President Trump is right to say that America is being played for a sucker on the world stage. Our air waves print journalism and social media are being increasingly subjected to foreign disinformation, and the losers are the American people.
Russia has sown doubt about the legitimacy of our elections, despite exposure of the years-long Trump-Russia collusion narrative as a hoax.
TikTok is a Chinese Trojan Horse. Iran uses proxies like the National Iranian American Council and the Soros-Koch funded Quincy Institute to flog its radical agenda.
Venezuela and Cuba bombard our shores with socialist propaganda on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, a group of "allied" nations have also jumped on the bandwagon of mass media distortion, in what has become some sort of contest for power and influence within the United States.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are spending billions of dollars to weaponize U.S. news outlets against each other and ourselves as part of this ongoing information warfare campaign.
This battle royal largely began after President Trump’s election in 2016, but it intensified in the summer of 2017, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE (along with Egypt and Bahrain) declared a land, sea and air embargo against Qatar in response to what they alleged was its support for terrorism.
Since then these countries have spared no expense in demonizing each other.
The left-wing media has largely bought into this competition as part of its effort to "take down" President Trump. They have grabbed ahold of every "fact" in this ongoing campaign of invective that can be twisted in such a way as to make the president appear weak or misguided.
The endless stream of hostile news reports and opinion columns in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Foreign Policy, CNN, etc., including their biased and cynical coverage of the President’s relationships with Gulf leaders, is the result.
No matter what President Trump does or does not do, the media’s so-called experts reflexively label it the wrong choice. Even worse, the narrative routinely and fictitiously portrays the Trump administration as in the pocket of Middle Eastern dictators.
It doesn’t matter that most of the claims made are patently false. They all support the broader agenda of casting doubt on the on the president’s judgment, as well as that of his daughter and son-in-law.
While it might be tempting for the right-wing media to fight back by taking sides in this partisan spat among desert sheikdoms, doing so would be a mistake.
Getting dragged into the business of relying on or responding to the propaganda of foreign governments is a losing game.
It tarnishes the brand, damages credibility, and hurts the American people.
Consider, for example, a recent Fox News story on Qatari ties to Hezbollah, Iran’s top terror proxy. It was based on a dossier supplied by unidentified sources, most notably a mysterious private security contractor dubbed only "Jason G" and with no corroborating evidence.
Sound familiar?
The Democrats followed precisely this playbook in regard to the dossier compiled by former British MI-6 officer Christopher Steele.
That dossier is now established to have been nothing more than foreign disinformation paid for by hostile partisans out to destroy the president of the United States.
Another expose, this one by the liberal outlet The Daily Beast documented how conservative media such as Human Events and others were duped into publishing stories by fictitious authors invented by state sponsors to promote their political agendas.
The conservative publication Breitbart rightly called attention to the scam, which included "at least 19 fake persons" who were able to place more than "90 opinion pieces" in dozens of media outlets.
One glaring example was a so-called columnist named "Ralph Badani," who billed himself as a "geopolitical risk consultant" with degrees from two of Washington, D.C.’s most prestigious schools, George Washington University and Georgetown.
He also boasted of a stint at the U.S. Department of Labor.
According to Breitbart, Badani did not exist.
Let’s be clear. There are no knights in shining armor here.
The sparring Gulf states are embroiled in high stakes diplomatic wrangling, and they are each pushing us to interfere on their behalf. None of them is necessarily focused on our national interests.
Commentators and media outlets on the left have long since been turned into political pawns. An effort is now being made to do the same to voices on the right.
These are not the actions of friends but of rivals facing off against rivals. They should be resisted.
Becoming embroiled in this Middle Eastern food fight not only soils the reputations of the members of the media who participate, it distracts us all from more urgent priorities.
Taking sides in the mutually destructive information warfare being waged by Arab nations serves no U.S. national interest.
Let the Gulf nations fight their own battles. Journalists should stick to journalism.
Charles "Sam" Faddis is a Veteran, retired CIA operations officer, senior partner with Artemis, LLC and published author. With degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Law School, he is a contributor to sofrep.com, Newsmax, and The Hill among others. He regularly appears on many networks and radio programs as a national security and counter-terrorism expert. Sam is the author of "Beyond Repair: The Decline And Fall Of The CIA" and "Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion Of Homeland Security." To read more of his reports, Click Here Now.