'The ferocity of rightwing criticism of his views indicated the effectiveness of his journalism.'
But really it was the ferocity of liberal-left outlets, as well as the rightwing press, that really showed he was on the right track, eg: this attack from Monbiot in 2022:
'This puts me in a difficult place. Among the worst disseminators of Kremlin propaganda in the UK are people with whom I have, in the past, shared platforms and made alliances. The grim truth is that, for years, a segment of the “anti-imperialist” left has been recycling and amplifying Putin’s falsehoods. This segment is by no means representative: many other leftists have staunchly and consistently denounced Russian imperialism, just as they rightly denounce the imperialism of the US and UK. But it is, I think, an important one.
At the end of last year, the writer and film-maker John Pilger claimed “it was the US that overthrew the elected govt in Ukraine in 2014, allowing Nato to march right up to Russia’s western border”. This is a standard Kremlin talking point, dismissing the revolution as a US coup. Ukraine, of course, is not a Nato member.
Outrageously, in my view, he maintains that on the day of the invasion, “Putin reportedly offered peace if Ukraine embraced neutrality and rejected Nato’s arms”. It is hard to see how Putin’s demand for surrender could be interpreted as a genuine peace offer. As Russian tanks rolled across the border, Pilger asked us to “imagine a strategic enclave of Britons, or French, or Germans, or Americans under violent siege – shelled and terrorised – for eight years”. This seemed to echo Putin’s speech the previous night: “The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime”. The BBC reports that Pilger’s claims have been widely shared by accounts spreading Russian propaganda.' - https://www.dumptheguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/russian-propaganda-anti-imperialist-left-vladimir-putin
(Plenty more where that came from: https://www.monbiot.com/?s=pilger )
Still, credit where it's due I suppose. And it'll be the first time in many years that graun readers will have been introduced to the idea that western wars are a form of terrorism. How soon before they publish a balancing article calling him a deranged rape-apologist Putin Puppet?
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