Russian Information War Against Georgia, Right Here on Premagination!

Oh damn this is just absolutely fascinating. Earlier today I posted a tweet about Russia’s cyber attack aka cyber warfare against Georgia’s routers and internet infrastructure.

Imagine my interest and surprise when I receive a comment on my post about installing headers in my truck, not about anything truck related but rather about the “real situation” in Georgia.

New comment on your post #84 “Hedman Elites Installed in 73 Blazer”
Author : Martin (IP: 121.246.9.238 , 121.246.9.238.dynamic.ahmedabad.vsnl.net.in)
E-mail : m0wz8ds@yahoo.com
URL : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkAcFoaoipA
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=121.246.9.238
Comment:
real situation in Georgia real situation in Georgia

This comment is obviously spam, especially given the topic of the original post, and I was about to delete it until I wondered if Russia’s cyberwarfare against Georgia has extended beyond disabling their internet infrastructure into information warfare. Might Russia be attempting to influence international response to their invasion of a sovereign nation by influencing international citizens directly?

Following the link results in a YouTube post from an infrequently understandable person claiming to be a South Ossetian, suspicious (where’d his internet come from?!) but impossible for me to verify. Then I notice the dozens of other posts on YouTube, all claiming to have the “truth” about Ossetia and how Russia only responded to genocide being perpetrated by Georgia. Many of these clips were lifted from Russia’s tightly-controlled and censored mass media. Was Georgia committing horrible atrocities against the citizens of South Ossetia? I have no idea whatsoever, it’s entirely possible. However, when a message is so consistently and widely communicated, with no opposing viewpoints available, my propaganda alarm screams so loud it wakes up the neighbors. (And where were the WMD’s in Iraq, anyway?)

Clearly, I’m woefully undereducated regarding the history of Russia and Georgia, the actions undertaken by Georgia while currying Bush’s favor, and the current events happening in the region now. Just as clearly the sovereign nation of Georgia has been invaded and attacked and Russia or agents acting on its behalf are waging an information war against it, and I happened to experience a tiny piece of it.

This is history in the making folks!

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 12:07 am and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Russian Information War Against Georgia, Right Here on Premagination!”

darthservo August 11th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

The same thing happened back just after WWII. Various countries, Russia included, would create movies that depicted whoever they were targetting in a negative light as propoganda. They even did this against Jehovah’s Witnesses, which led to arrests by the KGB and neighborhood watches. (a brief video is at http://www.jw-media.org/edu_videos/vcut_e.htm) Germany did the same as well.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that many governments would be doing this today as well against different groups.

Drew Loika August 11th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

Just like the US did with Iraq? I’m not surprised in the least bit, just disgusted.

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