[dysprosium]
Author: Hong Yuan (researcher, American Institute, China Academy of Social Sciences)
Making and manipulating public opinion is an important tool for hegemonic countries to shape ideology, and it is also a powerful weapon to fool the public and overthrow a regime. Artificially guiding and creating public opinion, and repeatedly propagating the opinions of specific people, can often create a false public opinion field that is universal and contrary to the will of the public. This is also the usual trick of the German Nazis during World War II, in order to achieve the goal of "repeating a lie a thousand times is the truth". In the Internet age, through unilateral information feeding, the party who has the right to speak can often compile an "information cocoon room" and spread false information to achieve the purpose of shaping public opinion and mastering the public. It is the privilege of a few ruling classes to promote and shape public opinion by controlling the right to speak. The wave of public opinion it has set off does not represent the will of the country and the people, let alone reflect the truth. It is only a few classes and forces that have the right to speak deliberately to achieve special goals. Looking back at history and shaping public opinion with lies is a universal and important pre-war preparation for the United States to launch wars overseas.
Powell vial — — Make war with lies
It is the usual practice of the United States to create lies and wage war. On February 5, 2003, the famous "United Nations Night", then US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, accusing Saddam Hussein’s regime of possessing weapons of mass destruction that threatened global security, and showed the so-called anthrax vials to the participants in an attempt to convince the world that the United States was going to war against Iraq. Powell, who once held an important position in the US military, did not lack the ability of military judgment, but joined forces with the US military-industrial complex to deceive the world, including the American people, and launched an invasion war with lies. After the American occupation, the rebellion in Iraq gradually turned into sectarian violence, killing countless Iraqi civilians, and the war lasted much longer than predicted by the Bush administration. In 2011, after the withdrawal of the Obama administration, the terrorist organization "Islamic State" swept through and occupied a large part of Iraq. The war has brought turmoil, chaos and violence to Iraq for more than ten years. According to incomplete estimates, the number of Iraqis who died in the war is about 1 million or more, not including the 500,000 infants who died because of lack of medical care and medicine, but a country in ruin may never find out the real number of deaths in the war. Similarly, the United States has suffered more than 60,000 casualties and 4 trillion US dollars in direct and indirect costs. However, the US military did not find weapons of mass destruction and "Biological laboratory trailer ",Powell’s lies became a permanent stain on his career.
Powell ignored the warning of the intelligence department, deviated from the facts and "fabricated evidence" in an attempt to convince the world with lies, and finally launched the Iraq war. According to the information of American intelligence department, Powell cited "irrefutable and undeniable" evidence, which showed that Iraq still hides a large number of terrorist weapons. Powell’s chief of staff once pointed out that Powell privately indicated that it was unlikely to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In addition, Powell used the information of American intelligence agencies about Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes to fabricate accusations that Iraq was restarting its nuclear weapons program, but it was later proved that the aluminum tubes were only materials for manufacturing conventional rocket weapons. Similarly, Powell deliberately distorted the conversation between Iraqi officers about the UN inspection, turning it from evidence of Iraq’s compliance with UN resolutions to evidence of Iraq’s violation of UN resolutions. In the end, the United States used Powell’s fabricated evidence to flagrantly launch the war of invading Iraq. Obviously, Powell’s loyalty to American military interests made him willing to deceive the world until he died, let alone be responsible for launching the Iraq war.
A guarantee of the persistence of lies. The boastful "embedded interview" is also one of the ways for the US military to create lies in order to win the war in Iraq. In September 2003, American generals and some journalists who had participated in the Iraq war held a meeting at the American Army Military Academy in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to discuss the role of "embedded" interviews of journalists in the Iraq war. The U.S. military admitted that the purpose of arranging journalists from all over the world to "embed" interviews with combat troops is to hope that Iraqi commanders can realize the speed of the U.S. military from news reports and achieve a shocking effect. As David Perkins, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, said, "I just want them to report what happened. If allowing the media to accurately report is to use them (journalists), then they are used by (us) … … The main purpose is to get these reports out. " "Embedded interview" can ensure the persistence of the lies woven by the ruling group, ensure self-justification, ensure that journalists do not contact each other and ordinary people, and ensure the controllability of what journalists think, see, think and report. By limiting the time, space and information sources of journalists, we will create a one-way indoctrination "information cocoon room" and force journalists to cooperate with themselves.Publish war reports that are beneficial to you.
"Zero Casualty" and "Highway of Death" — — A lie covered up in the war
The title war is one of the means by which the United States uses its discourse power to blur the attribute of the place where the war took place and create international public opinion. People are familiar with the "Gulf War" led by the United States, and its factual name should be "Persian Gulf War". "Gulf" is only a geographical term at best. There is no such place as "Gulf" on the world map, but the Persian Gulf really exists and the US military fought a real war here. "Gulf War" or "Persian Gulf War" is not a name dispute, but the United States is using the right of discourse to substitute flowers for trees, blurring the name of the place where the war took place, trying to ignore the existence of Iran, a major country in the region, and creating international public opinion for its unjust war around Iran. This can be called a textbook case for the naming right of world history.
In order to achieve the purpose of war, the lies of the US government will also appear at home. The use of depleted uranium bombs in war often leads to the exposure of soldiers to radioactive environment, which in turn leads to the illness of combatants. However, the US government has tried its best to cover up the truth and fabricated the vague concept of "Gulf War Syndrome". It was a long time after the end of the Gulf War that the western media exposed the amazing inside story that the US and British troops used depleted uranium bombs in this war. The U.S. Central Command also publicly admitted that the U.S. and British forces did use depleted uranium bombs, saying that this was the first time that this new weapon was used in the war. Subsequently, the media in various countries reported that the officers and men who participated in the war in the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries caused by depleted uranium bombs suffered from long-term fatigue, fatigue, insomnia, depression, arrhythmia, renal failure, memory degradation, muscle pain, central nervous system injury and mental illness, and severe cases suffered from malignant diseases such as leukemia, lung cancer, liver cancer and skin cancer, which were collectively called "Gulf War Syndrome". According to incomplete statistics, more than 200,000 of the 700,000 officers and men directly involved in the fighting in the multinational forces have fallen ill, and thousands of them have died. Many of their newborn children suffer from severe deformity, congenital leukemia, lung cancer and kidney injury.
A Pentagon document also admitted that in the "Desert Storm" military attack in 1991, the multinational forces led by the United States used air strikes as the main form, and used depleted uranium bombs to attack armored targets for the first time. When it hit the target, it would burn, smoke and fog, and it could penetrate armored and solid targets. The US military used 3.944 million depleted uranium bombs with a diameter of 30 mm and 14,000 depleted uranium bombs with a diameter greater than 30 mm in Iraq and Kuwait, and the total weight of depleted uranium materials reached 315 tons. According to the British Sunday Times on January 14th, 2001, citing a confidential document of the country’s IAEA, it was confirmed that during the Gulf War, the United States alone dropped at least 5,000 earth-penetrating bombs with depleted uranium cores, and 50,000 pounds of materials containing depleted uranium were left in the Gulf region in the form of shrapnel or smoke. If the smoke from these depleted uranium bombs is inhaled, it can theoretically cause 500 thousand deaths. The resulting nuclear radiation and toxic substances have caused incalculable pollution and harm to human body, natural environment and biological chain. The illegal production and use of depleted uranium bombs has aroused widespread concern in the international community and been severely condemned by public opinion all over the world. The United Nations Environment Programme, IAEA, and international peace and humanitarian organizations have visited the Gulf region to make an objective assessment of the great harm of depleted uranium bombs. Similarly, during the Vietnam War, the US military used chemical weapon "Agent Orange" defoliant to destroy the famous North Vietnam.Ho Chi Minh Trail ",the hereditary lifelong disease caused by it, also won the title of the American government — — Vietnam War Syndrome.
Contemporary American military-industrial complex — — The source of war lies
American President Eisenhower, who once commanded more than 3 million troops in the amphibious landing campaign of Operation Overlord in World War II, had in-depth insights into the political, military and economic operation of the United States. On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower delivered a famous "farewell speech" at the White House, exposing the close collusion between American arms and military groups. "In all government departments, we must be alert to the improper influence of the military-industrial complex, whether it pursues it this way or not." Eisenhower pointed out that there is a huge military-industrial complex in the United States, and its powerful energy and influence are the real dominant foreign policy of the United States. Eisenhower reminded the American people that "its existence is a trampling and deprivation of individual freedom rights". Sure enough, the military industrial group created lies to manipulate public opinion at home and abroad, which made the United States launch foreign wars endlessly to satisfy the military industrial group’s pursuit of profits.
After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1972, the dollar was decoupled from gold. Without the gold standard, the dollar almost lost the restrictions on issuing banknotes, and the United States entered the era of financial hegemony and imperialism. Financial oligarchs and military industrial oligarchs have merged with each other, creating lies like a duck to water in the Internet age, manipulating public opinion, provoking conflicts on a global scale, prospering the weapons and equipment market through war and war intimidation, and then gaining huge profits, and using financial means to hunt and "harvest leeks" to make ill-gotten wealth. In a sense, the contemporary military complex composed of American military enterprises, the Pentagon and financial oligarchs really dominates the United States like the shadow government.
"We lie, we cheat" — — The way the United States continues to maintain hegemony
From mass production of unconfirmed false information to providing Washington with an excuse to invade other countries, to participating in assassination, abusing prisoners, eavesdropping and manipulating public opinion, it will still be the choice for the United States to maintain its hegemony in the future. In April 2019, Mike Pompeo, then US Secretary of State and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, admitted in a speech at Texas A&M University: "When I was a student, what was the motto of the students at West Point Military Academy? You won’t lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do. After I was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, we lied, we cheated, and we stole. " Covert actions, overthrowing other governments, inciting rebellion and supporting multinational corporations are the daily actions of the CIA. According to the declassified information of the US government in 2019, the "Condor Operation" launched by the United States against Central and South American countries in the 1970s was estimated to have killed 60,000 people, and 30,000 people were killed in Argentina alone. In 2018, under the banner of "human rights" or "democracy", the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States allocated more than $23 million to seriously interfere in the internal affairs of major Latin American countries.
A column in The Economist magazine in Britain rudely defined Pompeo as a "long-standing blabbermouth". The article pointed out that "even American spies could not produce evidence, Pompeo still insisted that Covid-19 was from the China laboratory". Facts have proved that these shameful and sad lie records of the US military and intelligence departments have already shattered the credibility of the United States, but they have also exposed the essence of serving American decision makers, that is, they continue to promote Washington’s hypocritical power politics regardless of the truth, facts and human conscience, and will continue to seek to maintain the unfair hegemonic position of the United States in the world.
Guangming Daily (16th edition, March 22nd, 2022)
