“Facts on the Ground”

Club Orlov:



It is a sad fact that people in the West, and in the US especially, are presently living in a world that is bereft of actual news about what goes on in many parts of the world, especially the active conflict zones, such as Syria, Yemen and Libya. What they do hear is often based not on facts but on ideology, which is endlessly spouted by officials and think tanks in Washington. For instance, in Syria, Bashar al Assad, the Russians and the Iranians are said to be destroying the country and the Turks, the Kurds and various rebels supported by Saudi Arabia are attempting to “liberate” it whereas in fact Syrian government forces, aided by Russia and Iran, are liberating Syria from terrorists, including ISIS, which are supported by the Turks, Saudi Arabia and the US, and are doing quite a good job of it.

But perhaps nowhere is this ideological bias more blatant and obvious than in the treatment Russia receives in American mass media. Obama claimed that the Russian economy is “in tatters” because of Western sanctions; Senator John McCain is famously quoted as saying that Russia is “a gas station masquerading as a country”; and mass media echoes these fancies. But what if this “just ain’t so”? It is one thing to view a certain place through a certain lens, giving it a slightly misleading hue; it is another to suffer a psychotic break with reality and let wishful thinking, quite uncontaminated by any facts, serve as one’s guide.



Cont....