The west is in a war-like situation with Russia. Portraying them as stupid, drunk rednecks who ravage trough the environment certainly fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's not true though.
Looting of national treasures is pretty typical of Russia.
A large country, the tsar (or the government) is far away, local governors can be bribed ... unless you do something that endangers the entire country/system, you can get away with a lot.
RFERL is a propaganda outlet that was established by the CIA as a weapon against the Soviets during the Cold War. [1] And in 1948, just before this all started kicking off, the Smith-Mundt [2] act was passed which prohibited the government disseminating propaganda domestically. That act was then repealed in 2013, because reasons.
> That act was then repealed in 2013, because reasons
It wasn't repealed, it was amended.
In 2012.
To provide an Arabic/Pashto/Urdu/etc. language source of information for speakers of those languages within the US due to a lack of coverage by domestic US broadcasters. (not "reasons")
For example: You are an Arabic-speaking individual living in the midwest of the US where you were resettled after getting refugee status. There almost no domestically-produced news sources in Arabic.
Al-monitor exists, but they were founded the same year the act was amended, for the same reasons, and unfortunately while many of their articles are written in native language, many others seem to be machine-translated and no matter what the AI/ML hypelords think, that ain't it boss.
You're correct, but rather in the worst of ways. The worst parts of the act, those that specifically enable and fund government produced propaganda were maintained. All the parts that limit its domestic dissemination were removed. So for instance one of the first effects of this change are described here. [1]
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An unnamed Pentagon official who was concerned about the 2012 law version stated: "It removes the protection for Americans. It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false."[39] The monthly magazine The Atlantic echoed those concerns by pointing out to two USA Today journalists who became target of a smear and propaganda campaign after they reported that the U.S. military "information operations" program spent millions of U.S. dollars in marketing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq criticized as ineffective and poorly monitored.[36][42] As it turned out, Camille Chidiac, who executed the marketing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted to be a part of the smear and propaganda campaign against the USA Today reporters.[43]
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It's the same sort of stuff as when the exact same government administration also passed a law enabling the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial (that also remains to this day), again because reasons. [2] Incidentally it was passed in the exact same completely undemocratic way both times - by shoving it into a must-pass defense authorization bill. It's a suggestive pattern of behavior that's quite telling, especially given where we've ended up at today.
> Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you do not fund your national public broadcaster?
Because the US media market is quite saturated and developed (or at least was when any of this was made into law) compared to countries where media is actively supressed.
Quality news reporting is lacking. Investigative journalism is almost dead. The mainstream media is on a war footing. There have been 0 interviews with J Mearsheimer on mainstream US media.
There's also Radio Free Asia, Current Time TV (in Russian), Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Televisión Martí (targeting Cuba) and of course, Voice of America, all under USAGM (Agency for Global Media).
It could be argued that Ukraine's 2014 revolution occurred with the backing of the US and was the most immediate precursor to the present situation. I'm not claiming it was or wasn't just that there is a case this was brewing long before 2022.
IMO, this falls short of directly implicating the USG in the revolution but it certainly highlights their detailed concern in the region and a desire for specific outcomes. It makes it harder to believe USG intelligence operatives were completely hands-off. To what extent the situation was being driven by them is something I can't tell/guess.
To what extent do we expect to see direct evidence the Euromaidan protests were instigated/leveraged by intelligence officers and associated cutouts for strategic purposes? I don't know and the lack of concrete evidence makes me reluctant to draw any firm conclusions but a comment from a former intelligence analyst seems interesting to me:
"RAY McGOVERN: Well, a couple of things. You know, it really depends more on who seizes control of these uprisings. If you look at Bahrain, you know, if you look at Syria—even Egypt, to an extent—these were initially popular uprisings. The question is: Who took them over? Who spurred them? Who provoked them even more for their own particular strategic interests? And it’s very clear what’s happened to the Ukraine. It used to be the CIA doing these things. I know that for a fact. OK, now it’s the National Endowment for Democracy, a hundred million bucks, 62 projects in the Ukraine. So, again, you don’t have to be a paranoid Russian to suggest that, you know, they’re really trying to do what they—do in the Ukraine what they’ve done in the rest of Eastern Europe and elsewhere."
… which proves his point. This anti-Russian sentiment never really ended, it's easy to not notice it if you've never been on the receiving side of it. It's not just the news, I saw it in casual conversations all the time long before 2014, and even 2008. TBH I expected better from Americans, with their multi-cultural society and sensitivity trainings, but was mistaken.
One of the two major American political parties somewhat regularly supports the Russian government, in an amazing turnaround of the history of the party since 2016, but part of that is due to the party just opposing on principle almost anything the other party supports for political reasons starting around 1980s, and part of it is due to where the titular head of the party is polling. The less populated rural areas of America and the very few swing states as well have an inordinate influence on the national politics to counteract your misconceptions about America.
The west is in a war-like situation with Russia. Portraying them as stupid, drunk rednecks who ravage trough the environment certainly fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's not true though.