Editor’s note: This article is the fourth part of a four-part
series on Truthdig called “Universal Empire”—an examination of the
current stage of the neocon takeover of American policy that began after
World War ll. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
The recent assertion by the Trump White House
that Damascus and Moscow released “false narratives” to mislead the
world about the April 4 sarin gas attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria, is a
dangerous next step in the “fake news” propaganda war launched in the
final days of the Obama administration. It is a step whose deep roots in
Communist Trotsky’s Fourth International must be understood before
deciding whether American democracy can be reclaimed.
Muddying the waters of accountability in a way not seen since Sen.
Joe McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare in the 1950s, the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act”
signed into law without fanfare by Obama in December 2016 officially
authorized a government censorship bureaucracy comparable only to George
Orwell’s fictional Ministry of Truth in his novel “1984.” Referred to
as “the Global Engagement Center,”
the official purpose of this new bureaucracy is to “recognize,
understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda
and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national
security interests.” The real purpose of this Orwellian nightmare
is to cook the books on anything that challenges Washington’s
neoconservative pro-war narrative and to intimidate, harass or jail
anyone who tries. As has already been demonstrated by President Trump’s
firing of Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian government airbase, it is a
recipe for a world war, and like it or not, that war has already begun.
