The US treasury department has started its latest psy-op by actively furthering the use of web services to support opposition groups in Iran, Cuba and Sudan. US technology firms may now export their online propaganda services while the rest of the sanctions remain in place.
Such services helped organise opposition supporters in Iran, triggering major unrest following the country's disputed presidential poll last year. "The US Treasury said exports would be allowed of services related to web browsing, blogging, e-mail, instant messaging, chat, social networking and photo- and movie-sharing" says the BBC
"As recent events in Iran have shown, personal internet-based communications like e-mail, instant messaging and social networking are powerful tools," Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin said.
Earlier this year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US would be supporting the development of new [propaganda] tools to enable citizens to circumvent "politically-motivated censorship".
Ensuring what Allan Young calls as a "harmony of illusions" via this type of gunboat diplomacy mixed with cultural penetration goes to show why her boss and former rival candidate has been rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize...
You may find the politically biased version of the story at the BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8556341.stm
4 comments:
Good job bringing up this important news. Opposition groups in Iran, Cuba and Sudan (supported by their fascist US infidel capitalist running dog puppet masters with their subversive "twitters" and "facebooks") are a deadly threat to the progressive and enlightened governments which rule these beleaguered countries, which btw (along with North Korea of course) are also renowned as bastions of free speech, democracy and human rights. Well done, comrade! Smash the US imperialist cliques! ;-)
Well, ty, dear mocking bird and sorry for being away from the revolutionary trenches, hence this delay... which, I assure you, is devoid of even the slightest hint of malice. Other than that, your zeal shows capitalism has talented stake holders to defend its conservative ethos according to which greed is good and something to be desired...
Irrespective of whether greed is good or not, I'm not sure what this has to do with guaranteeing the free flow of information, or with people having the ability to form grass-roots political movements via the internet. One must be careful not to confuse the issues here. I get the impression that both the blogger and the "Osama bin Lenin" troll are tending toward out and out extremism, willing to appease (and worse, even support!) certain regimes purely because it serves their blatantly anti-American posture/narrative. Sure we could (in theory) support one country or another's sovereign right to use whatever search engines or internet tools it likes, or if not, then censor them, but in a smaller and smaller world, where do we draw the line? Is "national sovereignty" the prime directive by which we configure/manage business relations or the free flow of information (if not also, information confidentiality), or are the universal values (like human rights) paramount? The narrative in this blog is somewhat partisan and by no means impartial, in this regard. If I ask: "where do you draw the line"? is your answer to be "at Yahoo divulging the details of Chinese dissidents emails to the Chinese govt. in order to stay in business in China, and then who cares if the dissident goes to jail and gets tortured", or "when Chinese troops massacre unarmed Tibetans, imprison and torture monks, etc", or "when Sudanese army and their cohorts massacre and rape Darfuris", or "when the North Korean govt. executes some guy for using a mobile phone" etc, etc? Or maybe your answer is simply: "as long as it goes against the general consensus of the international community"?. In so saying, you only serve the whole "axis of evil" narrative, and just end up shooting yourself in the foot. Vague, generalist, diversive answers will no longer cut it. The devil is in the detail, and not only individuals, but also governments and corporations need to answer these questions in such a way as to be able to live with the consequences of their answers.
Dear Rancid,
Ty for your learned comments. I'm truly sorry if this is the way my comment was perceived.
I could not agree more with you on a whole host of issues raised here, such as the irrelevant, off-the-cuff comment I made on a side topic vs. the desirable ability you are referring to. I ought to have qualified better my comments yet my jumping the gun after a long journey may not be a good enough excuse. I unreservedly apologise for that.
Still, despite the one-sidedness of the neocon master-narrative and its bizarre claims to objectivity, I never intended to question the universal human rights or the important points you raise on confidentiality; moreover, I certainly deplore the actions which led to the harming of dissidents – including those in Cuba or everywhere else in the supposedly progressive camp. I’d never condone any of the actions you mention here and nor would I condone other such instances happening on a daily basis in the Occupied Territories, for example.
As you rightly mention, the devil which needs at least as much attention as those who are currently getting it lies with the corporate governments of the so-called "international community". To be continued…
Post a Comment