EDITOR'S NOTE: Right on Patrick Cockburn! This is the aim of Western propaganda agencies in pursuit of the initial Zionist plans outlined by Theo Hertzl over a hundred years ago. It is false reporting, and it is not working.
It is no surprise that the Western Media will rewrite current events, emphasizing some, omitting others in order to effectively show or create schisms whether imagined, created or real, between various Islamic factions in order to weaken them, or to justify Western forces and Western interests to attack and destroy them in some "weakened " state of disrupted state of Islamic affairs. A functional State in Syria is a dangerous threat to Israeli plans for Lebanon and Hizbullah, and Syria must go. Think cui bono, and you will not have to dig much deeper for What? Who? and Why?
An armed and stable Syria is a threat to any militant or belligerant plans which Israel might have for Lebanon or Hizbullah, therefor Syria must go. If this means heads must roll then let the heads roll!
America and American policies have long been noted for their ability to alienate long term long time friends and especially former or potential strong and beneficial allies.
It seems to have been afflicted with some sort of political/diplomatic suicide syndrome.
Syrian Contradictions
When I arrived in the capital at the start of the month I asked a friend about the mood and he said: “Fifteen per cent for the government, 15 per cent against and 70 per cent want this war over before it ruins us all.”
by Patrick Cockburn
“Shame on you!” boomed the voice of a Syrian intellectual in my phone half an hour after I had returned from Damascus to Beirut. He was so incoherent in his rage that it was difficult to know his precise objections, but my sin seemed to be that I had been in Damascus, talked to members of the Syrian government and concluded that it was not going to collapse any time soon.
Our conversation was not of a high intellectual calibre. After an acerbic exchange, I asked why, if he felt so strongly, did he “not stop being rude to people like me, go to Aleppo and fight beside the rebels instead of spending all your time in the cafés of Beirut”. Shortly afterwards, there was a mutual clicking-off of mobiles.
Driving the short distance between Damascus and Beirut is like shifting from one planet to another. What seems obvious and commonsensical in the Syrian capital becomes controversial and a minority viewpoint over the border in Lebanon. Outside Syria there have been repeated media and diplomatic forecasts of imminent victory for the rebels and defeat for Bashar al-Assad. Ignored in this speculation is the important point that Assad’s forces still hold, wholly or in large part, all the main cities and towns of Syria.
The difference in perceptions inside and outside Damascus is explained partly by the way the international and regional media describes the war. There are few foreign journalists in the Syrian capital because it is difficult to get visas. By way of contrast, the rebels have a highly sophisticated media operation – often also foreign-based – proffering immediate details of every incident, often backed up by compelling, if selective, YouTube footage.
Understandably, the rebel version of events is heavily biased towards their own side and demonises the Syrian government. More surprising is the willingness of the international media, based often in Beirut but also in London and New York, to regurgitate with so little scepticism what is essentially good-quality propaganda. It is as if, prior to the US presidential election in November, foreign journalists had been unable to obtain visas to enter the US and had instead decided to rely on Republican Party militants for their information on the campaign – moreover, Republican activists based in Mexico and Canada.
It is true that there is the rumble of artillery in Damascus, but the city is not besieged. The roads north to Homs and south to Deraa are open, as is the road to Beirut. When the rebels do capture a district, government artillery pounds it, killing some and forcing others to flee. For those living in undamaged areas of the capital, there is an ever-growing fear of what the future holds, combined with increasing difficulties in day-to-day living because of cuts in electricity and a shortage of bread and cooking gas.
The rebels are making some progress on the ground but, overall, Syrians face a political and military stalemate. The rebels’ assaults on Aleppo and Damascus have faltered, but the government forces do not have the strength to push them out of enclaves they have taken over. In the north, in particular, the rebels are making ground in the countryside around Hama, Idlib and Aleppo, but their advance is still slow.
The revolution has turned into a civil war. The uprising of Syrians against a cruel police state that started in March 2011 increasingly looks to Alawites, Christians, Druze and other minorities like a sectarian campaign aimed at their elimination. They watch YouTube pictures of Alawite officers being ritually decapitated and wonder what fate awaits them if Assad is defeated.
On top of this, there is a simple fear of anarchy on the part of middle-class urban Syrians who have seen Aleppo devastated and believe the same will happen to Damascus. When I arrived in the capital at the start of the month I asked a friend about the mood and he said: “Fifteen per cent for the government, 15 per cent against and 70 per cent want this war over before it ruins us all.”
Can the present stalemate be broken? It does not really look like it unless the rebels receive a massive transfusion of money, training and guns, and this would not immediately have a decisive impact. Alternatively, Washington and London have long been hoping for a split in the Syrian leadership, but this has not happened. Even a string of well-publicised defections in recent weeks has not come from the core of the regime.
The furies of civil war grow ever fiercer. The war has long ago reached the stage of what in Northern Ireland we used to call “the politics of the last atrocity”, in which too much blood is being spilled to allow for negotiation and compromise.
The policy of the US and its allies is increasingly bizarre: on the one hand, they recognise the opposition National Coalition as the legitimate government of Syria but, on the other, they label its most effective fighting force, the al-Nusra Front, as “a terrorist organisation” linked to al-Qa’ida. Just as in Iraq after 2003, Syria has become a magnet for jihadi fighters across the Muslim world. Washington is showing ever-decreasing enthusiasm for an outright rebel military victory that would strengthen jihadi militants and dissolve the governing machinery of the Syrian state.
A problem for Syria in this crisis is that so many conflicts are wrapped into one. Secular supporters of the uprising emphasise that it is about “the people against the regime”. They downplay its sectarian nature, saying this is being exaggerated and manipulated by the government. But sectarianism and democracy are intertwined in Syria, just as they were in Iraq. In Iraq, a fair election meant rule by the Shia majority replacing the Sunni. In Syria, it means rule by the 70 per cent of the population who are Sunni replacing the Alawites and their allies. In both countries, democratic change has had, or will have, explosive sectarian consequences, because majority rule means a change in which community holds power.
The Syrian crisis is further complicated and exacerbated by being at the centre of two long-running regional struggles. These are [1] the growing confrontation between Sunni and Shia across the Muslim world and, secondly, the conflict that pits the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and their allies against Iran and its few friends.
It is difficult to see how the present stalemate is going to be broken. Damascus, Aleppo and Homs feel increasingly like Beirut during the 15-year civil war. Parts of these cities cling to normal life while, a few blocks away, snipers have their hideouts in buildings shattered by artillery fire. Neither side has the strength to checkmate the other. Warlords, small and big, become the real rulers of the country. In Aleppo, the commercial heart of Syria, the rebels’ main preoccupation is looting the city. The militarisation of the uprising is degrading its original democratic purpose. Barring full-scale foreign intervention, a negotiated settlement is becoming inevitable though it may be a long time coming.
PATRICK COCKBURN is the author of
Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq.
Ed.Note: It appears that author and journalist Webster Tarpley’s analysis about what is behind all the noise and smoke in Syria is much more close to what I have said, on the subject of America’s ongoing lies and propaganda.
“ This is the aim of Western propaganda agencies in pursuit of the initial Zionist plans outlined by Theo Hertzl over a hundred years ago. It is false reporting, and it is not working” If, as I often quote, 90% of the world’s media is owned by just 6 Zionist media groups, commencing with the largest, Disney, then by extrapolation it must be said that the Zionist media moguls, funded by Rothschilds and Jewish money, are losing the battle to own America, therefore they will not own Palestine even at the behest of Bryan’s comments and his old hat association of the American Indian nation to the identical demise (as he hopes) of the Palestinian nation. So that’s a plus. All such biased ownership will do then is to drag out the process, hopefully culminating in such legislation in the US that forbids Americans to have an Israeli passport as well, that it is a crime to support legislation against the national interest and that ownership of the press is limited to a 5% shareholding by any group, nationality, sect or cult, whatever fits.
Just three unsolicited suggestions among a needed twenty or so, most of which will require the demise of those politicians who have sold their patriotism for a dollar. Quite a number. Let us see how this pans out with the determination point being the appointment of the new Secretary of Defense or where I come from, Defence.
Mr. Cockburn stated when discussing the media reports out of Syria along these lines…..”More surprising is the willingness of the international media, based often in Beirut but also in London and New York, to regurgitate with so little scepticism what is essentially good-quality propaganda” Based on the ownership of the media and the inability of people, particularly Americans, to see past the headlines, is this surprising?
As a nightly observer of the news in my part of the world, almost always with videos from the same sources across two public funded networks and three commercial networks (the latter not known for their attention to detail), the comment seems to be always made that “we are unable to confirm that these pictures are accurate”. What they fail to say, however, is that the fact that they have shown them, coincidentally always from the “terrorists/rebels/freedom fighters” side, this means that they have a distinct value as propaganda for the “rebels”, funded and armed by the XX and XXXXXX and perhaps some right wing Arab dictatorships.
As I, along with the nightly newscasters, cannot verify that these two countries are responsible, I will not name them, clear though it must be to our honest and intrepid reporters through weapon provision, “advisors” on the ground, “diplomatic” representations and on. This has become the hinting habit practiced by the international media who need the story and fortunately, accuracy has never been mandatory.
In the US, it will receive a total New York Times rewrite anyway. One does often ponder the question, throwing the net over all the world, who has the most to gain. Simple really. The US needs hegemony, their economy demands it (while there is a war, or unrest, anywhere, Defence budgets receive approval, military industry continues unabated, people have jobs); Israel thrives on Middle Eastern unrest to add to their plan for ‘Eretz Israel’, the total ownership of that part of the world; NATO needs military activity to justify its existence and is always the first in to such places creating the illusion of a ‘world’ decision to ‘help’, a total fabrication of course, but who cares.
Read the newspapers, that’s always the way it reads. Remember who owns the media? The dictatorial Arab states like to remain subservient to the US dollar while it continues to have value, the almost single means to their wealth and power. If we think Syria is a just uprising for democracy, wait until the autocratic rulers in the Kingdoms see their people rise up and demand American-style democracy, another charade, but better than they have right now. With the obvious confusion in US policy in Syria, changing frequently, recognizing the National Coalition as the true government and viewing (this week at least) the al-Nusra Front, as “a terrorist organisation” linked to al-Qa’ida, (good old al-Qa’ida, it is still serving its purpose), it is such an on-going problem for them and they can’t even rely on the unbiased and learned opinions of that master of US Foreign Policy, Ms Clinton as she glows in her aura as #1 Israeli fellow -traveler status while going through her blood clot problem. Sadly, this may put paid to having her ever seen as the Empress of the US in 2016. So, there is a god after all
How convenient it has been for the US and its puppetmaster, Israel to represent Syria as NOT having a sectarian history, a history that has served them well, almost text book stuff. Well, is has done well and should be appreciated for that, but isn’t, naturally as the US is on the other side, remember? Nightly reports of course from the same ‘international media’ gives little value to this factor because as we are led to believe, they “cannot confirm the accuracy of such reports” Thankfully, Mr Cockburn can and has above, in his informative article.
Most of the world knows the sectarian success in Syria also but it doesn’t rate highly as a consideration in NATO thinking, the US / Israel amalgam and so it seems, in the “international media”, such as they are. As I have said before, they can’t confirm…….etc. etc.