Article du Dr Ahmed Bensaada.
Unlike hard power, which is based on classical coercive force, soft power uses positive attraction and persuasion to achieve foreign policy objectives. It is therefore a capacity of influence capable of gently imposing a behavior or a way of thinking identical or similar to those of the one who uses this technique. Its success therefore rests on the feeling of not having been forced to do so. Therefore, soft power only achieves its goals if it is not seen as manipulation or propaganda.
According to its designer, the very influential Joseph Nye, three pillars support soft power: political values, culture and foreign policy. Commenting on this theory, Professor G. John Inkberry gives the following details in the famous journal Foreign Affairs:
“The United States can dominate the others, but it has also excelled at projecting soft power, with the help of their companies, foundations, universities, churches and other civil society institutions; America’s culture, ideals and values have been extremely important in helping Washington attract partners and supporters”.
The export of democracy, which is an established and predominant field of American foreign policy, obviously uses soft power. In his article dealing with American soft power in colored revolutions, anthropologist Boris Pétric mentions, “American NGOs are the main actors in this promotion of democracy, human rights and freedom […]”.
Susan Liautaud very well explains this relationship between NGOs and soft power in her article “Soft Power of NGOs: Hard Responsibility, Hard Strategy, and Hard Accountability” in which she notes that “NGOs and other non-profit organizations are required to use soft power responsibly and to account for the consequences of this use”
It has also been shown that these same American NGOs, state or non-state, played the same role in what is wrongly called the Arab “spring”. The “Springization” of some targeted Arab countries with the help of US soft power has been achieved through the training and networking of “native” cyber activists, that is, from the target countries. These revolts that were touted and sold as a «beautiful season» turned out to be “regime change” operations accompanied by chaos, destruction and desolation.
A decade later, these NGOs are still active, especially in the Algerian Hirak.
As noted by Albert A. Nofi, soft power is one of the resources on which the 4th generation war (G4G) is based, this modern war that, according to François-Bernard Huyghe, “corresponds to the revolution of the “information” while specifying that it “would mobilize entire populations in an antagonism gaining all political, economic, social and cultural fields”.
Regarding the military use of information, Christina M. Knopf and Eric J. Ziegelmayer explain to us that: “information is a product which lends itself to weaponization and the information environment has become vital for the success of military operations. The field of information, the Internet in particular, is today a crucial ground to seize to exert a dominant economic and diplomatic influence. This is the reason why the United States formally incorporated into its doctrine […] the “communications war” “.
This weaponization of the information has been made effective by the rapid growth of the Internet and social media. On this subject, Waseem Ahmad Qureshi gives some details:
“Current technological advances (easier access to media blogs and the Internet) make propaganda and manipulation of facts more easily accessible while widening the consequences of information warfare operations by causing massive damaging effects”
The research that will be presented in this article shows explicitly that Algeria is currently the subject of a G4G, which took advantage of the Hirak turmoil to deploy insidiously.
Hirak, soft power and 4th generation warfare
A book and numerous articles have been devoted to the role of American organizations for the export of democracy and their relations with the Hirak and its “tenors”. This aspect of soft power will not be dealt with in this work, but interested readers are invited to consult the suggested links.
However, it should be noted that the soft power used in the G4G has other techniques as effective as each other do.
One of these techniques was mentioned in one of my articles dating from December 2019. It is about mandating a credible academic to write, in a credible journal, a completely fallacious text in order to suggest a given behavior and the present as being fair and appropriate when, in reality, it is completely unreasonable. A typical example is that of Professor Robert Zaretsky, professor of French history at the University of Houston, who drew attention to himself with an absurdly text in Foreign Affairs. Indeed, on November 26, 2019, that is to say barely two weeks before the Algerian presidential election, the professor wrote: “An Election’s Failure Will Be a Democratic Success” !!!!.
Mind-blowing! According to this professor living in a supposedly democratic country “not to vote is a democratic act”! But what kind of democracy wants to export this crazy professor?
History will nonetheless retain the odious campaign of intimidation of voters during this election, an ignominy that must have pleased Mr. Zaretsky so much, certainly commissioned to harm Algeria.
More recently, it was in a small box published by the French newspaper Le Figaro on July 31, 2021 that a new technique appeared even more insidious than that of our professor from Houston. This is intended to persuade the public that the Algerian state is using dishonest cyber manipulations “to defend the interests of the Algerian president” while sponsoring “harassment campaigns” against political opponents.
Le Figaro specifies that this information comes from a report drawn up by an American company called Graphika, “specializing in new technologies and social network analysis”. No one is fooled, this mention obviously seeks to give credibility to this company and, consequently, to confer veracity to its report.
Another American body that attacks the Algerian state in general and the presidential and military institutions in particular! Decidedly, they will never let go of these Americans!
But, who is Graphika? Who is behind this pretty name, what are their fields of interest? and who is funding it?
Unlike Émilien Hertement, the journalist from Le Figaro who stupidly reported the news, we will first take an interest in this company to understand its motivations and inquire about its seriousness. Then, we will study in detail his report cited by Le Figaro.
Graphika and its sulphurous connections
According to information on its official website, Graphika is “a network analysis company, founded in 2013 by Dr. John Kelly who, in his thesis, studied the rapid rise of Internet conversations using the Internet. ’Network analysis of the relationships between online authors, not just the content of their posts’.
DARPA stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. An agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the research and development of new technologies for military use.
The Minerva Initiative is a US Department of Defense sponsored social science research initiative focused on areas of strategic importance to US national security policy. Launched in 2008 by Robert Gates, the then Secretary of Defense, it aims to improve the basic understanding of the Department of Defense regarding the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the United States. From the start, the program focused, among other things, on academic research dealing with China, Iraq, terrorism and radical Islam. When it was launched, the project received $ 50 million from the United States Department of Defense to fund this research.
Research grants are overseen by program managers affiliated with two military basic research organizations: the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
The “US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence” (SSCI) is a committee established by the United States Senate in 1976 to oversee and conduct ongoing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the United States government.
The Knight Foundation promotes itself as a national American foundation that invests in journalism and the arts and whose goal is to foster informed and engaged communities that it believes are essential to a healthy democracy. This foundation, however, actively collaborates with George Soros’ Open Society, the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and USAID.
These four organizations form the backbone of the American machinery for the export of democracy discussed above.
And that’s not all. Graphika says it is associated with human rights groups around the world “to monitor digital threats targeting vulnerable users.”
In fact, these are Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI) and “The Syria Campaign”. It is common knowledge that the first two organizations (HRW and AI) are largely funded by the Open Society. Moreover, we must not forget that they were both (along with other right-wing entities) behind the European Parliament’s resolution against Algeria, just a few days after the referendum on the new Algerian constitution. Funny coincidence, isn’t it? Like the coincidence of our pitiful Professor Zaretsky’s article a year earlier.
Graphika’s association with “The Syria campaign” is very revealing of the role of disinformation, propaganda and close collaboration of this company with the American and British governments.
“The Syria campaign” which calls itself “a non-profit organization registered in the United Kingdom” is closely linked to the “White Helmets”, a Syrian civil protection organization that hit the headlines in 2016 (read my article on this topic, written at the time).
In fact, these “rescuers” presented as heroes in the West are funded by USAID (United States Agency for International Development), the largest of the American organizations “exporting” democracy. A USAID document from 2018 specifies that a grant of $ 6.25 million was awarded to the “White Helmets”, in addition to the $ 33 million paid to them since 2013. These “white helmets” were also very largely financed by Great Britain via the “Foreign and Commonwealth Office”. As of March 31, 2018, the total amount of funding provided to them by the UK government was £ 38,425,591.23. Which made Julie Hyland, British journalist and activist, say:
“Funded by the British government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund and the US government’s USAID program, they [the“White Helmets”] are part of a network of jihadist forces backed by the West to organize a change of diet»
The White Helmets: The greatest scandal to hit Syria, Click on the image to view the video
According to Vanessa Beeley, a freelance journalist who has worked extensively on the ground in Syria and many other countries in the region, the “White Helmets” “were financially linked to London and Washington (among others), the main Western belligerents without a mandate in Syria […] and that members of the White Helmets maintained links with rebel jihadist groups, such as Fatah Al-Cham, the result of the merger of Al-Nosra and Ahrar Al-Cham ”.
The “white helmets” myth has been demolished by a number of renowned journalists and researchers including Eva Bartlett, John Pilger, Gareth Porter, Phillip Giraldi, Craig Murray and former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter.
Graphika and its public figures
Among the public figures of Graphika are the names of the Englishman Ben Nimmo (research director) and the French Camille François (innovation director).
Ben Nimmo a rejoined Graphika in 2019, yet nothing predestined him for this position. His singular journey was described in a detailed article in the New York Times (NYT).
Indeed, he studied literature at the University of Cambridge, worked as a scuba diving instructor in Egypt, as well as a writer and travel journalist in Europe. In 2011, NATO as Senior Press Officer on Russia and Ukraine recruited him until 2014. Then he became an independent researcher and started working on Russia under contract for pro think tanks. -democracy such as the “Institute for Statecraft” which is piloting a project funded by the “Foreign and Commonwealth Office” called “The integrity initiative”. Created in 2015, this program aimed to counter and raise awareness of disinformation coming from countries like Russia and China as well as extremist groups like Daesh. As luck would have it, these countries and organizations are also targeted by the “Minerva Initiative”.
During the 2016 US election campaign, Mr. Nimmo worked with the Atlantic Council, NATO’s unofficial think tank.
To get an idea of the importance of this “think tank”, one only has to consult the impressive list of members of its Board of Directors. We find there, among others, Henry Kissinger, Joseph Nye (the designer of soft power), General David H. Petraeus (commander of the military coalition under Bush son and head of NATO troops as well as Director of the CIA under Obama), Stephen Hadley (National Security Advisor to Bush Jr.), Robert Gates (cited above – Director of the CIA under Bush Sr. and Secretary of Defense under Bush Jr. and Obama). There is also James Baker, Leon Panetta, Colin Powell, James Woosley, Peter Ackerman and I will pass because the list is dizzy (the reader is invited to consult these pages for more details: link 1 and link 2). For the record, James Woosley was director of the CIA under Bill Clinton and ran Freedom House. For his part, Peter Ackerman helped found the Albert Einstein Institution run by his professor, the illustrious Gene Sharp, the theorist of the “nonviolent struggle” which was used in the Color Revolutions and the Arab “Spring”. His theory has been developed in many books and especially in “From Dictatorship to Democracy”, a book that has become the bedside book of all budding revolutionaries around the world.
Now back to Ben Nimmo. He helped found the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), a Washington-based group that studies disinformation online.
In 2018, Facebook announced a partnership with DFRLab to “identify, expose and explain election disinformation around the world“, granting the Atlantic Council and Nimmo access to the private data of billions of Facebook users.
Facebook made him and the lab the first outsiders allowed to study disinformation networks on his site before the company shut down the networks.
At the end of its article, the NYT clarifies that Graphika and DFRLab both received funding from Facebook.
On February 5, Ben Nimmo announced his departure from Graphika to join Facebook where he would help “lead the global intelligence strategy on threats to influence operations.” Without forgetting, of course, to say “hello” to his colleague and collaborator, Camille François.
This news did not go unnoticed, quite the contrary. On The Grayzone, for example, one could read an article titled “Facebook hires ex-NATO press officer and social media censor Ben Nimmo as intel strategist”. (Facebook hires Ben Nimmo, former NATO press officer and social media censor , as an intelligence strategist), while Mint Press News headlined “Facebook partners with Hawkish Atlantic Council, a NATO lobby group, to ‘protect democracy'” NATO, to “protect democracy”).
Now let’s move on to the second public figure of Graphika who is called Camille François. A Sciences-Po graduate and Fulbright scholar, she was a member of the “New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative” (NACI), principal researcher at Jigsaw, directed research projects on cybersecurity and human rights for the “Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ”, and worked for the“ Market Insights ”team at Google (see this link).
The “New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative” is an organization funded (among others) by the US State Department, the Knight Foundation, Open Society, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.
Jigsaw (formerly Google Ideas) is a think tank and technology incubator within Google / Alphabet led by Jared Cohen. The latter worked in the US State Department as a member of the US State Department’s Policy Planning Committee, and later served as close advisor to Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. It was, for example, he who had personally contacted the co-founder and president of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, to ask him to postpone maintenance work on Twitter’s servers so as not to disrupt the activities of Iranian cyber activists during their anti-government protests in 2009.
However, what attracts the most attention is its role in training Arab cyber activists in preparation for the Arab “spring.” Indeed, Jared Cohen was one of the founders of AYM “Alliance of Youth Movements” (renamed Movements.org) which defines itself as an American non-profit organization (according to their site) which clearly displays its mission: i) identify cyber activists in regions of interest; ii) put them in contact with each other, with experts and members of civil society; and iii) support them by training them, advising them and providing them with a platform to initiate contacts and develop them over time (for more details, see my article on the subject).
As explained previously, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the agency of the United States Department of Defense that funds Graphika. How small is the world!
According to what is mentioned on her CV, Camille François was also recruited by Google, in the “Market Insights” team. Associate Research Director, she specialized in online research on French SMEs and managed Google’s brand and privacy trackers for perception among the public and key opinion makers.
To close the loop, Ms. François trained in 2014 at the NATO School in Oberammergau (Germany) on “cyber operations” as also specified on her CV.
Graphika connections flowchart, Click on the image to enlarge.
Graphika, caught red-handed
Graphika has been involved in many controversies in relation to i) the “spotting” of a particular and targeted type of disinformation on social media and ii) its role as a “truffle dog” trained to serve militarists, atlanticists and Westerners sponsors.
To clarify this point, we will cite two educational examples:
1- The Jeremy Corbyn case
The very large election of Jeremy Corbyn as head of the British Labor Party with nearly 60% of the vote in 2015 was followed by a “mainstream” media campaign aimed at demonizing his person and depriving him of any major political legitimacy.
First, his pro-Palestinian positions earned him attacks from the Zionist lobby for anti-Semitism allegations after his electoral success. A few years later, as the 2019 parliamentary elections approached, the accusations escalated, becoming more incisive. No way that an “anti-Semitic” socialist to elect domicile at 10 Downing Street.
In addition to these spurious accusations, another case has been planned to deal the final blow to the possibility that Corbyn may one day take the chair of British Prime Minister: his “collusion” with Russia. This accusation, mixed with this Western “sport” commonly called “Russia Bashing”, was going to be, no more and no less, a coup de grace to this project.
On this subject, investigative journalists Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal wrote on December 8, 2019:
“Days before the UK national election on December 12, UK intelligence agencies and US government-backed organizations have stepped up their attacks on Corbyn, borrowing tactics from the US hysteria of the Russia gate and going to great lengths to present it – without any substantial evidence – like a supposed puppet of the vile Kremlin ”.
Journalist Matt Kennard, meanwhile, published a detailed investigation with the very explicit headline: “How the British Military and Intelligence Establishment is Working to Stop Jeremy Corbyn from Becoming Prime Minister.”
He mentioned that British military and intelligence officials were behind at least 34 major national media reports portraying Jeremy Corbyn as a threat to British security.
On November 27, 2019, in the midst of the electoral campaign, Jeremy Corbyn’s team presented an important file dealing with secret negotiations between the Conservative government of Boris Johnson and the American administration with the aim of privatizing the British National Health Service (NHS), thus denying the promises of his conservative rival.
Less than a week later, the heavy artillery was released to face the charge.
Ben Wallace, the British Secretary of State for Defense, said that “Jeremy Corbyn has played the role of ‘useful idiot’ for the Kremlin by undermining NATO for decades and that makes him unfit to be prime minister.”
As if to confirm his claims, the pro-conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph headlined “Corbyn’s dossier points the finger at the Russians”.
The Guardian followed suit, adding that Corbyn’s documents were “posted online by posters using Russian methods.” Other media like The Daily Beast, the BBC and the Washington Post also picked up the news.
It is not the “cloning” of this information that attracts attention, but the fact that all media have relied on one and only one source: Graphika and her research director, Ben Nimmo. Here then!
From the Guardian article:
Ben Nimmo, chief of investigations at Graphika, said: “What we are saying is that the initial efforts to amplify the NHS leak are very similar to techniques used by Secondary Infektion in the past, a known Russian operation. But we do not have all the data that allows us to make a final decision in this matter “”.
Such a serious accusation, taken up by heavy and influential media, based on a single source and … wind.
Which made Norton and Blumenthal say:
“Not a single story covering the story bothered to inform readers who Nimmo was, nor offered details of the powerful state forces behind Graphika.”
And to add:
“In fact, Nimmo is not a data expert or a journalist, but a former NATO press secretary who previously worked for the secret propaganda factory ‘Integrity Initiative’, which was funded by the UK ministry. of Foreign Affairs and dedicated to generating conflicts with Russia ”.
The rest of the story you can guess: Jeremy Corbyn obviously lost the election of December 12, 2019.
2- The Russiagate
The Russiagate is the politico-judicial affair, which was invoked to qualify the allegations of interference of Russia in the American presidential elections of 2016. A media uproar was orchestrated to demonstrate that the defeat of Hillary Clinton was only due to collusion between Donald Trump’s team and the Kremlin via an army of Russian trolls scouring social media, especially Facebook and Twitter.
As you would expect, the demonstration was entrusted to a team from Oxford University and … the company Graphika. Its founder, John Kelly, and Camille François, represented the latter.
The report, commissioned in 2018 by the previously discussed US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), obviously confirms the allegations. We can read there:
“The Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) has launched a protracted attack on the United States using computer propaganda to misinform and polarize American voters.”
“The IRA data provided to SSCI by US social media platforms and the Internet demonstrate a sustained effort to manipulate the American public and undermine democracy. With years of experience in manipulating public opinion in Russia, the IRA has used major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to target US voters and polarize US social media users”.
A year later, the report of Prosecutor Robert Mueller, special prosecutor investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, was released. The main conclusion was that there was no deal between members of Trump’s team and Russia.
Le Monde diplomatique called Russia a “debacle” and commented on the report as follows:
“The first known elements of the Mueller Report represent a defeat for the most moderate fraction of the Democratic Party, for the party of the war on Russia, for the media. […] Finally, this report constitutes a spectacular slap in the face for almost all the major American media which, for two years, had made “Russiagate” their full-time business”.
A slap also to Graphika and his “experts”.
The witch-hunt continued until the 2020 US presidential elections. Graphika produced another report in September 2020 signed by, among others, Ben Nimmo and Camille François targeting a site called PeaceData supposedly funded by the Russian Research Agency. Internet (IRA).
On this subject, the New York Times wrote:
“The Russian group that interfered in the 2016 presidential election is back, using a network of fake accounts and a website designed to resemble a left-wing news site, Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday. The disinformation campaign by the Kremlin-backed group known as the Internet Research Agency is the first public evidence that the agency is trying to repeat its efforts of four years ago and drive voters away of the Democratic presidential candidate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., to help President Trump”.
PeaceData reacted strongly to these accusations, calling them slander and lies.
Indeed, some sharp observers noted that, contrary to what was said by Graphika and NYT, the PeaceData website had published several articles harshly criticizing Trump, including one which called him “unstable and unbalanced.” On the other hand, Graphika gave no evidence of IRA funding for the site in its report.
PeaceData’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were obviously closed based on Graphika’s report and its “experts”, Ben Nimmo and Camille François.
Graphika and Algeria
After reviewing the massive network of politico-military connections available to Graphika and its “experts” as well as the high-level “missions», they have been charged with, several questions come to mind: Why Algeria? Why now? What is the goal? Who commissioned the study? Who funded it? And who worked with them to provide them with the necessary details?
First, it must be recognized that if Graphika was interested in Algeria, it is because this country represents an important geostrategic issue for the United States. This confirms what has been said in my numerous articles and my recent books on the subject.
Timing is also important. Indeed, as the “adulterated” Hirak flounders, this obvious interference in the internal politics of Algeria seeks to create a new unhealthy turmoil in the political life of the country. In addition, it is still strange that its publication comes just after the Pegasus scandal that has targeted Algeria. From a victim, Graphika presents Algeria as guilty.
To try to answer thoroughly the questions, let us return to Graphika’s report on Algeria.
The summary of the report sets the tone:
“Facebook shared a set of accounts, pages and groups with Graphika for further analysis before removing them from its platforms. Our investigation revealed a multi-platform effort spanning several years to advance the interests of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, from his 2019 presidential bid, to a constitutional referendum last year and widely boycotted legislative elections in June. This activity has been intertwined with a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation targeting the Hirak protest movement in Algeria, which over the past two years has brought thousands of people to the streets of the country to demand that l ruling elite be driven out and corruption end. These combined attempts to manipulate, distort and polarize online political conversation in Algeria must be seen against the background of the government’s reported crackdown on opposition voices and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which has forced many Algerians to move their demonstrations online ”.
We draw the following conclusions:
- As explained previously, Facebook works with Graphika;
- Sites deemed to be “undesirable” are deleted on the recommendation of Graphika;
- Graphika does politics, not network analysis;
- The constitutional approach adopted by the Algerian state to break the deadlock does not please Graphika;
- Graphika supports the “Yetnahaw Gaa” (all need to be removed) policy advocated in particular by NGOs (trained and funded by American organizations “exporting” democracy), “offshore” Islamawists and separatist makists;
- Graphika takes a stand against the institutions of the Algerian state and supports the groups mentioned above, two of which are considered to be terrorist organizations;
- The Algerian state manipulates information, but no word on the immeasurable manipulation of the three groups mentioned;
- Facebook (and other social media) allows (encourages?) Online protests for those campaigning for the transition phase, but closes the accounts of those who support the constitutional process.
Now let’s move on to what Graphika calls evidence for his claims. The report begins with an article regarding Noureddine Boukrouh which is commented as follows:
“Overall, the accounts and pages identified by Facebook have shown clear signs of coordination, as well as the use of false identities and other deceptive practices to mislead users. In a particularly striking illustration in June this year, 42 of the identified pages posted the same photo with identical captions attacking opponents of the Algerian government. Many of these pages have presented themselves as pro-democracy groups or independent media”
What a level of analysis! Hercule Poirot would have lost his mustache!
Lies and overturn of roles:
1- Graphika claims that Noureddine Boukrouh was described as “crazy” when it was him who treated the President of the Algerian Republic in this way.
2- In addition, Graphika claims that this is a “coordinated attack on an opponent” when it is one of my articles, published on my site, in response to his.
It turns out that this is MY article entitled “A goujat named Boukrouh” which was published on my site with the same photo, but which was also taken up by other sites (site 1, site 2, site 3, etc.). It is therefore normal for Facebook pages to notice it, as is the case with all my articles. My recent poem in homage to Djamel Bensmaïl, for example, was taken up in full by dozens of pages. Where is the problem? Are not social networks used for this? Or is it allowed for some and forbidden for others?
Beyond this aspect, what catches the eye is the caption:
“Screenshots showing the coordinated publication of an attack describing opposition figure Noureddine Boukrouh as ‘mad’ shortly after criticizing Tebboune.”
This is a pure lie! It was Mr. Boukrouh who called President Abdelmadjid Tebboune crazy in a Facebook post! In all letters in the title!
Question for Graphika and Facebook: Falsely accusing a president of insanity doesn’t deserve the closure of Mr. “sane” account?
In addition to the presidential institution, the Algerian military institution has been denigrated, as if these same institutions, in the United States or in the West did not have the right to express themselves on the state of Nation. Like all countries in the world, Algeria has its state institutions and expresses itself in the media that they deem appropriate to its message.
As bizarre as it may sound, Graphika’s report criticizes the right of the military institution to report on “fake news” and to denounce the actions of certain groups that threaten the security and sovereignty of Algeria.
The report specifically mentions “Karim Tabbou” (3 times), “Amir DZ” (4 times), “Rachad” (4 times), “Mohamed Larbi Zitout” (5 times) and Mourad Dhina.
“Key targets since 2019 have included: Karim Tabou – an opposition figure who was arrested by Algerian police in 2020 and 2021; Amir Boukhors (“Amir DZ”), an anti-regime dissident in France; and two co-founders of the “Rachad” political group – Mohamed Larbi Zitout, who lives in exile in London, and Mourad Dhina, who lives in Switzerland. In March 2021, an Algerian court reportedly issued arrest warrants against Boukhors and Zitout for “terrorism” “.
The “self-proclaimed Hirak tenors”, in this case Mostefa Bouchachi, Zoubida Assoul and Karim Tabbou, are also presented as “critics of the Algerian regime”.
As luck would have it, all the people mentioned, without any exception, collaborate together as explained in my book on the Hirak and are, of course, all for the transition period.
Clearly, the vision of Graphika (and its sponsors) is dichotomous: there are good and bad. The good are those she calls “opposition figures” and the bad are state, presidential and military institutions.
On the other hand, no word is spoken about the countless number of Facebook accounts, which are, directly or indirectly, linked to these “figures” and which, night and day, denigrate these same institutions.
For more details and to understand the role of these groups who have surfed the Algerian Hirak, the reader is invited to consult my interview on the subject.
It must be said that certain sections of the Graphika report are at borderline of a derision. Ave a look and judge:
“The pages and accounts of the network have consistently praised the Algerian National People’s Army (الجيش الوطني الشعبي الجزائري). The network amplified footage of training exercises and other events, as well as pro-military memes and cartoons, all portraying the Algerian military as strong and well-equipped protectors of the Algerian people. ”
So, is it forbidden to praise your country’s army? With all due respect, to Graphika, the military institution protects not only the Algerian people, but also the integrity and sovereignty of their country.
Another nonsense told in the report: Graphika accuses certain pages of having promoted the legislative elections of June 12, 2021. But what is wrong with wanting to encourage citizens to fulfill their electoral duty? Why then did not say anything about these “great democrats”, vulgar factotums of these “opposition figures” who, abroad, violently prevented people from voting? It is clear that the “native” informants did not tell them the whole story to the “experts” in Graphika. Or, is it the latter who filtered the information to demonize the Algerian state institutions and sanctify this “opposition” which works for the destruction of the country with the blessing of Uncle Sam and NATO?
It must be said clearly: credible scientific work must necessarily analyze the activities of the two protagonists and not show selective blindness in favor of the one we want to support. Graphika’s report shows such a glaring methodological weakness that its so-called “scientific” work is in reality only propaganda for a chosen side, the same one that has been selected by the US “export” agencies of the country. democracy in order to achieve a “regime change” in Algeria through soft power.
Graphika does not stop there. She goes so far as to devote a section on Morocco and France entitled “Malicious Morocco, Traitorous France”.
She claims that the media in these two countries are care bears and that Algeria slanders them. While attacking Algerian state television channels, Graphika presents France 24 as a harmless channel, not specifying that it is one of the French state channels which works directly with the Quai d’Orsay and whose role in the Hirak was very biased (not to say hostile to Algeria) as explained in one of my articles published in 2019. It is not by chance that their accreditation in Algeria was withdrawn in June. 2021.
As for Morocco, its bellicose and aggressive action on social media against Algeria has also been overlooked. Perhaps Graphika should be reminded of the Pegasus affair, which of course she has not said a word about. Hasn’t Morocco spied on 6000 people in Algeria, or is this still “fake news” from the presidential or military institutions?
That was to be expected. Mohamed Larbi Zitout, one of the members of the Rachad movement quoted in the Graphika report, made a fuss of it in one of his endless cyberspatial logorrhea.
Which naturally answers the important question: Cui Bono?
Conclusion : This study allows us to draw the following conclusions:
- Graphika is funded by entities directly or indirectly connected to the US administration, the UK administration, NATO, and US democracy “export” organizations;
- The Graphika Company does not carry out studies to inform citizens. She is only interested in the social media of countries targeted by the United States or by certain NATO member countries such as Great Britain;
- In recent years, the main countries targeted by Graphika’s studies have been Russia, China and Iran.
- Studies on Russia are plentiful and very aggressive, confirming the influence of the Atlantic Council, NATO’s unofficial think tank;
- The Graphika company has relationships with certain Internet giants, either directly or through its “experts”;
- Graphika works directly with Facebook and provides it with the list of pages to delete;
- In doing so, Facebook is not independent, but behaves like a company involved in the implementation of US foreign policy and NATO (This is not new: the collusion between some web giants and the US administration has been discussed at length in my book “Arabesque $” and some of my articles);
- The Graphika Company did not study Algerian social media casually. The timing, the bias and the frontal attacks on the fundamental institutions of the Algerian state indicate that this study was commissioned by groups or states which favor a “regime change” in Algeria and which work there;
- This last point is evident from reading the report which presents Algerian state institutions negatively and positively what he calls “the figures of the opposition”;
- On the other hand, no study has been carried out on the use of social media by “opposition figures”, which removes all “scientificity” from the report and makes it, consequently, a pure tool of propaganda against the Algeria;
- The relationships between certain “opposition figures” and the American administration (explained in my book on the question) having been completely obscured in the report, we deduce that Graphika plays an analogous and complementary role to the American organizations of ” export ”of democracy;
- These last three points indicate that Graphika, as well as the various institutions (state or not) with which it collaborates, actively support and support “the figures of the opposition” against the Algerian state;
- All of this leads us to conclude that Graphika is yet another tool in the arsenal of American soft power, specializing in a new “battlefield” that is none other than the virtual world of social media.
- The actions carried out in an aggressive manner by the American organizations of “export” of democracy, combined with those of the Human Rights NGOs as well as the attacks of the company Graphika show, in an unequivocal manner, that Algeria is currently under heavy fire of a fourth generation war.
To Read Graphika’s report on Algeria click : “Hammering Hirak” Juillet 2021
Translated by Hope from : https://www.ahmedbensaada.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=569:2021-08-23-01-45-11&catid=46:qprintemps-arabeq&Itemid=119
