by Tony Cartalucci
March 1, 2012 - In the spirit of recognizing mobs of terrorists as legitimate national governments before a sovereign nation's true leadership is murdered by US-led NATO operations, as was the case in Libya, the Western media is already decrying Russia's upcoming elections as "rigged" before they've even taken place. Leading the preemptive media coverage is Foreign Policy (FP) magazine featuring an article by Freedom House president David Kramer and Freedom House vice president, Christopher Walker.
The FP piece titled, "The Kremlin's Big Gamble: Can Vladimir Putin's simulated democracy survive another rigged election?" in title alone already implies that the elections, which polls have long indicated Putin is overwhelmingly expected to win, will be "rigged." This in and of itself is "rigged" coverage - reporting conclusions to events that have yet to unfold.
Kramer's piece is particularly ironic, because the first round of "rigged election" calls were made last December by "activists" funded by the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), of which Freedom House is a subsidiary.
In December 2011's "US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections,"US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded GOLOS was noted as being the key "observer" cited across Western media in an attempt to portray the Russian elections as "stolen." GOLOS owes its existence to the US government and in turn the banking oligarchs of Wall Street and London who have been trying in vain to dislodge Russia's Vladimir Putin from power for years.
Image: A screenshot from NED's official website, listing GOLOS as a recipient of NED funding, which in turn is provided by the US State Department. Despite this overt conflict of interest - especially with NED subsidiary International Republican Institute chairman John McCain openly threatening Russia with "Arab Spring" unrest, "journalists" and Freedom House alike continue citing them as "independent" election monitors. (click image to enlarge)
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Kramer in his piece would cite this gaggle of US-funded NGOs and the opposition parties they support as a "clear indicator of the desire for change." Kramer even shamelessly mentions GOLOS by name, claiming they are "the sole independent Russian election-monitoring organization" despite the fact that they are clearly not independent, being funded proxies of the US State Department.
Apparently pointing this out, Kramer argues, is defined as a "smear campaign." Kramer then goes on to cite his own organization's dubious, politically motivated work as evidence against how "undemocratic" Russia is before concluding that "evidence of rigging" will lead to a rejection of the results and justification for instability similar to what was seen across the US-manufactured "Arab Spring." It should be noted that Freedom House was cited by even the New York Times as being a sponsor of the "Arab Spring" unrest.
And when considering such "evidence of rigging," already, Russian authorities are investigating claims of faked-vote rigging videos, the type used by US-funded GOLOS in conjunction with the Western media to incite unrest in Russia last December. With FP's article, we see that the Western media has already determined how Russia's elections will unfold, creating the pretext in the minds of impressionable viewers to justify the unrest the US is undoubtedly planning.
It is important to keep in mind Freedom House president David Kramer's words, knowing that both the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House are self-serving frauds, when listening to these very same talking points regurgitated by the Western media during the elections this coming Sunday.
