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Putin Wins Propaganda Battle Against the West
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
October 25, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Silence on the part of U.S. President Barack Obama
and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has given 62-year-old Russian President
Vladimir Putin an unprecedented license to distort reality and advance his
agenda. Obama’s silence on the
airwaves to confront the most vociferous propagandist since Hitler’s Third
Reich, the West loses the PR battle to Putin’s relentless attempt to skew world
opinion against the U.S.
Capitalizing on U.S. foreign policy blunders, Putin excuses his egregious
conduct violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Instead to explaining his logic in
seizing Crimea and backing pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine’s Southeast, Putin
blames the U.S. for the world’s problems.
Citing a “desire of world domination,” Putin paints the U.S. as the
world’s undisputed aggressor. Putin
diverts world attention away from his aggression in former Soviet satellites.
When Putin moved the Russian army into Georgia in 2008 Aug. 7-12, he
annexed sovereign Georgian territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Former President George W. Bush did little to protest Putin’s brazen violation of
Gerogia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Despite pleas by Georgian President Mikeil Saakashvili for help, no
Western country came to Georgia’s defense.
Putin learned a valuable lesson that the soft societies of the West have
no stomach for confronting Russian aggression.
Putin insists the U.S. crushes the “hopes for peaceful and stable
development will be illusory, and today’s upheavals will herald the collapse of
the global order,” blaming the U.S. for seeking to dominate the globe. Pandering to the worst fears of the
Third World, Putin has ready audience of U.S.-bashers, easily duped into
believing that Washington seeks to dominate the planet.
Citing wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria, Putin makes his case repeatedly on
the world stage. Leaders of the
Free World, like Obama, Cameron and France’s Francois Hollande, sit idly by
while Putin defines the West’s evil intentions, painting Russia as just another
hapless victim. Accusing Washington
of “fighting against the results of their own policy,” Putin bashes the U.S. for
pursuing self-serving foreign policies that destabilizes otherwise stable
regions. Putin has a point when it
comes to Iraq, where former President George W. Bush’s war against Saddam
Hussein created a power vacuum, opening up the floodgates to Islamic terrorism. Putin cites chaos in Iraq, Libya and
Syria as proof of failed U.S. policies.
While there’s little doubt that the Iraq War destabilized the region, the
U.S. hasn’t yet come to grips with Putin’s point that democracy carries certain
risks, including putting undesirable regimes in power.
Whatever went haywire with U.S. foreign policy, Putin wants to divert
attention away from Russian aggression in Georgia and now Ukraine. “They are following their might to remove the risks they have created themselves, and
they are paying an ever increasing price,” said Putin, referring to U.S.
mistakes in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Putin strongly disagrees with White House policy to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad,
believing it would only add chaos to the region.
As the U.S. gives military assistance to anti-Assad rebels to fight the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Putin sees the strategy backfiring. Backing dictators in region keeps
various terror groups from running amok, as seen recently in Tunisia, Egypt,
Iraq, Libya and Syria. While Putin
raises some good points, it doesn’t give him license to steal land in Georgia
and Ukraine.
Unable to confront Putin militarily in Ukraine or the Caucasus region,
the U.S. and EU can only apply economic sanctions to protest Russia’s land grab. Insisting the U.S. “does not seek
confrontation with Russia, but we cannot and will not compromise on the
principles on which security in Europe and North America rest,” State Depart
spokeswoman Jen Psaki reveals failures in current U.S. foreign policy. Admitting that the U.S. avoids
confrontation gives Putin a green light, if he chooses, to pick off any former
Soviet Republic for his own gain.
Failure to act in Georgia in 2008 emboldened Putin’s move to annex Crimea. Unless the U.S. and NATO are
prepared to draw a line in the sand, Putin won’t pay attention to idle Western
threats. Imposing economic
sanctions and booting Putin out of the G8 March 24 was the only concrete steps
that have got his attention.
Robbing all the headlines because of a default by U.S. and EU officials,
Putin manipulates the press for his own gains.
Defining the U.S. as the world’s biggest menace allows Putin to continue
bullying former Soviet satellites, threatening more possible land grabs. None of the battered Soviet
satellites have the resources to stop aggression by the Russian army. “Unilateral diktat and attempts to enforce their own cliché on other bring opposite
result: escalation of conflicts
instead of their settlement, widening area of chaos in place of stable sovereign
states, support for dubious elements from open neo-Nazis to Islamic radicals
instead of Democracy,” Putin delivers his propaganda without any response from
the West. Without Obama or other
Western leaders challenging Putin’s propaganda, the world can expect more
Russian excuses, land-grabs and violations of international law.
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