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Opinion-editorials decyphered



Authors and Sources of Op-Eds Decyphered

 10 March 2006
Darfur: Simplification and Moralization of the Conflict

Decyphering 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 (...)

Op-Ed Summaries
- Joseph R. Biden Jr. : “U.S. must act now to end genocide in Sudan”
- John Heffernan David Tuller : “Ending genocide in Darfur”
- John Prendergast Don Cheadle : “ Our friend, an architect of the genocide in Darfur”
- Jack Straw : “ Darfur: Stop the killing, or pay the price”
- Aissam Eddine Al Hajj : “War is not the solution to the crisis in Darfur”
- Moukhtar al Dobabi : “Sudan follows the steps of Iraq”

Caricatures and hysteria that disguise the truth
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 2 March 2006 | Had we wanted to be exhaustive, we could have published hundreds of articles, interviews and editorials about the caricatures of Mohammed and the reactions in the Muslim world. This story has reached incredible proportions in the international media. Most editorialists have commented the incident; the mainstream media have published long articles and even special dossiers. In most of the cases, the conflict presented by the western media is the same: they portray a conflict between a West that embodies freedom and a Muslim world, frequently identified with the Persian-Arab world, that embodies obscurantism. It is an approach that disguises the true questions of the (...)

Afghanistan: Media Unanimity
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 15 February 2006 | The London Conference on Afghanistan was held amidst the relative indifference of the press, since dailies devoted little space to the event. However, we witnessed a media campaign by atlantist circles on «opinion» pages both before and during the conference. The objective of these forums, particularly of a single colour, was to mobilize public opinion in favour of support of the Hamid Karzai government as well as to recall the atlantist version on Afghanistan.

Deterrence: What did Jacques Chirac really mean?
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 9 February 2006 | Last January 19, French President Jacques Chirac gave an eagerly awaited speech in Landivisiau before France’s strategic air and naval forces. Chirac’s speech, which dealt with the French nuclear doctrine, has been largely discussed and commented by international media outlets which allowed readers to find what they wanted to read about. In the speech, mainly the western media saw the announcement of a French strategic orientation, which from that moment on, would make «terrorism-supporting countries» a potential target for nuclear attacks. That is to say, another step by France towards the Bush doctrine. But, is it really (...)

Hamas: media experts’ predictions frustrated
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 7 February 2006 | «Political earthquake», «electoral bomb», «peace process compromised», «victory of the terrorists», the mainstream media has reacted with virulence and apparent panic after the electoral victory of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections. Anger is directly proportional to the huge mistake of media experts who predicted a good result for Hamas, but not enough to have access to power.

Pakistan: after the missiles, the smokescreen
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 3 February 2006 | 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 (...)

Russia: George Soros’ great offensive reveals the emergency of the energy situation
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 2 February 2006 | 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. (...)

The two bodies of the Israeli Prime Minister
Voltaire Network | 1 February 2006 | 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 (...)

Chile, Bolivia… “responsible” left against “populist” left
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 31 January 2006 | 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?
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 30 January 2006 | 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?
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 27 January 2006 | 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 (...)

After all, it is just a movie…
Voltaire Network | 24 January 2006 | 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
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 20 January 2006 | 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
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 19 January 2006 | 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”
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 18 January 2006 | “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
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 17 January 2006 | 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
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 16 January 2006 | 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 (...)

Iran in sight
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 15 January 2006 | 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
Voltaire Network | 14 January 2006 | 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 (...)

US Gulag: arrogance, hypocrisy and the end of European independence
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 13 January 2006 | 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!”
Voltaire Network | 12 January 2006 | 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 (...)

You Can Say Yes in France!
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 16 December 2005 | 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 (...)

Predictions about the Future of German Diplomacy
Voltaire Network | 15 December 2005 | 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 (...)

Barcelona: Report on a Predicted Failure
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 14 December 2005 | 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 (...)

Yugoslavia: commemorations and a bad memory
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 2 December 2005 | 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 (...)

Once a “Pacifist”, Sharon is now a “Centrist”
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 1 December 2005 | 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
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 29 November 2005 | 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 (...)

“Those Who Are Not with Us Are against Us"
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 23 November 2005 | 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 (...)

Hariri Assassination: No more need for evidence against Syria?
Voltaire Network | 22 November 2005 | 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 (...)

Iraq: Partial Failure of a Propaganda Plan
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 14 November 2005 | 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 (...)

Turkey’s Views at the Centre of Debate on its EU Inclusion
Voltaire Network | 11 November 2005 | 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.

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