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Propaganda wars

It was striking that British Prime Minister Theresa May was first off the blocks early on Saturday morning to offer a meandering justification for her decision to join America and France in bombing Syria for a chemical weapons attack on Douma they blame on the Syrian regime.

Propaganda wars

jumping the gun: As of now, it is only Theresa May’s word against Russia.



Hasan Suroor 

It was striking that British Prime Minister Theresa May was first off the blocks early on Saturday morning to offer a meandering justification for her decision to join America and France in bombing Syria for a chemical weapons attack on Douma they blame on the Syrian regime. Even as the legality of their action was being widely questioned, she insisted that the “international community” (America, France and Britain equal international community?) could not stand and watch while hapless civilians were being gassed. As she droned on mournfully, she could not resist a pop at Russia which is accused by Britain of being behind the attempted assassination of former double spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English town of Salisbury last month. 

Jumping on the Syrian bandwagon to revive Britain’s flagging anti-Russia campaign over the Skripal affair, May declared: “We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised — either within Syria, on the streets of the UK or elsewhere.” Her effort did bring the Skripal story briefly back in the headlines, but only to lose steam again.

And here’s the problem. Propaganda wars are a tricky business. It is easy to launch one but it can as easily go wrong if not backed by facts on the ground. Edward Barnays, the father of modern public relations and propaganda, wrote that its success depended on “the merit of the cause urged, and the correctness of the information published”. Self-righteousness and half-intelligent guesses are no substitute for hard facts — as Britain is discovering after whipping up a diplomatic row with Moscow in the Skripal case plunging their relations (never great at the best of times) to a new low, only to be further damaged by its Syrian intervention.

It is now engaged in a propaganda war with Russia on two fronts. Although on Syria, it is simply playing a subsidiary “me too” role, the noises emanating from Downing Street are even louder than that from White House. Such is the British obsession with Russia that much of its ire over the Douma gas attack is directed — not at Damascus — but at Moscow for supporting the Assad regime. Kremlin has struck back alleging that the atrocity was “fabricated” by UK-backed rebels and the rights group, White Helmets, which works closely with London. 

Meanwhile, British assertions in the Skripal controversy are beginning to wear thin amid a growing perception that Britain might have jumped the gun in so promptly pinning the blame on Vladimir Putin’s henchmen. Over the past week or so, Russia has been able to wrest back control of the propaganda war and create sufficient doubts about the British version.

Whatever the eventual outcome of the standoff, Britain is clearly struggling to maintain its credibility with even its own allies now inclined to take a more sceptical view of its claims. 

A senior figure in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party publicly lambasted Britain for blaming Russia without “sound evidence”. 

“If you force almost all NATO countries to show solidarity, should not you have sound evidence?” asked CDU’s deputy chairman Armin Laschet.

More than a month after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found slumped on a seat in a park, the basis for British government’s claims remain shrouded in secrecy. As of now, it is only May’s word against Russia. Not only no evidence of Russian involvement has been offered (Russia has not even been allowed to see the chemical) senior figures in the government have been caught making statements that later turned to be false — such as foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s assertion that Britain’s top scientists were “categorical” that Russia was the source of the nerve agent “Novichok”, said to have been used to poison the Skripals. A claim he was forced to retract after a strong public denial by the head of the government laboratory that tested the chemical. There were more red faces when the Foreign Office was then caught attempting a cover-up by quietly deleting a tweet in which it had quoted scientists as “concluding” that the substance in question was “produced in Russia”.

There have been other inconsistencies in the official account, including the seriousness of the effect of poisoning on the Skripals. For weeks, the line was that their condition was so “critical” that they may not survive. Yet, almost overnight they started to recover miraculously. Last week, Yulia was suddenly declared well enough to be discharged from hospital; the father was listed to follow suit in “due course”. 

As The Guardian pointed out the government’s case appears to be unravelling “due in part to self-inflicted wounds — notably Boris Johnson’s loose language — but also to Russia’s ability to keep up a relentless counter-propaganda assault that British ministers seem unable to match”. The Russian retaliation saw its ambassador in Britain Alexander Yakovenko drop his chummy image and dispense with customary diplomatic niceties to let rip against the British government accusing it of staging the Skripal poisoning itself to give Russia a bad name. It was “highly likely” that the poison was planted by Britain’s own secret military chemical laboratory in Porton Down.

“Is it a coincidence that this chemical weapons facility is only eight miles away from the site of the incident?” he asked.

Yet, until barely two weeks ago Britain was on a roll. In the prevailing “Cold War” climate it was able quickly to win support for its case leading to a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by its European allies and America. May hailed it as an “unprecedented” show of solidarity which would send the “Kremlin a strong message”. And, indeed, Moscow was initially rattled and took some time to get its act together. But then, it pushed back with a counter offensive (when it comes to propaganda Russians can be quite brutal) demanding verifiable evidence of its alleged involvement in the Salisbury attack, and seeking an independent probe. A panel of international experts which examined the chemical was packed with Britain’s allies. Russia’s demand that it must include representatives from neutral countries (it specifically mentioned India) was rejected. While the panel confirmed that the substance was indeed Novichok, much to London’s chagrin it refused to say where it might have come from. Putin, meanwhile, claims that up to 20 countries could have access to it. All it needs for Britain to demolish his claim is to share the relevant evidence with him. So, why is it so reluctant? 


The writer is a London-based commentator

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