Most Western msm journos who write about war are war criminals. Prominent law expert
Covenant adopted by UN General Assembly in 1966. Article 20 states, “1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
(Your daily air strike update follows this article)
Covenant adopted by UN General Assembly in 1966.
Article 20 states,
“1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
Nato War Propaganda: A Danger to Russia and World Peace : Information Clearing House - ICH
Nato War Propaganda: A Danger to Russia and World Peace
By Christopher Black
March 14, 2015 "ICH" - "NEO" - The reaction of the media in the Nato countries to the murder of Boris Nemtsov reveals the next phase of the war against Russia. Defeated at Debaltsevo, defied by Russia, lectured by China, the Nato warlords need something immediate and dramatic to guide the imaginations of their peoples towards war. The constant propaganda offensive aimed at Russia is accelerating and is increasingly designed to identify Russia and its people not with the Russian government, but with a single man and, with the murder of Nemtsov, that man is now labelled assassin.
Across the broad spectrum of the “western” media in the past days there has appeared one story after another designed to make the average citizen believe that President Putin was personally involved in the killing. The facts of the case do not matter. The Nato governments deny any involvement in a provocation but their immediate denunciations, the morning following the murder, of Russian democracy, of Russian government, and of President Putin, convict them all on the charge of exploiting the murder as surely as if the assassins’ bullets were theirs.
The labelling of resisting leaders as criminals has been used frequently in the west since the days of the Roman Empire and once a foreign leader is so labelled a war soon follows. In recent history the Americans and their Nato lieutenants identified President Milosevic as a criminal for simply refusing Nato’s diktats. They did the same with Saddam Hussein, with Muammar Gaddafi and murdered them all, one way or another.
Once a head of state is demeaned in this way and reduced to a common criminal the people of the aggressor country are easily persuaded that his elimination, and the elimination of the government that supports him, is a necessary task. The persuasion has been going on since Putin’s speech in 2007, which drew a line in the sand against American imperial ambitions in Eurasia, and reached new levels of hysteria when Flight MH17 was shot down last year. Evidence that it was probably the Kiev forces that committed the crime, with American collusion, was completely suppressed by the western media and when more evidence of their culpability was produced the shoot down was erased from history and now is rarely mentioned. Since the overthrow of the legitimate government of Ukraine a year ago the western media have been caught time and again repeating US propaganda about Russian threats to peace in Europe, about Russian territorial ambitions and Russian regular army units being involved in the Donbass. Denials by Russia, and even observers of the OSCE, are ignored and the lies are repeated day after day after day.
The use of propaganda to incite hatred towards another people or government, and to incite calls for aggressive war and all the war crimes that flow from aggressive war are crimes against humanity and prohibited under international and national laws. Journalists who prostitute themselves by telling their fellow citizens lies are not only betraying the trust put in them by the people, and treating them with contempt, they are also war criminals and should be judged as such. Their responsibility in preparing the way for war is as great as those who plan the war and carry out the military operations of the war.
We need only look at the case of Juluis Streicher at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 to understand that propagandists can be hanged too. Streicher neither gave orders for the extermination of Jews nor was involved in any military operations. But that did not prevent him from being convicted of crimes against humanity for producing the anti-semitic journal Der Sturmer that put out a constant barrage of hate propaganda against Jews. His role in preparing the ground for the dehumanization of Jews in Germany was determined to be critical in creating the conditions for their extermination by the Nazis. The Nuremberg prosecutors argued that his articles and speeches were incendiary and that he was an accessory to murder and therefore as culpable as those who actually carried out the killings. The Allied judges agreed and he was convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged in October 1946. The judgement stated in part that “…he infected the German mind with the virus of anti-semitism and incited the German people to active persecution and..murder.”
The role of propaganda in preparing a nation’s people to call for and support an aggressive war was never put better than by another Nazi, Herman Goering during the same trial that convicted Streicher. In an interview with Gustave Gilbert published in in 1947, in Nuremberg Diary, he said:
· Göring: “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
· Gilbert: “There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
· Göring: “Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
The Nuremberg principle that propaganda inciting aggressive war is a crime was codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1966.
Article 20 states,
“1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
It was also included in Article 15 of the American Convention on Human Rights of 1969 that uses similar language. It is telling that both Canada and the United States, two of the worst offenders in the use of war propaganda, have refused to ratify the Convention, but this should not surprise us.
Today we see the use of propaganda as an offensive weapon against Russia not only in the press and other news media, we also see it in film and television. The American television series House of Cards, has now descended deep into the sewer of anti-Russian propaganda with a Russian leader named Petrov standing in for Putin, while those rank opportunists, Pussy Riot, used to try to embarrass Petrov in one episode, succeed only in embarrassing themselves.
The prohibition on the use of war propaganda in international covenants is important because war threatens the existence and exercise of all of the other political and civil rights contained in those covenants and of the UN Charter itself, including the right to live in peace. And since wars of aggression are illegal under customary international law and since propaganda related to aggressive war is illegal, actions could be taken in national courts against governments, corporations and individuals who engage in it.
The question of the identification of war propaganda presents no more difficulty than identifying aggressive war. Distinguishing it from mere expression of opinion or supposed reporting of facts is also not difficult. Any communication to the public that has the sole purpose of inflaming emotions and feelings of hatred, hostility and calls for war would fall under the definition of war propaganda, whether by distortion of facts, suppression of facts or the invention of facts.
In 1966, at a seminar in the United States on the meaning of propaganda, the Soviet press attaché in Washington stated that propaganda “had rather a broad meaning, implying purposeful dissemination of certain information that is to produce upon its recipient a certain reaction which from the viewpoint of the disseminator is desirable”, and defined war propaganda to be both an “incitement to war between states and a means for preparing for aggressive war.” The United States, on the other hand, has generally opposed efforts to prohibit the use of war propaganda in international law citing concerns about freedom of expression. But this is a false argument, used to justify the unjustifiable, the constant use of propaganda by the United States to create in the minds of its citizens the necessary emotions and reactions to support wars fought for the benefit of a few against the interests of the many.
War propaganda is a danger to world peace. It is a danger to democracy itself. Since wars of aggression are criminal acts, incitements to engage in them are also criminal acts. It is high time for the peoples of the world, against whom this propaganda is directed, and who are the true victims of these crimes, to wake up, to get on their feet, to put their fists in the air and protest the constant manipulation of their minds towards hatred and violence and war and demand the full implementation of the international covenants that prohibit it and the arrest and trial of those that use it.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, he is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and he is known for a number of high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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Here’s your air strike update for Feb 8, 2024
Explosions in Ukraine occurred on the night of February 8: information about strikes by the Russian Armed Forces appeared
02/08/2024
Explosions in Ukraine occurred on the night of February 8: information appeared about strikes by the Russian Armed Forces. Last night, explosions occurred in several large Ukrainian cities at once. According to preliminary information, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (RF Armed Forces) used Geran-2 attack drones, and in some cases, high-precision missiles.
A series of explosions recorded in Nikolaev
A series of explosions occurred on the territory of the Ukrainian Nikolaev. Svobonaya Pressa writes about this, citing a number of Ukrainian sources.
However, no details have been provided yet. We only know that an air raid alert has been declared in the region.
Explosions were reported in Mirgorod and Vinnitsa
Ukrainian Channel 24 reported a few hours ago about an explosion in Mirgorod, Poltava oblast of Ukraine.
At the same time, several explosions were reported in the Vinnytsia oblast. Later, the Telegram channel “Ukraina.ru” informed that explosions were also recorded in the city of Vinnitsa itself.
In Ukraine, strong explosions were reported in Odessa
An explosion occurred in Odessa, reports the Ukrainian TV channel "Public".
“A powerful explosion occurred in Odessa,” the TV channel said in a message on its Telegram channel.
Later, other Ukrainian sources added that new explosions were heard in the city. No additional details have been provided yet.
Russian troops attack exclusively Ukrainian military installations and related energy infrastructure facilities. The Kremlin has repeatedly noted that the Russian Armed Forces do not attack residential buildings or social infrastructure.
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US National Security Adviser reacts to Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/7/7440850/
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan lies saying most Americans want
It's Jake's job to lie. NO, most Americans do NOT support more aid to Ukraine. Note that the above article is from the lying Ukrainian Pravda.
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Nikki lives in an America she doesn’t understand. The demographics are producing a generation of young people who no longer swallow the lies.
https://www.instagram.com/faithfulreflexions/reel/C0FLzF-NRqE/
The Tucker Putin interview we’re all waiting for is almost ready
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My intertextual critical analysis of CNN’s biased Russophobic article on Carlson’s Putin interview
My comments are in bold and in [brackets]
Tucker Carlson is in Russia to interview Putin. He’s already doing the bidding of the Kremlin
[Dear Reader, as you scan this article, see if you can find any example of how Carlson did ”the bidding of the Kremlin.” I could find no such examples. Aside from that, CNN does the bidding of the Democrats in almost every article they print. If you want to pretend that Russia is a dictatorship, then be aware of how CNN and all msm do the bidding of the war party. If CNN is REALLY interested in exposing authoritarianism, why does it never write about how the US has been seized by a foreign power ?]
Oliver Darcy
Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN
Wed February 7, 2024
CNN
—
Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin hasn’t been posted online yet, but he is already doing the Russian authoritarian’s bidding. [How, Oliver Darcy?]
In a video posted to X announcing the sit-down Tuesday — the first interview Putin has granted with a Western media figure since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago — Carlson predictably and dishonestly villainized the press. The right-wing extremist, who has lauded autocrats in recent years, claimed English-speaking outlets are “corrupt” and “lie” to their audiences as they disseminate “propaganda of the ugliest kind.” (Projection much?) [Carlson is known for being honest and frank. Is that the definition of rightwing extremism? You influencers who carry the water for the Neocons keep stressing the right-left spectrum, but that is irrelevant. The REALLY IMPORTANT spectrum is from free to slave, and Darcy shows here that he belongs to the slave class]
As a supposed example of manipulative media behavior, Carlson accused journalists of engaging in “fawning pep sessions” when interviewing Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who the former Fox News host asserted he would like to earnestly sit down with, but once likened to a rat. [Can anyone send us an example of a hard-hitting interview with Zelensky that was even slightly critical of his authoritarianism – or the open and blatant Nazism in his regime? Zelensky has banned all opposition parties and cancelled the next election. A US citizen, Gonzalo Lira, was imprisoned in Ukraine for speaking against the regime, and while in custody died of double pneumonia because he was never treated medically for this disease. A US citizen killed for criticizing the Ukraine regime. Did CNN write about this? No, but they claim Putin is a dictator. And that is because it is politically correct to say Putin is a dictator. And yet, CNN’s word is worthless. Don’t believe me? Try doing a search for “cnn unprovoked invasion” and you will bring up an endless string of articles written by CNN journos blithely calling the Russian incursion into Ukraine in Feb 2022 an “unprovoked invasion.” This is the most dangerous of all US msm lies, because if creates a false casus belli against a nuclear power, and I showed here that the incursion not only was provoked but it was also fully justified. CNN has never mentioned the constant shelling of Donbass by the US-appointed and backed Kiev regime.
Here is what a prominent UN lawyer writes about war-supporting disinformation:
… an often over-looked observation by Christopher C. Black, a former lawyer at the UN:
Journalists who prostitute themselves by telling their fellow citizens lies are not only betraying the trust put in them by the people, and treating them with contempt, they are also war criminals and should be judged as such. Their responsibility in preparing the way for war is as great as those who plan the war and carry out the military operations of the war.6]
“At the same time our politicians and media outlets have been doing this, promoting a foreign leader like he’s a new consumer brand,” Carlson said, “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict: Vladimir Putin.”
While technically true, Carlson is lying by omission, the very thing he accused the Western press of doing in the video he posted online. It is true that no Western journalist has interviewed Putin since the onset of the war, but it isn’t for a lack of trying. The actual reason is quite simple: Putin has declined to grant access — a fact that should make it all the more obvious as to why Carlson, of all people, has been welcomed into the Kremlin palace, while others have been denied.
[The truth is that almost all msm journalists are propagandists for the Neocon warmongers. Putin cannot be expected to allow an obvious enemy into his country for any reason]
“Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full scale invasion of Ukraine?” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour rhetorically remarked upon seeing Carlson’s claim. “It’s absurd — we’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.”
Even Putin’s own spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Carlson was outright wrong on the matter. Asked on Wednesday if no Western journalist had attempted to interview Putin, Peskov said, “No, Mr. Carlson is wrong. Actually, he can’t know that. We receive a lot of applications for interviews with the president.” Peskov hinted at the reason that Carlson was selected, saying he “has a position that is different from the rest” of Western media. [But doesn’t the fact that the Russian authorities frankly contradict Carlson show that the Russians are not the hard-nosed dictator types that they are portrayed as?]
Meanwhile, as Carlson implied that US news organizations are not interested in telling the Russian story, The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich sits in a prison for doing precisely that.
[According to the UN’s Covenant quoted above, Gershkovich is a criminal warmonger]
Putin not only has declined to participate in interviews with the free press [calling the US press “free” doesn’t make it free. Ask Assange about the US “free press.”], but over the past two years he has waged a war against the media, locking up journalists, fining Big Tech companies for hosting “fake” information about the Ukraine invasion, and pushing through censorship laws that clamp down on news organizations. [It is easy for US observers to talk about the free press and free speech. The US war machine relies on lies and disinformation to brainwash Americans into accepting wanton slaughter, such as the genocide in Israel-Palestine. But
Russia relies on truth, and lies in that country can cause Russia to be overthrown or to collapse. You can’t expect Russian authorities to play by the same rules as the US.]
“It is most striking to see Carlson justify his interview with Putin and trip to Russia as the work of a journalist — at a time when Western journalists are literally sitting in jail for having done nothing wrong other than seeking to report independently in Putin’s Russia, not to mention the many Russian journalists who face imprisonment or exile in the effort to continue their work,” Susan Glasser, the New Yorker writer who previously served as The Washington Post’s Moscow bureau co-chief, told CNN.
[The best example of a jailed reporter is Sergey Navanlny, but how is he “independent”? He was trained as a regime changer by the Yale World Fellows program.]
“Real journalism, unfortunately, is a crime in Putin’s Russia,” Glasser added. “Will his report from there acknowledge this?”
CNN asked Carlson on Tuesday why he would smear the press by falsely asserting journalists are not interested in interviewing Putin or reporting on Russia. CNN also asked him if during the sit-down he questioned Putin about Gershkovich’s imprisonment. The text message went unanswered.
Well, here’s a message by Gershkovich on Twitter last April:
Evan Gershkovich
@evangershkovich
·
Apr 21, 2022
This is the story of Moscow police employee Sergei Klokov, who is facing 10 years in prison for condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine in private phone calls that were tapped by the authorities. “We think we are fighting fascism, but there isn’t fascism there”]
[This Klokov guy is apparently in line with Gershkovich’s thinking, and what he wrote is not just a little white lie, it is dangerous disinformation that supports the Western war narrative. Firstly, it is absolutely absurd for anyone to assert that there is no fascism in Ukraine. Any regime that celebrates the birthday of Hitler collaborator Stepan Bandera is not only a Nazi regime, it is advertising that it is! How so, you say? https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/05/jnwx-j05.html ]
[Now, some will be wondering why Gerschkovich’s opposition to the Russian special military operation is more than a white lie. It’s because disinformation that leads to war on false premises is dangerous and is banned under a UN covenant:
The Nuremberg principle that propaganda inciting aggressive war is a crime was codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1966.
Article 20 states,
“1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
It is obvious that this covenant is all but forgotten in the West. Here, all wars are based on disinformation and lies and under this Covenant, most of the journalistic profession could be tried and sentenced for backing deadly wars with false narratives.
The US did not ratify this covenant. Of course]
Carlson claims to be in favor of journalism that is unafraid. And he claims to stand in opposition to those who cozy up to power. But the right-wing personality has a lengthy history of giving free passes to those who share his politics, while also prancing around with Donald Trump (someone he privately professed to hold deep contempt for).
In recent years, he has offered flattering interviews to Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei, giving the figures a massive stage to push their agenda, and using his platform to pull the American right further to the fringe.
[Firstly, Orban is not an autocrat, he is an elected official, so CNN is lying again. The anti-Orban power is the entire EU, and that is hardly fair, so giving Orban a stage to present his ideas is just a tiny step toward leveling the playing field. The American right or left or anywhere in the political spectrum is not the issue. Orban does not like giving his people’s tax monies to Ukrainian Nazis, and oddly, Nazism is the farthest-right segment of the spectrum. Apparently supporting Nazis is not a problem for CNN, so it is CNN that is in fact far far right, like all supporters of the Ukraine regime. This is grossly dishonest reporting!]
Which is to say, don’t hold your breath if you think Carlson will bring the heat to Putin. What is more likely to happen: Carlson will effectively humanize the ruthless Russian authoritarian (who is personally responsible for countless deaths) while serving as an empty vessel in which Putin can ship his dangerous propaganda to the American public.
[The suggestion that Carlson is humanizing the Russians tells us that CNN believes the Russians are not human. But dehumanizing leaders, as CNN does in this hit piece, invariably leads to war. Under the above-quoted UN Covenant, this would be a crime. Committed by CNN. It is a typical example of US illegal war propaganda, which must be fought by all people who value freedom, regardless of the part of the political spectrum they occupy]
Carlson’s pilgrimage to Moscow is already a major victory for Putin, whose state media has breathlessly hyped the trip in recent days, chronicling Carlson’s every move with images of him seated at a Moscow theater watching a ballet, having lunch at a swanky restaurant, and accessing “fast and free Wi-Fi internet.” [The reference to “state media” in connection with Russia is more disinformation. The Russian media is actually less regulated than the US media, where journalists don’t dare write anything that sounds anti-war or smacks of diplomacy instead of military solutions. Otherwise, the Elites will excoriate the reporter – just as they are doing with Carlson. The EU has even gone so far as to suggest imposing economic and travel sanctions on the poor fellow]
Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former longtime Foreign Service Officer who focused during his State Department career on relations with the former Soviet Union, said that Putin will use Carlson’s visit and interview “to claim that Russia is not all that isolated politically.”
[It is not surprising that Steven Pifer would oppose Carlson’s interview of Putin. As stated, Pifer is a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, which advocated the firebombing of more villages in the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. The Brookings is in the hands of mentally ill people, ie, Russophobes. And BTW, Russia is not all that isolated politically. The US, on the other hand, is joined mostly just by Neocolonial UK in wholeheartedly supporting the brutal genocide of the Palestinian people. Now THAT is isolation]
“It is unfortunate that an American commentator, who likely will not pose challenging questions, is giving Putin an outlet for his propaganda points,” Pifer told CNN. “Bear in mind that Putin wants to stir and widen divisions within the United States as much as possible.”
[Why is it taken for granted that interviews with Putin should be “challenging” while interviews with American leaders may be softball discussions treating them as though they were experts?]
That may just be a goal both Putin and Carlson share. [From the statements made by Putin over the years and by Carlson more recently, it is clear that both are focused not on dividing the US but on rooting out the autocratic elements that seek to deprive us of our freedoms. One of those elements is the so-called msm – of which CNN is the prime example!]
Anna Chernova contributed to this article.