(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) While biased news media like the Associated Press carped over allegations of Russian propaganda, America’s own propaganda machine is on overdrive.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the two non-Democrats on the House’s NeverTrump Jan. 6th Committee, added to the massive operation by misleadingly tweeting a photo of Ukrainian patriotism from at least 2016.
— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) February 26, 2022
Several Twitter users called him out on the fraudulence.
2016 is the date, Adam posted another false image of emotional propaganda. https://t.co/AmrjvOMROx
— RayneNTruth †🇺🇸† (@RayneNGrace) February 26, 2022
I believe it might have been on Ukrainian Flag Day (August 23rd 2016). It is evocative art at a time of conflict: “Маленькі українці в зоні АТО – діти війни. ” https://t.co/zTPucc98TN War in Donbas: 6 April 2014 – present. Conflict ongoing… https://t.co/vEiJlTM7gu
— Dr Mark Twitchett 🔶 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@Mark_Twitchett) February 26, 2022
Even Twitter itself, notorious for pushing the leftist agenda regardless of factuality, acknowledged that there were many old pictures of the eight-year-long war between Russia and Ukraine being spread around social media to suggest they were taken since President Vladimir Putin sent military forces into the country on Thursday.
“Multiple videos and images circulating on social media were taken in previous years and are not linked with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, various fact-checkers and journalists report,” wrote Twitter in a post Saturday.
Among the bogus stories being spread were 13 guards on Snake Island who, according to lore, were killed after telling Russian invaders to “f**k off.” Those guards, in fact, survived and surrendered.
. The “Ghost of Kyiv” pilot who shot down six planes and the lady with the sunflower seeds who told off a Russian soldier had likewise been debunked, according to the Conservative Treehouse.
“The sense of sympathy you are feeling is part of an intentionally manipulative operation from within this DC matrix,” it wrote.
Conservatives likely felt also a deeply conflicted sense of apprehension, perceivng yet another effort to manipulate the populus into mass distraction that would force them to take their eye off the ball and perhaps lead to the voluntary sacrifice of even more civil liberties on behalf of the “common good.”
That loathsome figures like Sean Penn, the cyberterrorist group Anonymous and George Soros all rallied around the Ukrainian cause did not help assuage those suspicions.
Allowing Putin to succeed on his quest will send a message across the world that nations can simply be created or dissolved by brute force. We must #StandWithUkraine, as they stand for us.
— George Soros (@georgesoros) February 26, 2022
Particularly after the Left’s past history of exploiting Ukraine—much of which was revealed during the first impeachment attempt of former President Donald Trump—there lingered a pervading sense that the battle was not ours to fight.
“There’s no gentle way to say it, but the truth is that a lot of us hate our elites far more than we hate some foreign dictator,” wrote The Federalist’s Chris Bedford.
Despite the cynicism, most were quick to condemn Putin and to commend the heroism of Ukrainian citizens, led by their brave and heroic president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But the misinformation, being openly embraced by the Establishment on levels unseen even during the 2020 election, underscored the fact that there were no good guys calling the shots—only an ever-growing list of victims caught up in the crossfire.
“This is one oligarch fighting another oligarch,” wrote the Liberty Loft. “There are no good players in this conflict, including the oligarchs of the West who have been promoting this war and the start of World War III.”
