In my last piece, I discussed an article in Counterpunch by Thomas Harrington about the corruption of the British, French, German, Spanish and Italian press, even serious, progressive left-wing newspapers, to reflect American foreign policy interests, neoliberal economics and aggressive American militarism, even at the expense of the interests of their own citizens. Harrington’s article follows a book published in Germany by Udo Ulfkotte, a journalist with the Franfurter Allgemeine, one of the country’s foremost papers, roughly equivalent to the Times or the Torygraph. Entitled Gekaufte Journalisten (‘Bought Journalists’) the book describes how German and other European newspapermen have been bought by the American secret state, to publish pro-American, anti-Russian articles. Despite being a bestseller on that side of the North Sea, an English translation is still awaiting publication. Harrington’s article links to an interview with Ulfkotte on RT on YouTube.
In it, Ulfkotte describes how he too was bribed and corrupted by the CIA and the Bundesnachrichtsdienst – the German secret service – to write pro-American propaganda pieces. He describes how he has become an honorary citizen of Oklahoma in the US, amongst other rewards for his services, and goes on to describe how very many journalists from across Europe, particularly Britain, have been similarly corrupted. Those that have been corrupted the least are the French. He states that no-one will come up to you saying that they’re from the CIA, but ultimately, these are the people journalists like himself served. They get taken on in a system of ‘plausible deniability’. If they becoming too embarrassing, the agencies deny that they ever had anything to do with them. Ulfkotte’s states that after writing anti-Russian articles for the secret services, he is sick and tired of doing so and especially fearful because of the push to war with Russia.
He describes his country as so much under American control that it is ‘an American colony’ and a ‘banana republic’. Most Germans, for example, are against nuclear power, but still the Americans have sited their nuclear missiles in the Bundesrepublik. One of the instances of journalistic corruption he describes is obviously particularly shocking to a German very much aware of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. He describes being sent to Zubaidat in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. There he saw how the Iranian soldiers had been gassed used mustard gas made in Germany. Ulfkotte states how horrifying this was, to see German poison gas used again four decades after the Nazis. But when tried to write an article about it, it was spiked.
He also describes how he was asked to write a piece by the BND, the German intelligence service, describing how Colonel Ghadafy was also building poison gas plants in Libya. He himself had no knowledge of this, and all the information about it was supplied by the German intelligence agency.
He also describes some of the consequences if you refuse to join the ranks of the corrupted. He discusses the case of a German civilian helicopter pilot. This chap was a member of the ‘Yellow Angels’, a group that assists with traffic accidents. The spooks approached him about joining them as one of their spies under the cover of the organisation. He refused. He was then sacked from his job as a pilot because he was ‘untrustworthy’. The judge presiding over the case concurred with the assessment, and so the gentleman lost his job. Ulfkotte himself states that he’s not afraid what the intelligence services will throw at him. He’s already had three heart attacks, and has no children.
Here’s the video:
I’ve no doubt that what Ulfkotte says is true. As I said in my last post, Lobster has published a number of piece over the years on the way the British press, and particular journalists, have served as an outlet for propaganda cooked up by the CIA and the British Secret State. Leading journalists, such as an editor of the Times, were also recruited by the British-American Project for the Successor Generation, a Reaganite programme to train up-and-coming British politicians, like Tony Blair, to support the Atlantic alliance. Which is why you definitely won’t read much about BAP in the papers. Private Eye has also published pieces about BAP, and the way journalists with connections to the British intelligence services have tried to intimidate other journos into revealing their sources or working for them on issues relating to domestic terrorism.
What Ulfkotte describes is just the German part of a nasty web of intrigue that has been spread all over the continent. I’m not surprise that the French are the least corrupted. Under De Gaulle France pursued a solidly independent line, retaining its own, genuinely independent nuclear deterrent – ours is effectively signed over to American control – and establishing cordial relations with the eastern bloc. De Gaul blocked our application to join the Common Market – as the EU then was – in the 1960s because he feared that we were a Trojan horse for American interests.
A war with Russia is definitely not in the interests of anyone in Europe. I can remember being shocked when I was growing up in the 1980s at the suggestions then by American generals that there could be a ‘limited’ nuclear war in Europe, and apparently this appallingly stupid notion has been revived under Shrillary. Such a conflict would leave the continent, including Britain, a burnt, radioactive cinder, if it didn’t lead to the total destruction of all life on Earth as the conflict escalated. And the anti-welfare policies peddled by these papers have resulted in hardship and misery across the Continent and promoted the rise of Fascist parties and organisations as peoples have turned against each other to fight for what’s left.
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