Editor's Note:

Lee Camp, host of RT America, seeks every possible chance to reveal the hypocrisy of the US government in his satirical program Redacted Night, offering a perspective different from that of American corporate media outlets. As a media person, how does he view the origins-tracing of the coronavirus advocated by US politicians and media? What factors affect US mainstream media? How does he feel as an American working in Washington for a Russian media outlet? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen talked to Camp via video in her talk show Insight Talk.  

This is the third of a four-part interview. Click here to read the first, here to read the second, and here to read the fourth.

GT: From hyping Xinjiang's "concentration camps", "forced labor" to "genocide," why does the US choose Xinjiang, a place the Americans do not know much about, to make an international fuss? 

Camp: As the US has increased or heated up this war of words against China, this cold war as we called against China, the US has a playbook that the US government has used many times, which is to try and get a country sanction, to try and create economic war against the country, to try and separate a country from itself, meaning to get certain areas to separate off and break up the country.

So it's trying the same stuff against China. It's trying to lay the groundwork for more and more economic war against China, which is very dangerous. And it pushes us toward the death of many people both through economics and through, God forbid, one day the actual shooting of missiles and things like that. So let's hope we never get there. But this type of thing pushes countries toward that point, which is a terrible idea. We need to be working together. We need to be cooperating.

And in terms of the actual accusations, about the Uygurs, I don't claim to be an expert on China. What I claim to do is actually look into where the US is getting their information. And if you look at the US reports, they are all coming from a tiny handful of organizations that are funded by the US government, war profiteers, weapons contractors or the Australian Defense Department.

So if that is the only place that you can get your information, then you are not getting real information. I don't think these reports can anyway be held up as legitimate. And it's laughable that the US government is trying to do that. And the fact that the US government points to these documents as proof means they don't have other proof, because if they had other proof, they'd be holding that up. They'd be saying, "This is what's important." They only have largely US government, Australian government and British government funded sources saying these things to create a continued cold war. I have to repeat that this is a terrible idea. This is a time for countries to work together and fight against climate change.

GT: Does the American public believe such propaganda?

Camp: Sadly, many people do believe it. I wish they didn't. That's my goal with my TV show: to explain the truth to people and hope that you can get a certain percentage to realize the reality of the situation. Another segment I did as you're mentioning is about this propaganda against China for "genocide." When all of the accusations coming from the US or coming from a tiny number of sources, all of them government linked, it really is hilarious once you look into where these accusations are coming from. But our mainstream media are largely just stenographers for the state department. They don't actually question where these things come from. They don't actually look into it. They just repeat what our government tells them to repeat. 

And at this time to create basically a new cold war against your country, China, is the worst way for humans to behave. We are in dire times. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with environmental destruction. And to sit around playing war games and trying to crush other countries for the sake of power and the sake of resources is a terrible way to behave. And it's pushing human species, which is all of us, toward extinction.

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

GT: On the surface, there is no authority in the US supervising its media. Most US media outlets are not owned by the government. But US media seem to utter the same voice on major international affairs. Why is this the case? How do US political interests affect or even control the media?

Camp: If you analyze the US media rather than pointing fingers at others, our mainstream media, which is responsible for most of the things that people see, unfortunately, is a tiny number of corporations. Really, just five or six. They are basically connected to the government in that our corporate titans, our corporate American rulers, are one in the same with our government. They pay for our politicians to run for office. Those politicians do what they want in exchange. Therefore, you have a corporate system that is in bed with our government. Organizations like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, despite not being "state-run," are only going to do the talking points of the American ruling class. They are never going to question capitalism. They are never going to really deeply question big oil or big pharma or any of the big corporate entities that run our lives. America is the number one prison state in the world. They're never really going to question that.

You have a system where it's almost better in that people think it's not state-run. They say, "Look at CNN. It has freedom to say whatever they want." But in fact, at the end of the day, they're always going to do whatever the American ruling class wants. And much of that is pushing for war. Our media have proven themselves to be belligerent and to be war hawks when it comes to attacking countries like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, as well as assisting with the attack on Yemen. And then you have the endless parade of US-backed coups that we create in other countries. And our media support all of this. They never question these things, really.

GT: In the opinion war against China, the US media are always the ones that launch the offensive, while China, doing nothing wrong, is the defensive one. Why? Does China have the chance to counter it? Where is the US weak link?

Camp: I think that the US is painting itself into a corner by alienating so many countries around the world by constantly creating war. If you look at polls and studies, it shows that the majority of people around the world feel the US is the greatest risk toward war, the greatest risk of creating war.

So most people around the globe now understand that the reason that things are so tense, the reason that we seem to be on the cusp of nuclear war with various countries is because of the US belligerence and our empire, which is 900 military bases around the world while most countries have zero military bases outside of their country. The second country with the most military bases outside of their country is Russia, and it's like 15 or 18 or something. It's a tiny number compared to the 900 that the US has outside of the US. That is our weakness. We are trying to maintain that we have the moral high ground, and we are the moral country. And yet most people are starting to see that is not the case.

Now, maybe one day we could get to the point where we are behaving morally. But, instead, we keep crushing people both with real war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and with economic war, which kills tens of thousands in Venezuela, Iran, or other places.

So, looking at the number of people were killing, we can't claim to have the moral high ground. We can't claim, "Look at us! We are holier than thou!" while we kill all these people with economic war.