{"id":120299,"date":"2022-06-14T10:20:41","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T14:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=120299"},"modified":"2022-06-14T10:21:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T14:21:02","slug":"canadian-censorship-regime-now-calling-ukraine-war-truth-tellers-foreign-agents-useful-idiots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=120299","title":{"rendered":"

Canadian Censorship Regime Now Calling Ukraine War Truth-tellers ‘Foreign Agents’ & ‘Useful Idiots’<\/b><\/h3>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Intellectual Prostitutes Call Critics of Russia-Ukranian War Foreign Agents, Useful Idiots<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The supporters of militarism would like us to believe that anyone criticizing Canada and NATO\u2019s policies on Ukraine is a Russian agent or a useful idiot.<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Posted by Jonas E. Alexis, Assistant Editor
\nVeterans Today<\/p>\n

by Yves Engler<\/p>\n

A military funded academic, working at a school launched by Condoleezza Rice, claims leftist and antiwar journalists engage in Russian disinformation. His report doesn\u2019t provide any evidence or refute anyone\u2019s argument, but the mainstream media laps it up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday the University of Calgary School of Public Policy released \u201cDisinformation<\/a>\u00a0and Russia-Ukrainian war on Canadian social media\u201d. With the exception of a blog by Dimitri Lascaris that\u00a0dismantled<\/a>\u00a0its absurd ideological premises, coverage of the report was almost entirely uncritical. Headlines included: \u201cCanada target of Russian disinformation, with tweets linked to foreign powers\u201d (Globe and Mail), \u201cWhy is Canada the target of a Russian disinformation campaign?\u201d (CJAD Montr\u00e9al) and \u201cCanada is target of Russian disinformation, with millions of tweets linked to Kremlin\u201d (City News Toronto).<\/p>\n

\n

The report\u2019s lead author Jean-Christophe Boucher was a guest on multiple TV and radio outlets, labeling those who question the role of NATO expansion, the far right and 2014 coup against an elected president in understanding the war in Ukraine \u201cuseful idiots<\/a>\u201d of Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

Boucher and his co-researchers claim to have mapped over six million tweets in Canada about the conflict in Ukraine. They claim over a quarter of the tweets fall into five categories they label \u201cpro-Russian narratives\u201d. But they don\u2019t even attempt to justify the five categories.<\/p>\n

Instead, they simply list the most prominent commentators and political figures promoting these ideas under the rubric of \u201cTop Russian-influenced Accounts\u201d. The list includes leftist journalists Aaron Mat\u00e9, Benjamin Norton, Max Blumenthal, Richard Medhurst, and John Pilger. But no evidence is offered to connect these individuals to Russia.<\/p>\n

While \u201cDisinformation and Russia-Ukrainian war on Canadian social media\u201d reveals little, it has served its political purpose. It will further insulate Canadian officials from criticism of their policies by suggesting anyone questioning Ottawa\u2019s Ukraine\/NATO policies are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.<\/p>\n

Boucher is a product of the Canadian military\u2019s vast publicly financed ideological apparatus, which I detail in\u00a0A Propaganda System<\/a>: How Canada\u2019s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation. He has been a fellow at the military and arms industry funded Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Dalhousie Centre for the Study of Security and Development. He advocates theories amenable to the military\u2019s interests, including \u201cstrategic retrenchment<\/a>: falling back on the people you can really trust\u201d, which is a sophisticated way of saying Canada should deepen its alliance with the US empire.<\/p>\n

His academic profile says Boucher \u201cis a co-lead<\/a>\u00a0of the Canadian Network on Information and Security, funded by the Department of National Defence\u201d while his Canadian Global Affairs Institute bio notes that \u201che is currently<\/a>\u00a0responsible for more than $2.4M of funding from the Department of National Defence (DND) to study information operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The military put up the money to establish the Canadian Network on Information and Security (CANIS) as a joint project between the University of Calgary\u2019s Public Policy Institute and Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies. A 2020-21 DND report labels CANIS among three initiatives \u201claunched<\/a>\u00a0to tackle DND\/CAF\u2019s most pressing challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Calgary School of Public Policy is essentially a right-wing think tank housed at a university,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0Donald Gutstein, author of two books on Canadian think tanks. It was set up in 2008 with $4 million from leading oil and gas lawyer James Palmer and launched at a\u00a0$500-a-plate<\/a>\u00a0gala that included a keynote speech by George W. Bush\u2019s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.<\/p>\n

The supporters of militarism would like us to believe that anyone criticizing Canada and NATO\u2019s policies on Ukraine is a Russian agent or a useful idiot. But people being paid to promote opinions favorable to arms makers, the US empire and powerful individuals should have little credibility when it comes to criticizing the motivation of others.<\/p>\n

Yves Engler\u2019s latest book is<\/i>Stand on Guard for Whom?<\/a>: A People\u2019s History of the Canadian Military.<\/i><\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.veteranstoday.com\/2022\/06\/13\/intellectual-prostitutes-call-critics-of-russia-ukranian-war-foreign-agents-useful-idiots\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Intellectual Prostitutes Call Critics of Russia-Ukranian War Foreign Agents, Useful Idiots The supporters of militarism would like us to believe that anyone criticizing Canada and NATO\u2019s policies on Ukraine is a Russian agent or a useful idiot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}