Disinformation

In the first hour I am joined by my good friend Lizzy to discuss her recent work in Palestine. Lizzy just returned from the town of Beit Sahour where she was teaching music to child refugees. We talk about Her experiences in actually traveling to Palestine from the US and some of the bizarre realities of this process. I also share some of my own personal experience traveling to Palestine and my trouble when leaving Israel. We then move onto the issue of Islamophobia and discuss the realities of it and how it can subconsciously manifest itself.

It often appears that “true Afghanistan” is not here in Kabul and not in Jalalabad or Heart either; not in the ancient villages, which anxiously cling to the steep mountainsides.
Many foreigners and even Afghans are now convinced that the “true” Afghanistan is only what is being shown on the television screens, depicted in magazines, or what is buried deep in the archives and libraries somewhere in London, New York or Paris.

Chemical/biological warfare is the term used to describe the use of chemical or biological agents as weapons to injure or kill humans, livestock, or plants. Chemical weapons are devices that use chemicals to inflict death or injury; biological weapons use pathogens or organisms that cause disease. Pathogens include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and toxins (poisons produced by animals or plants).
— Library of Congress, Science Reference Services

Voting queues in the Caracas Poliedro, where residents from the neighbourhoods in Eastern Caracas that have been plagued by violent opposition protests voted (photo by Gregorio Terán, AVN)

Last week a Trump administration official decided to inform the news media that the CIA program to arm and train anti-Assad Syrian forces had been terminated. It was welcome news amid a deepening U.S.

The US government-supported Public Broadcasting System (PBS) recently ran a five part series dubbed Inside Putin’s Russia.  With a different theme each night, it purports to give a realistic look at Russia today. The image conveyed is of a Russia that is undemocratic with widespread state repression, violence and propaganda. Following are significant distortions and falsehoods in the five part documentary.
Episode 1: “How Putin Redefined what it means to be Russian”

I come and stand at every door
But none shall hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
— Nazim Hikmet, I Come and Stand at Every Door

A chavista campaigns for the upcoming Constituent Assembly elections (left) and opposition officials set fire to the voting records from their consultation

When Russian and Syrian forces were bombarding ‘rebel’-held East Aleppo last year, newspapers and television screens were full of anguished reporting about the plight of civilians killed, injured, trapped, traumatised or desperately fleeing. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, both Official Enemies, were denounced and demonised, in accordance with the usual propaganda script.

The Ancient Greeks knew: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” No less a figure than the late Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CIA made use of this saying by recruiting the Muslim Brotherhood to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which led to the withdrawal of the Soviets from the Hindu Kush. Since then, the CIA used the mercenaries to fight more proxy wars in the Balkans, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan.