Just four years ago the media was dominated with news about what was being described as the greatest terrorism organisation the World had ever seen. With high production assassination video’s circulating and multiple reports daily of new regions of the middle east being over ruled by this terrorist organisation the World held their breath in anticipation of their arrival onto domestic territory.
And then, well, they disappeared over night. Well at least media coverage did, in a matter of weeks we went from media dominated by ISIS threats and attacks to quite literally, zero coverage.
The question is, did they actually disappear, did anything change or had the focus on who we should fear change?
The US reports that since 2014 60,000 ISIS fighters have been killed. There training camps have been obliterated and their propaganda network has been reduced to a distant nightmare of the past.
The Russian Intervention
In 2015 Vladimir Putin the Russia president joined forced with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to begin breaking down the ISIS regime, with much scepticism from the US and
From 2016 through to 2017 we had continued propaganda from both the US and Russia both trying to prove they were the ones with the biggest and most effective war machine, with civilian death counts being tallied up against both sides of ISIS annihilation.
The US Elections occurred in 2016 and though the fight against ISIS continued the attention was now on who would be the next president of the US. An entertaining pantomime kept the population of most of the west occupied, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump head to head in the battle for power.
But wait, someone was trying to intervene in the US presidential elections, someone was allegedly pushing their own agenda on the American people. This outside threat wasn’t ISIS, they were not some radical terrorist organisation. It was those pesky Russians.
The New Enemy of The State
So as the presidential campaign came to it’s unsurprising climax and ISIS were almost entirely faded away from public attention a new narrative was beginning to dominate the media. Russia was the new threat, those commies were at it again.
With allegations that Russia was hacking the DNC computers to try and influence the elections, nerve agent poisonings on British soil and hundreds of media websites being marked as Russian propaganda, a new enemy
Today a skim of the news will find little reports on the once all powerful ISIS organisation, however you will find a host of articles on relating to the ever increasing tensions between the West and Russia.
What is Really Going On?
This is a question we all ask ourselves and if we are not we should be. The quick answer is, we haven’t got a clue. The media coverage differs from Country to Country, each producing a slightly different narrative of World events to bolster their own ego and appearance in this game of thrones.
No one can deny ISIS was a major problem and to a degree still is, but don’t think for a second we even know an ounce of truth about what really happened or is still happening today.
Each nation has their own agenda, each will use it’s own media to leverage the opinions of first it’s own people, but thanks to the power of the Internet also the rest of the World. Russia is undoubtedly using clever propaganda to gently swing the opinions of those who reside in the west against it’s own leaders. Russia Today (RT) are very clever at producing content that they know will appeal to activists across the West.
They are one of the few mainstream media channels in the World to cover stories on Genetically Modified Food dangers, Vaccines, Corporate Corruption, Criminal Banking and various other topics. It makes perfect sense for them to do this, they don’t even have to deceive, just inform.
Of course the US and UK produce anti-Russian content which is also available to the Russian population, however, their approach is considerably less effective at manipulating Russian public opinion. However, it’s inevitable they will try and up the game of this propaganda war over the next few years.
Remember, the greatest power any Government can have over its people is fear. While we fear external forces we look to our own leaders to protect us. Though in reality a more justified fear maybe much closer to home.
“Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.”
― Criss Jami