Eric Zuesse -- Is U.S. news-media’s ‘Russia could seize Kyiv in days’ just the latest version of America's ‘Saddam’s WMD’ lying?

 

Is U.S. news-media’s ‘Russia could seize Kyiv in days’ just the latest version of America's ‘Saddam’s WMD’ lying?

 

Eric Zuesse, February 06, 2022

 

On Saturday, February 5th, the Washington Post headlined “Russia could seize Kyiv in days and cause 50,000 civilian casualties in Ukraine, U.S. assessments find”, and opened:

 

Russia is close to completing preparations for what appears to be a large-scale invasion of Ukraine that could leave up to 50,000 civilians killed or wounded, decapitate the government in Kyiv within two days, and launch a humanitarian crisis with up to 5 million refugees fleeing the resulting chaos, according to updated U.S. military and intelligence assessments briefed to lawmakers and European partners over the past several days. …

The size of the buildup makes it clear it’s more than a bluff, but some European officials are still not sure, a Western security official said.  

 

By the time of Sunday morning, there were 4,600 reader-comments, and the most-liked or “Best” one (reflecting the views of the largest percentage of readers up till that point) was:

 

The Templar

Germany has been the cause of immense disappointment in Europe as a whole. It’s voice is important and it basically sits there like a nervous dithering mess trying to play everyone off while it racks itself with indecision. The Russians have spent years undermining the German position and the left and right wings have for years leant towards a romantic notion that somehow Germany and Russia are best friends if only nobody misbehaves. Preventing allies from flying arms to Ukraine over German territory was frankly pointless and a disgraceful way to treat those allies who will act while Germany sits there quivering with worry. Perhaps half the problem is that the German military - for years ignored and underfunded because the country lacks any will power to make a decision, is run down, in poor condition and verging on ineffective. Germany may make and export some excellent weapons but it doesn’t buy them for its own use. Germany get a grip and get with the program! You’re not helping anyone acting like this!

 

That was a response actually to the original version of that article, which had been titled “U.S. warns China risks embarrassment if it backs Russia on Ukraine,” and it had included extensive propaganda against Germany’s Government, starting with: “As the United States deploys some 3,000 U.S. troops to Europe as a sign of reassurance for NATO allies, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is walking a tightrope between standing unified with Washington and navigating Berlin’s close economic ties with Moscow. …”

 

The newspaper’s subscribers were actually responding there more to that anti-German propaganda than to anything else in the original version of the article.

 

A popular Democrats-only news-commentary site, which was founded by a ‘former’ CIA agent who was part of El Salvador’s aristocracy but now lives in America, the “Daily Kos,” headlined “Putin Setting the Scene for a Complete Invasion of Ukraine: Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have grim reports of Biden administration briefings to Congress on Putin’s buildup on the borders of Ukraine.” 

 

The reader-comments there were likewise drenched in Democratic Party lies.

 

Neoconservatism is bipartisan in the U.S. Congress, and also in the U.S. White House, and ‘news’-media; it’s not ONLY what produced the lies that made the U.S. and UK Governments rape Iraq in 2003. The only significant difference between the situation in 2002 and now is that, whereas, then, the U.S./UK regime were targeting only countries that had friendly relations with Russia and with China, nowadays the global-imperialist regime is going for blood against what has been, ever since 1945, its two main targets to conquer. The U.S. and UK Governments are (or else are pretending to be) ready now to go for World War 3, in order to attain their dream (since 1877 in UK) of world-conquest.

 

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.