We all remember Saddam Hussein’s feckless pitchman, “Baghdad Bob.” The country’s information minister (real name: Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf) made frequent television appearances, repeating the mantra that everything was going according to plan. His most memorable appearance came amidst the rubble of his capital city, where he continued to spew delusional nonsense.
We expect such dissembling from dictatorships, which control the media and extinguish discordant voices. That’s what Vladimir Putin is doing right now, hoping to prevent the Russian public from learning his army was demolished by Ukrainian’s counteroffensives in Kharkiv (in the northeast) and Kherson (in the south). Controlling information is essential to regime security.
In democracies, such deceit is much harder to pull off.
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