Fake news in the U.S. endangering Russian ties while corruption pays off big

[yt_dropcap type=”square” font=”” size=”14″ color=”#000″ background=”#fff” ] T [/yt_dropcap]he incessant drumbeat demonizing Russia has reached a crescendo. Half-truths lead, and outright lies follow. A Congressman on National Public Radio accuses the Russians of interfering in the November election; as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he should know better.

The hacking was during the primaries six months previously. It revealed a corrupt Democratic Party leadership scheming to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination. If they were successful in thwarting the wishes and choice of the rank and file, then that is a real scandal, particularly as that leadership did not suffer any lasting consequences. No surprise that many Sanders’ supporters couldn’t hold their noses tight enough to vote for Hillary in November.

She leaves a trail of lies, unethical behavior and corruption. For example, no one investigates how she turned $1,000 into $100,000 over a year trading commodity futures. It is an impossibility particularly, as she claimed, by ‘reading The Wall Street Journal’.

No one is investigating the Clintons’ fortune of over $100 million accumulated as Mr. went around hiring himself out at exorbitant rates as a speaker while the Mrs. manipulated her Secretary of State position. Where are the disappeared emails and why did she not use the authorized email process? Has the true history of that period been compromised? These are just some of the questions unanswered.

Then there is the Clinton Foundation with dubious donations smacking of a quid pro quo routine, clearly obvious in the case of Morocco, which tied the donation to a Hillary Clinton official visit bringing prestige and an imprimatur to the government at a difficult time. The Foundation seems to have now morphed into a $1.6 billion trust fund for Chelsea.

Next we have Donald Trump. The only issue of merit outside his neanderthal agenda was improving relations with Russia. That is now becoming a harder mountain to climb thanks to the spitting in the soup by the Obamaites.

What have the Russians done? Heavens they invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The latter was merely added to the Ukraine to facilitate the administration of a dam being constructed on the Dnieper river during the Khrushchev era. With a split Ukraine, the majority Russian population voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia.

Now the big question? In the present hysteria about Crimea, there is a conspicuous absence of the reason for Russian action in the Ukraine. Half truths are the weapon of choice delivering fake news as effectively as outright lies. Consequently, the protests and organized coup and the self- confessed (by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland) $5 billion expended which eventually brought down the democratically elected government of Ukraine is rarely if ever mentioned.

It is as if the Russians would orchestrate a coup in Mexico setting up a strongly anti-U.S. and pro-Russian government, and the U.S. should then sit idly by.

Such are the ways of a media that cheered on the Iraq war, the Afghan war, the Libyan war, even the Vietnam war, all mostly with fake news, and is now doing the same with Russia.

Dr. Arshad M. Khan
Dr. Arshad M. Khan
Dr. Arshad M. Khan is a former Professor based in the US. Educated at King's College London, OSU and The University of Chicago, he has a multidisciplinary background that has frequently informed his research. Thus he headed the analysis of an innovation survey of Norway, and his work on SMEs published in major journals has been widely cited. He has for several decades also written for the press: These articles and occasional comments have appeared in print media such as The Dallas Morning News, Dawn (Pakistan), The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Monitor, The Wall Street Journal and others. On the internet, he has written for Antiwar.com, Asia Times, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Countercurrents, Dissident Voice, Eurasia Review and Modern Diplomacy among many. His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in its Congressional Record.