The Telegraph seems to be going all out to win extra pats on the head from its imperialist masters with respect to lies for Ukraine but this time they come to our notice over an article in their Sunday rag singing the praises of another (official) lie machine. “Inside the secret government unit returning fire on Vladimir Putin’s weaponised lies.” By Edward Malnick, a political editor, published on 19 March 2022 would in other circumstances be highly amusing, but these are not other circumstances and in spite of so many people around the world holding up the NATO, US, UK and EU lies we are now informed that we have a squad of government employed spin-doctors whose job isn’t so much telling original lies, but that when the West’s lies are exposed, they rush in to declare the truth to be Kremlin lies and try to get the original lie accepted again.
“A new counter-disinformation unit, the Government Information Cell (GIC), set up to dispel Kremlin falsehoods relating to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, is responsible for trawling through online and broadcast material to identify disinformation and tackle it,” declares our stoic little Telegraph political editor. He continues, “Ministers and officials see the counter-disinformation effort as a vital element of the support Britain is providing to Ukraine. A senior official in the unit told The Telegraph that the Kremlin was “weaponising lies” and using untruths “to justify the unjustifiable”. The information cell was “exposing those lies by countering Kremlin disinformation.” Mr Malnick informs us that ‘nasty’ President Putin is determined “to flood the airwaves and internet with false and often outlandish claims, such as that Ukraine is led by neo-Nazis and is developing chemical weapons for use against Russia!” – Oh dear, the Fascists who run the Ukraine government while using the willing (and paid for) fig leaf of a Jewish president (Mr Zelensky) have rather given the game away though, haven’t they? Stepan Bandera’s portrait in the parliament, dead 2nd world war Ukrainian SS members reinterred as heroes and the staggering amount of fascist emblems on show in any crowd of three or more Ukrainian politicians/soldiers. And before moving on, haven’t the US already admitted that the bio-labs are run and supplied by them? Of course, they made it plain that the labs were for civilian health matters, but they admitted that they were also used by the military.
Anyway, as they pointed out, the real problem is not who funded them or what was being developed there but that President Putin could find something there that could be used as a weapon against the free world! We’re not sure how many times these people can shoot themselves in their collective foot, but their dancing days are well behind them it would seem.
Moving on, Mr Malnick continues; The Government Information cell “was set up at the behest of Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, in the weeks prior to the invasion in late February, and operates between the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. Its 35 full-time staff are drawn from departments including the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Home Office, Cabinet Office and Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.” Well, who wouldn’t trust that lot? At least three of those departments have been cleared to legally act illegally by recent laws and as for Ms Truss’ reliability, we think her awkward and embarrassing performance trying to shield her boss over the lies of Party-gate wouldn’t even build much trust among her friends.
It was very clever of Liz Truss and co. to set up the GIC before the ‘invasion’ and even to start disproving the Kremlin’s lies before they told them.
It is reported that the GIC ‘information’ reports “have been distributed to some 30 NATO and EU allies, as well as Australia and New Zealand, which are members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence partnership.” The USA and Canada prefer to tell their own lies it seems! Another mighty action taken against Russian mistruths was the gagging in Britain of Russia Today (RT), the “Russian state-owned broadcaster” that lost its licence recently and which according to the GIC was seen as a “significant conduit for Kremlin disinformation.” However, according to Mr Malnick, the GIC’s own research claims “that just 3 per cent of the public trust it as a source of information on the conflict.” One has to also ask the question; if only 3% of the British public trust RT as a source of information why was it shut down in a display of intolerance for alternate views of history and current actions?
Interestingly, the article also reveals this department to be at work attempting the very sorts of propaganda dissemination and manipulation that Western media has repeatedly accused Russia of over the last few years, because apparently very few Russian citizens are foolish enough to take advice coming directly from the British Foreign Office:
“…there is also an understanding that the Russian president has cultivated an innate hostility towards the UK Government and, as a result, ordinary people are not likely to see nor attach any credence to messages deriving from official Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence accounts.
…To get around that problem, The Telegraph understands, the unit has been commissioning advertising agencies to target the Russian population with its messages on sites such as VK, a Russian social media platform. The tactic means that material such as Mr Johnson’s speech will reach the laptops, tablets or mobile phones of people who would never have thought to seek out the view of the British Government.”
Apparently, the GIC will continue with its skilful tactic of debunking lies before they are told, or pre-bunking as Mr Malnick tells us it called internally by the GIC team. An example of this was an intervention by our Premier Boris Johnson, to warn the world that President Putin may be preparing to deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine, after Moscow claimed it had uncovered a “Ukrainian biological weapons lab”. Simply put, once you realise that your enemy has the proof of what you were going to do, accuse him of planning to do it!
Mr Malnick then tell us that an unnamed senior official, he doesn’t say where from, told him that “This isn’t a level playing field.” Adding “We know that the Russians won’t hold themselves to the same standards of truth, transparency and accuracy that we in the UK want to uphold. But we see that as part of our armoury in countering the Russian disinformation.” If that doesn’t have you shaking your head in disbelief at the sheer audacity and stupidity, the nameless ‘senior official’ went on to say; “We know that Russian textbooks dating back to Soviet times, on psyops, psychological operations, taught students that, in defending the state, a lie is not a lie. That’s a weapon. That’s what we’re dealing with and what we’re up against.” Pots calling kettles black comes to mind except there isn’t a case here of even equal blame. The lies and deceit of UK/US imperialism is legendary, as is their cruelty and viciousness when robbing other countries and trying to depose the leaders of targeted states.
Without US imperialism NATO, the UK and even the EU lose much of their power and even though the US desperately wants/needs to see Russia defeated, It currently seems just as desperate to force others to do the fighting and dying on the USAs behalf.