Thursday, February 11, 2016

Patrick Lang on the Borg

There has been some speculation recently on SST concerning the causes of the low quality and inaccuracy of MSM reporting in the US, Britain and other countries. IMO there are two basic causes of such journalistic malpractice.
1- Corporate leadership is integrated into the world-wide informal group think network of governments, media. academia, think-tanks and mega-capitalists that I have shorthanded as the Borg. Such corporate stakeholders are easily pushed in editorial directions desired by governments and special interest groups. The tools are always the same; money for sponsorship of programs and access to supposedly key people.
2- Media people at the operational level (especially in TV) are generally not well educated. They are typically products of schooling and experience in the communications arts (including journalism). Such people are often woefully ignorant of the Humanities (history, languages, area studies, etc.) and lack any context with which to understand events on the world scene. They are easy prey for the editorial policy given them by the corporate leaders.
There are occasional moments of comedy created by the dissonance brought to the fore by confrontations with reality. Yesterday, CNN's Jake Tapper was distracted from the primary election circus long enough to show us all film done recently by a CNN reporter in government occupied Aleppo neighborhoods. Life looked quite normal. There was a lot of food in the markets. Children played in the streets. Women walked around without their faces covered. Taxis drove up and down picking up and discharging fares. Several older men were interviewed and they attributed their good conditions to the hard fighting and victories of the Syrian Army. Tapper did not know what to say and changed the subject.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
In Re Syria:
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

7 comments:

MRW said...

Glad you’re covering Lang, Tom. He was more than a former military intelligence officer for the DIA. Lang ran MACVSOG covert actions during the Vietnam War. MACVSOG was the model for the TV series, “The A Team,” if you remember it. All DIA operatives (overt and covert) globally reported to him for four or five years when he was in charge overseas during the 80s (early 90s too?). He speaks, reads, and writes fluent Arabic, and created the first courses at West Point and the US Army War College, among other places, to educate about Islam and the eastern mindset, and prepare the troops and officers for war during the Desert Storm. He was the US Military Liaison for the Middle East. I’m doing this all from memory, read a few years ago. He has a complete CV somewhere on his site.

He doesn’t suffer fools easily. Many of the commenters are ex-intel; he says that the majority of his readers--who don’t contribute--are active intel and military intel working around the world. But the great thing about his site is that he does these quick SITREPS for the hoi polloi (me) on the US/Russian/Turkish Syrian war based on the Principles of War that have military precision and brevity. His scorn for Obama’s incompetence is lethal when he lets loose. Ditto Clapper and the guy who runs the CIA now. He doesn’t spill classified beans, but after a while you can read between the lines. His disdain for the neocons he had to work with in Clinton and Bush Jr’s time is palpable. He’s like Mike Norman, was an ex-FOX contributor, but he wasn't following Fox’s script, actively contradicting their conclusions, so they don’t use him anymore.

MRW said...

OT.

MACVSOG’s motto was “Death was our business, and business was good."

MRW said...

Oh yeah, one more thing: he’ll kick you off his blog for political correctness. I know because he interpreted a comment of mine as such. He wrote me privately with a withering sneer and warning. I had to convince him that he misunderstood what I wrote hastily. After some back and forth, he accepted my explanation and relented.

Peter Pan said...

Showing a CNN report on CNN - that is being distracted?

MRW said...

Watch the CNN clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cl6-DF0wVo

Just listened to some horseshit on NPR from the Munich talks. NPR reporter’s take: "As the U.S. blames Russia for undermining attempts to end the Syrian civil war, Secretary of State John Kerry meets his Russian counterpart in Munich on Thursday....” It’s a journalistic abomination. As Lang wrote a couple of weeks ago, a basic Principle of War is that he who wins on the battlefield determines the negotiations. The Russians are winning. Stephen Cohen said the other night on the John Batchelor Show that DoD poobah Ash Carter announced last week that the US “official” enemies and “threats to national security” are (and in this order)
(1) Russia
(2) China
(3) North Korea
(4) ISIS
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/11/466457121/secretary-of-state-john-kerry-meets-russian-counterpart-in-munich. 3:21 min

Again, watch the CNN clip.

MRW said...

"Showing a CNN report on CNN - that is being distracted?”

reread what was written

Peter Pan said...

I watched the clip. What about it? Did you expect CNN to censor that report and present a false narrative?

For once they did their job.