Russia is winning, Israel is not

Though Western media are systemically corrupt, they do not always deceive and distract. On many matters the BBC, Washington Post, Guardian, Economist, CNN and the like bring useful facts and an informed eye to matters not at all trivial; abortion, say, or systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

But on matters of core concern to the corporate oligarchies whose influence on affairs of state is as vast as yours and mine is token and miniscule – on matters, that is, of core concern to a ruling class ¹ – none of those media are able, for reasons gone into here and here and here, to prioritise truth over narratives which service power. ²

Even when those narratives are manifestly false.

One of many things that give both the proxy war on Russia in Ukraine, and Israel’s genocide in Gaza, wider significance is that even ‘quality’ media are haemorrhaging ‘credibility capital’ over them. This is more obvious in Palestine, where no corporate outlet is able to call a genocide a genocide even when it’s being livestreamed to the world. How could so craven a dereliction of ostensible duty not eat into the trust of all but the most credulous of audiences?

In the case of the Ukraine a little research is required for the average Westerner to see that the mandatory “unprovoked”  prefix to “Putin’s war”  is a denial of the most basic facts.

For a few more of the very many other provocations, see this post

A denial that leaves the discerning asking whether self-serving credulity …

Journalists who know what’s good for them please editors. Editors who know what’s good for them please proprietors. Proprietors not only crave seats at the high table. They need advertisers and/or wealthy sponsors.

… has crossed over into flat out mendacity.

When ruling class needs require media to shill for undeclared wars whose proxy and/or covert nature denies the state use of its more obvious forms of coercion – Treason Acts and the like – two distinct propaganda fronts open up. One is to promote the essential justness of such wars by painting the shadow enemy as the latest “New Hitler”, and depicting those who refuse to suspend critical faculties and refrain from asking awkward questions as useful idiots if not out and out apologists for evil. ³

The other is to drill in that the shadow enemy cannot win. That Israel is all powerful, say, and resistance – be it from Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis or the “head of the snake” – futile. Or that Russia’s Unprovoked Invasion of Ukraine is doomed and the rouble will be reduced to rubble.

Today’s offerings pertain to that second – “we’re winning” – propaganda front, as it applies to the Ukraine and to Israel.

Moon of Alabama, yesterday:

NY Times Announces Ukraine Narrative Change

Below are a number of New York Times headlines which represent the propaganda narrative about Ukraine as it has changed over time.

‘Ukraine is winning’ was the direction of stories issued from April 2022 up to August 2023.

• • Can Ukraine Keep Winning? – Apr 20, 2022
    As a new phase of the war begins, we look at Russia’s advantages — and Ukraine’s.

• • For Ukraine, So Much Unexpected Success, and Yet So Far to Go – Nov 22, 2022
    Ukraine is on the offensive along most of the 600-mile front line, and the Russians are in a defensive crouch. But about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory is still occupied by Russia.

• • Ukraine Makes ‘Tactically Significant’ Progress in Its Counteroffensive – Aug 12, 2023
    Troops advanced several miles along two main lines of attack in Kyiv’s drive to reach the southern coast and sever Russian supply lines, while explosions echoed at the vital Kerch Strait Bridge.

When it was finally acknowledged that the Ukrainian ‘counteroffensive’ had failed the narrative moved towards ‘it’s a stalemate’ which was used to describe the situation up to the fall of 2024.

• • Who’s Gaining Ground in Ukraine? This Year, No One. – Sep 8, 2023
    Although both sides have launched ambitious offensives, the front line has barely shifted. After 18 months of war, a breakthrough looks more difficult than ever.

• • U.S. Officials Say Russia Is Unlikely to Take Much More Ukrainian Territory – Jul 9, 2024
    Russian forces continue to inflict pain, but NATO leaders gathering in Washington can say that their efforts to strengthen Ukraine are working.

We are now arriving at a phase where the narrative can no longer ignore the objective reality. Ukraine is losing the war. Russia is winning.

• As Russia Advances, U.S. Fears Ukraine Has Entered a Grim Phase – Nov 1, 2024
  Weapons supplies are no longer Ukraine’s main disadvantage, US military officials say.

> American military and intelligence officials have concluded that the war in Ukraine is no longer a stalemate as Russia makes steady gains, and the sense of pessimism in Kyiv and Washington is deepening …
… The Pentagon assesses that Ukraine has enough soldiers to fight for six to 12 more months, one official said. After that, he said, it will face a steep shortage. <

Ukraine never had a chance to win a contest with Russia. The correlation of forces where never in favor of Ukraine. It had neither the men, money or industry to win the war. Nor did the West ever intended to provide those. The U.S. aim was and is to weaken Russia, not to defeat it. That would be too dangerous (think nukes).

As UWDude remarked in a recent comment (edited):

Again, at the outset, Russia vs Ukraine, a whole bunch of bullshit was spewed about how weak Russia was to build a case for Ukraine having a chance, when every casual observer could see Russia would win. Like watching a bear tangle with a doe, and people saying bears are not that powerful and a doe’s kick could kill a bear if in the right place.Ukraine having a chance was just people lying to themselves, when the truth was evident from the start.

At least some of the profession propagandists are smart enough to recognize that the fairytales they write are just that and have nothing to do with reality. Other propagandists, often politicians, are falling for their own narrative. They once did believe that Ukraine was winning. They once did believe that the war was at a stalemate. They will now come to believe that Ukraine is losing the war.

Let’s hope that they will derive the correct consequences from it.

(Make peace you fools!)*

Meanwhile in a Middle East linked to the Ukraine war by a good deal more than our being right royally lied to about both, here’s Scott Ritter on the military and moral degradation of the Israel Defence Force.

* * *

1. I used to avoid the r-word via substitutes like “the establishment” but have grown weary of pandering to smug know-nothings whose eyes roll at all talk of a “ruling class” they seem to think – without showing the least sign of having looked into the matter – filed for dissolution at the dawn of universal suffrage.
2. A fallacy widespread among the many who still think corporate media serve us at least tolerably well is to suppose that we who know different place conspiracy – and/or the subjective dishonesty of journalists – at the heart of our insistence on media corruption. As regards the conspiracy aspect (which assuredly does take place in extremis but is not critical to our case) here’s Noam Chomsky:

   Media are large corporations selling privileged audiences to other corporations. Now the question is; what pictures of the world would a rational person expect from such an arrangement?

   And as regards subjectively dishonest journalists, here’s Chomsky again, in a much cited and admired exchange with Andrew Marr. How, asks the BBC presenter, can Chomsky be sure that he, Marr, is self censoring? To which Chomsky replies:

   I don’t say you are self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I am saying is that if you believed something different you would not be sitting in that chair.

3. This paragraph needs a little unpacking. First, I do not suggest that in declared wars the state has no need of corporate media propaganda. Of course it does, in ways gross and subtle. But in undeclared wars media propaganda is relatively more important because the state has fewer coercive tools at its disposal. Second, in the case of proxy war in the Middle East – see my four posts on US Neocons and Israel’s far Right – state inability to bring or threaten treason charges is offset by legislation slipped in amid the panic of 9/11. In Britain we have the recent arrests and/or house searches of Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson and Asa Winstanley, in the US similar on Scott Ritter, while across the West a criminalising of “hate” goes hand in hand with redefinitions of “anti-Semitism” to include criticism of the state of Israel.