Media Darling Tom Friedman Gives Disinformation a Bad Name
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Author Belen Fernandez called him an “imperial messenger.” Norman Solomon accused him of “prostitut(ing) his intellect,” what little of it he has.
He reportedly earns 7-figure annual income, supporting destructive globalization and US imperial power – demanding condemnation, not praise, selling his soul for big bucks, a journalist in name only. My soul is priceless, not for sale at any price.
His “monumental conceit is legendary…an assiduous bootlicker…marinated in self-regard, (often acting) stupid, said the late Alex Cockburn.
Friedman is militantly Russophobic, grabbing any chance to bash Putin – his latest column asking: Is he “a CIA Agent?”
Turning truth on its head, he said “Putin has undertaken so many actions in recent years that contributed to the weakening of Russia’s economy and human capital base that you have to wonder whether he’s secretly on the CIA’s payroll.”
He recited a fake news laundry list of so-called examples, showing he knows nothing about Russia, its economy, its people or Putin – his commentary an embarrassment of misinformation and disinformation.
Friedman: Putin “tapp(ed) his oil and gas wells, not his people; by strengthening the Russian military, instead of the rule of law; and by enriching himself and his circle of oligarchs while wrapping himself in a cloak of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism that appealed to his base.”
Responsible editors wouldn’t touch this rubbish. Times editors love it, waging editorial war on Russia, especially Putin – ignoring his overwhelming popularity for bringing his country back from the shambles of the Yeltsin years.
Friedman: “Putin is proving to be a successful authoritarian, (so) why is (he) so insecure about his real popularity in Russia that even after nearly 20 years at Russia’s helm, he was afraid to allow a single credible independent candidate to run against him in the latest presidential election?”
Fact: Putin is a democratic leader, unlike most, maybe all, his Western counterparts – notably in America, Britain, France, Germany, France and Italy.
Fact: Russia’s electoral system shames America’s sham process. Eight aspirants were candidates in the March 18 election, Putin overwhelmingly reelected because Russians want no one else leading them.
No one in the West matches his stature, reality not going down well with Friedman and Times editors
Friedman: “(I)n 2014 Putin seized Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine with disguised Russian troop…”
These and similar bald-faced lies were exposed long ago!
Friedman: “Putin sent advisers, Russian Air Force jets, special operations teams and surface-to-air missile batteries to Syria to prevent the toppling of Russia’s Cold War ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
“Putin’s support, along with the help of Iran, has just barely kept Assad upright, but for now Putin is stuck in the middle of Syria and can’t get out, lest Assad falls and Putin looks foolish.”
Fact: Friedman, not Putin, looks foolish. Russia’s intervention at the behest of Damascus foiled Washington’s regional imperial objective – with minimum forces, combating US-supported ISIS and other terrorists.”
Fact: US involvement in Syria is illegal – naked aggression against a sovereign independent country threatening no one, massacring civilians by terror-bombing, using terrorists as imperial foot soldiers.
Fact: Instead of explaining the above and more about the conflict, Friedman and the Times produce disinformation, truth-telling considered abhorrent.
Friedman: Putin “order(ed) the the use of a military-grade nerve agent, produced only in Russia, to poison the former Russian spy Sergei V. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia…”
The Big Lie is unravelling faster than Friedman can dream up more rubbish to write about.
The rest of his tirade amounted largely to an ad hominem assault on the world’s preeminent leader.
If America had anyone to match him, along with likeminded majority congressional support, world peace and stability would triumph over endless wars of aggression.
America would be safe and fit to live in, instead of its current dystopian state, waging war on humanity at home and abroad for hegemonic world dominance, a destructive agenda Friedman and the Times support instead of responsibly denouncing it.
He and the Times disgrace the profession of journalism they abandoned long ago.
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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
