The Editor,
On Jan. 20 the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences released their annual doomsday clock report titled, “At Doom’s Doorstep: It is 100 Seconds to Midnight” (midnight being the metaphorical end of the world). Climate change and the threat of nuclear war are the primary rationales for the group’s latest warning to humanity. The [bulletin] goes on to cite the increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. as well as China and America – heavily armed nuclear nations – as major concerns.
On both China and Russia, Western media have loyally adopted official government narratives as seen in a variety of news stories, including the CBC’s radio report, “What’s behind Vladimir Putin’s push for control over Ukraine.” One would be hard-pressed to imagine a similar title substituting Biden for Putin, unless you live in Russia of course.
Is the West acting out of concern for Ukrainian democracy and its people or does it have strategic interests in the region? Are the approximately 750 U.S. military bases distributed around the world there to maintain global peace and security or to help America and its allies, along with powerful multinational corporations, maintain global economic superiority and regional influence? A long list of U.S. interventions/interference in foreign countries, covert and overt, points us in the latter’s direction. These are well worth investigating if we are at all interested in understanding how the great powers of the world, aided by a complicit media, have consistently manipulated the public into supporting illegal and aggressive actions through lies and propaganda. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assessment of America as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world” still rings true 50 years on.
A game of bluff between the world’s dominant nuclear powers serves none of us and deserves a much more responsible debate than the very one-sided Western narrative we are bombarded with. We have no more a monopoly on truth than Russia has on propaganda. That the public is not more alarmed by this situation should make this abundantly clear. The multitude of deceptions and crimes of the West, past and present, many of which were laid bare by Julian Assange and Wikileaks, seem to have no bearing on those entrusted with holding power to account. Instead, those who reveal America’s crimes are vilified and persecuted, while the culpable face no scrutiny, allowing them to walk free and continue to beat the drums of war.
Vagner Castilho
Wakefield, QC