“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” - Walter Lippman
No one should be surprised that U.S. interference in the Caucasus has led to the Russian intervention in South Ossetia. By intruding into the volatile politics of the Caucasus, and trying to recruit the governments there to become American ‘fitters’ for various purposes, the United States has only drawn rebuttal Russian fire.
In Washington, Bush stepped out to the White House Rose Garden to declare that “Russian assaults inside Georgia – a swift and crushing deployment of military force that the Russians called ‘Operation Clean Field’ – must cease”.
What a misleading blunder! ‘Operation Clean Field’ was the name given by the Georgians for their initial attack on South Ossetia and Tskhinvali – now in ruins – which was pounded under heavy artillery barrages by the Georgians, not the Russians. Why are we trying to brainwash the people, thinking them so dumb so as not to see through these news manipulations? It would be much more advisable if Mr. Bush would learn how to pronounce the Georgian leader’s name properly! Don’t you agree?
‘How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.’ - Benjamin Disraeli
Please help me keep my sanity! As I watched the corporate media coverage of the protests and disruptions during the Olympic torch route, I became angrier than usual over the hypocrisy. Goodness knows how many anti-war protests over the last years have been down-played and under-covered by the corporate media. Many crimes against humanity are rendered invisible to the public eye, while issues, like those of Sudan and Tibet are highlighted as the only objects of acceptable moral outrage and action.
TV screens and the press in general have given saturation coverage to the point of nauseating hypocrisy. It is very unfortunate to note that many of the comments in the media are negative towards China and few realize that these opinions are just repetitions of the dis-information gushed by the Western press.
Why didn’t anybody tell us of the thousands of Chinese people living in Europe staging mass rallies in Paris and London against media organizations that they see as blasting China over the alleged crackdown on Buddhists in Tibet? Could not the media have also told us that they were also protesting against the European states leaders who have decided or are considering abstaining from attending the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing? Why haven’t we seen any coverage of the students mass rally in London, during which slogans reading, “BBC is a liar”, were manifested in front of the Parliament Houses? Why?? Perhaps because these were peaceful demonstrations, totally unlike the violent protests committed and provoked by the Buddhist monks?
“Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.” - Dean Acheson
There is no doubt that the structural changes in the world over the past two decades have been profound. These include not only the collapse of the Soviet Union (and the end of the balance of power which had provided an equilibrium) but with it the beginnings of a new era.
We are not living in a sound and rational world. A World War III is no longer a hypothetical scenario.
We are today living in a U.S. unipolar world – a world in which there is one master, one sovereign, one centre of authority, one centre of force and power and one centre of decision making. This has nothing to do with democracy.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States stood tall — militarily invincible, economically unrivalled, diplomatically uncontestable, and the dominating force on information channels worldwide. The next century was to be the true “American century,” with the rest of the world moulding itself in the image of the sole superpower.