West Losing Propaganda War, Elite Scare REVEALED | Michel Collon

## Fractures in the Western Narrative The conversation makes a stark claim: the dominant Western narrative about wars and interventions is no longer watertight. Cracks are spreading through mainstream accounts and European elites know it. That fear of losing control over journalistic space helps explain the intensifying efforts to regulate social and foreign media, to delegitimize dissenting voices, and to secure an information environment that reproduces, rather than tests, state policy. The exchange centers on a career-long interrogation of how wars are "sold" — a marketing of violence — and why ordinary people must become the corrective force when traditional media fail to present competing facts and histories. ## The Five Principles of War Propaganda A recurring intellectual thread in the discussion is a distillation of techniques that recur across conflicts. These five principles—hide economic interests, erase or obscure historical context, demonize opponents, reverse roles of victim and aggressor, and monopolize information—form a practical grammar of modern war propaganda. Concealment of motive sanitizes aggression; omission of colonial legacies removes accountability; demonization supplies moral permission to strike; narrative inversion legitimizes the attacker; and monopolization prevents the public from hearing alternatives. Together, they produce a politics in which the moral logic of intervention is presented as self-evident and unquestionable. This analytic framework is powerful because it shifts the debate from isolated instances of bad reporting to a structural pattern. The same rhetorical moves recur whether the target is Iraq, Kosovo, Libya, Ukraine, or Gaza. Once recognized, they make it possible to test mainstream claims more rigorously: ask who benefits, what history is being omitted, who is being turned into a monster, who is cast as the perpetual victim, and what voices are being excluded. ## Historical Continuities: From Julius Caesar to the Digital Age The conversation stresses that propaganda is not a novel invention of 20th- or 21st-century mass media but a perennial companion of warfare. From Caesar’s accounts written to justify conquest to the atrocity stories of World War I used to rally populations, rulers have long shaped narratives to make violence seem legitimate. What changes are the techniques, the speed, and the scale. Modern advertising, intelligence tradecraft, and now algorithm-driven platforms allow faster, more immersive, and more targeted dissemination of strategic narratives. Yet continuity matters politically. Treating contemporary information operations as unique obscures lessons from the past: manufactured atrocity stories and selective reporting have historically produced misdirected sympathies, escalated conflicts, and foreclosed nonviolent options. The discussion contends that teaching these precedents—cases less politically charged because they are further in the past—can inoculate citizens against the reflexive acceptance of official frames in present-day crises. ## Case Studies: Manufactured Events and Missed Contexts Concrete examples recur throughout the exchange to illustrate the pattern. The Gulf War’s incubator story, media treatment of Bosnia and Kosovo, the portrayal of the Libyan intervention, and recent disputes over coverage of Ukraine and October 7 are cited as episodes where the mainstream account omitted inconvenient truths or promoted misleading imagery. In Yugoslavia, for instance, images and narratives about massacres were instrumental in building support for military involvement; later investigations contested some of those claims or at least showed the picture to be more complex than early reporting suggested. Maidan (2014) receives particular attention as an illustration of how protests can be reframed into coups, and how the presence of provocateurs or armed actors complicates simple stories of popular uprising. The Caracas coup attempt of 2002 is presented as a parallel case where rooftop snipers and carefully choreographed violence were used to transform political dynamics and international perceptions. These episodes are offered not to absolve wrongdoing where it occurred, but to underline the need for rigorous, skeptical information-gathering and for hearing competing accounts before reaching moral and strategic judgments. ## Manufactured Atrocities, Silences, and the Power of Omission Perhaps the most disquieting theme is the role of omission and silence as a form of propaganda. The conversation repeatedly stresses that the most consequential manipulation often lies not in outright falsehoods but in which facts are never reported. By constraining public exposure to one version—often the version most useful to the powerful—mainstream outlets function as gatekeepers who limit democratic debate about the legitimacy of force. This dynamic is compounded when emotionally charged imagery is deployed: beheaded babies, mass rapes, or other sensational claims stick in public memory and create pressure to act. Once such images are circulated, they are rarely retracted or revised with the same intensity. That asymmetry benefits political actors seeking quick moral mandates for intervention. The interlocutor’s point is not to dismiss all atrocity claims but to insist they be subjected to scrutiny and contextualization rather than used as immediate casus belli without independent verification. ## The Elite Reaction: Containment Through Regulation and Delegitimization A central claim in the discussion is that European and Western elites are reacting to eroding informational hegemony with anxiety and repression. The perceived loss of dominance over journalistic space prompts regulatory and coercive responses: increased scrutiny of social media, pressure on foreign broadcasters, and rhetorical strategies that equate independent reporting with conspiracy or foreign influence. In short, when the monopoly on narrative weakens, the temptation is to restore control through institutional or legal means rather than by improving transparency or opening public deliberation. This reaction is politically significant. If the remedy to contested narratives is to shrink the range of permissible discourse, the result will be less accountability, not more. Conversely, if elites fear that openness will reveal inconvenient truths, their defensive posture confirms the need for a robust, pluralistic information ecology in which citizens can access alternative accounts and make informed judgments. ## Building a Citizen-Based Counterpropaganda Movement The strongest prescription emerging from the conversation is a democratic one: make information a popular movement. The phrase "we are all journalists" encapsulates a shift from passive consumption to active verification. Citizens, civil society groups, independent collectives, and local media must develop tools to document, compare, and contest official accounts. Test Media International and similar collectives exemplify how image-based analysis, open-source investigation, and persistent public education can expose gaps in mainstream reporting and create pressure for corrective scrutiny. This grassroots turn has several implications. First, it democratizes truth-seeking: ordinary people equipped with critical literacy and basic verification skills can challenge authoritative narratives. Second, it diversifies the sources available to the public, reducing reliance on a narrow set of outlets. Third, it can expand the moral conversation: if debates about the legitimacy of war move beyond elite circles and late-night panel shows, a wider public might insist on nonmilitary resolutions or at least demand more rigorous justification before supporting intervention. ## Toward a More Honest Public Conversation The exchange ends with a cautious optimism grounded in realism: war propaganda will not vanish overnight, nor will elite interests surrender th

West Losing Propaganda War, Elite Scare REVEALED | Michel Collon The West's narrative is full of cracks, and European elites know it. And they are scared. Scared of the change that will come once they can't dominate the journalistic space anymore. That's why they are cracking down on social and digital media, as well as foreign news outlets. To discuss this I’m talking today to Michel Collon, a Belgian writer and journalist who wrote a lot of fascinating anti-war books in French, including “The Left and the War: Analysis of an ideological capitulation”, “Ukraine: War of Images” and “October Seventh: An Inquiry into Facts and Lies.” These are the topics we want to discuss today. #M3 For years, I was finishing my conferences by saying, "Nous sommes tous des journalistes"—we are all journalists. And I really believe that. The media battle has to become a real citizen-based, broad movement—a popular movement. There will be no anti-war movement if you don't have an independent information movement based on citizens: men, women, all generations, all origins. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Michel Collon, a Belgian writer and journalist who has written a lot of fascinating anti-war books in French, including The Left and the War: Analysis of an Ideological Capitulation, Ukraine: War of Images, and recently, October 7th: An Inquiry into Facts and Lies. Those are the topics we want to discuss today, so Michel, welcome. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for coming online. We just had a very short chat before, and you told me that you've been working on these topics for 35 years and that you've actually published a lot in terms of books on them, beyond what I just introduced. Can you maybe give me a rundown of all the things that you've been working on over these years? #M3 Yes, it started in '91 with the first war against Iraq, which was already "sold"—I really use the word "selling a war." I did not invent it. Experts like Bernays—very well-known—but also less known, like Lasswell and Frank Raymond Jr., explained how the CIA and these services need to use advertising techniques to sell a war just as if you were selling a car, soap, or anything else. So I started with the first Gulf War in 1991, paying attention to the media, being wary of the media, and analyzing the media lies already present in the first Gulf War. Because the issue of weapons of mass destruction -- 1 of 14 -- didn't start in 2003—there was a first, very successful, campaign before that. And another thing: it was more about the incubators, the famous incubators—that was also in the book. And then I continued with the same media lies about the war against Bosnia. Also, the next one, Monopoly: NATO Conquering the World, was about the question of Kosovo. And there you find the same media lies. What is interesting is that when I published the first book, Attention Media, of course, the big newspapers here in France and Belgium—whose coverage we were analyzing and showing how they had really manipulated public opinion—were not happy and refused to invite me. Some journalists at the Belgian public radio and television did invite me for a very interesting discussion, and I was even invited to publish an article in the internal review of the RTBF, the French-speaking public service radio and television. So you see, the debate was open. And after the first Gulf War, it was known—with the famous incubators, media-boosted fake news—that the public had been manipulated. Then we saw a lot of journalists saying, "Oh, never again." Well, just before, we had had Timisoara, where the paper I was working with announced from the beginning, "This is fake news." But then we heard, "Okay, never again." And then it happened again in Bosnia, in Kosovo. I won't give examples now. One of these books was translated into English— well, two actually. They were about Yugoslavia. And then I continued in 2011 with Libya, NATO, and Media Lies: Handbook of Counterpropaganda, showing indeed that this war had been sold the same way. A friend of mine was publishing a book about Syria. Then in 2015, I published Am I or Not Charlie? And the main topic was the USA behind the so-called jihadist terrorism, showing that actually using terrorists was a new and very brilliant strategy started with Brzezinski, actually initiated before by the British. We show the consequences of this. Then we published, more recently, Ukraine: The War of Images. I have founded a collective, Test Media International, which analyzes the coverage of the war and shows, with a lot of images, how the public opinion has been manipulated. It's a bit difficult to show like this—I can send you images if you want—but we show the images that manipulate, and then we analyze what they didn't say, what they didn't show, the images they refused to publish, and also the manipulations behind, for example, Bucha and such things. And then, more recently, with the same team, we have published 7th October: Investigation About a Day That Changed the World. You could say it's the book about the fake news: beheaded babies, raped women, people killed en masse because they were Jews, and things like that, and what has been hidden about the 7th of October. I'm doing this job because I think war is a tragedy, as we see now in Gaza and elsewhere. People in the world hate war. They hate that people are suffering, that women and children are killed because of war. And of course, if the elite wants ordinary people to accept war, they have to sell it for a good reason, a good purpose. I made a synthesis of my investigation in what I'm calling the five principles of war propaganda. I mean, if you are the president of the USA or France, or people like that, you may not say, "I'm attacking this country because of oil, because of gas, because of uranium, because of resources, -- 2 of 14 -- because of strategic position, or because this government I don't like and I want to overthrow their government." You always have to give a good, noble reason. "We are fighting. We are the good ones. So we are fighting for democracy, for the rights of women, against terrorism"—that's a very, very good way of selling a war—or "weapons of mass destruction," and things like that. Always. So, first, hide the economic interests. Second, hide the history. In all these regions, you had colonial powers. They have plundered resources. They have brought poverty. And also, they organized the famous divide and rule. The British were excellent at that, of course—divide and rule—but the French and the Belgians also did it in some areas. And you have to hide the history of how the colonial powers manipulated people to divide them in an area and push for wars and conflicts. In the USA, they are doing that now. They cannot send their troops directly. They have been defeated in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, so it's not a good idea to send troops. They have to find local troops and use the famous divide and rule. The third principle of war propaganda is to demonize. You may not say, "We are attacking a whole population." That would not be accepted. So we have to say, "We are attacking a leader, a dictator, or a group, because these people are very dangerous. They are monsters. They have terrible weapons. They are terrorists," and so on. Demonize. And of course, for that, you need a story. Beheaded babies—very good example. Raped women—very good example. That you can sell. The fourth principle of war propaganda is to switch between the aggressor and the victim. You have to always present yourself as the victim or as defending the victim. And Israel is very good at that. Israel has been attacking for around eight years, and Israel is always the victim. It's always being aggressed, and you have a narrative presenting that. And the fifth and last principle of war propaganda is to monopolize. You know, in a war, you always have two or three versions. So the public should, like a good judge, hear one, hear the other, and then form an opinion. But that is not allowed, because on television and so on, you may only hear the "good" side and never the other version. So there is no real debate on television. There are some debates about how this war should be led, or maybe whether we should stop this war, and so on, but never do we debate whether we have the right to make war in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Ukraine, Gaza, and so on. That is never debated in the mainstream media. And I insist on that because, for 35 years, as you can imagine, every time we publish a book, we send it to the mainstream media. We send about 100 copies in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and so on. And the result is nothing. There were two exceptions, in Belgium and in France. I was in some debates late at night on a famous show called Ce Soir ou Jamais—This Evening or Never. I was invited from 2008 to 2014, and then it was canceled. The president, François Hollande, said, "Finished." And after that, I was never on television with these books again. They don't dare to discuss. Of course, they put the label "conspirationist," and that's it. But they don't dare to discuss this. I'm insisting on this because I -- 3 of 14 -- think the only force that is able to change this silence, this omerta, is the people themselves. The books are made to educate ordinary people to be aware of the propaganda war and to be active against it. #M2 I find that fascinating and highly important. The propaganda narrative is spun in order to, time and again, justify wars and actually drill it into the minds of people—that is supposed to be understood as frightening. I had a historian, a good historian, a colleague of mine at the University of Kyoto, throw away his drink and tell me that he would not listen to this stupidity when I told him that NATO’ s 1999 bombing of Serbia was an infringement of international law. And he yelled at me, “We must never allow Srebrenica, Srebrenica! We have a duty to prevent that.” And he positioned that as such an emotional, important thing that I must say, how does the media manage to link the defense of victims, as you said, with this emotional obligation to intervene and to make war again? Did you figure out how that works on the individual level? #M3 The reaction of this professor is very typical and not a surprise to me. I hear that very often. And you are right to say he's motivated by emotion—he's not thinking anymore. Where are the facts? What does the other side say? And what do I need to check? Just check. What would we say, I repeat, about a judge who would say to one, "I am listening to you," and to the other, "Shut up"? That would not be a good judge. Even if he has his opinion, his emotion, he must check the facts. And it's very typical that—and I would say more the intellectuals than the working people—are reacting like that, also because they have been educated in this: "We are the good ones, the West is the good one, and the West is always fighting for democracy." I was in Yugoslavia many times during the '90s. I made reports, I made a movie, and actually, the conclusion of those two books I published—and there are other investigators—is that it was a big, big lie. The question of the famous bombs on the market in Markale in Sarajevo: all the UN experts and the Western military said it was not the Serbs, it was the Muslims. Izetbegovic, the president of Bosnia, also recognized that. And he recognized that there were no concentration camps, that he invented it to get NATO intervention. And the question of Srebrenica—there is a contest about that. There are some investigators, and I published books at that time in so-called test media showing that, first, the problem around Srebrenica started with a Muslim commander called Naser Orić, who devastated a lot of villages around Srebrenica. Then there was fighting—I will not deny that in this fighting, the Serbs won and probably some pe