The Kiev regime also duped the New York Times (and apparently the U.S. State Department) when it disseminated photos that supposedly showed Russian military personnel inside Russia and then later inside Ukraine. After the State Department endorsed the "evidence," the Times led its newspaper with this story on April 21, but it turned out that one of the key photos supposedly shot in Russia was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the premise of the story. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Retracts Ukraine Photo Scoop."]
But here we are yet again with the MSM relying on unverified claims being made by the Kiev regime about something as sensitive as whether Russia provided sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles -- capable of shooting down high-flying civilian aircraft -- to poorly trained eastern Ukrainian rebels.
This charge is so serious that it could propel the world into a second Cold War and conceivably -- if there are more such miscalculations -- into a nuclear confrontation. These moments call for the utmost in journalistic professionalism, especially skepticism toward propaganda from biased parties.
Yet, what Americans have seen again is the major U.S. news outlets, led by the Washington Post and the New York Times, publishing the most inflammatory of articles based largely on unreliable Ukrainian officials and on the U.S. State Department which was a principal instigator of the Ukraine crisis.
In the recent past, this sort of sloppy American journalism has led to mass slaughters in Iraq -- and has contributed to near U.S. wars on Syria and Iran -- but now the stakes are much higher. As much fun as it is to heap contempt on a variety of "designated villains," such as Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei and now Vladimir Putin, this sort of recklessness is careening the world toward a very dangerous moment, conceivably its last.
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