According to Mark Sleboda, a foreign relations and security specialist, Western media prints ‘anything’ to paint Russia as a threat, including space nukes and washing machines.
The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), published a paper last week that contained a menacing threat, urging US President Joe Biden to reveal details about a “serious national security threat.” Hours later, the rumor began to circulate like wildfire.
According to Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security and defense analyst, Iran has provided drone submarines to Yemen’s Houthis.
“The media” will print anything it is told about Russia, according to Mark Sleboda, a foreign relations and security specialist, which is why the recent media frenzy sparked by false reports of a Russian nuclear space weapon burst and dominated headlines for days.
“Russia’s the gift that keeps on giving, propaganda-wise, because you can accuse Russia of anything, no matter what you said about them [before], about shovels, and microchips or washing machines. And, generally, people will believe it. Or at least the media will print it,” he said, referring to previous Western propaganda claims that Russian soldiers were fighting armed only with shovels and that their missiles used microchips from stolen Ukrainian washing machines.
“Then you accuse Russia of having space weapons, space nuclear weapons, or having plans to put nuclear weapons in space, or someone in Russia once thought technically about the contingency of putting weapons in space,” Sleboda scoffed.
US National Security Council John Kirby informed reporters that the danger posed by US Representative Mike Turner was associated with “an anti-satellite weapon that Russia is developing” as the story circulated through the media. Subsequently, US media sources started revealing that the enigmatic weapon was nuclear.
Russia angrily refuted the charge, claiming it is just advancing US-level space capabilities. To begin with, there are no such projects involving nuclear weapons in orbit. In a televised conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated, “Secondly, the United States knows that this does not exist.”
According to Sleboda, “the scaremongering factor is more important to mainstream media than the details.”
“It’s the same thing with this continual octogenarian fantasy about linking Trump and Russia… all the powers of the US investigative bodies were unable to prove any connection… but that doesn’t stop an enormous number of the American people from believing in it because they want to, and [US Rep.] Nancy Pelosi certainly knows that.”
The expert also acknowledged that the current anti-Russian discourse is a component of a broader campaign to get ready for the US presidential election in November, but it also “does the double job of, you know, buttressing arguments for providing more US taxpayer dollars for weapons for the regime in Kiev.”
