Rallying Round the False Flags

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

 Another day, another provocation, and Western leaders are frothing at the mouth with denunciations of Russian “barbarity”.

Another day, another provocation, and Western leaders are frothing at the mouth with denunciations of Russian “barbarity”. U.S. President Joe Biden signs off on more weapons to Ukraine while European counterparts slap more economic warfare sanctions on Russia.

Just when the Western media had saturated “reports” of Russian troops executing civilians and leaving their bodies to rot on the streets of Bucha, then we read of more horror from accusations that Russian forces fired a missile at a train station in Kramatorsk killing over 50 people, including women and children.

Last week the Western media were telling us about Russian forces bombing a theatre in Mariupol and killing people sheltering in the basement. The week before it was an alleged Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in the same city.

The onslaught of the reports of these alleged atrocities is itself telling. There is hardly any time for the Western public to think critically about the reports and whether they are credible. We are being bombarded with sensation and disgust and forced to rally around the flag of supposed Western values such as democracy and morality. That means sending more weapons to Ukraine to “defend” that country from Russian “barbarity”.

Let’s take the latest incident in Kramatorsk on April 8. The New York Times and other Western media reported that a Russian missile hit a train station and killed at least 50 people who were trying to evacuate the city. The impression conveyed in the reporting is that civilians are fleeing as Russian troops advance on more of the Donbass territory.

Russia denied that its forces fired on Kramatorsk. It described the incident as a provocation, or what others would call a false flag operation. The Russians said the missile was fired by the NATO-backed Ukrainian military some 45 kilometres from Kramatorsk.

So, who’s right?

One important fact that all media reported, including the New York Times, is that the explosion was caused by a Tockha-U short-range ballistic missile. Fragments of the munition were identified and photographed near the scene of carnage at the train station.

The Soviet-era weapon is no longer used by the Russian military as of 2019. It is, however, widely used by the Ukrainian military.

Indeed, the Ukrainian military has been firing Tockha-U missiles into the pro-Russian Donbass territory for years, killing civilians indiscriminately. Last month, a missile killed over 20 people when it struck Donetsk city.

Western media have not been reporting that. They have hardly reported that the NATO-backed Kiev Ukrainian forces have been waging a war on the pro-Russian people of Donbass for eight years since the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014. The Western media don’t tell you that the NATO bloc has been weaponizing and training Ukrainian regiments like the Azov Battalion that are infested with Nazi supporters who view the killing of Russians as a noble mission. The Western media don’t tell you why Russia views Ukraine and its NATO ambitions as a national security threat and that Moscow went into Ukraine on February 24 because of mounting attacks on civilians in the Donbass.

The Kramatorsk “crime against humanity” that Biden, Johnson, Macron and Von Der Leyen have been denouncing as “cynical” and “abominable” was all in probability carried out by the Ukrainian military that the United States, NATO and the European Union are supporting and sending weapons to.

The same goes for the reported killings in Bucha. Western media and leaders have roundly condemned Russia for allegedly carrying out the atrocity. The Western media have relied totally on Ukrainian claims concerning Bucha, as they have for Kramatorsk and other alleged atrocities.

But if you can withstand the hype and hyperbole, the shock and awe of the media blitz, the claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. The alleged Bucha atrocity came to light in Western media four days after Russian troops withdrew from that city on March 30, and the freshly dead corpses on the streets were filmed by the Ukrainian military. The alleged Russian atrocity has been convincingly debunked, just as Moscow has been saying, blaming it on a provocation.

The earlier bombing of the maternity hospital and the theater in Mariupol were also false-flag attacks carried out by the NATO-backed Ukrainian military. So too was the alleged killing of dozens of Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island. Remember how Western media reported Ukrainian defenders on the island radioing the Russian forces to “go fuck themselves” before they were blasted to death. Turns out the Russians safely evacuated the surrendering Ukrainians under normal laws of war having afforded them safe passage from the island.

The Western media are playing the public like an organ-grinder. The U.S. media have even admitted to spinning false information in the cause of an “information war” against Russia.

And so we see people like Pope Francis kissing the flag and praying for Ukraine and condemning Russia, we see Biden and European leaders calling for war crimes prosecution of Russian President Vladimir Putin and ordering up more weapons to Ukraine. We see American actors like Sean Penn going into hysterics threatening to “melt down” his Academy Awards in protest over Russian barbarity. Maybe Sean’s next project will be starring in a movie about fighting to the death to defend Snake Island!

Ukrainian comedian-actor-president Vladimir Zelensky (a Jewish frontman for a Nazi regime) said of the Kramatorsk atrocity – and it was an atrocity, but one carried out by his military: “Lacking the strength and the courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they [Russia] are cynically destroying the civilian population. This evil knows no limits. And if it is not punished it will never stop.”

Cue the anguished tears, condemnations, and billions of dollars/euros of taxpayer-funded aid and lethal weapons to the Ukrainian regime – because we are all supposed to rally around the flag of Western democratic and moral virtue. Even that latter claim is one big false flag.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/04/12/rallying-round-the-false-flags/