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What are the facts that the Islamic State is seeking to create a civil war in France; that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons; that Vladimir Putin is trying to destabilise our democracies; that terrorism has struck France, not for what it does, but for what it is; that the genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 victims?... Literally none, but these assertions are enough to establish the foreign policy of Western countries.

The author, a former agent of the Swiss strategic intelligence service, reviews the main contemporary conflicts that Western countries have managed with fake news over the last thirty years.

Jacques Baud, a colonel, chemical and nuclear weapons expert, trained in counter-terrorism and counter-guerrilla warfare, designed the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) and its Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA). In the service of the United Nations, he served as Chief of Doctrine for Peacekeeping Operations in New York, and was engaged in Africa. In NATO, he led the fight against the proliferation of small arms. He is the author of several books on intelligence, asymmetric warfare and terrorism.

Copyright

Max Milo, 2020

ISBN: 978-2-315-01072-1

Governing by Fake News Foreword

Taken together, my notes and analyses from thirty-five years of working in international security on three continents, in the service of security and peace, in national and international settings, would have saved just over 470,000 lives. But nothing was done! Fear of deviating from prevailing opinions, prejudice, refusal to see a problem from a different angle have been convenient loopholes, often hiding incompetence and lack of curiosity. This is what is known as the ‘deep state’ or ‘permanent state’: a bureaucracy that lives for itself and seeks to satisfy its own interests, to the detriment of the general interest.

Working for the United Nations and NATO, I have been in contact with soldiers from all countries during several crises, both in the field and at headquarters level (in the Congo, Sudan, during the Libyan, Ukrainian and Syrian crises). I have seen the weakness of the higher echelons of command: the inability to understand the logic of the adversary, the lack of general culture, the absence of sensitivity to the holistic dimension of conflicts, a total lack of imagination in finding alternatives to the use of force to solve sometimes simple problems, cowardice when it comes to advising the political level based on facts and an almost total absence of a sense of responsibility. Wars are won by soldiers, but certainly not by generals.

Diplomats are not much better. Generally more educated, they are often corrupt, lack courage and imagination. Locked into institutional thinking, they share with the military an inability to understand asymmetric phenomena. Frequently the complacent victims of rumours, they favour administrative discipline over common sense and solve problems more out of duty than out of concern for efficiency... even if it means ‘twisting the neck’ of the truth.

What are the facts that allow one to say that «the Islamic State is seeking to create a civil war in France1 «? What are the facts that allowed Nicolas Sarkozy to claim that Iran «calls for the destruction of Israel2 « or Emmanuel Macron to claim that Vladimir Putin is «obsessed with interference in our democracies3 « or that «Russia invaded Ukraine4 «? Literally none... but it is enough to establish a foreign policy, to strike and kill innocent people.

In fact, our perception of events is very partial, and therefore biased. We believe we have objective and complete information, but this is not the case: slight omissions, simplifications and other distortions modify in a subtle way our way of understanding the world. The phenomenon is all the more pronounced when it is fuelled by emotion - as in the case of terrorism - or by fears that are deeply rooted in the mind - for example, the Russian threat. Thus, suppositions become certainties and prejudices become realities, verbs in the conditional tense are rephrased in the indicative tense, and the prudence of the intelligence services is ignored in favour of more categorical messages. To the point that the intelligence services are castigated when they provide facts that contradict the political discourse5 !

Even war seems to escape all rationality. People engage in it without any strategy or precise objectives, destroying societies permanently for short-term reasons. By analogy, we attribute to others (such as Russia, Syria or Iran) the same willingness to engage in conflicts without objectives, simply out of a desire for conquest or glory... Yet the facts tend to contradict our prejudices. We do not understand war, so we cannot understand peace. With simulacra of strategy, which are only an erratic series of tactical actions, we seek solutions to our perceptions, and not to the reality on the ground, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur or South Sudan, which was enthusiastically welcomed at the United Nations in 2011, and which is today one of the main providers of refugees6.

The mistreatment of a small cat arouses more emotion on social networks than the massacre of children in Iraq by Western air forces... The death of the «500,000» Iraqi children7 in the 1990s, or of 40,000 Venezuelans in 2017-20188, because of Western sanctions, has not provoked any reaction in Europe: no one has taken to the streets, and those responsible have never been sought or sanctioned! There are demonstrations for migrants, but not against the Western strikes that drive them into exile. We demonstrate for sustainable development, but we plunder the main resource of developing countries: people. A modern form of colonialism, where the victims are complacent and participate in the plunder. Millions of people have taken to the streets to demonstrate their anger at terrorism, but how many demonstrated before the strikes provoked the violence, when the likely consequences were known?

The cause of these dysfunctions is information that is most often deliberately truncated in order to protect poorly thought-out decisions that support individual postures or respond to short-term visions.

This book does not claim to establish or re-establish truths, but seeks to inspire ‘reasonable doubt’ about the way we are informed. It shows that what we take for granted is an often crude deception: official reports and the international press demonstrate that the information is there, available, provided that one takes the trouble to look for it. In the information jungle, the intelligence services have an essential role in providing an objective picture of the situation, a sort of ‘yardstick’, which should enable political or military decision-makers to decide. We shall see where they have failed... well before terrorism and wars...

J. Baud

1. Nicolas Truong, “Islamic State seeks to unleash a civil war”, lemonde.fr, 14 November 2015

2. Speech by President Sarkozy to the Knesset, Le Figaro, 20 June 2008

3. “President Macron on relations with the US, Syria and Russia”, Fox News/YouTube, 22 April 2018, (12’40’’)

4. Emmanuel Macron, during his press conference at the end of the G7, on 27 May 2017 (“Ukraine: Macron promises a ‘demanding’ exchange without ‘concessions’ with Putin”, Europe 1, 27 May 2017); “Putin - Macron: les dossiers qui fâchent”, BFMTV, 29 May 2017; “Vladimir Putin: Emmanuel Macron, prêt à engager un ‘rapport de force’”, Le Point, 29 May 2017

5. John Bowden, “Senate Democrat says he is concerned intelligence community is ‘bending’ Soleimani presentations”, The Hill, 14 January 2020

6. Global Trends - Forced Displacement In 2018, UNHCR, 18 June 2019

7. 60 Minutes program, “Madeleine Albright,” newmedia7/YouTube, 5 August 2016. (In reality, the figure would be more like 130,000 dead children).

8. Mark Weisbrot & Jeffrey Sachs, Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington DC, April 2019, p. 11

1. The perverse effect of false truths

A liar says: «I lie! Is he lying? (Epimenides, 550 BC)

Our perception of the environment is truncated by information that conceals false truths - often fuelled by cultural bias - which tend to shift our frame of reference and distort our reading.

The Christchurch killer in March 2019 justified his massacre of 51 Muslims with the theory of ‘great replacement’. Yet in New Zealand, the Muslim population constitutes barely 1% of the total population, while the Maori and Asian populations make up 15% and 6.5% of the population respectively. This suggests that this sense of ‘great replacement’ has been artificially generated; perhaps not deliberately, but through carelessness and clientelism. By associating - volens nolens - Islamists with Muslims, we have created the conditions for inter-community violence and given real meaning to the word ‘Islamophobia’.

Our reductive vision of things tends to generate ‘false truths’, which have entered the ‘normal’ reading of things and - for various reasons - are no longer questioned. We then enter the realm of ‘post-truths’, where reality becomes the product of perception and no longer of objective facts. The problem is that these ‘post-truths’ condition the way we see problems and solve them.

Western strategic decisions are based on assumptions, prejudices and, in the best cases, clues, but very rarely on proven facts. When Donald Trump struck Syria with 59 cruise missiles in April 2017, the media and the European political establishment applauded and followed suit, even though there was no evidence to justify an act of war against a sovereign country, without being threatened and without a UN mandate9.

As soon as it is conveyed by the «traditional media», the information becomes a «truth», and all the more so if it confirms our prejudices. Ironically, the political or military action induced by these ‘truths’ is precisely the source of the terrorism that is killing us. We ourselves create the conditions for our insecurity. Most of the victims caused by terrorism in France between 1990 and 2017 could easily have been avoided if we had wanted to understand objectively the terrorists’ motives. If the latter are obviously guilty of their acts, politicians, journalists and other «terrorism experts» who seek to impose their own interpretation of the phenomenon, excluding the reasons given by the terrorists themselves (under the pretext of not «proving them right») objectively become accomplices. In fact, they distort the understanding of the phenomenon and provoke inappropriate responses.

The search for ‘truth’ is a complex undertaking. Lies and omissions are the basic elements of «founding myths»: rightly or wrongly, they have often helped to create a consensual basis and to smooth out potential conflicts, thus contributing to the stabilisation of societies and the facilitation of living together. Buddha, Moses, Jesus Christ, William Tell, Joan of Arc and many others probably fuelled «fake news» in their time, yet they have become moral references or symbols of unity. But they have also justified massacres, genocides and injustices...

Today, we claim to be fighting terrorism in the name of «Western values»: respect for human rights or the rule of law. But is this true? We start wars in defiance of international law, lie to multilateral organisations, threaten the families of recalcitrant diplomats with reprisals, practice torture, bomb sovereign countries without UN approval, support countries that commit massacres, support jihadist movements that use women and children as human shields, support the assassinations conducted by Western countries against diplomatic emissaries of countries with which they are not at war, accept military forces that deliberately shoot children with impunity, etc. In July 2019, a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan shows that Western coalition forces are killing more civilians than the Islamic State10 !

In November 2018, in an interview with the BBC, Mike Pompeo presented the US sanctions and announced that the Iranian government would have to do the right thing «if they want their people to eat11 «. This way of threatening the civilian population in order to force the government to act as the US wishes, corresponds precisely to the definition of... terrorism, namely:

The use or threat of force to achieve political change12.

But to justify these wars, it has been necessary to present the enemy as worse than us. For example, the term «Bashar al-Assad’s regime forces13 « or «loyalist forces14 « is often used instead of «Syrian army15 «, implying that it is a faction and not a state institution (Christian militias are «loyalist forces»). When referring to Russia, «power» becomes synonymous with «government16 «, the Russian army becomes «Putin’s forces17 «, while «arrests» become «arrests18 «. It is thus accepted as an indisputable fact that Vladimir Putin, invariably described as the «master of the Kremlin19 «, is a «dictator20 « or a «muscular autocrat21 «, or that Bashar al-Assad is «massacring his people22 «, in such a way that it is no longer necessary to demonstrate this. Are we talking about the «forces of Macron’s regime» or «the master of the Élysée» deployed on the Champs-Élysées? In fact, this terminology is not innocent and is part of a subtle conditioning to legitimise Western actions. In 2016, NATO’s Centre of Excellence for Strategic Communication (STRACOM), based in Latvia, even published a document that sought to show a kinship between the Islamic State’s communication strategy and that of the Russian government23 !

The revelations of official documents show that in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq, Westerners have thrown themselves «headlong» into conflicts presented as indispensable to our security, without any strategy, without any knowledge of the adversary and without foreseeing the consequences at home. We are silent on the fact that we deliberately created these conflicts and that their horrors are the result of our irresponsibility. But no one calls for accountability. Even the victims seem to be willing...

9. See, for example: Frédéric Autran, “Frappes en Syrie: Trump cible directement le régime de Bachar al-Assad”, liberation.fr, 7 April 2017; “Syrie: Donald Trump met ses menaces à exécution”, lefigaro.fr, 7 April 2017

10. Midyear Update on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 1 January to 30 June 2019, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), 30 July 2019, p. 12; Amy Woodyatt & Arnaud Siad, “More civilians are being killed by Afghan and international forces than by the Taliban and other militants,” CNN, 31 July 2019

11. “Interview With Hadi Nili of BBC Persian”, Michael R. Pompeo - Secretary of State, Washington DC, 7 November 2018; Brendan Cole, “Mike Pompeo Says Iran Must Listen To U.S. ‘If They Want Their People To Eat’”, Newsweek, 9 November 2018.

12. Biran Jenkins, advisor to the RAND Corporation (in Charles-Philippe David & Benoît Gagnon, Repenser le Terrorisme, Éditions PUL, Université de Laval (Canada), 2007, p. 35

13. “Syria: 71 fighters killed in clashes between jihadists and regime forces”, L’Obs/AFP, 11 July 2019; Hala Kodmani, “Idlib, ultime creuset du conflit syrien”, liberation.fr, 20 August 2019

14. See article “Syrian Civil War”, Wikipedia

15. Caroline Roux in the programme “C dans l’air”, “Syria: le coup de force de Poutine #cdanslair 28-09-2016”, YouTube, 28 September 2016 (09’30’’)

16. “Demonstrators arrested in Moscow: ‘We are witnessing a tightening of Russian power’”, France24, 29 July 2019 (updated 30 July 2019)

17. Jérôme Fenoglio, “Les frontières invisibles de Narva”, Le Monde, 14 May 2014; “Vous pensiez à la Syrie? La 3e Guerre mondiale pourrait plutôt commencer dans la Baltique (et on y entendre de plus en plus de bruits de bottes)”, Atlantico.fr, 4 November 2016

18. For example: France24, 1pm news of 3 August 2019

19. For example: Marion Pignot, “Russia: Vladimir Putin reinstated as Kremlin leader on Monday”, 20minutes.fr, 7 May 2018

20. “Carte blanche au dictateur Poutine”, Courrier International, 19 March 2018

21. Sara Daniel, “What does Russia look like under Vladimir Putin?”, L’Obs, 8 March 2018

22. “Quand on massacre son peuple”: la cinglante réplique de Le Drian à el-Assad”, L’Express, 18 December 2017

23. The Kremlin and DAESH Information Activities, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, Riga, October 2016

2. Defining fake news

Translated into French by the term «infox» - which combines the words «information» and «intoxication», and presupposes that its purpose is to deceive - the expression «fake news» is a legacy of Donald Trump’s election campaign. Used to castigate his opponents, the expression quickly went viral and has marked the political vocabulary since 2016. However, if we intuitively understand its meaning, its definition remains unclear. Is it falsified information? Transformed? Inauthentic? False? Unreal? Unrealistic? Inaccurate ? Exaggerated ? Undocumented ? Incomplete? Altered intentionally (misinformation) or unintentionally (misinformation)? Is it the result of ignorance, malice or didactic simplification? Conversely, what criteria determine whether information is true? How many people believe it? What is the standard by which we decide that a piece of information is true?

Rumours about the banning of Chips in Belgium24 or about the development of a sushi tree in Japan25 are obviously more a matter of humour than a desire to cause harm. Some fake news can be generated by Internet users themselves. For example, Google’s success comes from the way it searches for information: it attributes a relevance value to the results of a search according to the number of links that lead to it, on the assumption that Internet users make a rational choice between the various answers offered to them. Thus, the relevance of a search result is not directly related to its content, but to the number of visits by Internet users. In an extreme case, if they choose a stupid answer as the result of their search, Google will consider it the most relevant. Jokers have used this principle to create fakes - called «Google bombing» - by «bombarding» wacky answers with links. For example, typing in «miserable failure» led inexorably to George W. Bush, or «French military victories» yielded no results, and suggested searching under «French military defeats»26. Today, Google has put in place corrective mechanisms that prevent such manipulations. This being said, the very nature of algorithms does not exclude that similar situations can be provoked in a more subtle way. This is the anecdotal aspect of «fake news».

At the top of the pyramid is fake news, which manipulates facts to create a false coherence around an appearance of truth, in order to distort an audience’s perception and push them to support a policy. They lead to the notion of ‘post-truth’. These are the «real» fake news: the most perverse, the most dangerous, but the most difficult to detect.

A quick look shows that there are very few verifiable and irrefutable facts to support our picture of countries like Russia, Iran, Syria, etc. Gaddafi was probably a dictator, but where are the mass graves of the massacres attributed to him? Omar Bashir was probably a dictator too, but where are the mass graves of the 400,000 deaths in Darfur between 2003 and 2006? By having created and accepted these lies without batting an eyelid, we have generated hundreds of thousands of other deaths and an immigration that we can no longer control...

24. B.T., “After their Belgian counterparts, the chip shops of the North threatened by the European Commission?, La Voix du Nord, 19 June 2017

25. https://www.journaldemourreal.com/des-chercheurs-japonais-developpent-un-arbre-a-sushis/

26. Patrick Langridge, “The 11 Most Infamous Google Bombs In History”, www.screamingfrog.co.uk, 18 October 2012; Barry Schwartz, “George Bush ‘Miserable Failure’ Google Bomb Back, This Time In Knowledge Graph”, Search Engine Land, 12 June 2013