Anti-U.S. Propaganda Heats Up in Russia

Got a financial crisis on your hands?  Why not whip up a moral panic by accusing the United States of spying on state television to distract every one?  Seems to be going pretty well for Hugo Chavez, so why not Russia?

From the Associated Press:

A documentary on Russian state television has accused the U.S. of using an air base in Kyrgyzstan to spy on Russia and China — an allegation a spokesman for the base flatly denied on Monday.

The film, aired Sunday on the Rossiya TV channel, showed a building it said was used for electronic surveillance and identified a woman it said worked in the U.S. Embassy as a CIA agent. (…)

Of the accusations, Maj. Damien Pickart, a spokesman for the Manasbase said: “It is all lies, it is false. There wasn’t a single pointthat I read about the narrative of the documentary that was accurate.”

Thedocumentary showed a complex of windowless buildings at the base thatits said required special passes to enter. The program said onebuilding on the base housed an elaborate system of “radio-electronicreconnaissance.”

“At Manas, a station has been built that controls all of Central Asia and parts of China and Siberia,” the program said.

Pickartsaid the buildings are used as dormitories for troops posted long-termat the base. Reporters who visited the base in February said thebuildings appeared to be used exclusively as sleeping quarters.

“Anymedia or government officials that would like to come to the base andsee for themselves, go into those buildings that they showed, we willgladly invite them out,” Pickart said.