Fake News and NATO’s Plans for “Persuasion and Impacting the Media.”

In his excellent “NATO, a Monstrous Institution” (1) Karel van Wolferen writes:

“Having survived Afghanistan, NATO continued to play a significant role in the destruction of Gaddafi’s Libya, and in the destruction of parts of Syria through covertly organising, financing, and arming ISIS forces for the purpose of overthrowing the Assad government. And it continues to serve as a cover for the war making elements in Britain and France. America’s coup in the Ukraine in 2014, which resulted in a crisis in relations with Russia, gave NATO a new lease on life as it helped create entirely uncalled for hysterical fear of Russia in Poland and the Baltic states.” (Emphasis added.)

By Felicity Arbuthnot

Professor van Wolferen puts his finger on an often forgotten fact, NATO has to continually seek a “new lease of life”, a raison d’etre. If factions – predominately Western and US led – were not encouraged, or inspired by oil and other natural resources to be bloodily carpetbagged, NATO would be redundant. When the Berlin Wall came down and the world rejoiced, things must have looked bleak in NATO-land.

Nothing could make this more cynically, starkly clear than a letter, written in June 1979, from General Alexander Hague, NATO Secretary General, on handing over the position to his successor Joseph Luns. The letter reads:

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED POWERS EUROPE

GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL DES PUISSANCES ALLIÉES EN EUROPE

BELGIUM

26th June 1979

His Excellency Joseph M.A.H. Luns

The Secretary General

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Brussels/Zaventem Autoroute

B-1110 Brussels, Belgium

Dear Joseph,

On leaving the post of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, I feel it my duty to stress once again certain aspects of allied strategy which demand our further attention and effort.

Yet in my view, planning for the deployment and use of modernized nuclear forces in Europe can be adequately be accomplished only if full understanding and cooperation are achieved. It is therefore necessary to prepare systematically and persistently, a basis for making a success of the NATO council meeting in December, bearing in mind primarily the crisis inside the Alliance over neutron weapons deployment. Every effort should be made to counter any hesitation or vacillation among the allied nations during decision making meetings.

We will never be able to put in to effect our joint plans in this vital area unless quite exceptional efforts are made to check European tendencies toward neutralism, pacifism and unilateralism. To achieve this, it is necessary, I feel, to emphasise the theme that nuclear weapons balance, particularly in the European theatre, has changed sharply in favour of the East. We should constantly bear in mind the necessity of continuously directing attention to the Soviet military threat and of further activising our collaboration with the mass media.

If argument, persuasion and impacting the media fail, we are left with no alternative but to jolt the faint hearted in Europe through the creation of situations, country by country as deemed necessary, to convince them where their interests lie. This would call for appropriate action of a sensitive nature which we have frequently discussed and I have been greatly encouraged by the absence of disagreement between us regarding priorities. Back in the States, I shall not cease to monitor the European situation in any role I may be called upon to play and hope to continue our hitherto fruitful exchange of views.

The course of action which we have in mind may become the only sure way of securing the interests of the West.

Sincerely,

(signature)

ALEXANDER M. HAIG, JR,

General, United States Army

Supreme Allied Commander.

So it was vital that:

“… quite exceptional efforts are made to check European tendencies toward neutralism, pacifism and unilateralism.” Peace, détente, the European Union even, must have presented a nightmare.

“If argument, persuasion and impacting the media fail, we are left with no alternative but to jolt the faint hearted in Europe through the creation of situations, country by country as deemed necessary, to convince them where their interests lie. This would call for appropriate action of a sensitive nature …”

It has to be wondered if the current onslaught on respected, well informed websites which have consistently shone light into the war propaganda darkness, being attacked as “fake news” and worse, has anything to do with the fact that they have gone a long way to waking up the public. “ … argument, persuasion and impacting the (main stream) media” have been massively sidelined.

The anti-warmongering cat has been released from the bag, yelling “Iraq weapons of mass destruction was a lie”; “Libya was destroyed for making the country the richest in Africa and planning to switch to trading in a pan-African Dinar”; “Afghanistan was invaded because it has $ trillions in natural resources”; “the Syrian ‘uprising” was planned from within the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006”(2.)

The cat could go on – and on, but thinks, for now, the NATO letter is food for thought in our times.