Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby American Dream » Wed Mar 07, 2018 5:44 pm

Russian propaganda is rampant on Reddit. Here's why that matters.

Image

Russian propaganda runs rampant on the online message board Reddit, especially on the notorious Trump supporters’ subreddit r/The_Donald. A search on Reddit for Russian propaganda outlets RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik News turns up well over 200 examples apiece. This week, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (who uses the handle “spez”) admitted the obvious that yes, Russian propagandists have been using Reddit, and outlined some of the steps the company had taken in response.

Reddit disclosed its efforts to combat Russian propaganda on its site in response to the news that the Senate intelligence committee had expanded its Russian interference investigation to include Reddit and Tumblr. In his post on Reddit, Huffman admitted that Russian trolls had weaponized the platform, that the company was cooperating with the investigations as asked, and that the misinformation problem would be difficult to solve saying “I wish there was a solution as simple as banning all propaganda, but it’s not that easy. Between truth and fiction are a thousand shades of grey.” Reddit is now facing the same scrutiny as Google, Twitter, and Facebook over the spread of Russian propaganda on the platform. Huffman (spez) immediately answered questions from the Reddit community in the comments section.

Reddit is different from the other platforms Russian trolls targeted, as users play such a large role in shaping its community. Volunteer moderators build and maintain subreddits, and the company’s leaders generally respond to user questions and concerns when they make announcements. That doesn’t mean that Reddit has done a better job on issues tech platforms are facing, just that the relationship Reddit has with its user base is less top-down than those of other social networks dealing with Russian propaganda.

The subreddit most closely associated with Russian propaganda is r/The_Donald, already known among Reddit users as a problem child or, as Gizmodo reported in 2016, “a community which, by exploiting poor enforcement of Reddit’s already limp user protections, has effectively been holding the rest of the site hostage.” Multiple Redditors in the comments section of Huffman’s post pointed out that not only had r/The_Donald been infiltrated by Russian trolls (many argued that it was little more than a front) but also that the subreddit’s continued existence was a sign that the platform wasn’t taking Russian propaganda seriously at all.

Huffman addressed this criticism by responding in comments: “Banning them [users on r/The_Donald] probably won't accomplish what you want. However, letting them fall apart from their own dysfunction probably will. Their engagement is shrinking over time, and that's much more powerful than shutting them down outright” (link original). Redditors responded by downvoting Huffman’s comment a record-breaking 6,000 times.

I’ve long maintained that tech platforms will change only as much as their users demand. It doesn’t matter what the issue is -- hate speech, propaganda, disinformation, et cetera -- tech companies have no incentive to do anything beyond what’s profitable, unless pressured enough by their users. What strikes me is that Reddit’s community is better equipped to pressure Reddit to clean up its act than users of any other platform are. Unlike with your average Facebook user, that Redditors are well aware that a lot of Russian propaganda originates from and lives on this platform (*cough* The_Donald *cough*). Redditors have organized communities, and volunteer moderators are already in place. Users have a forum they can use to speak directly to the company leadership, and because that forum is public, media can cover it more easily, amplifying the conversation.

Consumers have more potential power over tech companies than they realize, but only if they take collective action. Reddit’s unique community structure could be the birthplace of a new advocacy model -- one that could spread to communities on other tech platforms.


https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/ ... ers/219576
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby American Dream » Fri Mar 09, 2018 11:13 pm

MARCH 9, 2018
The Left and East Ghouta

by LOUIS PROYECT

While reports filter out of East Ghouta about suffering on a massive scale reminiscent of the siege of Leningrad in 1941, some on the left support Assad’s war crimes because they see them as necessary for winning the war on terror just as Germans supported the war on Bolshevism back then.

Three of Assad’s leading defenders are associated with Alternet’s Gray Zone, a project initiated by Max Blumenthal who was soon joined by Ben Norton and Rania Khalek in churning out talking points for the Baathist dictatorship. Perhaps the rumor mill’s whispers are correct that the Gray Zone has gotten the axe. That would explain why the three have used other mediums to defend a harsh but necessary siege.

Writing for RT, an unimpeachable source, Rania Khalek hopes to answer the question “What the mainstream media isn’t telling you about Eastern Ghouta”. “For years, insurgents in Eastern Ghouta have terrorized and killed thousands of civilians living in Damascus, which you almost never hear about in the West. Instead, mainstream outlets are busy crying out for the west to do something.”

While Max Blumenthal has been mostly silent since Gray Zone’s possible demise, he made sure to endorse Khalek in a tweet: “As Rania explains, those calling for the US to ‘do something’ in Syria omit the fact that it already has – it has spent billions of dollars to arm right-wing death squads and equip their civil society components.”

This prompted CounterPunch co-editor Joshua Frank to tweet back: “Sure but who is dropping missiles in Ghouta? Why can’t we oppose US involvement and also oppose Assad/Iran/Russia slaughter? It’s a complex battlefield yet Khalek’s analysis would have us believe otherwise. She supports the War on Terror as long as they aren’t US bombs. Shameful.” This echoed Jeff St. Clair’s observation in the February 23rd issue of CounterPunch: “Only the most hardened Assadite could look at the carnage in eastern Ghouta from merciless Russian and Syrian airstrikes and not be appalled. I take it as a basic rule that any aerial bombing campaign against cities is a war crime, even if all those hospitals are being hit by ‘accident.’”


Continues at: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/09 ... st-ghouta/
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 24, 2018 3:13 pm

Would you like fries with that conspiracy?

Remember that invitations-only closed-door meeting, organized by Konstantin Malofeev and Alexander Dugin for the top brass of the European far-right in Vienna on May 31 2014? If you have forgotten, here’s a refresher.

Shortly after that get-together, Malofeev was put on the EU and USA sanctions list over his role in funding and coordinating the invasion of Ukraine. The following year, Dugin was placed on the US and Canada sanctions lists, and while the EU did not sanction him officially, his freedom of travel in Europe has been severely restricted since his Schengen visa was revoked and he could not appear as honorary guest at Richard Spencer’s white-power conference in Budapest (full disclosure: Dugin blames me for his no-show).

Three months to the day after the Vienna meeting, Dugin penned a confidential internal document, mapping out the European extreme right and its various constituents’ attitudes towards Russia and Putin. He emailed a copy of his analysis to his colleague Georgi Gavrish, a former officer of the Russian embassy in Athens, and – like Dugin – at that time subsisting on Maloveev’s payroll. Gavrish’s emails were hacked in 2015, and thus our original copy.

The report makes for a mixed reading, alternating between passable analytical insights (as in, “the extreme right took the political space that the extreme left dominated in the 20th century due to the ideological intermarriage between the extreme left in the liberal mainstream”), and wild conspiracy (as in “the neo-Nazi movements in Europe and run by CIA and MOSSAD as part of Israel’s repatriation strategy”, or “Leaders of neo-Nazi movements are often Jews or gays”). There is also the plausible paradigm of the extreme right being split into two groups: an anti-Russian, pro-American half (bad, created by the CIA during hte cold war), and a pro-Russian, anti-American half (good, the “New Right”, organically growing thanks in no little part to the teachings of the report’s humble author).


More: https://cgrozev.wordpress.com/2017/01/0 ... onspiracy/
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:57 am

Newsbud versus Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett


https://youtu.be/aOio1baDxd4

Recently I learned that a relatively new Assadist website called Newsbud.com had featured a blistering attack on Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett (henceforth identified as B&B), who are arguably the most well-known propagandists for the dictatorship. In a video titled “Syria Under Siege: Guarding Against Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing”, the wolves were identified by the subtitle: “Vanessa Beeley & Eva Bartlett vs. Ethical Journalism & Human Decency in the Age of Social Media Reporting”.

Drawing upon the testimony of case-hardened Assadists like Paul Larudee, Newsbud founding editor Sibel Edmonds functions as a prosecutor putting the two propagandists on trial. The main motivation seems to be the need to purge them in order to preserve the integrity of the Assadist movement, which amounts to shaving Hitler’s mustache to make him more presentable. Why this indictment in peoples court comes at this stage of the game is real question—one that I really have no definitive answers for although some of my co-thinkers write it off as a battle over spoils. Since it is obvious that the Baathist dictatorship is more than willing to fund propagandists, maybe this is just nothing more than two jackal pups fighting over access to their mother’s teats. Whatever the explanation, it is richly rewarding to see Bartlett and Beeley being discredited—amazingly enough using arguments I have made myself. Maybe the best thing would be to take them at their word. They state that it makes defense of Bashar al-Assad more difficult when people like B&B are out there making them look bad. So, they are angling to be the lesser evil.

Edmonds makes her case quite effectively, like a DA laying out the facts to a jury. Her main charges are that:

B&B make stuff up.

For example, they claimed that the White Helmets falsified evidence to make it seem like they had rescued a girl named Aya, who supposedly showed up in 3 different videos as if she was a stunt girl in a movie co-produced by the CIA and al-Qaeda. Edmonds answers them with evidence that there really were 3 different girls and, even more importantly, denies that the White Helmets were al-Qaeda operatives. I should add that this charge has also been made by Max Blumenthal who was accused by Vanessa Beeley of plagiarizing her material.

B&B label everybody as a terrorist

Edmonds defends the doctors who served in East Aleppo and is outraged that they were accused of being in league with the jihadists. Her own father was a surgeon killed by the Shah’s military after he had been forced to treat wounded guerrillas so this kind of smear makes her particularly angry. She also lashes out at them for denying that the al-Quds hospital in East Aleppo had been bombed, offering graphic evidence of a bombing taking place that killed the city’s sole surviving pediatrician.

She is also outraged that in addition to violating elementary journalistic norms such as fact-checking or issuing a retraction when an error has been made, they have been calling for the arrest of other journalists as terrorists for simply offering their own version of what is taking place in Syria. Most ominously, B&B have urged the FBI and MI6 to arrest these reporters who they accuse of being terrorist agents. To bolster her case against B&B, she calls upon a real journalist named Rebecca Baker who has no background on Syria to speak on behalf of journalistic ethics. Baker works at the Daily News and is a member of the Society of Journalistic Ethics. Her testimony is valuable even though she is apparently unaware of the shoddy reporting that can be found on Newsbud as well.

B&B are too close to the regime

Edmond calls attention to the tendency of B&B to tour Syria on the regime’s dime and especially to stay at fancy hotels far away from the conflict zones. She argues that it is incumbent for serious reporters to either raise their own money if they are free-lancers or to be funded by their employer. Needless to say, this doesn’t guarantee accuracy if you’ve read Robert Fisk lately.

It is clear that Newsbud is doing everything it can to destroy B&B. A new video has gone up reprising the same points as the one discussed above that is narrated by retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tim Ferner. I should add that Ferner, who is on the Newsbud editorial board, is not particularly noted for having written Assadist propaganda in the past.

To give you an idea of how far Newsbud has strayed from within the Assadist comfort zone, it supplies links to articles and videos that back up their case against B&B. Among them are:

Syria Hospital Airstrike: Are The Rules Of War Breaking Down? (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandso ... blowing-up)

Eva Bartlett’s claims about Syrian children (https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck ... n-children)

Syrian children’s trauma is a laughing matter—if you are Vanessa Beeley (http://orient-news.net/en/news_show/134 ... ssa-Beeley)

Considering the origins of these articles, which are about as remote from SANA, Press TV, and RT.com as can be imagined, it is quite remarkable to see Assad supporters like Sibel Edmonds citing the “enemy press”.


https://youtu.be/ifCXo3w4i3g

Even more startling is the inclusion of a Youtube video that shows a Syrian solidarity activist speaking about Assad’s ties to imperialism during the Q&A at a Beeley appearance In referring to Syria’s attacks on Fatah and its support for the CIA extraordinary rendition program, he will certainly cause at least some of Newsbud’s readers to rethink the usual talking points in favor of the dictatorship.

Leaving aside Sibel Edmonds’s ulterior motives in going after B&B, I am happy to give credit when credit is due. I was very pleased when Sukant Chandan broke with some Assadists who had lined up behind Brexit, something that he saw as a nativist attack on the immigrants he strongly identifies with.

Edmonds has an interesting background. Shortly after 9/11, she went to work for the FBI translating material from Turkey. (Her father was Iranian and her mother was Turkish, she lived in both countries.) She was fired in 2002 after accusing the FBI of having prior knowledge of the attacks. She continued to make news as a whistle-blower. In 2005, she accused Congressman Dennis Hastert of being paid by the Turkish government to promote its interests, including opposition to anything favoring Armenian claims on genocide.

The fallout from her attack on B&B has already begun. An Assadist named James Corbett released a video yesterday that offered a point-by-point refutation of Sibel Emonds’s video titled “Fact checking Newsbud’s ‘Syria Under Siege’ Video” (https://www.corbettreport.com/fact-chec ... ege-video/). Since Corbett is a 9/11 Truther, I just didn’t feel motivated to get his side of the story.

I wonder if some of Newsbud’s editorial team will be comfortable where she is going with this. Included there are Kurt Nimmo, a former editor at Infowars, James Petras who lost his mind about 25 years ago or so, and F. William Engdahl, a former member of LaRouche’s cult who told RT that the 2011 Egyptian Revolution was orchestrated by the Pentagon to facilitate Barack Obama’s Middle East foreign policy and that the Arab Spring was a plan “first announced by George W. Bush at a G8 meeting in 2003”.

It is hard for me to believe that they will be happy with this.


https://louisproyect.org/2018/03/30/new ... -bartlett/
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat Mar 31, 2018 1:23 am

.

Shame that Sibel Edmonds would resort to such low-grade poor-quality hack work.

Since Corbett is a 9/11 Truther, I just didn’t feel motivated to get his side of the story.

Recurring theme in your paste-jobs, this sentiment; need to return to ignoring this 'content' --- wasted time on my part.
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby Elvis » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:28 am

This business of calling everyone who disagrees with the MSM line an "Assadist" is pretty funny.

I don't support Ron Paul, but I do find Vanessa Beeley much, much more credible than Louis Proyect.

Why Everything You Hear About Aleppo Is Wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8mA0h7dCKI


(Does Louis Proyect even know Sibel Edmond's history as a "9/11 Truther"? Why is she then any more credible than Corbett?)

Some notable imagery is often used by the pro-US/neocon propagandists: bombed-out cities, presumably in Syria (but one can seldom be sure, given that so many old photos are recycled in these efforts).

The presumption is supposed to be that Assad is responsible for the wreckage. But the U.S. conducted at least 25,000 bombing sorties—25,000 runs minimum—and on what were they dropping all those bombs? It's at least as safe to assume the destruction is caused by U.S. bombs than to assume it's Syrian bombs.

And they can't make up their minds: first we're told the ridiculous tale that the Syrian air force is all out of jets and must drop barrel bombs from helicopters. Next thing we know, there's accusations involving Syrian jets and cheering over the bombing of a Syrian runway—to stop the previously non-existent jets from taking off. Hello?


If it's fair to call Corbett an "Assadist" (and it's not), then it's fair to call Louis Proyect and AD "U.S. imperialists."

"Isms" being handed out right and left!
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby Elvis » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:48 am

Belligerent Savant wrote:
Since Corbett is a 9/11 Truther, I just didn’t feel motivated to get his side of the story.



Recurring theme in your paste-jobs, this sentiment; need to return to ignoring this 'content' --- wasted time on my part.


Yes, I've given up trying to get any value from these threads, and only checked this one when I saw you'd posted.

And every time I look in on one of AD's anti-Russia/Assad threads, there's another pasted article playing the "conspis" card and promoting, however subtly or inadvertantly, US/NATO imperialist/neoliberal/neocon interests.

I can't speak for anyone else, but that's not what I come to RI for; I can get that from Fox, CNN, PBS, WaPo etc.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby American Dream » Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:54 am

More from Proyect's website:

March 19, 2014
Fascism, “borderless as our lands, and red as our blood”

On the 15th of March, Moscow has witnessed – in addition to the anti-war and anti-imperialist march – a march in support of the Russian military occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The latter was organised by the Essence of Time movement founded and headed by Russian National-Bolshevik Sergey Kurginyan. Here are some pictures from the pro-Kremlin march.

Image

Image

Image

Image

The symbolism of the whole event is best understood by noting a quote from one of the articles by Kurginyan‘s colleague and ideological ally, Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin. In his article “Fascism – borderless and red”, he wrote (the original quote in Russian can be found below):

Russian socialism should be built by new people, a new type of people, a new class. A class of heroes and revolutionaries. The remains of the party nomenclature and their ramshackle order should fall victim to the socialist revolution. The Russian national revolution. The Russians are longing for freshness, for modernity, for unfeigned romanticism, for living participation in some great cause. Everything that they are offered today is either archaic (the national patriots) or boring and cynical (the liberals).

The dance and the attack, fashion and aggression, excessiveness and discipline, will and gesture, fanaticism and irony will seethe in the national revolutionaries – young, malicious, merry, fearless, passionate and not knowing limits. They will build and destroy, rule and fulfill orders, conduct purges of the enemies of the nation and tenderly take care of Russian elderly and children. Wrathfully and merrily will they approach the citadel of the ramshackle and rotten System sic. Yes, they deeply thirst for Power. They know how to use it. They will breathe Life in society, they will shove the people into the sweet process of creating History. New people. Finally, intelligent and brave. Such as are needed. Who take the outer world as a strike (in the words of Golovin).

Immediately before his death, the French fascist writer Robert Brasillach voiced a strange prophecy: “I see how in the East, in Russia, fascism is rising – a fascism borderless and red”.

Note: Not a faded, brownish-pinkish national capitalism, but the blinding dawn of a new Russian Revolution, fascism – borderless as our lands, and red as our blood.


https://louisproyect.org/2014/03/19/fas ... our-blood/
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby Sounder » Sun Apr 01, 2018 7:56 am

Elvis wrote...
This business of calling everyone who disagrees with the MSM line an "Assadist" is pretty funny.


Funny, but not ha ha funny. In a way similar to thread titles such as, Why do people apologize for Russia?, the narrative enforcers achieve an objective of putting critical voices on their back foot, so to speak.

So here we have Assad, a popular elected leader, successfully defending his country from Wahhabi mercenaries, funded from the west, -and we are obliged to 'apologize' for supporting that "bad' man and 'class enemy' Assad, when what we are really asking for is that the millions of dollars of munitions to please be stopped from being shipped to that poor yet proud country.


https://www.globalresearch.ca/syrians-d ... es/5633815
Syrians Defy Fabricated War Propaganda Narratives
By Mark Taliano
Global Research, March 28, 2018
The West’s intentions in Syria are not noble or humanitarian, despite what government spokespeople might suggest.

All of the militarized groups in Syria are supported by the West, and they all exist because of the West.


“Moderate terrorists” never existed. ISIS, al Qaeda et al. are ALL Western proxy forces (even when they are fighting each other).
The West has a very LONG HISTORY of using mercenary terrorists (ie ISIS/al Qaeda) to destroy prey nations. None of it is accidental.[1]
The purpose of these terror groups has always been to destroy and erase Syria. Syria is a secular, pluralist, democratic, socially-uplifting country, and this is the identity that the terrorists have been destroying.

Contrasts between terrorist-controlled areas and government secured areas have consistently demonstrated this.

Whereas the Syrian government provides free, accessible, secular education for all, terrorists in occupied areas actively deny these rights to Syrians.

Tom Duggan, reporting on-the-ground in Syria, asked children, recently liberated from East Ghouta-occupied areas, three questions:

Are you happy to be back on the government side?
Did you go to school?
Are you going to go to school on the government side?

To the first and final questions they responded Yes. To the middle question, asking whether they attended school in occupied areas, they responded No. Translator/teacher Mahmoud Altaweel adds that the kids exclaimed,

“They used to feed us barley as animals food and kept us locked in captivity. No way out for fresh air.”

Most Syrians do now, and always have supported their legitimate government. Election results[2] and photos from liberated areas demonstrate this reality.

Top photo: Damascus University, celebrating “Syrian Student Day”

Bottom photo: Aleppo, marching against Turkish aggression in Afrin

A green bus trip to Idlib, Syria would disabuse Canadian politicians of any illusions that they might still harbor about their criminal support for terrorism in Syria.



We westerners are soooo progressive.
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby DrEvil » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:32 am

^^I agree that the West has been fucking Syria over, but that article is laughable. It falls in the same stupid trap so many others do: the west is bad so anyone opposing them must be good. Binary thinking is bad for you.

Syria is a secular, pluralist, democratic, socially-uplifting country


Compared to other countries in the area, like Saudi Arabia or the gulf states, yes, but that's a pretty low bar to clear, and calling Syria democratic is delusional. It's a dictatorship and have been for ages. They're only now starting to make "democratic" noises to make them more palatable to other countries, thereby increasing their chances of staying in power when the civil war ends. Funny how they only thought to have free elections now, and not during the last fifty years of dictatorial rule.

We westerners are soooo progressive.


I get what you mean but we actually are compared to most other places. Try renouncing religion or being openly gay in a middle eastern country and see what happens.
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:54 pm

.

Try renouncing religion or being openly gay in a middle eastern country and see what happens.


You can thank the US govt, at least in part, for some of that. As one example, Iraq was secular prior to our criminal invasion in 1991 (and later, 2003):

Excerpt:
Women's Status in Iraq Prior to the 1991 Gulf War

After seizing power in 1968, the secular Ba'ath party embarked on a program to consolidate its authority and to achieve rapid economic growth despite labor shortages.1 Women's participation was integral to the attainment of both of these goals, and the government promulgated laws specifically aimed at improving the status of women in the public and-to a more limited extent-the private spheres.2 The status of Iraqi women has thus been directly linked to the government's over-arching political and economic policies.

Until the 1990s, Iraqi women played an active role in the political and economic development of Iraq. A robust civil society had existed prior to the coup d'etat in 1968, including a number of women's organizations.3 The Ba'ath Party dismantled most of these civil society groups after its seizure of power. Shortly thereafter it established the General Federation of Iraqi Women (GFIW).4 The GFIW grew to play a significant role in implementing state policy, primarily through its role in running more than 250 rural and urban community centers offering job-training, educational, and other social programs for women and acting as a channel for communication of state propaganda.5 Female officers within the GFIW also played a role in the implementation of legal reforms advancing women's status under the law and in lobbying for changes to the personal status code.6 On the other hand, some Iraqi women have argued that as a political arm of the Ba'ath party, the GFIW was destructive to women's issues in Iraq and "did not reflect or represent the struggle of millions of oppressed Iraqi women."7

The primary legal underpinning of women's equality is contained in the Iraqi Provisional Constitution, which was drafted by the Ba'ath party in 1970. Article 19 declares all citizens equal before the law regardless of sex, blood, language, social origin, or religion. In January 1971, Iraq also ratified the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which provide equal protection under international law to all.8

In order to further its program of economic development, the government passed a compulsory education law mandating that both sexes attend school through the primary level.9 Although middle and upper class Iraqi women had been attending university since the 1920s, rural women and girls were largely uneducated until this time. In December 1979, the government passed further legislation requiring the eradication of illiteracy.10 All illiterate persons between ages fifteen and forty-five were required to attend classes at local "literacy centers," many of which were run by the GFIW. Although many conservative sectors of Iraqi society refused to allow women in their communities to go to such centers (despite potential prosecution), the literacy gap between males and females narrowed.11

The Iraqi government also passed labor and employment laws to ensure that women were granted equal opportunities in the civil service sector, maternity benefits, and freedom from harassment in the workplace.12 Such laws had a direct impact on the number of women in the workforce.13 The fact that the government (as opposed to the private sector) was hiring women contributed to the breakdown of the traditional reluctance to allow women to work outside the home.14 The Iraqi Bureau of Statistics reported that in 1976, women constituted approximately 38.5 percent of those in the education profession, 31 percent of the medical profession, 25 percent of lab technicians, 15 percent of accountants and 15 percent of civil servants.15 During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), women assumed greater roles in the workforce in general and the civil service in particular, reflecting the shortage of working age men. Until the 1990s, the number of women working outside the home continued to grow.

While most advances in women's status occurred in the political and economic spheres, the government also made modest changes to the personal status laws in 1978.16 For example, divorced mothers were granted custody of their children until the age of ten (previously seven for boys and nine for girls) at which time, at the discretion of a state-employed judge, custody could be extended to the child's fifteenth birthday. The child could then choose with which parent to live. Changes were also made to the conditions under which a woman could seek divorce and regulations concerning polygynous marriages and inheritance.18 These reforms reflected the Ba'ath Party's attempt to modernize Iraqi society and supplant loyalty to extended families and tribal society with loyalty to the government and ruling party.19

Women attained the right to vote and run for office in 1980.20 In 1986, Iraq became one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). While this represented a positive step for Iraqi women, the reservations entered in regard to articles 2(f), 2(g), 9, and 16 undermined the guarantees of equality at the heart of the convention. Namely, these reservations sought to justify continued application of national laws that discriminate on the basis of sex, especially those in relation to women's and girls' rights within the familial structure, on the grounds that they are largely dictated by Islamic law.21 As with other countries in the region, most advancement in the status of Iraqi women has thus occurred within the public sphere.

Women's Status in the Post-Gulf War Years

In the years following the 1991 Gulf War, many of the positive steps that had been taken to advance women's and girls' status in Iraqi society were reversed due to a combination of legal, economic, and political factors.22 The most significant political factor was Saddam Hussein's decision to embrace Islamic and tribal traditions as a political tool in order to consolidate power. In addition, the U.N. sanctions imposed after the war have had a disproportionate impact on women and children (especially girls).23 For example, the gender gap in school enrollment (and subsequently female illiteracy) increased dramatically due to families' financial inability to send their children to school. When faced with limited resources, many families chose to keep their girl children at home.24 According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as a result of the national literacy campaign, as of 1987 approximately 75 percent of Iraqi women were literate; however, by year-end 2000, Iraq had the lowest regional adult literacy levels, with the percentage of literate women at less than 25 percent.25

Women and girls have also suffered from increasing restrictions on their freedom of mobility and protections under the law.26 In collusion with conservative religious groups and tribal leaders, the government issued numerous decrees and introduced legislation negatively impacting women's legal status in the labor code, criminal justice system, and personal status laws.27 In 2001, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Violence against Women reported that since the passage of the reforms in 1991, an estimated 4,000 women and girls had been victims of "honor killings."28 In recent years, both the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) administrations in northern Iraq issued decrees suspending laws allowing for mitigation of sentences in honor crimes, but the degree to which the suspension has been implemented is unknown.29

Furthermore, as the economy constricted, in an effort to ensure employment for men the government pushed women out of the labor force and into more traditional roles in the home. In 1998, the government reportedly dismissed all females working as secretaries in governmental agencies.30 In June 2000, it also reportedly enacted a law requiring all state ministries to put restrictions on women working outside the home.31 Women's freedom to travel abroad was also legally restricted and formerly co-educational high schools were required by law to provide single-sex education only, further reflecting the reversion to religious and tribal traditions.32 As a result of these combined forces, by the last years of Saddam Hussein's government the majority of women and girls had been relegated to traditional roles within the home.


https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder ... -women.htm


Iraq was never a utopia, of course, but the above example underscores an over-arching theme, and explains much of the animosity towards US govt policies/acts of war overseas. It's not difficult to see why US govt actions inspire vitriol.

(It certainly doesn't absolve the criminal acts perpetrated by other nations, needless to say -- there are NO good guys in this movie.)
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby DrEvil » Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:52 pm

^^Absolutely, I'm not trying to excuse what the west has done to many of these countries. My gripe is with this mindlessly simplistic idea that merely being opposed to the west's agenda makes you a good guy, and the subsequent whitewashing of said opponents. As you say, there are no good guys in this movie. The US sucks, the Assad regime sucks, the jihadis extra-special suck, Russia sucks, Iran sucks, Hezbollah sucks, Turkey sucks, Israel sucks.

The only group involved I have even a little sympathy for are the Kurds, but they've also engaged in some pretty sucky things.
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:02 pm

.

Indeed.

Though I'd imagine we can locate a few tribes that don't suck. Most of the Palestinians don't suck, in my view. Native Americans have a perpetual pass as well...

(the groups found on the bottoms of boots, essentially.)
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Apr 03, 2018 3:51 pm

American Dream » Fri Mar 30, 2018 11:57 pm wrote:
Newsbud versus Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett

Recently I learned that a relatively new Assadist website called Newsbud.com had featured a blistering attack on Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett (henceforth identified as B&B), who are arguably the most well-known propagandists for the dictatorship. Why this indictment in peoples court comes at this stage of the game is real question—one that I really have no definitive answers for although some of my co-thinkers write it off as a battle over spoils. Since it is obvious that the Baathist dictatorship is more than willing to fund propagandists, maybe this is just nothing more than two jackal pups fighting over access to their mother’s teats.

The fallout from her attack on B&B has already begun. An Assadist named James Corbett released a video yesterday that offered a point-by-point refutation of Sibel Emonds’s video titled “Fact checking Newsbud’s ‘Syria Under Siege’ Video” (https://www.corbettreport.com/fact-chec ... ege-video/). Since Corbett is a 9/11 Truther, I just didn’t feel motivated to get his side of the story.


This really takes the cake, American Dream. Remember when you asked me what "an article like this" means? This is an excellent example! Here was an opportunity for you to edify us, the members of RI, with the fact that while you personally have nothing but contempt for anyone who would speak disparagingly of 9/11 Truth, you felt the research in this article was of value because .... why exactly?

Honestly, this is probably the fourth or fifth piece of work I've read from this Proyect character and I find his "journalistic" skills to be atrocious. He presents no evidence whatsoever to back up his claim that Edmonds is an "Assadist"; he simply asserts it and pretends that it is fact. Instead he resorts to baseless speculation and pimply hyperbole to get his inaccurate point across. His "research" into Edmonds background is ridiculously shoddy and his description of her associates little more than name-calling.

But then he dismisses Corbett over 9/11. Why was this not a red flag for you after our previous discussion? Without amending commentary on your part, I have to assume you have no problem with Proyect's sentiment. That it's no big deal to you at all.

So let me make my official warning crystal clear to you: do not post articles that disparage conspiracy theories regarding 9/11. That means you need to read everything in the article before you post it.
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Re: Global Research, Chossudovsky, Russia, Propaganda

Postby DrEvil » Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:10 pm

Belligerent Savant » Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:02 pm wrote:.

Indeed.

Though I'd imagine we can locate a few tribes that don't suck. Most of the Palestinians don't suck, in my view. Native Americans have a perpetual pass as well...

(the groups found on the bottoms of boots, essentially.)


I'd say that most people don't suck as long as they have a normal, peaceful life. The problem is when life gets shit on by the fuckheads pulling the strings and playing the great "game". That can turn even the most reasonable person into a zealot. Given the situation the Kurds are in I completely understand why they do things that I normally wouldn't agree with. You can only step on people so many times before they start punching back.

Same goes for the Palestinians, although I have very little sympathy for Hamas. I understand why they're pissed and agree with their grievances, but I can't stomach their religious horseshit. They've essentially hijacked a just cause to promote their own warped one.
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