[LINK] "The Kremlin’s Manichaean delusion"

[rfmcdonald]

At Meduza, Alexey Kovalev describes the extent to which "fringe anti-Western conspiracy theories" have been embraced by Russia's government. This is alarming, not least because policy based on these beliefs is quite unlikely to actually work.

[Canadian lawyer Christopher] Black's interest in the air traffic controller is not insignificant: testimony by "Carlos the Spanish air traffic operator" is one of the earliest versions of the MH17 catastrophe touted by RT and other Kremlin-aligned media, which were immediately exposed as fake. There's no evidence that WikiSpooks is Kremlin-funded or in any way aligned, but its motivation is explicitly expressed in their mission statement: any fact promoted by the “official narrative” via the “commercially-controlled media” is inherently false and must be disputed. Hence, to WikiSpooks and other similar websites, the position that Russia or Russia-backed rebels shot down MH17 is false simply because it is endorsed by the American government and must be confronted, even if it leads to a jumble of contradictory versions of the same event, based on spurious evidence.

A link at the bottom of the WikiSpooks article indicates that it was reprinted from the website of the Strategic Culture Foundation (where, in turn, it was borrowed from the website of the Gorchakov Foundation, a Kremlin-funded NGO). The Strategic Culture Foundation is a supposedly independent think tank that “provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research, and policy commentary on Eurasian and global affairs.” Some headlines are generic for any news website ("Donald Trump: Unexpected Impact on US Presidential Race," "Afghanistan on Brink of New Wave of Escalating Tension"), but a closer inspection reveals a strong anti-American and anti-Western undercurrent.

While the English version of Strategic Culture Foundation's website looks relatively ordinary, its Russian version (there's also a Serbian one) is outright bizarre. The 'About' section states harmlessly enough: “Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought, and progressive ideas.” But right beside this text is an op-ed by Dmitry Sedov full of diatribes so astonishingly racist that you want to rub your eyes to make sure you've understood. “The trumpeters of democracy from [liberal radio station] Ekho Moskvy don't need those grants," Sedov says of supposed US government funding for aspiring journalists in the Baltic countries to counter "propaganda" out of Russia. "They are already covered in chocolate like the negroes in Harlem!” In another piece, titled “America's Dark Side,” published on August 6, Sedov (whose credentials are unclear, as no biography is provided and his writings can only be found on SCF's website, or reprinted on other loyalist outlets) explains that the US, led by a black president, is falling to the onslaught of "black racism": there are bars that are off-limits to "dogs and whites" and armed gangs of "black fascists" facilitate white flight from major American cities.