Moscow accused of "weaponization of information"

Moscow accused of "weaponization of information"

Committee chairman Ed Royce opened Wednesday’s hearing "by asserting that Russia’s propaganda machine is in overdrive, working to subvert democratic stability and foment violence in Eastern Europe," while the U.S. media propaganda is "in disarray.”

Royce’s witnesses for the committee "consisted of Russia critics Peter Pomerantsev, Helle Dale, and ex-RT journalist Liz Wahl," the Russian outlet reported, and added that "this drew criticism from Dana Rohrabacher who said he wished that 'we had at least one other person to balance out this in a way that perhaps could have compared our system to the Russian system, to find out where that truth is, just how bad that is.”

“Russia is engaged in a major effort to, basically, support its own policies and promote changes and effects on other populations that further the interests of Russia. I would be surprised if that wasn’t the case,” Rohrabacher said, noting "he used to be a journalist himself" and cautioning "against a return to the Cold War mentality.

“We don’t need another Cold War. We don’t need to take that belligerent stance,” he said.

Peter Pomerantsev, of the London-based Legatum Institute, said that "Russia has launched an information war against the West - and we are losing."

RT noted in its report former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. was losing the “information war” to RT and other media, while "her successor John Kerry called RT a 'propaganda bullhorn'” and asked for hundreds of millions of dollars to 'promote democracy' in Eastern Europe."

But Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland dismissed RT as having a “tiny, tiny audience” and representing no threat to a U.S. media space “full of dynamic truthful opinion.”

American linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky "explained the reasoning behind this seemingly contradictory approach," the outlet reported, and quoted him as saying:

“The idea that there should be a network reaching people, which does not repeat the US propaganda system, is intolerable to the U.S. establishment."

“If the House wants to study the weaponization of the media, they can look right at the front pages of the newspapers that they get every day. If we look closely at the conflict (in Ukraine), you can find plenty of problems on both sides, but the way they’re interpreted here, is we’re necessarily right about everything. And if anyone’s in the way, they’re wrong about everything," Chomsky said.