiculous claim that by reporting on the Russian media's outright hoax and tendentious coverage of this story, I've somehow allied myself with "Nazis" or covered up anything Right Sector has done wrong.
Unfortunately, due to the tactics of taping people's confessions while they were in captivity — which of course they're going to disavow later — the Ukrainian siloviki here have compromised the ability to get the truth. The story of their possible use of force or at least coercion in this admission will linger longer than the fake trails of white vapor.
Meanwhile, what will be done about the damage of trust in the Ukrainian government and the incitement of war against it by these fake claims?
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