Joe Rogan is not the Misinformation problem
From Iraq to Russiagate the mainstream media has easily been the biggest purveyor of misinformation.
As of late, the mainstream media has been freaking out over the perceived misinformation spread on the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. Outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times have written pieces attacking the podcast for spreading false information. CNN and MSNBC have also written hit pieces on Rogan attacking him for spreading perceived misinformation and even labeling him as a bigoted right-winger (for the record Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders, supports Medicare for all, and criticized Trump’s inhumane immigration policies on several occasions.) The biggest irony of this media freak out is these are the same outlets that for years have spread pro-war C.I.A. propaganda that has manufactured consent for wars, regime-change operations, and sanctions that have killed millions. These outlets have not taken into account that the reason people are going to Rogan, a pothead comedian and MMA commentator for news is because of their failure to account for the misinformation they have spread over the years. In this article I will be reviewing all the lies the media has to this day not accounted for.
The Iraq war
Of course one of the most well-known media deceptions of all time is the lie that Saddam Hussien had W.M.Ds and was working with Al-Qaeda. As journalist Matt Taibbi reported The New Yorks times reporter Judith Miller pushed the W.M.D lie relentlessly. The lie was also reported by so called-serious reporters like Ezra Klien and Jonathan Chait. Those who lied about this war to this day are elevated in mainstream media. Bill Kristol, Max Boot and David Frum are regulars on MSNBC. Nicolle Wallace, Bush’s press secretary who not only sold the W.M.D. lie but defended Bush’s use of torture has a daily show on the network. Most recently as journalist David Sirota reported, NBC news hired Stephen F. Hayes a writer who pushed lies that Saddam Hussien was connected to Al-Qaeda. While those who lied about the Iraq war have failed upward those who told the truth have been frozen out. Take for example Cris Hedges an Arabic speaker who had spent time in Iraq. Hedges knew the government was lying about Iraq and was pushed out of the New York Times for his debunking of those government lies. Or look at the case of Jesse Ventura who was set up to have a show on MSNBC in 2003 that was canceled over his opposition to the war. Or look at the case of Phil Donahue another popular MSNBC host who was fired over his opposition to the war in Iraq. An internal MSNBC memo stated Donahue was fired because he was a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”.
Libya
After the abysmal reporting on Iraq, the media repeated the same horrible reporting on Libya where virtually every media outlet repeated claims that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit a massacre against peaceful protestors and moderate Rebels. This was used to manufacture consent for the NATO regime-change operation in Libya that deposed Gadaffi and turned the country into a failed state with open slave markets. Some outlets even parroted the United States government claim that Gadaffi was giving his troops Viagra to encourage mass rape. This claim was quickly debunked by human rights organizations on the ground. But it wasn’t until years later that the entire narrative was proven false. In 2015 the U.K. parliament did an internal review of the Libyan intervention that found the claims of Gadaffi planning to massacre civilians was massively overstated by Rebel forces and Western governments. The report also found that the massive jihadist element of the so-called peaceful uprising was ignored by the West and that the NATO regime change campaign gave ISIS a base in North Africa. The report also found that the regime change operation initiated by France was motivated by economic interests, not humanitarian ones. The mainstream media has to this day not accounted for their lies that led to the destruction of Libya and the rise of ISIS.
Syria
After failing to report Iraq and Libya correctly the mainstream media continued to push false information about Syria. Similar to Lybia, the media portrayed the C.IA.-backed rebels as pro-democracy “moderate rebels”. Just like in Lybia the media ignored the massive Jihadist element of the Syrian Rebels who the C.I.A. spent billions arming in one of the largest covert programs in its history. Recently, former CIA analyst David McCloskey who wrote the Syria-focused novel “Damascus Station,” told journalist Aaron Mate that “Al Qaeda linked groups and Salafi Jihadist groups were the primary engine of the insurgency” in Syria.
In 2014 current U.S. president Joe Biden admitted the United States’s allies were arming jihadists in Syria saying “they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight Assad. He went on to say “These policies ended up helping militants linked to al-Qaeda and ultimately ISIS”. What Biden was missing is that the United States was also helping these same jihadist groups in the hope they would take down Assad. In leaked audio then secretary of State John Kerry admitted The United States intentionally allowed the rise of ISIS in Syria in hopes that they would force Assad to negotiate with rebels. Kerry was quoted saying :
“And we know that this was growing. We were watching. We saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage, that Assad would then negotiate.
The C.I.A. also directly helped Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate. The C.I.A. claimed it was arming a faction of so-called moderate rebels called the “free Syrian army” but in reality as Washinton think tank The Century Foundation reported
Much of America’s support has gone to “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) factions that have functioned as battlefield auxiliaries and weapons farms for larger Islamist and jihadist factions, including Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
Again the media has never retracted any or acknowledged any of its repeating of the false C.I.A. narrative that the United States was supporting “Moderate Rebels” in Syria.
The Mainstream media has done an equally bad job at covering the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war. For example, after a 2013 chemical attack in the Syrian suburb called Ghouta, almost all of the mainstream media blamed Assad for the chemical attack and demanded the United States bomb Syria in retaliation. One exception to this was Seymour Hersh who wrote an article titled “Whos Sarin” in the London review of books that claimed he had spoken to intelligence officials who told him the attack was actually carried about by Al-Nusera who was supplied Sarin from Turkish businessmen. Later Hersh was vindicated on this when a Turkish Whistleblowers claimed the Turkish government was aware this was the case after an investigation into it but chose to make no arrests. Later in 2018, almost all the media was also quick to blame Assad for an alleged chemical weapons attack in the town Douma. Almost every media outlet supported the Trump administration’s bombing in response to this attack, as journalist Adam Johnson reported out of 26 major media outlets zero opposed this bombing. Donald Trump bombed Syria before the UN chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW was able to investigate this attack. Later the organization came out with a report that matched up with the U.S. government’s narrative that Assad was guilty of a chlorine attack in Douma. But soon after whistleblowers within the organization released censored documents that showed the exact opposite. The censored documents showed a toxicology report that ruled out chlorine gas as the symptoms in the victims of the attack showed symptoms inconsistent with those related to chlorine.
The whistleblowers also released an engineering report that strongly suggested staging with the report concluding that the gas canisters were most likely placed rather than dropped from the sky.
To this day the mainstream media has refused to address these explosive leaks.
Support for coups in Latin America
The mainstream media has also parroted numerous false claims to manufacture consent for coups in Latin American countries with socialist governments. For example, almost every mainstream media outlet repeated the OAS claim that there was election fraud in the 2019 Bolivian election. This claim led to a far-right coup that disposed of the democratically elected president Evo Morales. This claim was later proven false when the Centre for Ecenomic Policy Research produced a report showing the OAS’s report was full of flaws and bad statistical analysis. This claim was further debunked when in 2020 Morales party, MAS won the election with a similar vote count to Morales in an election that was universally regarded as fair. Similar claims have been made about election fraud in Venezuela to manufacture consent for regime change. For example, both the Chavez and Maduro governments have been referred to as “dictatorships’ by the U.S. media despite the fact that the former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the democratic process in Venezuela “the best in the world” when he observed it. The mainstream media also spread the false claim that Maduro was burning aid trucks. This was later debunked by independent journalist Max Blumenthal and later by the New York Times both of who proved it was actually the right-wing opposition that burned the food trucks. The mainstream media also parroted the Trump administration’s claims that Maduro was not letting in humanitarian aid. This claim was provably false as Venezuela had accepted aid from the UN and Red Cross both of which opposed the United States humanitarian aid stunt. The reason Maduro did not accept aid from the United States was because it was being sent by Elliot Abrahms who has a long documented history of sending weapons to mercenaries in Latin America disguised as aid. The United States media also entirely blamed Mudauro for the economic crisis in Venezuela not once mentioning the effect of crippling U.S. sanctions. A recent detailed study by Venezuelan opposition ecenomist Francisco Rodríguez proved it was actually U.S. sanctions that caused the economic collapse in Venezuela, not the government.
Russiagate
Probably the biggest deception in recent years is Russiagate the narrative that Donald Trump was being blackmailed by the Kremlin to enact policies in their favor. This narrative on its face was ridiculous as Trump’s policies were extremely hawkish towards Russia such as his withdrawal from the open skies treaty, weapons sales to Ukraine, and Sanctioning of Russia's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Despite the fact that a look at Trump’s Russia policies debunks this narrative it was the dominant one in mainstream media for years. Of course, this narrative was entirely proven false when the Muller Report found no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. The most ridiculous version of this story came from the “Stelle Dossier” a dossier produced by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. This dossier claimed Trump was being blackmailed by the Kremlin who had a tape of Trump Paying prostitutes to pee on a bed in Moscow commonly referred to as a “Pee Tape”. This dossier was fully discredited recently when the F.B.I. indicted Christopher Steel’s main source on five counts of lying to the F.B.I. The Russiagate narrative was used to push multiple stories that have since been proven false. First, there was the claim that Russia was paying the Taliban in Afganistan to kill American soldiers. This story was used by neo-cons and hawkish democrats to prevent a withdrawal from the 20-year war. This story was later proven false when a spokesperson for Biden’s state department admitted they had “low to moderate confidence” (a.k.a no evidence) to back the story. Another example is the Hunter Biden story where the media claimed documents obtained from Hunter’s laptop exposing corruption were “Russian disinformation” which led to Facebook and Twitter blocking the story from being shared. The story was proven to not be “misinformation” by a politico journalist who confirmed the documents as real. Hunter Biden basically admitted the leaks did not come from Russia but from a laptop he dropped off and forgot to pick up when he told reporters the dropped off laptop “could certainly” belong to him. Another provably false story was a ridiculous story published in the Guardian that claimed Jullian Assange met with Paul Manfort and “Russians” in the Ecuadorian embassy. This was easily debunkable as the embassy is one of the most surveilled buildings on earth yet no footage of this meeting exists. This was a part of a larger campaign within Russiagate that tried to tie Jullian Assange to Donald Trump and Russia. I have written in-depth debunkings of these claims in my articles here and here. Part of this story was the claim that Assange got the DNC emails from Russia. This claim mainly came from an organization called “crowdstrike”. Crowdstrike’s CEO admitted under oath that they had no evidence Russia was behind the hack of the DNC or even that it was a hack at all.
Just like the previously mentioned OPCW whistleblowers the mainstream media has ignored this bombshell.
The Mainstream media are the biggest purveyors of misinformation.
The mainstream media has no right to tell anyone else what is or is not misinformation. From Iraq, to Libya, to Syria, to Bolvia, to Venezuela to Russiagate the mainstream media have spread nothing but lies and have never held themselves accountable for it. While Joe Rogan may get things wrong from time to time, he actually retracts stories when he gets them wrong while the mainstream media promotes those who get stories wrong. Joe Rogan has many problems and I often disagree with him politically but there is no doubt he is far- far superior to any mainstream media outlet.
Greenwald noted and mocked the hiring of Stephen Hayes (repeatedly) long before Sirota did, which is probably where Sirota learned of it, jus' sayin'. Otherwise great article, thanks.