By Diana Johnstone<\/p>\n
The New York Times continues to outdo itself in the production of fake news. There is no more reliable source of fake news than the intelligence services, which regularly provide their pet outlets (NYT and WaPo) with sensational stories that are as unverifiable as their sources are anonymous. A prize example was the August 24 report that US intelligence agencies don\u2019t know anything about Russia\u2019s plans to mess up our November elections because \u201cinformants close to \u2026 Putin and in the Kremlin\u201d aren\u2019t saying anything. Not knowing anything about something for which there is no evidence is a rare scoop.<\/p>\n
A story like that is not designed to \u201cinform the public\u201d since there is no information in it. It has other purposes: to keep the \u201cRussia is undermining our democracy\u201d story on front pages, with the extra twist in this case of trying to make Putin distrustful of his entourage. The Russian president is supposed to wonder, who are those informants in my entourage?<\/p>\n
But that was nothing compared to the whopper produced by the \u201cnewpaper of record\u201d on September 5. (By the way, the \u201crecord\u201d is stuck in the same groove: Trump bad, Putin bad \u2013 bad bad bad.) This was the sensational oped headlined \u201cI am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration\u201d, signed by nobody.<\/p>\n
The letter by Mister or Ms Anonymous is very well written. By someone like, say, Thomas Friedman. That is, someone on the NYT staff. It is very cleverly composed to achieve quite obvious calculated aims. It is a masterpiece of treacherous deception.<\/p>\n
The fictional author presents itself as a right-wing conservative shocked by Trump\u2019s \u201camorality\u201d \u2013 a category that outside the Washington swamp might include betraying the trust of one\u2019s superior.<\/p>\n
This anonymous enemy of amorality claims to approve of all the most extreme right-wing measures of the Trump administration as \u201cbright spots\u201d: deregulation, tax reform, a more robust military, \u201cand more\u201d \u2013 cleverly omitting mention of Trump\u2019s immigration policy which could unduly shock the New York Times\u2019 liberal readers. The late Senator John McCain, the model of bipartisan bellicosity, is cited as the example to follow.<\/p>\n
The \u201cresistance\u201d proclaimed is solely against the facets of Trump\u2019s foreign policy which White House insiders are said to be working diligently to undermine: peaceful relations with Russian and North Korea. Trump\u2019s desire to avoid war is transformed into \u201ca preference for autocrats and dictators\u201d. (Trump gets no credit for his warlike rhetoric against Iran and close relations with Netanyahu, even though they must please Anonymous.)<\/p>\n
The purpose of this is stunningly obvious. The New York Times has already done yeoman service in rounding up liberal Democrats and left-leaning independents in the anti-Trump lynch mob. But now the ploy is to rally conservative Republicans to the same cause of overthrowing the elected President. The letter amounts to an endorsement of future President Pence. Just get rid of Trump and you\u2019ll have a nice, neat, ultra-right-wing Republican as President.<\/p>\n
The Democrats may not like Pence, but they are so demented by hatred of Trump that they are visibly ready to accept the Devil himself to get rid of the sinister clown who dared defeat Hillary Clinton. Down with democracy; the votes of deplorables shouldn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n
That is treacherous enough, but even more despicable is the insidious design to destabilize the presidency by sowing distrust. Speaking of Trump, Mr and\/or Ms Anonymous declare: \u201cThe dilemma \u2013 which he does not fully grasp \u2013 is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations\u201d (meaning peace with Russia).<\/p>\n
This is the Iago ploy. Shakespeare\u2019s villain destroyed Othello by causing him to distrust those closest to him, his wife and closest associates. Like Trump in Washington, Othello, the \u201cMoor\u201d of Venice, was an outsider, that much easier to deceive and betray.<\/p>\n
The New York Times is playing Iago, whispering that Putin in the Kremlin is surrounded by secret \u201cinformants\u201d, and that Trump in the White House is surrounded by people systematically undermining his presidency. Putin is not likely to be impressed, but the trick might work with Trump, who is truly the target of open and covert enemies and whose position is much more insecure. There is certainly some undermining going on.<\/p>\n
Was the New York Times oped written by the paper\u2019s own writers or by the CIA? It hardly matters since they are so closely entwined.<\/p>\n
No trick is too low for those who consider Trump an intolerable intruder on THEIR power territory. The New York Times \u201cnews\u201d that Trump is surrounded by traitors is taken up by other media who indirectly confirm the story by speculating on \u201cwho is it?\u201d The Boston Globe (among others) eagerly rushed in, asking:
\n\u201cSo who\u2019s the author of the op-ed? It\u2019s a question that has many people poking through the text, looking for clues. Meanwhile, the denials have come thick and fast. Here\u2019s a brief look at some of the highest-level officials in the administration who might have a motive to write the letter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t it obvious that all this is designed to make Trump distrust everyone around him? Isn\u2019t that a way to drive him toward that \u201ccrazy\u201d where they say he already is, and which is fallback grounds for impeachment when the Mueller investigation fails to come up with anything more serious than the fact that Russian intelligent agents are intelligent agents?<\/p>\n
The White House insider (or insiders, or whatever) use terms like \u201cerratic behavior\u201d and \u201cinstability\u201d to contribute to the \u201cTrump is insane\u201d narrative. Insanity is the alternative pretext to the Mueller wild goose chase for divesting Trump of the powers of the presidency. If Trump responds by accusing the traitors of being traitors, that will be final proof of his mental instability. The oped claims to provide evidence that Trump is being betrayed, but if he says so, that will be taken as a sign of mental derangement. To save our exemplary democracy from itself, the elected president must be thrown out.<\/p>\n
The military-industrial-congressional-deep state-media complex is holding its breath to breathe that great sigh of relief. The intruder is gone. Hurrah! Now we can go right on teaching the public to hate and fear the Russian enemy, so that arms contracts continue to blossom and NATO builds up its aggressive forces around Russia in hopes that this may frighten the Russians into dumping Putin in favor of a new Boris Yeltsin, ready to let the United States pursue the Clintonian plan of breaking up the Russian Federation into pieces, like the former Yugoslavia, in order to take them over one by one, with all their great natural resources.<\/p>\n
And when this fails, as it has been failing, and will continue to fail, the United States has all those brand new first strike nuclear weapons being stationed in European NATO countries, aimed at the Kremlin. And the Russian military are not just sitting there with their own nuclear weapons, waiting to be wiped out. When nobody, not even the President of the United States, has the right to meet and talk with Russian leaders, there is only one remaining form of exchange. When dialogue is impossible, all that is left is force and violence. That is what is being promoted by the most influential media in the United States.<\/p>\n