I am trying to be very careful with what I choose to believe around this war. I think there is a good chance that Ukraine winning recently could be propaganda. I hope it’s true and they are pushing the Russians back. But I can see this Fox report being just as likely to be accurate. There are so many different reports of advances from both the Ukrainians and Russians, it’s impossible to know. We’ve already seen that Western media is very quick to hype up how well Ukraine is doing
MacGregor went on FOX early in the war to support Putin's aims, and stated that Russia should be able to annex whatever parts of Ukraine that it pleases. He has also been a paid RT (Russian state media) contributor in the past, and he got banned from the actual news programs of FOX because he was so consistently inaccurate. He was also nominated for the post of US ambassador to Germany, but his nomination failed because he has said a lot of really racist things. https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...x-news-tucker-carlson-russia-ukraine-1318143/ In terms of the accuracy of his claims, he told the West to simply stop helping Ukraine (and lift all sanctions) because it was hopeless and the war would be over in 10 days. That was...198 days ago.
What about the fox report? You discuss how the others (of which there are far more) being potential propaganda. Are you applying the same thought exercise to that fox one and why that guy (and show) might be releasing that message? Because it *seems* at least that your consideration is that it runs counter to the main narrative and therefore does this suggest the main narrative is false because there is a dissenting voice That isn’t the only possible explanation for fox and tucker putting this out You are on record as distrusting the mainstream media and the messages they put out and questioning them. But you do need to apply the same thought process to messages that disagree with them. For example - Tucker is one of those people who appears to take the stance that the US shouldn’t be sending money and weapons to Ukraine and that money should be used domestically. For what I am not sure since the people pushing this tend to be on what I will call here the “far right” only in the sense that this position is shared by mainstream republicans in the senate. And such people do not tend to go in for social programs or the like. So there is a case that they are putting this out to spread the message that it is a lost cause and the funding should stop. That is one example. But there are probably others The flip is that the counter offensive could be propaganda to justify the reverse - more or continued support. You appear to have no trouble at all believing this one but haven’t made mention of the reverse And I am aware that I don’t critically question all sides of all stories - especially not the ones I am more likely to agree with (as this has been pointed out in the past). But I also don’t have a general position of “don’t trust the Main stream media”. Because such a position shouldn’t mean that you can easily trust other sources of media if they disagree with the “mainstream” without questioning them.
Also, the demented folks on oryxspioenkop (which documents equipment loss/capture to a pretty high degree of precision) have documented 29 destroyed and 49 captured Russian tanks from the past week alone, and they're still working through the backlog. They also had at least a couple dozen artillery pieces and tens of thousands of artillery shells captured in the rout. If Russia is focused on destroying materiel, they're doing it very, very wrong. In a week, they basically supplied Ukraine with about 7 BTGs worth of equipment.
Im questioning both sides. Is it in Russia’s interests to appear weak right now? Probably not. Is it in Ukraine’s interests to appear strong? I guess so. Then on top of that you have the interests of the media on both sides doing the reporting. I guess my point is that unless we are on the ground there ourselves we will never know the truth. My only point is that it’s probably premature to accuse the guy on Fox of the outright lying
As an added complication, Azerbaijan has taken this moment to renew hostilities in its interminable border war with Armenia. Russia has essentially served as a guarantor for Armenia, but they're just a bit busy at the moment, so the Azeris decided this was a great time to lob a large number of artillery shells cross-border. War tends to breed instability, and instability tends to breed war.
Not really in this instance, though I take your point. In this instance all ‘sides’ of the war, and even neutral parties (such as they are), are all reporting the same thing. Even the Russians. The only one that is reporting something different is Fox, so…
Also, on the question of who one should trust: Fox's lawyers successfully defended Carlson in a lawsuit by arguing that no reasonable person could watch Tucker and conclude that he's actually speaking in a factual manner. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/9177...s-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye
Also, on the question of who one should trust: Fox's lawyers successfully defended Carlson in a lawsuit by arguing that no reasonable person could watch Tucker and conclude that he's actually speaking in a factual manner. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/9177...s-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye
I don't think there can be much doubt that the Russians have suffered a massive reverse. The Ukrainian use of propoganda has been extremely effective and my undertanding is that they have generally been on the level with the information that has been reported but just always stated the positive issues. If anything, maybe they have over-stated the Russian reverses but it is still a 1000 x more credible than what Russia is reporting. Given that a lot of the Ukraine reports are substantiated by British military sources, it is not too difficult to guess where the truth really lies.
https://reuters.com/world/asia-paci...ace-deal-recommended-by-his-aide-2022-09-14/… Putin's envoy to Ukraine actually had a deal worked out to keep Ukraine out of NATO. It was rejected, by Putin, because he wanted to instead conquer as much of Ukraine as possible.
