The murder of Boris Nemtsov was Vladimir Putin’s fault.
There is absolutely no doubt about that, at least not in the minds of the editors of the mainstream media.
The first reports I heard on the shooting were on Radio 4, and they were repeated evry half hour or hour through the day. They unfailingly reported that Boris Netsov, “an opponent of Putin” was shot “near the Kremlin”. The juxtaposition of the two phrases was intended to have one effect, and one effect only; to imply that Vladimir Putin was behind the murder. Very few articles or reports mentioned the fact that Putin enjoys extensive support within Russia from ordinary people for his opposition to the west’s attempts to weaken Russia, and that Boris Nemtsov posed no significant threat to his position. Nevertheless we are supposed to buy the story that Putin is behind the murder.
Now I do not know whether Putin played any part in the death of Boris Nemtsov. But crucially, nor does the BBC or any of the newspapers peddling the”near-the-Kremilin” line every time they report the story. So why do they do it?
I am sick and tired of being told about the various bogeymen around the world. Life and politics is not that simple. And there are plenty of nasty dictators and killers whose regimes are not constantly described in grossly pejorative terms. First it was the Ayatollahs in Iran. Then it was Saddam Hussein. Gaddafi was the monster who kept ‘killing his own people” we were told. Most recently it was Assad in Syria. They were not so sure about him to begin with. But we knew he was the new bogey-man when the reports started including the phrase ‘killing his own people’ – shades of Gaddafi.
What is sickening is that the western media like to vaunt themselves as independent. Yet every time their rulers decide it is time to prime the public for a possible war with someone, they fall into line with horror stories and reports of atrocities.
Sure, there are lots of nasty regimes out there. And some of them are close allies of the west. Do you not think that, if international politics changed, and the west wanted to declare war on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka or numerous other countries, the media could not dig up horror stories about those regimes?
If it is just, fair and ‘independent’ to criticise a vicious regime, it is equally just and fair to criticise them all. But if you select the ones that your lords and masters want to wage war against, and focus on their misdeeds, you are simply doing the bidding of the powers that be.
Independent press? The so-called free press is as blatantly partisan as the state-controlled press in the regimes they criticise.