Social Engineering, Propaganda, Etc...

[Hervé]

On Scaremongering and The Importance of Keeping the Real Agenda From the Masses — by Russell O’Phobe

November 6, 2015 Rob Slane


From Russell O’Phobe to all journalists working on Russia-related stories in the media


Dear Friends & Colleagues,

I want to begin this missive by pointing to some of the success stories that we have seen over the past few weeks, before going on to issue what I believe is a necessary warning about some of the challenges that lie ahead.

I must say that it has been particularly pleasing for me personally to see many of the rules I set out for you in my Primer on the Art of Writing Russian Scare Stories and in my last letter being followed so judiciously by so many of you. The exercise was clearly valuable and it seems that many of the points I made have been thoroughly imbibed. That is to your credit.

Let me draw your attention to one such example, which I think we can all learn from. The Huffington Post recently ran a wonderful piece entitled “What Would Happen If Russia Cut The Transatlantic Data Cables?”

Now that’s a great start, is it not? Fear? Check! Disturbing question ungrounded in anything resembling reality? Check! Presupposing that the Russians are so unutterably sinister that they want to shut down the internet? Check! The perfect headline to start a scare story.

The piece itself was a masterpiece in the art. I urged you in my Primer to make good use of submarines in your articles — gives them a very Cold War feel — and I also went on to encourage the use of phrases such as “Fears are growing that…”. Well HuffPo really exceeded all my expectations of the sort of thing we can conjure up if we put our minds to it. Here’s an excerpt:

“Recent reports have suggested that deep beneath the ocean, something ominous is taking place. According to sources inside the US intelligence community there is an increased fear that Russia could have the power to take down the world’s internet…Some have even postured that these deep sea cloak and dagger manoeuvres could be the start of a ‘new Cold War’”.

Got that? Recent reports! From where? Doesn’t say. Why not? Doesn’t need to! Are they credible? Who cares! You see how it works? Try making something up off the top of your head — say, Russians have developed technology that can cause mental illnesses at targeted people groups — and then all you have to do is refer to some other “reports” add a few spicy phrases like “cloak and dagger manoeuvres” or “sinister movements” into the mix, and you’ve got your story.

So how about: “Disturbing reports have suggested that deep within Kholat Syakhl — Mountain of the Dead — Russia under Vladimir Putin has for years been developing ‘WMD’s – Weapons of Mass Depression’. These weapons, can apparently cause mass depression amongst Westerners at a range of up to 1,500 km. It is thought that this might explain the increasing prevalence of depression and possibly even dementia in the West. According to sources inside the US intelligence community blah blah blah.” Job done.

But back to that business of cutting internet cables. I have to say we did have a chuckle in our office about that, since the obvious answer to the question of what would happen if Russia cut the transatlantic data cables is that they’d be cutting their nose to spite their face, as we’d at last be able to get our narrative out there unchallenged by all those pesky citizen sites that irritatingly keep on questioning what we write. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea, you know. Cut the cables. Blame it on the Russkies. And no wretched internet around for anyone to challenge the narrative! Must remember to run that by the chaps up at GCHQ.

On the theme of telecommunications — and by the way it’s always good practice to try to get a “Barbaric Russians interfering with modern technology” meme going in your pieces — there was another issue which I think is a wonderful demonstration not only of what we can do, but also of what we can get away with. You may or may not recall the hacking of the UK telecommunications company, TalkTalk, back in October. When I first heard of it, my eyes lit up at the plethora of headline opportunities that this presented us with: “Was Putin behind the TalkTalk hack?” “Russia suspected of hacking Telecom company”. Or my favourite, especially for the trashy tabloids: “Putin’s Crack Hacks in Max Attack.” The headlines were practically writing themselves.

But when I looked at my MSN newsfeed, what did I see: “Islamic Jihadists claim responsibility for cyberhack.” I was livid, I can tell you. An open goal and we missed it. Surely someone could have had the sense to allege Russian involvement for pity’s sake?

Then, lo and behold, I clicked into the article to see this:

“TalkTalk cyberattack: ‘Russia-based Islamic jihadists’ claim responsibility for hack action”.

Dear friends, I must confess that I have rarely laughed so hard. Even now it brings tears of laughter to my eyes. There they are bombing the living daylights out of Islamic jihadists in Syria to stop Islamic jihadists coming back to Russia, and this genius of a headline writer in one foul swoop comes up with a line that makes it look to the uninitiated and clueless as if Russia is actually harbouring Islamic jihadists who hack British telecoms companies.

But just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I went over to our friends at HuffPo again and saw this:

“The TalkTalk cyberattack that has potentially affected four million customers around the UK could have been caused by an Islamic jihadi group, a former detective in the Met’s cybercrime unit has said. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Adrian Culley said the perpetrators posted a message online last night claiming to be part of an Islamic group based in Soviet Russia.”

Yes it really did say “Soviet” Russia. My colleagues were almost picking me up off the floor at that point. The line about Soviet Russia apparently came from this semi-literate email posted online:

“We Have adapted To The Security measures Of The Web. We Cannot Be Stopped. We Have Made Our Tracks Untraceable Through Onion Routing, Encrypted Chat Messages, Private Key Emails, Hacked Servers. We Will Teach our Children To Use The Web For Allah.. Your Hands Will Be Covered In Blood.. Judgement Day Is Soon. Our One Childrens Name Is Mohammed. Your Women Are being Taken Over By Us. Your Children are being Killed By Us For Being S**t On Earth. WE Are In The Soviet Russia And Near Place, Your Europe, WE control Asia, We Control AMERICA. Prepare, Secure Your Websites, Secure Your Borders, Secure Your Country, But Jihad From Us Is Coming.”

Kudos to the journalist and her editor for their bravery and ingenuity in deciding to report that as if it were to be taken seriously and not as patently absurd drivel. And of course the punchline is that since then, police have arrested several people in connection with the hack, including a 15-year-old in — no not Soviet Russia, funnily enough — but Northern Ireland. Goes by the name of Vladislav Mikhailovich O’Donnell

But all joking aside...

[...]

Full article: http://www.theblogmire.com/on-scarem...ussell-ophobe/

[Hervé]

Danish Expert: NATO Is a Useless 'Dinosaur' That Extorts Money From Taxpayers

A concise summary of the world's most destructive “defensive” alliance

Danish scientist Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Research, has managed to accurately describe NATO using only words (and no vulgar hand gestures). Incredible, but true:

Oberg noted that NATO's largest military drills in a decade were supposed to boost fear among ordinary citizens, making them believe it is necessary to ensure against possible war.

“Their (NATO drills) aim is public relations for a dying alliance, which is a kind of a dinosaur in the modern world,” Oberg said in an interview.

“This is a military-industrial-media-academic complex playing its games. In order to get the payers to pay for this kind of nonsense you have to have what we in the social psychology call ‘fearology'; you have to boost fear among the citizens so that they think that this is relevant and necessary to do this and other kinds of things.”

According to Oberg, the military exercise are just a folding screen covering certain facts, like that the Ukraine crisis was actually initiated by neo-cons in Washington and that wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya were “misguided”.

The scientist also noted that he found the drills “ridiculous,” saying that it is plain stupid to believe that this sort of action can help NATO confront the terrorist threat coming from ISIL.

“ISIS (ISIL) is a product of these wars, it is not something that has come out of the blue,” he argued.

“It's a product of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq and the misadministration of that country. And now it's spreading. We have tons more terrorism today than we had in 2001. We are doing a counterproductive thing and we are learning absolutely nothing.”

Oberg is exaggerating, of course. Just check out NATO's “fact sheet about NATO”, or pour yourself a strong drink and read about Operation Gladio, the NATO program which trained right-wing fanatics to terrorize Europe (and frame the Reds). Isn't NATO a darling?