Darfur: Simplification and Moralization of the Conflict

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 10 March 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The extremely complex situation in Darfur is being ignored by analysts and by the commentaries published in the western mainstream media, particularly in the United States. US media analysts deal with the Darfur issue only as an ethnic conflict, or more precisely as the “genocide” of “Africans” at the hands of the “Arabs”. If it is a fact that the conflict leads to massacres that cruelly affect sedentary populations, it is false to suggest that confrontation is based on such ethnic or “racial” reasons and that such a division is the cause of the conflict.

Pakistan: after the missiles, the smokescreen

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 3 February 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | As we already said in previous articles, the US attacks against Pakistan, whose supposed goal was to eliminate Al-Qaeda’s Number 2: Ayman Al Zawahiri, allowed to attack rebel movements in Baluchistan. However, the mainstream media have never considered this offensive as evidence of Washington’s support of his allied Pervez Musharraf and an attempt of brutal “pacification” of a strategic zone that is crucial for the transfer of oil from the Caspian Sea. Giving more importance to the myth of the “global war on terrorism”, analysts leave aside the subtleties of Pakistan’s policies to focus on the justification, or condemnation, of the principle of “selective killing” and on other questions about the regime of Pervez Musharraf.

Russia: George Soros’ great offensive reveals the emergency of the energy situation

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 2 February 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | As it is hard to believe that the disclosure of the activities of British spies by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is just a coincidence of the calendar, it is certainly very unlikely that the activities of Project Syndicate dealing with the Ukrainian issue are not a veiled response. Thus, the staff of George Soros spreads columns in affiliated media questioning the Russian energy policy and the political orientation of the country. Considering their audience and the effect of their reiteration, it is easy to understand that the arguments presented by Project Syndicate have an impact not only on public opinion but also on the analysts who usually deal with these topics. Therefore, anyone can see in the background of this issue the concern of the big financial organizations about the re-distribution of world energy (...)

The two bodies of the Israeli Prime Minister

By Voltaire Network | 1 February 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | In his famous work The King’s two bodies, German historian Ernst kantorowicz studied the consecration of the royal figure of the Middle Age and of Modern Times in Europe. He studied how the myth of double Royal nature had been created: on the first hand, the individual with his own gifts and shortcomings (the King) and on the second hand the incarnation of a function well above the person who would incarnate that function (the King). Such a system is similarly applied by the media to the post of Prime Minister in Israel. That way, the gifts previously attributed to Ariel Sharon are now those of Ehud Olmert.

Chile, Bolivia… “responsible” left against “populist” left

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 31 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The Electoral victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia again puts Latin America in the focus of attention of the media after a long absence. Erroneously compared to the election of socialist Michelle Bachelet in Chile, the Bolivian election is fairly interpreted by the media as a symbol of a political turning point in the continent. The pro-American circles show concern in front of this trend, while they praise the “realist” policies of Washington’s last supporters.

Iraq: What does success mean?

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 30 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Trapped in its own propaganda, the US currently faces a serious problem in Iraq. The US people are more and more reluctant to the deployment of troops in Iraq, while neo-cons are already dreaming of new invasions. For the Bush administration, the officially-proclaimed objectives of the invasion make it too difficult for a victorious withdrawal, though. Washington’s elite discusses the conditions for the retreat and tries to define what could be interpreted as a success.

Iran: made satanic before what?

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 27 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | We’re witnessing, in the mainstream press, a propaganda campaign against Iran similar to that preceding the invasion of Iraq. We’re seeing again the arguments then used to shape western opinion for a war on Baghdad. However, there is a big difference between the articles currently condemning Iran and those that stigmatized Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before the invasion: there is practically no talking about a possible war. The process of making Iran satanic is running smoothly but even the most belligerent neo-cons frown now before explicitly speaking of an armed conflict.

After all, it is just a movie…

By Voltaire Network | 24 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The entertainment, television or movie industries feature political symbols that can support or denounce the actions of a government. In this case, they then turn into an adversary for those who are in power, whose impact has to be minimized. Over the past months, we have seen several movies of political nature that portray elements criticizing the activities of the Bush Administration. The neo-conservative and Zionist circles have mobilized to discredit them.

Orwellian resource to make torture acceptable

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 20 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Eclipsed by the media whirl of the end of the year, the torture issue begins to gradually appear again in some articles. Most of media outlets make big efforts to analyze it “with clarity and without prejudices” (as the German conservative journal Frankfurter Allgemeine reads), which in fact means justifying the method. Bottom line: torture is harmful from the moral point of view but… Everything lies on that “but” and they resort to the Orwellian neo-speech to sweeten the pill for the public.

Debate on “Islam” Back in the Media

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 19 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The questions about Islam, which have been formulated after the spreading of images produced by the Strauss ideology of the “Clash of Civilizations”, are a recurrent subject in the “Western” press since 9/11, 2001. Having nothing to do with recent reality, many tribunes that expose or question these prejudices have been published in recent days.

Chronicle of the Announced Death of a “Man of Peace”

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 18 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | “Homicidal”, “killer”, “war criminal”, “terrorist”, “commander-in-chief of a death squad”: none of these words will be found in the hagiographic forums spread by the Atlantist press after the stroke suffered by Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Regrettably, this is not amazing to us. We have already commented here how Sharon was presented as a “man of peace”, a “centrist” by an amnesia-affected press.

The Unknown Evo Morales

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 17 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Coca-leaf farmer Evo Morales – President of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) – has been elected President of Bolivia in the first electoral round on December 18, 2005. The International Press puts the event in some skeptical manner, which translates into the US loss of interest in South America and a growing ignorance of its history and evolution. So, the ballot has been hailed incorrectly as the first election of an Amerindian president in the continent.

Silencing the media with submission or with bombs

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 16 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The Project to bomb Al Jazeera has led people to talk a lot about this issue in the United Kingdom, where the government of Tony Blair has refused to make any comments. However, outside the United Kingdom, not much is said about it and most of the western media outlets, the same that do not hesitate to denounce attacks on freedom of the press when it affects a western journalist, remain silent. However, focusing on Al Jazeera, isn’t it losing sight of a more important issue which is the treatment given to the media by the Bush administration? John Pilger and Sydney Blumenthal express their irritation at the submissiveness of mainstream media.

Iran in sight

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 15 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Recent negationist statements by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineyad triggered others by the western media asking for sanctions against Iran, which could constitute the prelude of a military attack. The arguments used include legitimate criticism of the Iranian President’s statements, distortion of the situation in that country, worsening of the threat that would pose Tehran’s civil nuclear program as well as traditional propaganda especially related to the alleged ties between Iran and Al Qaeda.

The “Empire of Evil”’s gas

By Voltaire Network | 14 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The conflict between the Russian gas company Gazprom and the Ukrainian state has brought along, as usual, a series of denunciations about Russian “imperialism” and Putin’s authoritarianism in the western media. It is true that if Russia begins to sell its gas to Ukraine, based on the prices in the world market, it is due to the fact that Moscow is not interested in selling them cheaper energy after Kiev’s recent rapprochement to NATO. However, these events, as always, are accompanied by deceitful and Manichaean comments made by the advocates of the Cold War.

US Gulag: arrogance, hypocrisy and the end of European independence

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 13 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The scandal of CIA detention and torture centers in Europe was generally avoided by European editorialists and politicians during Condoleezaa Rice’s tour. This behavior has been disappointing for the Middle East or Arab press, for which it is not only additional evidence of the US double standard in human rights affairs (since the editorialists of these media do not hope for anything else from Washington) but also a sad demonstration of European submission.

Iraq: “Mission Accomplished!”

By Voltaire Network | 12 January 2006 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Painful or painless? The hypothesis of the US-British troops withdrawal from Iraq is being discussed at great length today in the US, even by the conservative press. It’s not only a matter of leaving but how to leave. A “Washington Times”’s analyst suggested to George W. Bush last week that he should draw on General De Gaulle’s experience who knew how to turn the defeat in Algeria into a political springboard. Not for nothing the new political adviser at the White House Peter D. Feaver – author of the speech delivered by the US President at the Annapolis Military Academy – is an expert on Gaullism and decolonization in the Maghreb.

You Can Say Yes in France!

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 16 December 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The riots that shook some French suburbs are over now; however, the media still echoes them. Rioters are still being confused with French youths of African origin: Muslims and foreigners alike, and free rein is given to the racist oratory both in France and abroad. In an interview granted to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, Alain Finkielkraut – a symbol of this change of tone – puts forward the image of French Muslims at war with the West, emphasizing, however, that it could not be put this way in France. Many analysts think he is wrong while they convey the same image by making allusions.

Predictions about the Future of German Diplomacy

By Voltaire Network | 15 December 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Germany now has a large coalition government combining the CDU-CSU Christian Democrats and SPD Social Democrats together. Although the financial direction of the country is likely to be rather accurately predicted for the next few years, its foreign policy is however much more difficult to foresee. Recently, Angela Merkel has grown more and more atlantist and pro-Israeli, but the Foreign Ministry was handed to Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is close to Gerhard Schröder. Under such circumstances, observers can only make estimates about the future of German diplomacy.

Barcelona: Report on a Predicted Failure

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 14 December 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The Euro-Mediterranean Summit held in Barcelona on November 27-28, 2005 was a fiasco. Presided over by Great Britain and conspicuous by the absence of many Arab Heads of State, the meeting, which should have updated the association between the Mediterranean nations and the EU 25 failed to issue a final document and only made a statement in principle against terrorism. The European personalities in charge, however, spared no compliments about the Euro-Mediterranean association, just before and during the summit. In this spirit, Javier Solana, José Manuel Barroso, Tony Blair and José Luis Zapatero expressed very similar opinions in public praising the great achievements of the Barcelona process and calling for an acceleration of the reforms in the countries south of the (...)

Yugoslavia: commemorations and a bad memory

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 2 December 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | On November 21, 1995, the Dayton Accords put an end to the violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and created a hybrid state entity, based on the division into communities, which validated the main claims of nationalist factions under international control. International media takes this opportunity to wonder about the lessons drawn from this agreement. Except for some rare exceptions, the tendency is to deny that the division of Yugoslavia gave birth to a speech about the “duty of interference” that is reflected today by the remodeling of the Middle East.

Once a “Pacifist”, Sharon is now a “Centrist”

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 1 December 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | On the pretext of Ariel Sharon partly renouncing the Great Israel dream, the Western press, suffering from amnesia, has forgotten his past as leader of a killer commando, his role in the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla and his provocations which led to the second Interfada. The creation of a new party: Kadima – a division of Likud – by Israel’s Prime Minister has been thus presented by the atlantist media as the emergence of a centrist union midway between Likud’s “extremists” and Labor Party “populists”.

Continuation with the goals of the ECT without the ECT

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 29 November 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | After the rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty (ECT), many people asked that the document should be approved in an indirect way or be reviewed later. Currently, the advocates of this strategy are few or act discreetly. However, it does not mean that the goals and challenges that originally determined the ECT have been abandoned. The President of the European Commission, the ultra-Atlantist Manuel Barroso, reaffirmed these goals with the “politically correct” language of the European Union: the adoption of the Anglo-Saxon socio-economic model and submissiveness to Washington’s orders in matters of foreign affairs.

“Those Who Are Not with Us Are against Us"

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 23 November 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | In the media show about violence in France, there is a high-flown chord above all others: the expansion of riots, which, though very limited geographically and sociologically, serve the purpose of further imposing the concept of an imminent war of civilizations upon minds. The press shows a West besieged by non- assimilated Muslim hordes – the fifth column of an “Islamist-Fascist” regime plotting to own the world and build a caliphate on the ruins of a dissolute West. Neo- con analysts repeat this ad nauseam, closely followed by some left-wing European editorialists.

Hariri Assassination: No more need for evidence against Syria?

By Voltaire Network | 22 November 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | After the attack that caused the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and another 22 people, we saw how quickly the Atlantist editorialists and “experts” accused Syria. These analysts used no evidence to launch their accusations against Damascus and, thus, today they accept without any criticism the Melhis report that confirms their initial assumptions. Thus, the western media present the file opened by the German judge as irrefutable evidence of Syria’s responsibility for the attack. However, the analyses of those who criticize the report offer a very different perspective.

Iraq: Partial Failure of a Propaganda Plan

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 14 November 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The Atlantist propaganda media outlets are working hard to spread the image of an Iraq victimized by its own contradictions and terrible domestic divisions, which the UK-US coalition together with Iraq collaborators are trying, very awkwardly sometimes, to help and democratise. Although it has somehow influenced people’s interpretation of the invasion in the mainstream press, this campaign has been unable to disarm the war opponents. The latter keep trying to remind the international opinion that Iraq’s main problem continues to be that of the occupation.

Turkey’s Views at the Centre of Debate on its EU Inclusion

By Voltaire Network | 11 November 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | During the diplomatic talks prior to the Luxemburg Summit about the beginning of EU negotiations with Ankara, the European media hostile to Turkey’s joining the EU, presented every Turkish protest as a hardly acceptable demand or as pressures on the EU. This time, the European press spread an atmosphere of prejudice against Turkey and the Muslim world. Turkish analysts or those from the Turkish Diaspora are now gathering to restore the image of their country before such xenophobic allegations.

Iran and North Korea: Two crises, one solution?

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 26 October 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | Though quite different subjects, the nuclear issues of Iran and North Korea have been compared in articles, which have been published by the international press. In so doing, they tacitly validate the association of both countries, first integrated by George W. Bush in a mysterious “Axis of Evil”. Atlantist circles are turning to the argumentative model used against Iraq: they denounce states that can’t be trusted, an inept international system, and demand “consistent policies”.

Bitter orange-coloured failure

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 19 October 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The division in Ukraine’s orange coalition is a hard blow to all those who hoped this movement would become the spearhead of a “western-like” policy reorientation in the region. Yulia Tymoshenko is striving to minimize the harm brought on the orange revolution image in the western public opinion, which gains more significance since this operation should be followed as a model by the rest of the former Soviet republics, with Russia 2008 in the line.

Israel and its relations with the world

By Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 12 October 2005 | Voltaire, édition internationale | The Gaza retreat plan was partly aimed at easing international pressures on Israel, a fact neither Ariel Sharon nor his advisers ever concealed. Arab or Muslim states, mostly submitted to Washington, hastened to start talks with Tel Aviv in order to establish diplomatic relations. Former foreign policy adviser to Ehud Barak, Alon Liel is proud of how this diplomatic atmosphere is getting over and revives the myth of the absolute independence of the Jewish state.