Trump is the living embodiment of cognitive dissonance as an element of disinformation production.
A reminder that the daily activity of this White House includes more easily debunked disinformation, and that Individual-1’s useful idiocy pervades domestic and foreign policy. It’s not strange to imagine how Trump constantly rewrites history, often because of his own cognitive decline projected on whatever appears to be WH policy.
To Trump, there continues to be a “Russian hoax” in spite of the Mueller report and the Steele dossier and some RWNJs willing to rewrite a matching history. This resembles how Russia is trying to erase the truth about the secret protocols of the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact that divided Poland, among other agreements prior to WWII.
Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the World War II Nazi-Soviet Pact on August 23, 2019, official Russian diplomatic Twitter accounts launched the hashtag #TruthAboutWWII to present a distorted narrative concerning the signing of the pact and the start of World War II.
The Kremlin has long presented the Soviet Union and its regime as the lone defender against Nazi Germany during World War II, and the fact that the Soviet Union initially allied itself with the latter would undermine the myth-making. Successfully distorting history, in particular by covering up the Soviet Union’s crimes, would provide the current Russian government with a basis to justify some of its contemporary actions as allegedly predicated on history. The DRFLab has previously exposed the Kremlin’s attempts to rewrite history, including by building statues of Soviet icons in an effort to glorify the Soviet past.
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On Twitter, official Russian diplomatic accounts worked especially hard to justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ahead of its 80th anniversary, claiming that the Soviet Union was forced to sign the treaty. The Kremlin’s account, however, deliberately omitted certain details: namely, that the pact paved the way for the Soviet and Nazi invasions of Poland as well as the Soviet invasion of Finland and occupation of the Baltic states. These details are critical to understanding the start of World War II, and their omission is further evidence of the Kremlin’s distortion of the historical record.
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Trump is trying with less success to convince Americans that Trump doing Saudi bidding against Iran can ignore a contradictory, dissonant history. We’re meant to forget all kinds of things, ranging from the origin of the 9/11 terrorists to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Revisionist histories cover all kinds of lies.
2/ The conflict btwn Saudi Arabia and Yemen roughly dates from the 1932 founding of Saudi Arabia, when the new kingdom took territory from Yemen in a war set off by a border dispute. The Saudis has attempted to influence Yemeni affairs every since.
3/ The Houthis are a group of Shia tribes in northern Yemen who practice a distinct form of Islam called Zaidism. In the 1980s, the Saudis began a campaign to push Sunni Wahabism into Houthi areas, creating massive friction with Houthi communities.
4/ Saudi Arabia sent Wahhabi settlers into Houthi areas to try to dilute Zaidism and increase Saudi influence in north Yemen. The Houthi resistance to the Saudis, and their patron governments in the Yemeni capital, grew and grew.
5/ In the 2000s, Saudi backed Yemeni governments carried out 6 separate wars against the now rebelling Houthis. Bush opposed most of these wars, believing the anti-Houthi campaigns to be doing more harm than good, especially as the Houthis began to reach out to Iran for help.
6/ Over the course of these wars, the Houthi military capabilities grew, and by 2010 they were the most battle tested army in Yemen. In 2015 they successfully marched on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and Saudi Arabia and UAE initiated a full fledged war against the Houthis.
7/ Since 2015, there have been atrocities committed by both sides. Casualties are hard to track, but it could be that 100,000 Yemenis have died in the war, and the resulting humanitarian disaster has resulted in another 100,000 children dying of starvation or disease.
8/ The cholera outbreak (the result of water treatment plants being destroyed) is the worst in recorded world history. Houthis refuse to let food & medicine reach contested areas. Saudis drop bombs on hospitals and school buses. Bottom line - it's the ugliest war on the planet.
9/ Over time, the Houthis have turned to Iran for more and more help. The Iranians don't have a command and control relationship with Houthis, but their influence grows every day the war continues. Houthi drones likely come from Iran.
10/ Over time, a dangerous game of escalating behavior has developed. Saudis kill a bunch of Houthi civilians, then the Houthis launch an attack in Saudi Arabia. The latest attack on the Saudi refinery follows a Saudi attack on Dhamar prison which killed 100 people.
11/ Bottom line: the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess. They marginalized the Houthis in the 80s and thru the 2000s wars. They bungled the prosecution of the post 2015 conflict. Houthis/Iranians have blood on their hands too, but the U.S. should not be a part of this disaster.
And in other information matters...