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Shots Fired: US War Lobby Takes Aim at Sputnik News

© Sputnik / Konstantin Chalabov / Go to the mediabankRadio Sputnik studio
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The US war lobby has taken a shot at Sputnik, as one of its power centers -- Central and Eastern Europe -- appears to be evading its ideological grip. An American think tank, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), largely supported by US military lobbyists, has come up with a “revealing” report on “Sputnik propaganda.”

The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), “the only US think-tank that works exclusively on the countries and societies of this dynamic global region (CEE)”, has produced a report on “how one piece of the Kremlin’s media machine — the Sputnik tabloid news site — discredits Western governments, policies and institutions such as the European Union and NATO while simultaneously validating the Kremlin’s own message.”

© Photo : Screenshot/ cepa.orgScreenshot from CEPA website.
Screenshot from CEPA website.  - Sputnik International
Screenshot from CEPA website.

Based on calculations of how many times individual politicians from Eastern Europe, primarily, were referenced or quoted in Sputnik’s English-language site articles, CEPA concluded that “the decision to prefer politicians from small parties, especially protest ones, over mainstream commentators from larger parties can only realistically be explained by a desire to promote their anti-establishment opinions.”

The five-page report suggests that “further research lies beyond the scope of this paper.”

© Photo : Screenshot/ cepa.orgScreenshot from CEPA website.
Screenshot from CEPA website.  - Sputnik International
Screenshot from CEPA website.

However, analyzing the results of a random search for “Polish”, “Czech” or “Latvian MEP,” it nevertheless suggests that “at least in a European Parliament context, Sputnik embodies the Russian military doctrine of making 'wide use of the protest potential' of the legislature to promote the Kremlin’s chosen messages of disinformation.”

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It is worth noting who the sponsors of this 'profound' research are. Among the center’s recent donors are:

•  Lockheed Martin, an American global aerospace, defense, security and advanced technologies company and one of the major contractors to the US Army and Special Operations Forces;

•  Raytheon, a major American defense contractor with a concentration on weapons and military and commercial electronics;

•  The US Department of Defense;

•  Sikorsky Aircraft, the US military aircraft manufacturer and leading defense contractor;

•  Bell Helicopter, manufacturer of military aircraft;

•  Textron Systems, aerospace and defense developer and manufacturer.

Interestingly enough, Raytheon has won Poland’s missile defense tender. The American maker of the Patriot missile will now supply its medium-range missile defense system to the country by 2017.

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Accidentally or not, Executive Vice President of the think tank, Marcin Zaborowski, has been recently advocating for a stronger US military presence in Europe, mostly in Poland, the Baltic states and Romania, citing the “Russian threat,” and praising Raytheon and its Patriot-based missile defense system.

To even better understand the true mission of the think tank, it is worth mentioning that among high-profile employees of this organization is fierce anti-Russian critic and political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, and British journalist Edward Lucas, known for his anti-Russian book “The New Cold War. Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West.”

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