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Unlikely partners? How Western media largely ignored State Dept-Google-Al Jazeera plot against Assad
RT,
26 March, 2016
26 March, 2016
The
Western media has quietly ignored an unexpected collaboration between
Washington, Google, and “independent” Al Jazeera aimed at helping
to overthrow Syria’s Bashar Assad. Would they be as oblivious to a
similar cozy “partnership” involving Russia?
Last
Monday, WikiLeaks lifted the lid on a correspondence between Jared
Cohen, the President of ‘Google Ideas,’ and then-Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton’s staff in the summer of 2012. In his July
25, 2012 email to top State Department’s officials, Cohen pitched
his about-to-be-launched
“tool” to Clinton’s inner circle, asking it to “keep close hold” of it.
“tool” to Clinton’s inner circle, asking it to “keep close hold” of it.
The
leak revealing the project, which would seem to be an outrageous
scandal to some, has actually been quite difficult to spot in the
news. Since WikiLeaks released the latest batch of Clinton’s emails
on March 21, a Google news search spits back about 30 web sources
related to the story.
According
to what Cohen wrote, it appears that Google’s innovative visualizer
worked to
“publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.”
“publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.”
“Our
logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the
atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the
defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to
defect and giving confidence to the opposition,” he
said.
Google
also collaborated with Al Jazeera, which took primary ownership over
the tool, because of “how
hard” it
was to get information out of Syria.
At
the State Department, the idea was lauded and passed on to Clinton
via her private email by deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan as “a
pretty cool idea.”
RT
asked media expert Lionel why
the revelations failed to receive much attention in the Western
media.
“I
don’t expect a reaction from Western media because Western media
hasn’t even read this, has no idea about this,” Lionel
told RT.
“But can you imagine if the same set of facts were involved with the different countries, different corporations around the world depending upon your frame of reference. This would either be an outrage or ‘well, maybe this is a delightful and benign cooperation, an independent tech giant…and all for the common good of liberty’ and whatever. It depends upon your perspective.”
“But can you imagine if the same set of facts were involved with the different countries, different corporations around the world depending upon your frame of reference. This would either be an outrage or ‘well, maybe this is a delightful and benign cooperation, an independent tech giant…and all for the common good of liberty’ and whatever. It depends upon your perspective.”
Another
curious aspect is the fact that the WikiLeaks release directly
involved Clinton’s email, which has been a hot topic tainting her
presidential campaign for a year now. Clinton’s opponents as well
as the US media have been taking nearly every opportunity to poke her
for her “careless” misdeed
– with the notable exception of this story.
The
three parties in this collaboration did not end up together by
chance, either.
Funded
by the Qatari government, Al Jazeera portrays itself
as “the
first independent news channel in the Arab world” and “one
of the world’s most influential news networks,” whose
main goal is it to give “a
global audience an alternative voice.”
Qatar
has been largely supporting the rebels in the Syrian conflict, along
with Washington and other anti-Assad powers that even mulled
launching a direct military intervention on Syrian soil last October.
RT
Medvedev warns US, Saudis against starting ‘permanent war’ with ground intervention in Syria http://on.rt.com/74cm
It
turned out that Google’s Syrian Defector Tracking was a good fit
for Al Jazeera. It even ended up winning the channel a prestigious
Online Media Award for “Best
technical innovation.”
“This
is going to show you very fascinating aspects of the new warfare –
how media, and corporations and various platforms are merging
together. We are not sure who the military is, who is the
government,”
Lionel said.
Lionel said.
He
suggested that the State Department’s reluctance to release
Clinton’s emails could be explained by the intention to hide “the
conflation of allegedly private industry with the government.”
“We have this new world here. We have the government and we have the Pentagon, DAPRA and defense advanced research program agency, we have private industry,
Since
its inception in 2005, RT has often been labeled as anything ranging
from a “Russian propaganda machine” to a “propaganda bullhorn”
by high-profile Western officials and politicians.
“If
RT wanted PR in American media, this is exactly the move it should
make. You would never hear the end of that on American media,” Ted
Rall, a political cartoonist and author, told RT. “You really don’t
have a right to call anyone a propaganda if you yourself is doing the
same thing.”
As
for Al Jazeera’s prize winning tool, it appears to be currently
defunct for unspecified reasons.
we have these various platforms. We have this new introduction of
mercenary groups and private contacting teams. [But] our country [the
US] has had a very strict barrier, Posse Comitatus, that separates
private law enforcement from military," Lionel
said.
"There have always been distinctions and barriers and jurisdiction alliance. In this new world, these barriers are being eliminated, dissolved.”
"There have always been distinctions and barriers and jurisdiction alliance. In this new world, these barriers are being eliminated, dissolved.”
As
Lionel says, the collaboration between Google and the US government
only seems to be “innocent” if
there is a bias towards “who
you like… and the information that’s being propagated.”
When
contacted by RT, Google declined to comment on the situation, yet did
not hesitate to proudly stress Al Jazeera’s achievement.
“No
comment, but pointing out that this data visualization project was
very public, Al Jazeera won a journalism award for it,” the
tech giant said in an email.
RT America
Given these circumstances, it would not hurt to wonder what the Western media’s reaction might have been if the same collaboration had occurred across the ocean and involved, let’s say, the Russian government, a well-known media outlet, and a Russian internet giant.
From the Daily Mail
Does Google basically work for the White House? Internet giant revealed to have offered to help overthrow Assad as Obama reveals broadband for Cuba
- Tech giant planned to visually map those defecting from Assad's regime
- Tool's aim were highlighted in email from Google Ideas chief Jared Cohen
- Cohen left a job at the State Department in 2010 to run Google's think tank
- His plan was to encourage more to defect and give confidence to opposition
- Google planned to give ownership of the tool to network Al-Jazeera
- The network would ensure the information found its way into Syria
- It comes as it emerged Google has a deal to expand Internet access in Cuba
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