US Losing the War?

US Losing the War?
By Erick San A. San Juan


The world has entered a new kind of war, a new phase that is far reaching even in the remote areas of the globe. The internet age has set the new arena for a global war,the global information war. And guess what, who admitted that they are losing this new war in the cyber space? Uncle Sam through his Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sec. Clinton in her presentation before the US Congress, (can be seen on youtube.com of Russia Today) defending the 47 billion dollars budget for the State Department, declared that the US is losing in the global information war. She cited that CNN and BBC are cutting back while the television network of Russia, China, Iran and South America led by Venezuela, are the ones winning the info war. Based on the report of Russia Today, RT is getting almost 300 million views on you tube compared to CNN with only 3 million views.

This only shows that there is a clamor for more alternative media that will give fresh viewpoints on major issues and not be dependent on the American mainstream media. Given the fact that the US international broadcast department is getting a budget that is far bigger than RT, Iran’s press TV and Telesur combined, they are still losing the info war. What went wrong? Is the world fed up with the globalists constant feeding of lies and obvious bias towards deception?

Right after the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center tragedy, the US mainstream and all those who parroted its line, conveniently dragged the whole world into believing that the culprit was Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda group. They supported the railroaded 9/11 Commission investigation report in the process.

This big lie prompted the alternative media through the internet, to search for the truth and thus created lot of blogs, websites and videos exposing the deception. To date, there are around 156 million websites (including blog sites) in the internet.

The surge in the number of websites is already a proof that the information war has started in full scale. Even the social network sites are being used as showground for some advocacy groups endorsing different point of views about the latest issues around the world.

This is the beauty of the internet, as I always say, we can exchange information around the globe in seconds. Even our radio broadcast can now be heard worldwide through live streaming (http://dwss-am.mellow947.fm/ daily from 4:30 to 5 p.m.) and also our blog (www.ericksanjuan.blogspot.com) where we post our articles and several video/audio archives of our past radio programs.

Here at home, we cannot ignore the growing need for information coming from different point of views and reputable sources. That is why there are groups advocating the need for freedom of information where people can have access to important data that can affect the lives of every Filipino.

Soon there's a possibility of a law that will censor the internet and punish people using the cyber space as propaganda tool in their advocacy. If we are a truly a democratic country, we will allow such freedom and be thankful enough that there are people like us giving out information that are nowhere to be found on mainstream media and the likes.

We have to admit the shift to a multipolar kind of interaction among peoples of the world in order to neutralize some networks in carrying out their daily spins of deception.

Like what has been already said, “money alone will not provide worldwide media clout”.

This could be a reminder to government's, that no matter how expensive the PR agency that you will hire to polish an adminisltration’s image, the bottom line is still how you perform in your daily duties and obligations to the people. Those who understands the situation are tired of being taken for a ride every time. Now with the help of the internet, a growing number of patriotic and vigilant individuals can make that big difference.

We should learn how to read between the lines......