Who to Believe and Who to Ignore?

Thoughts on how to navigate the rhetoric on the Ukraine war.

This moment between the United States, Ukraine and Russia feels exceedingly consequential. Did Trump and Vance purposefully scuttle the minerals deal? Why did Zelensky imply Trump was Putin’s puppet and attempt to publicly renegotiate a deal he had ostensibly agreed to? Has Zelensky agreed to terms of a ceasefire because Trump cut off aid or because he genuinely wants peace? Is Russia negotiating in good faith?

We may never know the whole story. We simply do not know what is happening behind closed doors. Educated guesses are also difficult without a broad impartial historical context.

As a result we are in a difficult position. Who do we believe? Some say the 3 year old war is in a stalemate. Some say Ukraine is winning and some Russia. In depth knowledge is necessary and we are not privy to official security briefings. This makes us vulnerable to the narrative builders who are hard at work advancing their own agendas on the back of this crisis. For example, the Democrats have launched “Trump/Russia Collusion: The Sequel” via politicians and their media partners. Since there are people who still believe the original lie about Trump colluding with Putin, this latest narrative has gained traction.

Considering the potential ramifications, it is alarming that Democrats would attempt to undermine Trump’s efforts with this nonsense. One obvious goal is to attack Trump regardless of the consequences. Subtler motivations could be a desire to continue the war and perhaps deflect attention from decades of US meddling in Ukraine, most recently by the Obama and Biden administrations. Meanwhile Trump is running ads pushing for a negotiated peace. Short and long form memes generated by both sides are constantly pumped into social media.

To tune up our truth meters, consider this strategy: 1) note actions that contradict the rhetoric and their results. Results can reveal motive 2) research the facts that are publicly known, 3) note what is being censored and by whom and 4) follow the patterns.

Biden’s actions before Russia invaded Ukraine were inconsistent with his anti-Russian rhetoric. Biden’s sanctions had little impact on Russian aggression while his energy policy, supported by Democratic lawmakers and adopted by several countries in Europe, helped finance it.

As outlined in “Predators” in March 2022: “On Biden’s first day in office, he took steps to hamper US energy markets at a time when the country was reeling from Covid and the disastrous results of the lockdowns. Russia amassed troops on Ukraine’s border shortly thereafter. While Russian troops were in place, Biden increased oil imports from Russia and either ignored or removed Nord Stream 2 sanctions which aided Russia economically and increased their economic control over Europe. Biden then requested OPEC and Russia to increase supply to lower gas prices. Meanwhile Biden and others in the administration repeatedly suggested Ukraine join NATO, knowing this was Russia’s “redline”. Days before Russia’s invasion, FERC made it more difficult to build infrastructure to transport natural gas and the NRC rescinded extension permits for two nuclear reactors. This is strikingly bizarre behavior for an American president.”

As unfortunate as Biden’s public actions above were, US actions behind the scenes appear worse in hindsight. An inescapable conclusion after reading Racket News’s “Timeline: the War in Ukraine” , John Mearsheimer’s articles and Lee Smith’s “Ukraine’s Deadly Gamble”, is that decades of US political machinations have contributed mightily to the dangerous situation we in. We are way past the point of easy answers.

Before Russia’s 2022 invasion, Biden’s actions that helped set the stage for war suggest his primary goal was a proxy war with Russia. Whether intentional or not, his actions also weakened America. As we have witnessed regularly, when there is a divergence between government’s actual and professed intent, a well-orchestrated influence campaign, aka propaganda, to gain public support will follow.

Matt Taibbi of Racket News provides an excellent summary of the propaganda deployed by the administration and Ukraine. An excerpt: “If you’re keeping score, the Ukraine war established American officials could plant deceptions in media as part of “information warfare”; Pro-Ukraine deceptions would be tolerated to maintain “morale”; Russian media was blocked officially in Europe and quasi-officially here; individual posts of Americans were routinely removed or deamplified, sometimes at the behest of Ukraine; and leaks of true information running counter to our own state media narratives would be harshly punished. We banned foreign state media, and essentially mandated fealty to our version at home.” USAID was up to its eyeballs in the scheme.

In “Is Russia at War With Ukraine, or With the West?” Taibbi details a hit job against John Mearsheimer who penned an important article when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 entitled “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault”. Excerpt: “Phrases like “unprovoked aggression” became almost mandatory in Western coverage. Politico interviewed a range of experts and concluded that what Putin wanted was “a revanchist imperialist remaking of the globe to take control of the entire former Soviet space.” This diagnosis of Putin’s invasion as part of a Hitlerian quest for Lebensraum and a broader return to national glory might have merit, but it was also conspicuously uncontested. A differing article by University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer declaring the crisis “the West’s fault” made him, as The New Statesman just put it, “the world’s most hated thinker.” Few went there after.”

With a tidy, unchallenged narrative, citizens and lawmakers wrapped themselves in Ukrainian flags literally and figuratively. “We Stand with Ukraine” became a mantra. People who questioned whether the true goal was a proxy war with Russia, the well documented corruption in Ukraine, Biden’s involvement in that corruption, why Biden taunted Putin with Ukraine’s entrance into NATO, how past American power plays may have contributed to Russian’s invasion or the undemocratic actions of Zelensky’s government were canceled or ridiculed as Putin lovers. Understanding the big picture does not indicate love of a ruthless tyrant, it is a sign of intelligence. The spigot was opened and billions of our money flowed to Ukraine.

Biden promised we would continue support for “as long as it takes”. Rarely asked and never answered - as long as what takes?

We have witnessed this pattern multiple times as illustrated in the examples below. To gain our support for funding the Ukraine war:

• Establish the goal – weaken Russia militarily and/or regime change.

• Hide the true goal under a noble cause - save Ukraine from Russian aggression.

• Deploy marketing campaigns and slogans to sway public opinion - We Stand with Ukraine.

• Actions diverge from marketing campaign and align with true goal – essentially encourage war.

• Attack competing ideas – Putin’s puppet, Putin lover.

Extended Covid lockdowns followed a similar pattern.

• Establish the goals - take Trump out, mass transfer of wealth, modify voting processes, weaken America.

• Hide the true motive under a noble cause – save lives.

• Deploy marketing campaigns and slogans to sway public opinion - money vs lives, flatten the curve, based on science.

• Actions diverge from marketing campaign and align with true goal – ignore science and keep schools closed, open large retailers but shutter small businesses who sell the same products, ignore potential therapeutics that might save lives, encourage rioting and protests while enforcing lockdowns.

• Attack competing ideas – one of countless examples is the propaganda war against Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for authoring the “Great Barrington Declaration”.

The deployment of gender ideology followed a similar pattern:

• Establish the goal - massive profits, create new “marginalized” victim class, undermine the family structure, undermine the biological reality of female and male, and, as some believe, push society towards transhumanism.

• Hide the true motive under a noble cause – acceptance of children with gender dysphoria.

• Deploy marketing campaigns and slogans to sway public opinion – do you want a dead daughter or live son?

• Actions diverge from marketing campaign and align with true goal – teach kids they might be “born in the wrong body” and then sell them health destroying drugs and surgery when they listen, enact legislation to remove the parents from a minor’s gender transition, include gender identity as a protected class thereby legislating the concept of multiple human genders, block therapists from examining other causes for a child’s gender discomfort.

• Attack competing ideas – so many people fired, canceled and physically attacked. The attacks against J K Rowling are a high-profile example.

The George Floyd/BLM campaign followed a similar pattern:

• Establish the goal – mobilize the black vote for Biden in 2020 election, drive donations, reinforce an underclass who perceive themselves as perpetual victims.

• Hide the true motive under a noble cause – the death of a black man under the knee of a white cop.

• Deploy marketing campaigns and slogans to sway public opinion – Black lives matter, I can’t breathe, defund the police, summer of love.

• Actions diverge from marketing campaign and align with true goal – donations go to democrat politicians not poor black communities, condone the “mostly peaceful” riots that destroyed black neighborhoods and businesses, promote defund the police that contributed to the loss of black lives and increased chaos in their neighborhoods.

• Attack competing ideas – opposing narratives were eliminated or downgraded, investigative journalists like Minneapolis’s Liz Collin who questioned the narrative were fired, any who disagreed with the BLM premise were racists.

While the above is oversimplified and we can debate the true goals behind each campaign, the pattern is clear. Aided by censorship, actual intent was wrapped in a false narrative to obtain our unwitting support.

As mentioned above, most do not have enough information to make sense of the very complicated situation between Ukraine, Russia and the West. This makes us vulnerable to manipulation. The patterns can help us decide who to ignore. The perpetrators behind the above influence campaigns are those who appear to have an iron grip on the Democratic party.

It seems wise to discount any suggestion about the Ukraine war or Trump from the party bosses who pushed extended lockdowns, kept government schools closed, believe humans are non-binary, believe it is acceptable to drug, surgically alter and sterilize minors, subjected the country to the multi-year initial “Trump/Russia Collusion” narrative and essentially championed the destruction of minority neighborhoods in search of votes.

Past Democratic propaganda suggests we should ignore current Democratic influence campaigns. One thing seems obvious, if we want peace, the party that wants war with Russia will engage in strategies that encourage continuation of the war. Their narratives to undermine Trump and his efforts at peace reinforce this opinion.

Love him or hate him, Trump has been consistent in his actions and rhetoric about ending this war. Trump’s assertion, while moot, that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he won in 2020 have merit considering Biden’s actions in Ukraine when he was Vice President and Putin’s movement of troops to the Ukraine border soon after Biden was sworn in.

The most important question we can ask ourselves is if we want a negotiated settlement that results in peace or continuation of a war which will involve sending billions more of our hard earned tax dollars to Ukraine and has pushed Russia and China into the same bed.

If the answer is peace, we should give Trump the room to seek it and ignore the influence campaigns designed to undermine him. Negotiations with Putin, as bad as he is, are necessary. Efforts, as clumsy as they may appear, to smooth over prior administrations’ actions that encouraged war do not make the Trump administration “an arm of the Kremlin”.

We should be aware that this situation has been boiling since 2014 and simmering for decades before that. Peace will be a rough road, if possible at all, as indicated by Russia’s rejection of the temporary ceasefire. Let’s pray for the administration’s success. They are going to need all the help they can get.

DETAILS

Below are resources to support opinions above and help people do their own research.

• The Ukraine/Russia relationship is long term and complicated. So is US involvement. I highly recommend reading articles referenced above to gain a broader understanding: Racket News’s “Timeline: the War in Ukraine” and other articles on Ukraine, John Mearsheimer’s substack including “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault” and Lee Smith’s “Ukraine’s Deadly Gamble”.

• It is important that we seek information that counters the “official narrative”. When it comes to Ukraine, this information may be hard to find. Racket News has done a good job of filling that void.

• For those unaware that the initial Trump/Russia Collusion narrative was a fabrication, I highly recommend reading Jeff Gerth’s article published in the Columbia Journalism Review “The Press vs the President” that details the press’s role in promoting the scam. Racket News did a helpful summary.

• The Steele dossier, the basis for the Trump/Russia Collusion scam and spying on members of the Trump campaign, has been debunked. Folks should consider how this extended campaign to take out Trump may have impacted our relations with Russia and Russia’s reaction when the perpetrators regained power in 2020.

• Democrats are not the only party capable of influence campaigns, they are just the only ones good at it. Plus their control of the media allows seamless deployment of propaganda. Luckily for us, Democratic control of the media has slipped. Now with Trump in office, a Republican who does understand marketing, we should be alert.

• A simple google search will reveal the corruption in Ukraine is well documented.

• When Biden would go off script, sometimes he said the quiet part out loud. Perhaps this was the case when he blurted “Putin cannot remain in power”. The cleanup operation was swift.

• As sometimes happens with influence campaigns, when it is advantageous, officials or media partners leak out the truth. ““The way we are looking at this is that it’s making an investment to neuter the Russian army and navy for next decade,” said a congressional source familiar with the ongoing military assistance to Ukraine.”

• Note when I say “Biden” above I refer to his administration and whoever was actually running the country. Unfortunately we do not know that individual’s name.