The US has a long history of employing atrocity propaganda. One of the earliest and most well-known instances was the claim that Spanish saboteurs attacked and sunk the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. Although there was no evidence to substantiate the claim, the story was widely circulated and used to rally support for the war with Spain.
These types of fabricated and sensationalized stories were commonly published in newspapers owned by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. This form of journalism became known as "Yellow Journalism." The US would continue to develop their systems and methods to produce and disseminate propaganda throughout WWI.
Following the 1917 revolution in Russia, the Bolsheviks became a primary target of imperialist atrocity propaganda campaigns. Most of the alleged atrocities have been debunked through the declassification of Soviet archives, but the damage was already done. Once propaganda is disseminated, it can persist despite the facts.
With that said, the goal of this article is to examine the modern pattern of atrocity propaganda employed by the US to manufacture consent for imperialist wars and interventions over the last few decades. Every communist, anti-imperialist, and progressive should have nothing but distrust for the U.S. government and media. Why? Because they lie to you about everything.
Nayirah Testimony & The Gulf War
On October 10, 1990, 15 year old Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ gave a harrowing testimony to the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus. She claimed that Iraqi troops in Kuwait had removed babies from their incubators, leaving them to die on the cold floor of a Kuwaiti hospital. Her testimony was widely circulated by the western media and human rights organizations like Amnesty International. It was even cited by the US president, helping to draw support for military action against Iraq.
Some interesting information would come to light just two years later when it was revealed that Nayirah wasn’t just any witness. She was the daughter of Kuwaiti ambassador Saud Nasser Al-Sabah.¹
Further investigation showed that her testimony had been orchestrated by the Kuwaiti government with the assistance of the American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. Groups like Amnesty International eventually retracted their statements, but it had already done the job of painting Iraq as a super villain, something that would continue into the early 2000s.
The Iraq War & WMDs
In 2002, Iraq was one of three countries labeled by George Bush as the "Axis of Evil," the other two being the DPRK and Iran. In his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush exploited the American public's heightened fears following 9/11 by accusing Iraq of supporting terrorism.²
It was also asserted that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction with the intent to attack the U.S. and its allies.
At the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention,³ Dick Cheney went as far as saying:
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors -- confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth.
Despite these claims being the primary justification for the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, subsequent investigations found no WMDs. The CIA-led 2005 Duelfer Report confirmed that no such weapons existed.⁴ Additionally, no evidence was found linking al-Qaeda and the Ba'ath Party.
Another piece of atrocity propaganda was the claim that Saddam Hussein had a "people shredder" used for executions.⁵ Australian Prime Minister John Howard cited the claim to justify supporting the war. Needless to say, they never found any shredder, and there was never any evidence that it existed. Even so, the story significantly influenced other nations to join and support the US coalition.
Libya & The Libyan Civil War
In the months leading up to the NATO intervention that would overthrow the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and lynch Muammar Gaddafi, the U.S. media concocted multiple stories accusing Gaddafi of encouraging systematic rape and torture.
The allegations were investigated by multiple groups including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch.
Despite the heavy circulation of the claim, senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty International, Donatella Rovera, said:⁶
we have not found any evidence or a single victim of rape or a doctor who knew about somebody being raped.
Head of women's rights at Human Rights Watch, Liesel Gerntholtz said:⁷
We have not been able to find evidence.
Of course, these conclusions did not get the attention that the initial accusations received, leading to the continued propagation of these allegations 15 years after the fact.
The DPRK, Crimes Against Humanity, and Defector Testimony
The DPRK has been the object of a consistent propaganda campaign for its whole existence. Everything from allegations of the abduction of Japanese citizens, who later turn up in Japan alive⁸ or dead,⁹ to allegations of the brutal execution of DPRK officials, only for them to turn up alive at a later date.¹⁰ Even the suggestion that Kim Jong Un had his uncle torn to shreds by dogs,¹¹ only to be contradicted by other Western media that admits that, "Kim Jong Un probably didn’t feed his uncle to 120 hungry dogs."¹²
Let's look deeper into the 120 dog claim, because it's a good example of the unreliability of such sensationalist claims. The story first appeared in a Hong Kong newspaper called Wen Wei Po, which did not provide any evidence or sources. The story was then picked up by South Korean and Western media and was treated as fact without any confirmation whatsoever. This is a common pattern we witness with stories about the DPRK.
A large portion of the stories we hear about the DPRK come from defector testimony. The issue with defector testimonies is that they are inherently subjective and do not provide any concrete evidence to substantiate their claims. It's just hearsay.
The former United Nations consultant for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jiyoung Song, who is anti-DPRK herself, interviewed DPRK defectors for 16 years. She has said that there are many stories told by DPRK defectors that turn out to be unreliable. She also details the economic incentives for defectors to lie.¹³
One of these issues is cash payments for interviewing North Korean refugees, which has been standard practice in the field. Initially, the cost was to cover the meals and local transport for interviewees, which was approximately US$30 in the late 1990s when I first began interviewing North Korean refugees in China and South Korea. However, the fees were up to US$200 per hour by the time I attempted to interview former North Koreans in May 2014 for another project I was involved with.
But despite the glaring issues with defector testimonies, they are still utilized as primary evidence of the crimes against humanity committed by the DPRK government, and they remain an important component of US and ROK atrocity propaganda.
Venezuela, Manipulated Elections, and Narco-Terrorism
In the months leading up to the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, the US government and media continuously circulated the story that Maduro was a narco-terrorist and that Venezuela was a primary threat to the US due to its supposed drug trafficking.
However, a look at the DEA's 2025 Drug Threat Assessment reveals that Venezuela was only mentioned six times throughout the whole 74-page report. For comparison, Mexico is mentioned 70 times and China is mentioned 17 times.¹⁴
The few mentions of Venezuela do not implicate Maduro or the PSUV. They instead detail a street/prison gang that works on a street level and conducts "small-scale drug trafficking", called Tren de Aragua. Tren de Aragua has no connections with the government or the PSUV.
Considering this, it is clear that the DEA didn't consider Maduro, the PSUV, or Venezuela to be the biggest drug threat to the US.
Despite this, it was repeatedly claimed by the Trump administration and Western media that Venezuela and Maduro posed a severe threat to the health and safety of the American population. This was clearly part of a propaganda campaign to justify their plan to depose Maduro.
Another piece of the puzzle that began in 2024 was the allegations by Western governments and NGOs that Maduro was unpopular among the population of Venezuela and stole the 2024 election. However, the claims of unpopularity were contradicted by surveys from multiple polling firms.
In May 2024, a Dataviva poll found that 53.8% of people supported Maduro. That is three times more people than Edmundo González and any other opposition candidate.¹⁵
In June 2024, a Hinterlaces poll found that President Maduro was leading with a voter preference of 55.6% support, while Edmundo González had 22.1%. 53.2% of people said they supported the PSUV.¹⁶
In July 2024, the research consultancy firm Ideadatos found similar results: 55.9% preferred Maduro, 22% preferred Edmundo González, 13% preferred other candidates, and 8% didn't know.¹⁷
In September 2025, another Hinterlaces poll asked respondents, How would you rate Nicolás Maduro's performance as President of Venezuela? 65% of Venezuelans said they had a positive opinion of President Nicolás Maduro. 28% responded that they had a negative opinion, while 7% did not know or did not answer.¹⁸
The claims that the 2024 election was unfair or "stolen" by Maduro often came from the Carter Center and the Organization of American States.
The Carter Center is funded by various imperialist countries including the US and the UK. It receives funding from both USAID and the State Department. The Organization of American States is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. government is its biggest contributor.
Obviously, this creates an incentive to align with U.S. foreign policy. Despite such claims, numerous observers concluded that the elections were fair and many countries accepted the results.
Observers from the National Lawyers Guild¹⁹ stated that they:
observed a transparent, fair voting process with scrupulous attention to legitimacy, access to the polls, and pluralism.
South African observers²⁰ took note of the:
efficiency, transparency, and fairness of Venezuela’s elections.
Vincentian observers²¹ expressed that the elections were free and fair:
From my observations, the electoral process was in effect, and the model that was set to give persons the democratic right to vote, the process, from what I saw, went along well and was structured.
The Alliance for Global Justice²² sent a delegation of 17 observers from various countries and congratulated the Venezuelan National Electoral Council for:
fulfilling its constitutional duty by administering a free and fair election.
They also denounced hostile governments and organizations that attempted to undermine the legitimacy of the elections.
Needless to say, observers and countries that accepted the results of the election were largely left out of Western media reports that manipulated people into believing that Maduro was an unpopular fraud. These were the two major justifications for the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro by the US.
Iran, massacre of protesters, nukes, and preemptive attack
As of February 28, 2026, Iran has been the victim of a brutal war by the US and Israel. Preceding this, in December 2025, a Western-backed color revolution began brewing in which armed terrorist cells engaged in street warfare with state security forces. 743 unauthorized firearms were confiscated and 735 people were arrested by Iranian security forces, as reported in January 2026.²³
Like all color revolutions, this event began as a legitimate and peaceful protest, but Western governments and anti–Islamic Republic elements infiltrated and exploited the protests as a means of instigating regime change.
Reminiscent of the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, Western governments and media hailed the violent rioters in Iran as peaceful and innocent protesters, while it was claimed that activists were being brutally mowed down by the Iranian government.
There was no mention of the acts of terrorism, including the burning of mosques,²⁴ the killing of civilians,²⁵ the burning of fire engines, the killing of firefighters, and much more. It was reported that 250 mosques, 20 Husayniyahs, 364 large stores, 419 small shops, 265 schools, 450 historical sites, 11 metro stations, 120 bus stations, and numerous cinemas were damaged to various extents.²⁶
Another important aspect that the Western media left out in their reporting was the nationwide rallies and counter-protests that took place to denounce the foreign-backed terrorism occurring throughout the country.²⁷
Needless to say, Western NGOs and human rights organizations began circulating unrealistic estimates of how many "protesters" were killed by Iranian security forces. These estimates ranged from 12,000 to 80,000. In January 2026, The Cradle published an article called Iran’s protests and the dirty numbers game: The manufactured 'death toll', which analyzed the various claims and the organizations and individuals making them.²⁸ This short article makes a clear case that the unrealistic numbers being circulated were completely fabricated to vilify Iran.
According to information from the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization, published by the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, 3,117 people died as a result of the riots, 2,427 of them being security personnel and ordinary citizens, many of whom were killed by organized terrorist actions.²⁹
This number is still nothing to downplay, but it's not 80,000, 40,000, or 12,000. It's also clear from this data that the majority of deaths were security forces and people indiscriminately targeted by armed groups. Western media completely ignored the deaths of police, IRGC forces, Basij members, and innocent people who were killed by the hands of foreign-backed armed rioters.
The reason why all of this is important is because in early to mid-January 2026, the Trump administration repeatedly threatened military action against Iran for the killing of protesters.³⁰ However, this would ultimately not be the justification the Trump administration would go with.
Instead, at the beginning of the attack on Iran that took place on February 28, 2026, the Trump administration began to claim Iran posed a nuclear threat to the U.S. They claimed that Iran was a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material and even suggested that Iran may be planning preemptive strikes.³¹
Despite these claims by the Trump administration, they were contradicted by an intelligence agency assessment from a year earlier which concluded that Iran was at least a decade away from even having the capability of striking the U.S.³² According to ArmsControl.org:³³
In a Feb. 28 video announcing that the United States attacked Iran, Trump stated that Iran had “attempted to rebuild their nuclear program” and that the strikes will “ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.” But when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, there was no evidence that Iran was engaged in nuclear activities that would pose an imminent threat to the United States. Neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented any evidence of an ongoing weaponization effort and, in a March 2 press conference, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said “we don’t see a structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons” in Iran. The following day, in an interview with CNN, Grossi was asked if “the Iranians were days or weeks away from building a bomb.” His response was "no."
It should also be noted that based on Iran's Islamic laws, the use of nuclear weapons is considered a sin. There is talk that this may be reversed, but Iran has had a fatwa against the building, possessing, and using of nuclear weapons. Most Westerners don't believe this, of course. But considering that there was no evidence Iran was building or possessing nuclear weapons, and considering the IAEA did not see a structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons, it's safe to say that this fatwa was not only lip service.
Conclusion
We could write a book detailing instances like these. But at this point, the pattern should be clear. From Iraq to Libya, the DPRK, Venezuela, and Iran, the process is the same. A sensational and emotionally charged claim is introduced, often with little to no evidence. It is then amplified by Western media, NGOs, and government officials. By the time the story is questioned, retracted, or debunked, it no longer matters. The damage has already been done.
Once the pattern is understood, it becomes impossible to take the stories we hear at face value. Every new claim presented must be approached with skepticism.
Communists and anti-imperialists must do their due diligence to investigate and reject such claims. It's easy to get pulled into the narratives that serve imperialist interests. Atrocity propaganda works because people want to believe it. It appeals to emotion and presents the world in terms of "good" and "evil." But, reality is never so simple.
These narratives aren't harmless. They're used to justify wars, sanctions, and interventions that have real consequences for the countries and people targeted by them.
References
⁷Ibid
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