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Type of site | Conspiracy theory website |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 2004 |
| URL | www |
| Registration | Optional |
| Part of a series on |
| Antisemitism |
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 Category |
Veterans Today is an American antisemitic and conspiracy theory website. It describes itself as a "military veterans and foreign affairs journal", while multiple sources describe it as a pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet. [1] [2]
Veterans Today was founded in 2004 "in opposition to the invasion of Iraq." According to Politico , the site "soon began publishing wild conspiracy theories" and "has consistently published articles that push the Kremlin party line". [1] It has ties with the Iranian state media outlet Press TV, and has had ties with Russia's New Eastern Outlook website since 2013, though according to The Daily Beast , the latter connection ended in 2018. The website is formally partnered with several other Russian institutions. [1] [3] The New Hampshire Union Leader says that the website mixes "advice for veterans on how to find jobs and pay medical bills" with conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda. [2] Its editorial board includes a former head of Pakistan's intelligence services. [1]
It has published false headlines such as, "Pravda: Ukraine indignant at 80% of Jews in power" and "Water Terrorism by India to Overawe Pakistan." [1] A joint article with Press TV, written by Jim Fetzer, was entitled: "Did Mossad death squads slaughter American children at Sandy Hook?" [4] According to Veterans Today, Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks in collaboration with the United States and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is controlled by the Israeli government. [5] Duff wrote in an August 2021 article for the website: "The biggest story of the last 20 years is one of the brazen uses of nuclear weapons by Israel against its perceived enemies. Israel nuked the US on 9/11 and [Veterans Today] has proven it beyond a doubt." [6]
In 2012, the website's chairman, Gordon Duff, told an interviewer that "about 30% of what's written on Veterans Today, is patently false. About 40% of what I write, is at least purposely, partially false, because if I didn't write false information I wouldn't be alive". [1]
Duff spoke at a conference organized by the Syrian government Counterterrorism and Religious Extremism Conference held in Syria on November 30 and December 1, 2014. The four-man Veterans Today delegation (eight Americans in all were present) also included managing editor Jim Dean. [7] During his speech, he indicated his delegation from Veterans Today wanted:
to try to establish a method of communication that will allow Syria and other nations in the area to understand Israel's control of the U.S., the control of the U.S. by organized crime, and how the U.S. government is subservient to a worldwide criminal organization. [8]
In February 2022, a piece by Thomas Ertl largely justifies Russia's invasion of Ukraine and says it is a lie that Ukraine is a sovereign country. [9]
According to British journalist Oliver Kamm, Veterans Today "promotes conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial". [4] James Kirchick, writing in Time magazine, calls Veterans Today a "virulently anti-Semitic website". [10]
The Times of Israel describes it as "a clearinghouse of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories". [11] According to The Jerusalem Post , the website has published "articles defending Hitler, and promotes Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and the anti-semitic musician Gilad Atzmon". [12] Michael C. Moynihan, writing for The Daily Beast, has described it as a "Holocaust denial outfit". [13] Veterans Today has said The Holocaust either did not occur or has been greatly inflated alleging it has been invented by the Jews to manipulate non-Jews. [5] The Forward describes Veterans Today as "a hub for anti-Israel conspiracy theories." [14] Vice magazine called it "conspiracy-oriented". [15]
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is highly critical of the website, stating that "the anti-Israel bent on VT can slide pretty quickly into overt anti-Semitism." [5]
The Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government or Zionist-occupied government (ZOG), sometimes also called the Jewish occupational government (JOG), is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. It is a contemporary variation on the centuries-old belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. According to believers, a secret Zionist organization actively controls international banks, and through them governments, to conspire against white, Christian, or Islamic interests.
Israel Shamir, also known by the names Robert David, Vassili Krasevsky, Jöran Jermas and Adam Ermash, is a Swedish writer and journalist, known for his ties to WikiLeaks and for promoting antisemitism and Holocaust denial. His son Johannes Wahlström is a spokesperson for WikiLeaks in Sweden.
The American Free Press is a weekly newspaper published in the United States.
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and author. He formerly held a sub-cabinet office in the United States federal government as well as teaching positions at several U.S. universities. He is a promoter of supply-side economics and an opponent of recent U.S. foreign policy.
Michel Chossudovsky is a Canadian economist and author. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa and the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which runs the website globalresearch.ca, founded in 2001, which publishes falsehoods and conspiracy theories. Chossudovsky has promoted conspiracy theories about 9/11.
Interregional Academy of Personnel Management is a private higher education institution in Ukraine. Founded in 1989 as a non-state establishment, the MAUP consists of a preparatory department, a lyceum, a college, institutes, and a postgraduate school and has over 50,000 students in many branches throughout the country. Since 1991, MAUP has published the Personnel magazine and the Personnel Plus newspaper. In 2008, the U.S. State Department published its "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the United States Congress" and singled out MAUP when it stated the organization "is one of the most persistent anti-Semitic institutions in Eastern Europe."
Philip Giraldi is an American columnist, commentator and security consultant. He is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a role he has held since 2010. He was previously employed as an intelligence officer for the CIA, before transitioning to private consulting. As of 2024, he is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
This is a list of countries where antisemitic sentiment has been experienced.
The Franklin Prophecy, sometimes called the Franklin Forgery, is an antisemitic speech falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, warning of the supposed dangers of admitting Jews to the nascent United States. The speech was purportedly transcribed by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but was unknown before its appearance in 1934 in the pages of William Dudley Pelley's Silver Legion pro-Nazi magazine Liberation. No evidence exists for the document's authenticity, and some of Pelley's claims have actively been disproven.
Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are "sensational reports, misrepresentations or fabrications" about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion.
Max Blumenthal is an American journalist, author, blogger, and filmmaker. He was a writer for The Nation, AlterNet, The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, Mondoweiss, and Media Matters for America, and has contributed to Al Jazeera English, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He has been a writing fellow of the Nation Institute. He is a regular contributor to Sputnik and RT.
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents. FBI data shows that in every year since 1991, Jews were the most frequent victims of religiously motivated hate crimes. The number of hate crimes against Jews may be underreported, as in the case for many other targeted groups.
HispanTV is an Iranian Spanish language news channel operated by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Iran's state-controlled broadcaster. It began broadcasting in December 2011.
Abigail Suzanne Martin is an American journalist, TV presenter, and activist. She helped found the citizen journalism website Media Roots and serves on the board of directors for the Media Freedom Foundation which manages Project Censored. Martin appeared in the documentary film Project Censored The Movie: Ending the Reign of Junk Food News (2013), and co-directed 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film (2013).
Conspiracy theories are a prevalent feature of Arab politics, according to a 1994 paper in the journal Political Psychology. Prof. Matthew Gray writes they "are a common and popular phenomenon" that are important to understanding the political landscape of the Arab world. Variants include conspiracies involving Western colonialism, Islamic anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, superpowers, oil, and the war on terror, which is often referred to in Arab media as a "War against Islam". Roger Cohen theorizes that the popularity of conspiracy theories in the Arab world is "the ultimate refuge of the powerless". The prevalence of conspiracy theories reflects effective top-down dissemination of disinformation by state actors, rather than a unique susceptibility of Arab culture to conspiracy, as some have claimed. State hostility and weak protections for journalists present major obstacles to challenging conspiracy theories, as journalists struggle to gather information and put their lives at risk by contradicting their governments. The spread of antisemitic and anti-Zionist conspiracism in the Arab world and the Middle East has seen an extraordinary proliferation since the beginning of the Internet Era.
The Unz Review is an American website and blog, founded and edited by far-right activist and Holocaust denier Ron Unz. It is known for its publication of far-right, conspiracy theory, white nationalist, antisemitic writings and pro-Russia propaganda.
Rick Wiles is a far-right American conspiracy theorist, pundit, and Christian fundamentalist senior pastor at the non-denominational Flowing Streams Church. He is the founder of TruNews, a website promoting racist, homophobic, and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Hungarian-American billionaire businessman and philanthropist George Soros's philanthropy and support for progressive causes has made him the subject of many conspiracy theories, most of them originating from the political right. Veronika Bondarenko, writing for Business Insider said: "For two decades, some have seen Soros as a kind of puppet master secretly controlling the global economy and politics." The New York Times describes the allegations as moving "from the dark corners of the internet and talk radio" to "the very center of the political debate" by 2018. Professor Armin Langer has noted that Soros is "the perfect code word" for conspiracy theories that unite antisemitism and Islamophobia.
The Grayzone is an American fringe news website and blog characterized as far-left by numerous sources. It was founded and edited by American journalist Max Blumenthal. The website was initially founded as The Grayzone Project and was affiliated with AlterNet until early 2018.