CENSURA DE GUERRA: mídia ocidental bloqueia denúncias russas sobre Turquia pró-terror.
In the West, however, almost all media made no mention of it at all. Not a word in The New York Times, which could fill its front page already the same evening with details of the San Bernardino shootings in California. Not a word in leading German and British dailies, which also turned coverage inward on home stories. Further to my remarks several days ago about Euronewstaking a turn to greater balance on Russian issues, the channel did in fact show some images from the Ministry of Defense briefing in Moscow. But like the French print press, they were sparing in coverage and avoided giving any sense of the depth of documentation made available.
In today’s annual Address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin opened and closed his speech with mention of the clash with Turkey going back to the downing of the Russian aircraft in Syria and he once again charged the governing elite in Turkey with supporting jihadist terror by its trade in illicit oil. This part of the speech was duly reported by Figaro, and also by the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which had published not a word about the briefing for military attaches the day before. While it is good that the Russian narrative is reproduced in these leading news outlets, the arms length approach implies confusion in the editorial offices over how to handle these developments which do not match the image of Russia as the West’s enemy and give a perplexing twist to the EU’s current rapprochement with Turkey over refugees. Meanwhile, from another stage, another ‘opera,’ we see that within the chancelleries of some major powers in Europe, the Russian charges against Turkey are taken very seriously indeed. Today’s Financial Times and other British newspapers reporting the start of British bombing in Syria that followed directly on the vote in the House of Commons yesterday tell us specifically the ‘Tornado jets target Syrian oil field.’ So apparently it is now right and proper for US Allies to bomb the sources of financing of the Islamic State, as the Russians have been doing for two months in the face of US derision that they were not finding the right targets.
The reaction of The Washington Post and The New York Times, amounting to a rehashing of an article by The Associated Press, blamed "Russia's top military brass" for "sharply raising the stakes in Moscow's spat with Ankara" through their "bluntly-worded accusations" against the Turkish president. Deputy Defense Minister Antonov, AP continued, "didn't provide any specific evidence to back up the claims of personal involvement of Erdogan and his family in the oil trade with the IS."
Invertendo os fatos reais, vários jornais acusaram Rússia de ser hostil aos turcos pró-terror.
Moreover, the Turkish president, the article recalled, had already vowed to resign if Moscow's accusations were proven to be true. The AP piece cited a spokesman from the US State Department, who "categorically rejected Russia's allegations" (naturally, before really even having a chance to look at them). "We never said oil smuggling from ISIL is not a problem," the spokesman said, but "there is no Turkish government complicity in some operation to buy illegal oil from ISIL. We just don't believe that to be true in any way, shape or form." For its part, Bloomberg also quickly took to Erdogan's defense, suggesting that the investigation was a sign that Russia was "intensifying its attacks on Turkey," and citing the commentary of a Turkish defense attache who had attended the briefing, who said that "he had expected a military briefing, rather than 'political accusations'." Foreign Policy went a step further, trotting out a Harvard expert on Russian energy geopolitics who suggested that the allegations were really just a sign that "Putin's regime, [first] with Ukraine and now Syria, has greatly revamped Russian nationalism."
Other US outlets, including USA Today and Voice of America, focused on Washington's response to the Russian briefing, citing the reactions of the White House, the State Department, and US military commanders, who rushed to defend their allies in Ankara. Col. Steve Warren, anti-ISIL coalition spokesman in Baghdad, emphasized that "the Turks" were actually "great partners" in fighting Daesh. Across the pond, in the UK, media reaction was generally more of the same. The Guardian headlined their article "Russia Steps Up Hostility Against Turkey With War Room Briefing," sarcastically suggesting that the briefing indicated that "Turkey may have replaced the US as Russia's rhetorical enemy No 1," again instead of focusing on the actual evidence. The BBC, for its part, also made clear to stick up for the UK's NATO allies, with their article on the briefing headlined "Turkey's Erdogan Says Russia IS Oil Trade Claims are 'Slander'." The Financial Times again went a step further, suggesting that the revelations are really just another component of the anti-Turkish propaganda which has emerged in the Russian media following the downing of the Russian Su-24.
The business newspaper cited the commentary of Ukrainian Interior Ministry advisor Anton Gerashchenko, who suggested that the Russian media's anti-Erdogan campaign was reminiscent of the anti-Kiev campaign it had carried out earlier. Incidentally, the newspaper forgot to mention that Gerashchenko, a rather smarmy figure in his own right, had earlier called on Ukrainian social media users to publically disclose any information they had on the Russian pilots operating in Syria, in order that terrorists might locate the servicemen and their families and take revenge. In an interesting contrast to their American and British colleagues, major French and German media outlets seemed less eager to line up behind their Turkish allies. France 24 and Germany's Bild reported on the Russian briefing skeptically, but fairly, saying more evidence was needed. For its part, Deutsche Welle went so far as to suggest, in its German-language piece, that while additional evidence in Russia's accusation toward the Turkish president "is still pending, one thing is certain: ISIL oil is reaching Turkish territory."
