Quick! Prepare the public for a new narrative!
by Bruce O’Hara
May 30, 2022
After spending the last three months claiming Ukraine is winning the war, the mainstream media in North America and Europe has put itself in a very difficult position.
It reminds me of an old joke. A man has gone away for some extended travel, leaving his best friend to housesit for him.
One day the man phones his friend to check in. The friend tells him he has a couple of pieces of bad news. The man enquires what the first piece of bad news is. The friend replies: “Your dog died.”
The man then berates his friend: “You shouldn’t just dump bad news on a person like that. Let me in on it gradually. First tell me my dog is looking poorly. Then wait a couple of days before telling me the dog has died, okay?
The friend apologizes profusely. The man then asks what the second piece of bad news was. First, there is silence on the other end of the line. Then the friend says: “Your mother is feeling poorly…”
Moonofalabama outlines how both the New York Times and the Washington Post have done sudden about-faces in their description of the war. Almost every mainstream Western outlet is quickly doing at least one piece on how Ukrainian troops in the Donbass region of Ukraine are being pounded by relentless and overwhelming Russian artillery.
Where for three months there have been uplifting stories about how the brave Ukrainian heroes were trouncing those incompetent, under-supplied Russians, now suddenly in the last week there’s an admission the Ukrainian army is losing a war of attrition in Luhansk and Donbass.
With the surrender of thousands of Ukrainian troops in Mariupol, followed by the loss of the fortified stronghold of Popasna, followed by the loss of the rail centre Liman just a few days later, followed today by the loss of large sections of the city of Severodonetsk, it is getting harder and harder for the mainstream Western press to pretend that Ukraine is winning the war.
The tactical encirclements of the cities of Lisichansk, Zolote, and (soon) Ardeevka will in short order expose those previous sunny assessments of the situation in Ukraine as blatantly false propaganda.
By suddenly admitting that the Ukrainian armies in the Donbass are steadily being ground down, one after the other, the mainstream Western propaganda machine is trying to prepare its audiences for more and bigger losses. It’s the propaganda equivalent of ‘your mother is looking poorly’.
The mainstream press will probably attempt to minimize the losses that are coming. They will maintain that Ukraine has ‘only’ lost the Donbass ‘temporarily.’
This understates the actual scale of the disaster. A very large part of the Ukrainian army, including it’s best troops and most of its heavy equipment is positioned in the Donbass. It’s been there since the very start of the war, because Ukraine was planning a massive unprovoked attack on the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donbass, in direct violation of the Minsk Accords which Ukraine had signed.
Ukraine is not just losing territory. Tens of thousands of its best, most experienced troops have either been killed or surrendered.
By the time the Russians are finished in the Donbass, a large proportion of Ukraine’s professional army will have been destroyed, along with most of its heavy equipment.
Yes, Ukraine will have hundreds of thousands of untrained reservists it could send into the war against Russia’s battle-hardened professional army. Even with mountains of expensive Western military equipment, it’s hard to imagine things will turn out well for that army of amateurs if the war continues.
What’s happening in Donbass was totally predictable. By pretending that Ukraine was winning the war when it wasn’t, Western media prevented any substantive discussion of whether negotiation would better serve Ukraine’s real needs.
As it is, Ukraine has been wrecked. Millions of Ukrainians have left the country. My guess is that most will never come back.
A huge amount of transport and industrial infrastructure has been destroyed. Much of Ukraine remains unplanted.The country is deeply mired in debt. When the war finally ends, Ukraine will end up giving up far more of its territory than if they had sought a realistic negotiated settlement quickly. Far more of its soldiers will have died, and far more of its infrastructure will have been destroyed.
The United States Government continues to shed crocodile tears for the people of Ukraine. It fact, from the beginning they have shown a willingness to fight to the last Ukrainian. For the American Government the aim has always been to bleed Russia dry. The Ukrainan people have always just been cannon fodder to that underlying geopolitical goal.
