​Three short videos explain why RT is worth your time

RT sees its place in the media landscape as a much-needed alternative voice to the mainstream consensus. After all, opinions considered fringe by the mainstream and that only RT dared to broadcast worldwide proved to be right on several occasions.

Take, for instance, the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan strongman deposed by a coalition of militant groups in 2011 thanks to a NATO bombing campaign that crippled the Libyan army.

The brutal summary execution of Gaddafi welcomed with an amused “Wow!” from then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hailed as an end of tyranny and a dawn of a new age by the Western media.

Commentators were foretelling a democratically elected national unity government, rebuilding war damage with foreign help, the return of Gaddafi’s personal wealth to the people and other benefits.

On RT, writer Pepe Escobar described the future of Libya as “tribal feuds that will go on forever.” Four years on, Libya is a fractured entity with an internationally recognized government ousted from capital Tripoli by Islamists and various groups of militants contesting the few sources of income: oil, weapons, smuggling immigrants into Europe.

In Libya, Western politicians got what they said they wanted – the ouster of Gaddafi. In Syria, they didn’t. The chorus of “Assad must go” goes on even now, as CIA Director John Brennan admits that Islamic State may well march their troops into Damascus if the Syrian government fell.

Getting rid of Bashar Assad was the “no-brainer” solution to Syria’s problems. It was presumed that with him gone, West-backed moderate rebel forces would provide security in the country and bring in the Turkey-based opposition to form a government. And beating Assad demanded arming and training the rebels.

“I think the US decision to arm is a very dangerous one. It will inevitably lead to uncontrolled sectarian violence as a result,” RT Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon analyst, told RT. “I think the United States is acting at the behest of Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to push the Sunni-Wahabi agenda into Syria.”

A year later, some of the rebel groups that received arms from Qatar and Saudi Arabia with the help of CIA have become part of ISIS. The powerful radical Sunni terrorist organization seized large parts of Iraq and Syria and started a reign of terror, killing and ousting anyone they see as not fitting into the vision of a so-called “Islamic State” they are building.

And the US is leading a coalition of countries on a bombing campaign against them.

Questioning the policies that mainstream media advocate is only part of what RT sees as its mission. Another part is giving airtime to politicians who are considered misfits by the mainstream media and are kept on the fringe of the political discourse.

RT interviewed UKIP’s Nigel Farage years before his party surpassed Labor and the Conservatives in the 2014 EU parliamentary elections. And Syriza’s Yanis Varoufakis and George Katrougalos, who later became part of the current Euro-skeptic Greek government.

In the past, their views were viewed as too radical to be taken seriously. Now their influence makes them impossible to ignore.

RT is all about giving an alternative to the accepted narrative or worldview. Our viewers can judge for themselves the merits of this approach.