Jan Øbergs sortliste respons: Ukraine sviner folk over hele verden
til som led i desinformationskrigen
Jan Øberg var en af fire talere på Schiller Instituttets danske-svenske videokonference den 25. maj 2022, som kom på Ukraines sortliste.
Fra Jan Øbergs blog:
På Engelsk:
Ukraine smears people around the world as part of the disinformation war
his is an addendum to the article below published on July 28, 2022. The thing was worse than I had thought. I’ve been alerted to the fact that the acting director of the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, Andriy Shapovalov, had this to say at a recent seminar with the telling title: “Truth And Security”
“Andrei Shapovalov: Individuals who knowingly spread disinformation are information terrorists”
Representatives of state authorities, public organizations, mass media and international experts took part in a roundtable on combating disinformation.
Participants discussed the methods used in Ukraine and abroad, as well as the legal framework and specifics of interaction between the civil society and state authorities to counter fakes and disinformation in the context of cyber security.
During the discussion, the acting head of the Centre for Combating Disinformation Andriy Shapovalov said that people who knowingly spread disinformation are information terrorists. He argued that legislation should be amended to protect the information space.
“Information terrorists must know that they will have to answer to the law as military criminals,” he added.
Also during his speech, the Acting Head of the Centre said that Ukraine has definitely taken the upper hand in the information warfare.
The roundtable was organized by the National Security Service Academy, the Civilian Research and Development Foundation of the United States (CRDF Global Ukraine), the International Academy of Information, and the coordinating platform National Cyber Security Cluster. The event was supported by the US Department of State.”
The government of Ukraine runs this Centre for Combating Disinformation as part of its National Security and Defense Council directly under President Zelensky who has this article – about making the Center an international hub – on his homepage. It’s part of a larger framework:
“The National Cybersecurity Cluster is the coordination platform that joins resources, capabilites, competencies of the Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF Global), government institutions, international partners and private sector” – all of which participated in the mentioned seminar.
One notices the close relations with US like-minded institutions and that the seminar was “supported by the US Department of State.”
The whole thing appears bizarre and hilarious. Unintentionally comic. For years, I have argued for a peaceful solution to the conflict, including protecting Ukraine by a huge United Nations peace-making mission. See just two examples from 2014 here and here. And here are nine other articles from 2014-2017 with the word “Ukraine” in the title. I have written about Ukraine in so many other articles.
Just browse the titles and judge for yourself. Do they make me a pro-Russian disinformer? A terrorist? A man to be sentenced by a military court? Hilarious!
But this intellectual and political level makes one wonder whether what we hear from Kiyev these days is at the same level and equally untruthful.
It also makes you wonder what role the US plays in this information war.
I expect the governments of the countries in which these 70+ are citizens to take up, without delay, this smearing campaign with the Ukrainian authorities.
The original article:
The government of Ukraine runs a Center Countering Disinformation. It seems to be tasked with telling the world who carries the truth and who are Spokespeople who are pushing a rhetoric that is in tune with the Russian propaganda.
I’m including in a list issued by the Center together with around 70 people, many of whom I am honoured to be grouped with. The Center published the list on its Facebook page with a rather weird text about how they have put us all in three categories: the third, for instance, “condemn Russian aggression, but inclined Ukraine to negotiate and oppose the supply of weapons to our state (20%).” Condemning Russian aggression and being in tune with Russian propaganda. Oh, well!
I suppose I am in that category since I distanced myself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine but also believe that the present arming of Ukraine is utterly counterproductive and will have unspeakably destructive consequences for Ukraine in particular. But, sadly, the US and NATO countries are united – so far – in (mis)using Ukraine as the battlefield to weaken Russia and “win” over it. That is, as a proxy – fighting for itself and Ukraine to the last Ukrainian. See my article on that here.
On the list are a series of diplomats, professors, politicians, media people and even former CIA people and some of them have already expressed their surprise at seeing themselves on that list – for instance, Edward Luttwak who has lobbied NATO governments to send weapons to Ukraine and is generally known as a hawk.
In summary, it is one of those intellectually and morally poor attempts, of course, to smear people who have a balanced view or are not 100% on your side. It’s based on a simple twofold table and not a fourfold table – as I say in the video below. The Centre’s employees have no idea about how one makes a professional conflict analysis and choose to do what many do these days: Attack your position without understanding analytical content.
The whole thing appears bizarre, hilarious. Unintentionally comic.
Russia Today – RT – is the Russian equivalent to, say, CNN or BBC. But unless you have a proxy server, you cannot see their articles and programs because numerous Western countries have prevented access to it – in violation of your human rights, but that doesn’t bother them. They wanted to do a report and panel discussion and approached me as one of the participants. The other participant is Bradley Blankenship who is also on the Ukrainian list.
Let me be very clear – also with reference to my principled media policy: If a Ukrainian TV channel had done the same, I would of course be pleased to accept its invitation too. Let’s see whether they dare do a face-to-face with the people they have smeared on their list – best Joe McCarthy 1950 style.
I hope the link below works for you, if not here is the link to RT on Yandex – you know, RT has been thrown out of YouTube…Enjoy!
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Her er Jan Øbergs tale fra Schiller Instituttets videokonference: