Friends and Patriots,
I thought we lost the "information war" with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong but we have really slid down the slippery slope since that awful war. Consider this fact, after the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam the Viet Cong were totally defeated but Conkrite gave them the victory in the evening news. It is ten times worse today, there is almost no objective news reporting on cable TV. I urge people to off the 6 major news corporations because they put out so much propaganda and "fake news".
The mainstream U.S. media now
reports as “flat-fact” the Syrian government’s guilt in the April 4 chemical
weapons incident, but the real facts are less clear and some point in the
opposite direction, says Rick Sterling.
Historian and journalist Stephen
Kinzer has said,
“Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful
episodes in the history of the American press.” This past week’s
coverage of the April 4 chemical-weapons incident in the northern Syrian town
of Khan Sheikhoun will only add to that dubious legacy.
Across the mainstream U.S. news
media, there was almost no skepticism shown and virtually no differences of
opinion allowed. Within hours, the rush to judgment that Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad was guilty had solidified into a full-scale groupthink.
For instance, the PBS Newshour,
which typically on Syria has offered up on-air “debates” using two guests who
share the same basic hostility toward the Assad government, did the same on
April 4, allowing two harsh opponents to say basically whatever they wanted.
Susannah Sirkin from the
Soros-funded Physicians for Human Rights claimed, “We know that sarin has been
used before by the Assad regime.” But that has NOT been confirmed by any
credible organization. On the contrary, the most thorough
investigations point to sarin being
used by the armed opposition, NOT the Syrian government.
The other guest was Andrew Tabler
from the neoconservative Israeli-associated Washington Institute for Near East
Policy. His editorial from last fall makes clear what he wants: “The case for
(finally) bombing Assad.” So, the viewers of the publicly funded
network got one of their usual doses of “Assad must go” propaganda.
The "New York Toilet Paper", for its
first-day lead story entitled “Worst
Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; U.S. Blames Assad,” turned
to national security correspondent Michael Gordon, who somehow remains a
“respected” journalist despite his influential role in promoting the WMD myth
that helped justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In this instance, Gordon and
co-author Anne Barnard presented the case against the Syrian government pretty
much as you might expect, announcing Assad’s conviction even before
there was any time for even a cursory investigation.
In reference to the 2013 sarin
case, they also pronounced that “American intelligence agencies concluded” the
2013 attack was carried out by the Syrian government, but that too was false.
The intelligence agencies did NOT agree with the Obama administration’s
politically driven claims and that forced the White House to come up with a new
genre of report, called a “government assessment” rather than the traditional
“intelligence estimate.”
It is astounding that Gordon and
Barnard, two supposed experts on the Middle East and national security, did not
know this or, perhaps less astounding, that they would let their biases
intentionally mislead the public. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
explained the significance of the Obama administration’s sleight of hand in a
memorandum, “A Call for
Syria – Sarin Proof”.
But progressives might say that
all that is run-of-the-mill at PBS and The New York Times. So, they switched on
“DemocracyNow” looking for a thoughtful alternative. Except that,
“DemocracyNow” has been highly biased in its presentation on Syria. It almost
solely promotes the perspective of those who support the armed opposition
and/or Western intervention in Syria.
On April 5, the show’s hosts
interviewed Dr. Rola Hallam, infamous for
being the key player in the documentary “Saving Syria’s Children” which
purports to show a napalm or chemical weapon attack in Aleppo but which has come under
criticism as apparently staged. On April 6, “DemocracyNow”
interviewed another “Syrian” who lives in the West and promotes Western
intervention: Lina Sergie Attar.
Not to surprise anyone, but the
media’s performance on CNN, MSNBC and other networks was no better. Across the
U.S. mainstream media spectrum, there was virtually no diversity in opinion
regarding what may or may not have happened in Khan Sheikhoun. Everyone just
knew that Assad was guilty.
It also should not be too
surprising that President Trump – after months of getting bashed for seeking
better relations with Russia and for trying to change America’s “regime change”
foreign policy – used this occasion to reposition himself as a new tough-guy
“war president” to the acclaim of neocons and liberal interventionists.
A Closer Look
So what did happen in Khan
Sheikhoun? The story actually may have started a couple of weeks earlier. On
March 22, anti-government terrorists overran the government-controlled town of
Khattab and kidnapped some
civilians who were taken to the nearby opposition-controlled town of Khan
Sheikhoun.
On March 30, Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nicki Haley indicated
that the removal of Assad was no longer a U.S. priority, instead the focus
would be on defeating the Islamic State and other terror groups. Tillerson said
Assad’s future should be settled by the Syrian people, and Haley said the Trump
administration would not “focus on getting Assad out.”
Those comments brought harsh
criticism from American neoconservatives, liberal interventionists, Israeli
leaders and others obsessed over the past six years with “regime change” in
Syria.
Then, on April 4, there were
sketchy reports of children and other civilians killed by chemical poisoning in
the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, an area controlled by Al
Qaeda-connected rebels. Assad was immediately blamed for bombing civilians with
chemical weapons, but some initial accounts were contradictory. Some claimed
that people smelled the gas; others claimed the gas caused immediate death like
odorless sarin. All told, some 80 people reportedly died in the incident.
[Photographs, videos, analyses and other sources are documented at “A Closer
Look At Syria.”]
But there were problems in
assessing what exactly happened at Khan Sheikhoun, including the unreliability
of some sources. One video featured U.K.-born-and-raised Dr. Shajul
Islam, who had his U.K. medical license suspended due
to reports he was involved in the kidnapping in Syria of journalist John
Cantlie, who was later freed but then taken hostage again in 2012 along with
American James Foley, who was later beheaded by ISIS. Cantlie remains a
hostage.
After a criminal case against
Shajul Islam in the U.K. collapsed because Cantlie and other victims could not
testify, Islam somehow made his way back into Syria and into Al Qaeda’s
territory. After the chemical weapons incident, Islam was widely cited by
Western news outlets as a key source
of information.
There are also curious features
in the videos, which depict a scene set in a limestone quarry with apparent
caves and storage depots along with flat-bed trucks with bodies scattered on
the ground. Other videos show scenes in a medical clinic, while photographs
show White Helmet “rescue workers” handling bodies without gloves, which is
very strange if the people had died or were dying from chemical poison.
But the on-scene reports were
immediately accepted at face value by the Western media, which has long been
inclined to believe any negative claims about Assad. Just as quickly, Sen. John
McCain and other neoconservatives joined the chorus, recalling the old
conventional wisdom about President Obama not enforcing his “red line” after
the 2013 sarin case (since it remains the ill-informed groupthink in Washington
that Assad ordered that sarin attack). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu chimed in, too, with a renewed call for war on Syria, tweeting that
it’s time for the international community to “fulfill its obligations from
2013.”
Under this cacophony of
anti-Assad outrage – before any serious collection of evidence could occur –
the Trump administration began endorsing the interpretation of an Assad-regime
airstrike delivering poison gas. On April 5, President Trump publicly blamed
the Syrian government despite the conflicting reports.
He said, “Yesterday’s chemical
attack in Syria [was] against innocent people including women, small children
and even beautiful little babies. Their deaths was an affront to humanity.
These heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated … my attitude
toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.”
Just a day later, on April 6,
Trump ordered a “targeted military strike” on Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles
attacking a Syrian air base near Homs. The base is used to support the combat
against ISIS in eastern Syria and against Al Qaeda’s Nusra affiliate in Idlib
province. According to reports from Syria, the missile strike killed seven or
eight soldiers and some nine civilians, including four children. But the attack
earned Trump plaudits from many of his harshest foreign policy critics in the
political world and the mainstream media.
The Theories
But the real story behind the
deaths in Khan Sheikhoun remains uncertain, with U.S.
intelligence apparently still trying to unravel the mystery and
with some logic pointing to the armed opposition as the perpetrators, not the
Syrian government.
There are four basic theories
about what happened:
-The dominant Western narrative
is that the Syrian “regime” dropped illegal chemical weapons on civilians
because it is simply barbaric or alternatively because it was celebrating its
impunity following the Trump administration’s announcement that it was no
longer seeking Assad’s ouster.
-Then, there’s the possibility of
an accidental release of chemicals because an airstrike by the Syrian military
hit an Al Qaeda weapons depot where chemical weapons were stored, rupturing the
containers and causing the poison gas to spread over the area. The Russian
Ministry of Defense says militants had a weapons production factory including
chemical weapon ingredients.
-Another theory is that the
deaths were part of a psychological operation in which the kidnapped civilians
from Khattab and possibly others were killed or poisoned in a staged event
prompted by the growing desperation of Al Qaeda and other rebel groups,
especially after the late March announcement that the U.S. was no longer
seeking Assad’s removal.
-There is also the possibility
that an outside power, angered by the Trump administration’s announcement, assisted
in the psychological operation by delivering the poison gas that was used on
the town.
Despite Trump’s hasty decision to
blame and punish the Assad government, U.S. intelligence analysts are
reportedly still reviewing the evidence, which includes overhead surveillance
of the area. However, because the President has already acted, whatever the CIA
concludes – if it contradicts Trump – may remain secret for the indefinite
future.
Still, there are facts, history
and circumstantial reasons that would lead one to believe that it is far more
likely the armed opposition is responsible than the government.
(1) The incident and publicity help the opposition
and hurt the government.
Crime investigations usually
begin with the question: Who has a motive? In this case, it’s strikingly clear
that the armed opposition and their supporters benefited from this event. They
have used the story to further demonize the Assad government and renew calls
for the U.S. and “the world” to intervene.
Not only did the incident cause
the Trump administration to reverse its recently announced reversal of Obama’s
“Assad must go” mantra, but the deaths came as the Syrian government is making
steady advances in many parts of the country. The government had no reason to
use chemical weapons even if it still had any after surrendering its stockpiles
of such weapons in 2014. Indeed, the government had every reason NOT to use
chemical weapons, knowing very well the armed opposition’s propaganda
capabilities and access to the major Western media.
It is also relevant to consider
timing. In this case, the events in Khan Sheikhoun occurred the day before an
important conference on Syria was to be held in Brussels. The conference titled
“Supporting the future of Syria and the region” has been effectively
sidetracked by news about the chemical weapons attack and the Syrian government
being blamed.
(2) Extremists were likely responsible for the
August 2013 chemical weapon attack in Damascus.
Western supporters of the armed
opposition were quick to blame the Syrian government for the chemical attack in
Ghouta on Aug. 21, 2013. However, subsequent investigations by the most
credible investigative journalists and researchers concluded the Syrian
government was probably NOT responsible. Seymour Hersh and Robert Parry concluded
the attack was most likely carried out by militants with support from Turkish
intelligence.
The in-depth examination titled
WhoGhouta concluded “The
only plausible scenario that fits the evidence is an attack by opposition
forces.” An MIT study made
a detailed trajectory analysis and concluded that the sarin-carrying missile
could not have been fired from government territory. The study challenged the
unsubstantiated claims made in the U.S. “government assessment” white paper,
which almost led President Obama to launch a military strike against Syrian government
forces. “Faulty intelligence could have led to an unjustified US military
action,” the MIT study said.
(3) Armed opposition groups have a history of
staging incidents
From the start, the Syrian
conflict has included an information war. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
boasted of “training for more than a thousand activists, students and
independent journalists,” a program that amounted to an invitation for the
armed opposition to sell its case to the West via propaganda on social media,
including heartrending tales focused on suffering children and heroic stories
of selfless “moderate” rebels and the even more selfless White Helmets “rescue
workers.”
A White Helmets volunteer
pointing to the aftermath of a military attack.
In December 2012, NBC journalist
Richard Engel was reportedly kidnapped and abused by “shabiha” supporters of
the Syrian government. Engel and his film crew were “liberated” by Free Syrian
Army rebels after a gunfight with the supposedly pro-Assad kidnappers. In
reality, the entire episode from kidnapping to rescue was a hoax designed to
demonize Assad’s supporters and glorify the “rebels.” The true story emerged
years later after the actual events were leaked. When it was going to be made
public, Engel finally admitted the truth.
The world also now knows that the
real kidnappers of Western journalists have been the jihadist terrorists, who have
decapitated hostages including Americans James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
(4) Supporters of the armed opposition have a
history of fabricating stories to demonize the Syrian government.
In February 2014, it was
announced that a defecting Syrian military photographer, who was anonymous but
code-named “Caesar,” had 55,000 photos documenting the torture and murder of
11,000 innocent Syrian civilians. This news received sensational media
attention with live interviews on CNN and front-page coverage throughout the
Western world. The news relied on the judgment of legal prosecutors who
“verified” the story and produced a “Caesar Report,” released the day before
the start of Geneva peace negotiations. It effectively disrupted the talks and
facilitated the “rebels” refusal to negotiate and walk away.
In reality, the “verification”
and report was commissioned by the government of Qatar, which has been a major
funder of the armed opposition. Since then it has been discovered that nearly
half the 55,000 photos show the opposite of what was claimed: they show dead
Syrian soldiers and victims of explosions NOT tortured civilians, just one of
the findings of fraud in this sensational story. [A concise expose of “Caesar”
is here.]
Lost in Propaganda
Between the reality that wars are
always brutish affairs and the introduction of sophisticated propaganda that
has exaggerated and fabricated abuses by the Syrian government, the West’s
understanding of what’s been happening in Syria is understandably confused.
There is also the
behind-the-scenes role of Israel and the U.S. neoconservatives who have had
Syrian “regime change” on their wish list for decades – and more recently have
indicated that they would even prefer a victory by Al Qaeda or the Islamic
State to continuation of Assad’s rule because of his close ties to Iran.
As former Israeli Ambassador to
the U.S. Michael Oren said,
“we always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who
weren’t backed by Iran to those who were backed by Iran.”
In 2010, before the conflict
began, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear to Damascus that the U.S.
wanted Syria to accede to key Israeli demands: end its alliance with Hezbollah,
reduce its interactions with Iran, and come to an agreement with Israel. When
Syria rebuffed those demands, the “regime change” war began in 2011.
However, with the Russian
intervention in support of the Syrian government in 2015 and the army’s
recent liberation of eastern Aleppo, forcing the Al Qaeda-led rebels to
relocate to northern Idlib Province, the prospects for the Israeli/neocon
agenda looked bleak. Even worse, Donald Trump’s election seemed to presage a
more practical approach toward resolving the Syrian conflict with Assad’s
status left for future Syrian elections to decide.
That possibility became a stark
reality at the end of March with the statements by Tillerson and Haley. But
then – at this desperate moment for the long and bloody “regime change” struggle
– came the remarkable “good fortune” of an apparent chemical weapons attack in
the remote town of Khan Sheikhoun.
Now that Trump has against
reversed his policy on Syria by launching a missile attack without waiting for
a serious investigation or the emergence of hard evidence, he is getting
congratulated by Congress and the media. Given Trump’s well-known hunger
for approval, the danger of a head-on clash with nuclear-armed Russia –
beginning but not ending in Syria – has suddenly and dramatically increased.
The wind is back in the sails of
the armed opposition and their many foreign allies.
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