Public Comment

While we point an accusing finger at “big bad wolf” Russia for hacking our 2016 election and spreading fake news with internet trolls and paid political ads, we conveniently ignore our own mass propaganda efforts during the Cold, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars and many more too numerous to mention.

During the Cold War, the CIA orchestrated a relentless media blitz to shape American views of Russia. “Radio Free Europe” was created to wage a subversive campaign to weaken Communist satellite governments.

The crusade blasted anything from the “other side” as fake news, tactics that Trump has embraced on his twitter feed. As a former K.G.B. officer, Mr. Putin must have relished his own meddling as a long awaited payback.  

During the Vietnam War, progress was measured in body counts. Tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children were slaughtered to inflate body counts to satisfy the generals and political elite in Washington. 

In the Iraq war, an avalanche of fake WMD news, sealed the fate of Iraq and sent tens of thousands to their early graves – a sad indictment of the watchdogs who failed to accurately report on scheming politicians. In Afghanistan, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush jnr tried to convince a sceptical public that “we have the Taliban on the run.” “Embedded journalists” were encouraged to report “battleground successes.”  

16 years later, the corrupt Afghan government is clearly losing hearts and minds. More Americans and Afghans will die because no president has the courage to admit the war is lost.