Dr Tara McCormack [id=102-m4]. Assad Apologists.
[Author = Kester Ratcliff, Original Source = https://archive.fo/VQXiq]
[Posted & Amended by Lara Keller 4/10/18]
[Range of Assadist opinion see here.]
She frequently appears on Sputnik, and is part of the “Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media," which uncritically echoes Russian propaganda about Syria, and about the Skripal poisoning in the UK. She also writes or appears on the propaganda outlets: RT, Spiked, Russia-Insider, 21stCenturyWire
Dr Tara McCormack in SputnikNews in 2018 ....
'Still No Proof': Scholar Questions Skripal Case Probe Amid Amesbury Incident, 9/7/2018, https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201807091066200755-amesbury-incident-uk-russia-blame/
"So, we certainly do need a proper criminal investigation but one has been ongoing for the past 4 months and we are still no closer, we still have no evidence of what happened. So there seems to be some problem here with failures to investigate the matter."
[LK: 10/10/2018 Currently both the perpetrators of the Novichok poisoning have been identified as Russian GRU agents.
World Cup Prostitute Story Is 'Confection' From UK Media, Political Elite – PhD, 16/6/2018, https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201806161065474704-world-cup-prostitute-story-confection-uk-media/
"The New Cold War is Regional, Not Global", 10/5/2018, https://sputniknews.com/radio-pivot-to-asia/201805101064325359-the-new-cold-war-is-regional-not-global/
"We had an attempt by the West to legitimize leadership on a moral basis. We had a humanitarian basis for intervention, then we had the war on terrorism, and this was another way to create a coherent ideology for the West, because of institutions such as NATO. Well what are they for? You could practically hear the champagne bottles being popped when Russia annexed the Crimea — we are back in business! For the whole of the 1990-s, NATO was scratching around for a reason for existence…"
"A discussion ensues about how, since 9/11, the Middle East has been made to be the new ‘Rest' or the new ‘Other,' but in fact it could never really fit the role. But don't worry. Because along comes Russia which seems to be tailor made to fit into the mould of the vanguard of nasty incomprehensibly immoral policies. Tara comments: 'it is preposterous in every way to think that Russia is as much as an enemy as we make it out to be. It's not particularly flattering for Russia, but it has a GDP which can be compared to that of Italy, this is a different situation to the Cold War, again, in terms of military might. Nuclear parity, of course. We know that the idea that Russia wants to take over the Baltics is laughable, as is annexation of the Ukraine, and all of those predictions haven't happened, but we can see that many in the West are thrilled at the new Cold War. But I think one thing we see is the rise of China. Quite a lot of attention in America now is framed in terms of framing China…' "
"The idea of Russia together with China being the new ‘Other' is discussed in the second part of the program. 'One of the most idiotic things about Western foreign policy at the moment is that we have been doing our best to push Russia and China together. We are seeing a lot of discussions on a military level between Russia and China.' Perhaps this is intentional, so that we westerners have an enemy strong enough so that we can create a new uniting ideology?, host John Harrison asks. Tara says that she doesn't think that it is deliberate, but she does say that 'since the end of the Cold War we did have a humanitarian philosophy that we now have the right to sort out the rest of the world,…and now we find the West still trapped in that 1990s mind set: ‘No no!' We can still overthrow governments and nobody is going to batter an eyelid. So I think that we are not quite getting it, that Russia and China are status quo powers, they are on the defensive. Crimea, Georgia, have all been about securing borders, both countries have been the prime defenders of sovereignty and have argued against the crusading ideas of human rights so this is quite an interesting situation to see both these countries being worried about the West's addiction to ‘regime change' ' ."
McCarthyism in Our Time: Witchhunting the Witchhunters, 25/4/2018, https://sputniknews.com/radio_hard_facts/201804251063885982-mccarthyism-witchhunting-witchhunters-/
Academic on UK Media Crackdown on Assad Supporters: 'Extraordinary Attack', 16/4/2018, https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201804161063625855-media-crackdown-assad-supporters/
"Tara McCormack: ...........'So, I think it's quite an interesting thing going on as well whereby, what to the average person, when faced with the actual question of how do we know this [ie reported Assad Regime atrocity]? Should we rely on social media videos, for example, which would be my question for the groups such as the White Helmets. Knowing what we know about Western funding of radical Islamist jihadi groups and plus that White Helmets and other groups do receive money from Britain and France and America. Is this solid evidence? To the average person it's straight forward. So it is actually you have different discussions going on amongst the political class and the kind of media and actually what the average person thinks.' "
"Sputnik: Where all this going to go, where is it leading to?"
"Tara McCormack: 'You do see across the developed world that people turn to alternative media sources. Some of this is good because we can have a lot of information and discussion and people who wouldn't normally get their voice heard in the standard media. You know, some of it's a bit batty, you know Alex Jones and Infowars springs to mind. Fundamentally the government and the media are doing is they are helping to destroy any kind of democratic consensus and any kind of relationship between the citizens and the state by not actually presenting a reasoned case.' "
[LK: Standard Assadist smear here suggesting a link between the White Helmets and Islamist Jihadi groups. She ignores the industrial scale manipulation of social media by the Putin regime, and focuses blame on the Western states and media.]
'Skripal's Campaign' Portrays Russia as a Rogue State - Analyst, 14/3/2018, https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201803141062539022-uk-russia-theresa-may-diplomacy/
"'Big Problem': Analyst Says Stopping Brexit Would Be Disastrous for UK Democracy", 16/2/2018, https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201802161061709077-uk-eu-boris-johnson-brexit/
"Tara McCormack: I think stopping Brexit now would be quite a big problem, in terms of British democracy, in that the majority of British people voted to leave the European Union in an extremely high turnout."
LK: The Putin regime favors Brexit, as weakens EU. TM distorts the reality of the UK Brexit vote, there was a high turnout but the percentages for and against were close, set against gross distortions in the "Leave" propaganda.
Dr Tara McCormack in SputnikNews in 2017 ....
"The State of the Game at Year End", 21/12/2017, https://sputniknews.com/radio_level_talk/201712211060203793-the-state-of-the-game-at-year-end/
"Myth of Russian Interference in US Election is 'Destroying American Democracy'", 7/9/2017, https://sputniknews.com/radio_level_talk/201709071057184556-trump-russians-big-lie/
"Russia: The Ultimate Scapegoat?", 20/7/2017, https://sputniknews.com/radio_level_talk/201707201055719845-russia-the-ultimate-scapegoat/
"Are US-Europe Relations Really on the Rocks?", 1/6/2017, https://sputniknews.com/radio_level_talk/201706011054207646-us-eu-relations/
"How Long Will the Russia-Bashing Game Go On?", 10/3/2017, https://sputniknews.com/radio_brave_new_world/201703101051458616-how-long-will-the-russia-bashing-game-go-on/
"John Harrison suggests that heightened scapegoating may have something to do with the transformation occurring in western countries away from liberal democratic system to realist, conservative democratic systems. Dr Tara McCormack dismisses this idea and says that the ‘Other,’ the Soviet Union was very much used for domestic purposes, and this residue of negative feelings still tends to over shadow things like the remilitarisation of NATO’s western border, which the western media is hardly reporting about at all. 'It is far easier to fight Putin than look at our why we actually lost to Trump.' "
"There is a disparity though, Dr Tara McCormack says, between the political anti-Russian feeling and what ordinary everyday people on the street are thinking. There seems to be a disconnect, between the things that the papers focus on and think that the average person feels. It is a confusing time to make sense of things."
[LK: McCormack is saying the Soviet Union and the Putin dictatorship are no threat to the West. This is a myth used to control people in the West. An old far-left propaganda stance.]
Three Tweets from Tara McCormack between December 2017 and April 2018 repeating her smear that the "White Helmets" are Jihadists. The Assad Regime targets the White Helmets because as well as rescuing people, they are also documenting the mass murder of Syrians by the regime. In the second tweet she seems to be providing a justification for Russian attacks on hospitals in Syrian rebel areas.
According to Tara McCormack the Idlib province of Syria, which is the last area holding out against the Assad Regime, is "entirely controlled by Al Qaeda". This is false and a gross smear , that again justifies attacks on Syrians in Idlib.
Dr Tara McCormack is a lecturer in the "Politics and International Relations" department of Leicester University in the UK. All her articles and appearances borrow validity from the university (https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/politics/people/tmccormack). She is a member of a group of academics who are Assadist propagnadists in the UK, called "Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (SPM) ". This group's principle purpose is to attack the validity of reporting of the Assad Regime's war crimes.
Dr Tara McCormack has a hsitory of an apologist for war criminals, including defending Milsovic in the 1990s. She is part of the Living Marxism (LM) Network (formerly "Revolutionary communist Party"), which the UK Observer-Guardian columnist Nick Cohen has described as the "the smallest and nastiest of the Trotskyist sects". Here is a comment on Tara McCormack Assadist propaganda from "Syria: gas attacks, air-strikes and [anti-war] hypocrisy — again", which summaries her lack of any academic let alone ethical credibility.
