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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAbout Tucker Carlson spouting Russian propaganda last night
Russia has long accused the United Statesfalselyof funding research in former Soviet republics. Now it has a new audience.
Since last weekend, Russian propaganda outlets have been screaming about the discovery of evidence of Pentagon bioweapons labs in Ukraine. The evidence they display is images of some authentic-looking documents that appear to be orders from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health instructing some laboratories to destroy their samples of deadly pathogens. There are also documents from two of these laboratories, in Poltava and Kherson, confirming that this destruction has been carried out. The idea that this is evidence of some American plot is part of a tried-and-true Russian conspiracy theory, as Ill explain below, but its already become an effective one even in the U.S. On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. referenced it on Twitter.
What is going on here? The Russian Ministry of Defense gave a well-publicized public briefing Monday about the documents and the secret labs, and Russian prosecutors are claiming they might initiate a criminal case on the creation of Biological weapons in Ukraine. A reporter on RT (Russias English-language propaganda TV channel) claimed that this is in blatant violation of international law, and more specifically, it is in violation of article 1 of the U.N. Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxic Weapons.
This sudden jump from documents purporting to show that research laboratories in a conflict zone wisely destroyed their pathogen samples straight to secret American biowarfare program in Ukraine is so sudden that it should be bewildering, but Russian propagandists are counting on repetition and old narratives to convince the convincible.
Like most of the most terrible lies, it builds on a foundation of truth, albeit a very shallow one. There are laboratories in Ukraine that receive funding from the U.S. government as part of the defense threat reduction program. The USSR had a massive secret biological weapons program known as Biopreparat, and when the USSR collapsed the scientists and facilities did not just evaporate. The U.S. program, run as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, provides funding to prevent the proliferation of bioweapons and make sure that the next plague does not emerge accidentally from an old Soviet lab. This involves helping make sure scientists with the skills that could be used to create bioweapons stay at home and work on important medical research instead (so they are less likely to get poached by higher-paid gigs in China, or Iran, or North Korea, for example). This program involves upgrading the facilities in the former USSR where the remnants of the Soviet bioweapons program might lay in order to ensure their security and guard against theft or accidental leaks.
More: https://thedispatch.com/p/russian-propaganda-about-bioweapons?s=w
smb
(3,475 posts)Tucker Carlson spouting Russian propaganda last night
It must be a day that ends in "y".
mwooldri
(10,303 posts)niyad
(113,552 posts)mwooldri
(10,303 posts)Hat tip to some other DU-er, I wish I could give them credit but I don't know their name.
niyad
(113,552 posts)SergeStorms
(19,204 posts)I didn't think even Fox would allow Tuckie to go full-bore Russian propagandist, but I guess there's no depth to which Fox will sink to brainwash their viewers.
Murdoch and Co. should be kicked out of our country for aiding and abetting the enemy.
Chainfire
(17,640 posts)You would sure as hell want them disposed of properly before the place got attacked like the Nuclear facility.
Putin may be building up for the use of banned weapons that he plans to use and then to blame on Ukraine. Carlson is laying the foundation. Fox has become an unapologetic propaganda site for our enemies; they are the leaders of the 5th column. I would think that some deep research of the Fox organization would turn up some very damning issues.
mopinko
(70,215 posts)just like he floated the whole genocide bullshit.
projecting.
czarjak
(11,289 posts)skip fox
(19,359 posts)I hope CNN or MSNBC will do a few stories tonight on it. Fox is becoming America's RT.
Thanks for the very thorough post.