It's not a secret that the United States has its eyes on Eurasia, the land mass reaching from the Russian border eastward to China. The U.S. has been hatching p

It's not a secret that the United States has its eyes on Eurasia, the land mass reaching from the Russian border eastward to China. The U.S. has been hatching plans for total world dominance since the 1930s and controlling Eurasia is key if this goal is to be achieved. It's hubris on an epic scale. The U.S. centric media makes noises about countries Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea as if America is just minding its own business and these pesky troublemakers are constantly circling and provoking the peaceful USA. Nothing is further from the truth of course. It's truly fascinating that the long term goals of U.S. foreign policy not hidden from the public or the media. Think tanks and former high ranking government officials regularly publish books and essays discussing America's place in the world but for the most part these are ignored by the mass media and government and military officials are quoted at length as if their words are self-evident truths that can always be taken at face value. The State Department cables released by WikiLeaks were dismissed by most of the media as mildly embarrassing gossip of little value. Yes, the cables include gossip and snarky remarks but there is much more to them than only that. The cables show what government officials say to each other and this is often very very different from the official public line. For example, they clearly and unambiguously show how the U.S. has been provoking Syria and fomenting regime change there since at least 2005. The cynical, Machiavellian methods outlined in the cables provide quite a contrast to the "democracy" and "human rights" line we hear so often. In fact, the collapse of Syria in 2011 is exactly what Washington had been hoping would happen. But where is the media? Surely there is a story or two here. It goes to show that even in an era of ubiquitous personal technology that quite literally makes the collected knowledge of the world accessible to almost every human being on earth, the truth is as distant from the masses as it ever was. As coverage of the Snowden affair and the debacle in Syria has shown, the mass media is quite comfortable acting as the empire's propaganda arm while telling us how it takes pride in maintaining high standards of journalistic integrity and serving the public by speaking truth to power. So, yes, we are being lied to constantly. Critical and independent thinking skills are more important than ever.