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June 28, 2019
from
Strategic-Culture Website
© Photo: Wikimedia
The moral bankruptcy of Western powers was exposed
- inadvertently - with the recent publication of three separate news reports. Taken
together the reports out last week illustrate the rank hypocrisy of
Western governments.
Also, the way that the reports were prioritized or left disconnected
demonstrates how the Western mainstream media serves as a dutiful
propaganda service for state and corporate power.
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First there was the Dutch-led inquiry into downing of the
Malaysian
MH17 airliner, which put the finger of blame on Russia for the
disaster in 2014 when all 298 people onboard were killed.
That nearly five-year investigation has never provided any credible
proof of Russian culpability, yet the Dutch-led investigators known
as the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) continually level allegations
that Russia supplied an anti-aircraft missile to Ukrainian rebels
who purportedly blasted the Boeing 777 out of the sky.
Despite its evident failures of due process, nonetheless Western
governments and media have lent the JIT allegations (slanders) undue
credibility.
The US, Britain and other NATO members last week called
on Russia to comply with the JIT "investigation", smearing Moscow as
guilty of causing the MH17 deaths.
However, Malaysia's Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad denounced the
report as,
"ridiculous hearsay" aimed at
"scapegoating Russia".
Tellingly, his comments were not widely reported in Western media.
For its part, Russia has vehemently rejected allegations of
involvement in the MH17 disaster, as have pro-Russian Ukrainian
rebels.
Russia's repeated offers of contributing information to the
probe have been rebuffed by the Dutch-led JIT.
By contrast, Russia's
own investigation has uncovered credible radar and forensic evidence
that an anti-aircraft missile fired at the passenger jet actually
came from military forces under the Kiev regime's command.
Russia's
evidence has been steadfastly ignored by Western media reports.
The credible suspect party - Kiev political and intelligence
authorities - have been allowed to participate in and frame the JIT
probe to inculpate Russia. The US, European Union and NATO back the
Neo-Nazi dominated regime in Kiev, financially and militarily, since
it seized power in a violent coup d'état back in 2014.
That should
be the real focus of scandal in the MH17 story.
On the back of the MH17 imbroglio, as well as other slanders,
Western governments have continued to impose economic sanctions on
Russia. These sanctions have cost the Russian economy an estimated
$50 billion.
On top of that, Western states and their media portray
Russia and President
Putin as a rogue regime and pariah.
It is estimated that
over 90,000 people have been killed in violence over the past four
years, with most of the civilian victims caused by indiscriminate
Saudi air strikes.
It is an indisputable fact that,
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the US
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Britain
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France
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Germany
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other NATO powers,
...have been arming the Saudi regime with warplanes,
helicopters, missiles and logistics to carry out this slaughter of
Yemeni civilians.
The Western states are
complicit in war crimes...
President
Trump continues to defy US lawmakers by ordering
multi-billion-dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia, despite the
carnage. The British government and wannabe prime minister Boris
Johnson claims that its weapons exports are not involved in killing
Yemeni civilians, in blatant denial of the facts.
A British court last week ruled that UK weapons exports were in
breach of its own supposed ethical codes protecting civilian lives
in conflicts.
The British government is set to appeal the court
ruling and will likely ignore it anyway given the systematic
relationship of Britain
arming Saudi Arabia - the UK's biggest
weapons export market - year after year.
Western media last week, as usual, gave only minimal reporting on
the shocking human suffering in Yemen. The whole barbarity and
Western governments' culpability is largely hushed-up and omitted by
the media.
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The third report we refer to was on the conclusions of the United
Nations' Special Rapporteur investigating the
murder of Saudi
journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul last October. His tortured body is believed to
have been cut up and dumped by his killers.
Special Rapporteur
Agnes
Callamard made a damning assessment that the Saudi state was
responsible for Khashoggi's murder. And she called on Western states
to impose sanctions on the Saudi monarchy.
Despite mounting evidence of Saudi regime guilt in the journalist's
murder and in the deaths of tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians,
Western governments have not imposed any sanctions against Riyadh.
Indeed, they continue to ply this regime with
billions-of-dollars-worth of killing machines.
Admittedly, Western media did give some coverage to the UN report on
the Khashoggi murder. But in proportion to the gravity of the crime,
the response
of media as well as of Western governments is woefully
lacking.
Western media do not put the last two mentioned reports in the
context of Western state relations with Saudi Arabia.
The oversight
is for a good reason. Because to delve into the issues would expose
criminal complicity.
Meanwhile, the US and its NATO allies impose sanctions on Russia
based on unsubstantiated allegations about,
...among other
fabrications.
Those sanctions - based on flimsy innuendo
- are
leading to ever-worsening relations with Russia and international
tensions between nuclear powers.
Western media do not expose the
insanity, they foment it.
Such media are unwilling and incapable of pointing out this gross
double standard. They propagate the double standard.
The moral bankruptcy of Western governments must be covered up by a
servile media. Because the state, corporate power and media are all
complicit.
Truth, justice and democracy, which
they pontificate
about, have nothing to do with the functioning of Western capitalist
power; they're mere illusions to distract from systematic
criminality.
Last week was an object lesson for those willing to see
it...
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