Pushing to the Edge: Biden’s Provocative Ukraine Strategy and NYT’s Dangerous Spin

(Ukraine’s actual missile strikes on a civilian apartment building in Russia last week)
 
by Jeff Childers

This week, the New York Times trotted out a classic mental Trojan Horse, one of the most awful kinds of deliberate mental manipulation. Let’s study yet more media malfeasance in this recent New York Times headline:

 
A debate “inside the White House?” At first, I thought they meant Joe Biden was arguing with himself again, probably challenging himself to pushup contests or calling himself weird made-up insult names.

Haha, just kidding. Obviously, it’s not Joe and it’s also not that Team Biden is holding any kind of formal debate inside the White House. We are meant to interpret the headline as a metaphor. Which means the headline is not, strictly, true.

In point of fact, the article entire predicate is false. It is a big fat  lie. And most vexing, it’s an obvious lie that busy people will credulously swallow and become manipulated tools.

They are trying to sell a horrible idea. The scheme to allow Ukraine to launch U.S. missiles at undefended, innocent civilian targets in Russia — in other words, war crimes — is literally the worst idea the neocons have ever had, bar none, in a painfully long list of previous terrible, no-good ideas.

The Administration’s problem is that they’ve already admitted that letting Ukraine use our weapons to attack Russian soft targets “would violate Mr. Biden’s mandate to ‘avoid World War III.’” But they now argue that Team Biden has sleepwalked the Resident over Russia’s red lines before, and nothing happened: “each time Mr. Biden relented, the worst fears he had about escalation did not materialize.”

This craven logic is like a Japanese tourist pushing a fried chicken leg through the bars into Boris the brown bear’s cage. At first, he just sticks the greasy snack halfway through the metal bars, but the bear ignores it. So the tourist pushes the leg in a little further, just inside the cage, and quickly yanks his hand back. But Boris still just seems bored. So the tourist figures, well, the bear hasn’t reacted so far, so he hops over the fence and chucks the crispy chicken leg toward the alert mammal.

And that’s when Boris the bear bites his head off.

But I digress. The headline’s metaphor is meant to persuade readers that some kind of dynamic debate is happening over this perilous policy among the brainiest members of Biden’s top team. Conflict! It sounds juicy. It teases readers who expect to read about something similar to an episode of Survivor (Political Island).

Readers rightly reflect: Who’s on which side of this zero-sum argument? Which Biden advisors are like YOLO!! and which ones are like you’re barking mad!! Are they throwing things at each other? Which group does Papa Joe favor today? When does the tribe vote? Has anyone located an immunity idol?

I’m exaggerating, a little. But readers reasonably expect to find out who is supposedly arguing with whom about nuclear escalation. Now, get ready for the journalistic sleight of hand: this was the only paragraph in the article explicitly referring to any debate:

 
Let’s see the word magic. First note the use of the unattributable passive voice: “there is now a vigorous debate,” as though debates have their own existence separate from people. The phrase “inside the Administration” is meant to suggest — without saying so — that this critical discussion is private.

Only then did the Times begin describing a rogue’s gallery of aggressive neocons, every single one quoted arguing in favor of letting Ukraine use U.S. weapons for war crimes in Russia. There was not a single quote in the article arguing against the reckless policy. Not one.

Three people quoted weren’t even part of the “White House”: former president Zelensky (quoted most often in the article), and for some random reason, British foreign secretary David Cameron. Then the Times quoted former State Department warmonger Victoria Nuland, who is back on the stage! And she’s making the rounds on TV. Here’s how the Times glowingly described Vicki, the human conflict escalator:

 
The only actual members of Biden’s Administration quoted in the article, both in favor of the proposal, were Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. That’s it! And to be fair, Austin’s “support” was lukewarm (at best).

Once we wipe away the fog of confusion, the Times provided only two legitimate White House officials, Blinken and Austin, who weren’t debating each other. Who did the Times say was on the other side of the debate? Nobody.

Apparently, only the Glorious Leader and policy decider Biden remains to be convinced, along with some unnamed and uncounted anonymous “aides.” Aides? Who on Earth are they? The Times did not say who was involved in this historic decision:

 
So nobody except Blinken is on record favoring this harebrained escalation, based on a frantic hope that Russia will keep ignoring crossed red lines, and won’t mind its citizens being slain with U.S. weapons with the U.S. giving Ukraine explicit approval.

Reading critically, we discover there is no debate. There is only Blinken, Zelensky, the ghost of Viktoria Nuland, and the pugilistic echoes rattling around inside Joe Biden’s empty skull.

Why then did the Times call this a debate? Why try to dress it up as an argument?

Read critically. This article is propaganda, a weaponized press release, probably drafted by Blinken, a psychological transition tool. Biden fully intends to arm our proxy state Ukraine with weapons that will be used to attack Russia directly — a foolish game of high-stakes chicken that was never even considered at the pinnacle of the Cold War and anti-Soviet mania.

But because they know it is a terrible idea and nobody sane would ever agree, they must make it sound like Biden struggled with the decision, and in the end only agreed with the greatest reluctance.

Biden isn’t just crossing a red line this time. He’s rowing across Russia’s red river. And they don’t call it a red line because it’s the color of Valentine’s Day.

To be clear, Blinken’s ‘proposal’ surpasses Dr. Strangelove’s insanity-levels. Biden wants to push the nuclear chicken leg inside the Russian bear cage as far as he can, to find out what happens. Hopefully, they’re right about Putin’s remarkable restraint. Otherwise, a global thermonuclear war is about to bite our heads off.

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