The Syria War, Propaganda and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

The Syria "civil" war began in 2011 after unrest occurred in the context of the manufactured Arab Spring protests.

"The CIA’s Fake “Arab Spring” Becoming A Long, Hot Summer Of War"

http://tarpley.net/2011/06/20/cia-fake-arab-spring-becoming-summer-of-war/

"U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&emc...

To call what's happening in Syria a civil war is inaccurate and parrots what the imperialist warmongers and Greater Israel Zionists call it to obscure their role in starting and administering their (semi) proxy war against the Assad regime that has caused the deaths of up to 200,000 and caused up to 3 million to become refugees. Regime change in Syria has long been on the imperialist's and zionist's agenda relative to their remaking of the Middle East and North Africa region. General Wesley Clark's infamous remarks regarding the seven countries in five years included Syria. The Project for a New American Century plan included taking down Syria, which is where Clark got it from. The Wolfowitz Doctrine included taking down Syria. The Oded Yinon plan included taking down Syria. Obama taking over as President did not change the overall agenda. Duh. Neither will it with Trump.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-pro...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2014/07/the-unfolding-of-yinons-zionist-plan-fo...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

The propaganda from western media as supplied by western and non western governments and private interests has been incredible during the Syria war, following the same script used in Libya to assist in taking down the Gaddafi regime and tearing that country apart. Overall it has worked very well. Obama is not generally seen as an equal warmonger to his predecessor but reality tells a different story. The use of terrorist groups as proxies keeps the public confused as to the nature of the conflict. It works every time. Keep American troops out of the equation and few will complain. Start getting Americans killed in a war and . .

I happened to end my relationship with the Daily Kos blog over ISIS propaganda, in that case a bogus story that ISIS had ordered female genital mutilation of all women in Mosul. I called the diarist on the story and was ridiculed for not believing the propaganda. Of course those doing the ridiculing were and are the biggest supporters of war criminal Obama and his imperialist war in Syria. The story was proven to be false which was obvious from the start. That was it for me and Daily Kos, I could no longer take such blatant idiocy and willful ignorance. It continues to this day.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/24/1316301/-ISIS-Orders-Female-Gen...

Early on in the tragic conflict an "organization" by the name of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) became promiment in the mainstream media with it's reporting from and about Syria. Many of the accounts were alleged first hand tales that could not be verified but the MSM lapped it all up and reported whatever SOHR fed them, per their mission.

Pushback came early from the alternative media. The SOHR was revealed to be a one man operation out of an apartment in London, an expat Syrian named Rami Abdul Rahman, a member of the Syrian opposition who wants the Assad regime removed. The New York Times, in an attempt to provide cover for the uncovered, reported on this in 2013:

"Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.

Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city [Coventry, England]."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/world/middleeast/the-man-behind-the-ca...

He's reported to be receiving money from the European Union. Of course he was, and is.

"Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify."

Tony Cartilucci of the Land Destroyer Report elaborates:

"Abdul Rahman is not the “head” of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, run out of his UK-based house as a one-man operation.

And while Abdul Rahman refuses to identify that “European country,” it is beyond doubt that it is the United Kingdom itself – as Abdul Rahman has direct access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, who he has been documented meeting in person on multiple occasions at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The NYT in fact reveals that it was the British government that first relocated Abdul Rahman to Coventry, England after he fled Syria over a decade ago because of his anti-government activities:

When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace.

Abdul Rahman is not a “human rights activist.” He is a paid propagandist. He is no different than the troupe of unsavory, willful liars and traitors provided refuge in Washington and London during the Iraq war and the West’s more recent debauchery in Libya, for the sole purpose of supplying Western governments with a constant din of propaganda and intentionally falsified intelligence reports designed specifically to justify the West’s hegemonic designs."

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2013/04/exposed-syrian-human-rights-fr...

I remember reading these accounts at the time. I haven't followed the happenings in Syria as much since the Liar in Chief and his Skull and Bones Never Forget That Secretary of State partner in crime stood in front of the world in 2013 and lied like a Bush regarding the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Obama wanted to go to war but according to the the liberal left, they were responsible for stopping him by their leading a public outcry against a military attack. According to Big Al, Obama chickened out because he knew they could not sustain the lie and he didn't want to walk around like Bush and Cheney the rest of his life with a fake WMD collar around his scrawny little neck. I could be wrong though.

"We" figured this propaganda outlet couldn't last. It was too frigging obvious.

"The charade that is the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” is also unraveling. It is unlikely that the New York Times’ limited hangout will convince readers that Rami Abdul Rahman is anything other than another “Curveball” helping the corporate-financier elite of Wall Street and London sell another unnecessary war to the public."

So imagine my surprise when I saw the SOHR name pop up during the recent March war propaganda efforts against Syria with the allegations that the Syrian government was responsible for a poison gas attack. Of course, that name had been there all along, I just stopped paying attention.

"A group monitoring the Syrian civil war said on Tuesday government forces carried out a poison gas attack that killed six people in the northwest, and medics posted videos of children suffering what they said was suffocation.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict through a network of sources, said the six dead included a man, his wife and their three children. It cited medical sources as saying they died as a result of gas from barrel bombs dropped late on Monday and that the chemical used was likely chlorine.

Dozens more were wounded in the attack, the Observatory said. Reuters could not independently verify the report."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/17/us-mideast-crisis-syria-chemic...

Imagine that, another "could not independently verify the report" article in the mainstream media. WTF do they think we are, fools? Well ya, with good reason.

ZeroHedge had this take.

"According to Reuters, "a group monitoring the Syrian civil war said on Tuesday government forces carried out a poison gas attack that killed six people in the northwest, and medics posted videos of children suffering what they said was suffocation." Of course it could be just a bunch of actors like in the summer of 2013, but that's irrelevant - there is a YouTube clip out there and it is only a matter of time before John Kerry latches on to it as this year's pretext to declare war on Syria.

Syria would laugh if it could, however it can't: "a Syrian military source described the report of an attack in the village of Sarmin in Idlib province as propaganda. "We confirm that we would not use this type of weapon, and we don't need to use it," the source said."

Too late: the "facts" are out there: "The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict through a network of sources, said the six dead included a man, his wife and their three children. It cited medical sources as saying they died as a result of gas from barrel bombs dropped late on Monday and that the chemical used was likely chlorine. Dozens more were wounded in the attack, the Observatory said. Reuters could not independently verify the report."

The propaganda is coming hot and heavy."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-17/here-we-go-again-youtube-clips-...

And they were right, it was only a matter of time before John "Skull and Bones - Don't Ever Forget That" Kerry did latch on to that.

Stage left, ready, action.

"The United States is deeply disturbed by reports that Syrian government forces attacked the town of Sarmin using chlorine as a weapon on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement on Thursday.

“We are looking very closely into this matter and considering next steps,” he said. “While we cannot yet confirm details, if true, this would be only the latest tragic example of the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people, which the entire international community must condemn.”

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/19/

The Empire and the complicit western media appear to be (edit: wtf - they are making) making another push to justify a U.S./NATO military attack on Syria. The ISIS angle is the key by playing up the danger and the need for western intervention. The propaganda is the same as always and so is the source, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, or Mr. Rahman of Coventry.

Rahman of Coventry, have you met Robin of Locksley? You probably wouldn't get along.

ISIS of course is simply Al Qaeda renamed. It's a western creation just like Al Qaeda was in the 80's when the ruling class imperialists finally took down the USSR. (Back in the USSR, we know how lucky you are boys, Back in the USSR).

Today there were three articles in the mainstream media (the 90% of media owned by the super rich) reporting on ISIS in Syria. The first is from CNN, "ISIS is 'everywhere' in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra."

"After at least 100 Syrian soldiers died in fighting overnight, Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes Thursday in and around Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. But there's no indication that Syrian ground forces will try to take back the city, 150 miles northeast of Damascus, the capital. Nor that any other countries such as the United States will come to the rescue.

"The world does not care about us," the Palmyra resident said. "All they are interested in is the stones of ancient Palmyra."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/21/middleeast/isis-syria-iraq/index.html

The world does not care about us, says the unknown citizen, according to Top Rahman. Of the Observatory.

Reuters follows that up with this, with their go to guy Mr. Top Rahman. I think Reuters and Top have a direct line to each other. Or maybe a bat signal in the sky whenever MI6 decides to up their game.

"Islamic State says it has full control of Syria's Palmyra"

Islamic State fighters tightened their grip on the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday and overran Iraqi government defenses east of Ramadi, the provincial capital that they seized five days earlier.

The twin successes not only pile pressure on Damascus and Baghdad but throw doubt on a U.S. strategy of relying almost exclusively on air strikes to support the fight against Islamic State.

U.S. and coalition forces had conducted 18 air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq since Wednesday, the U.S. military said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the al Qaeda offshoot now controlled more than half of all Syrian territory after more than four years of conflict that grew out of an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKB...

Then there's this article from VICE news, the Hillary Clinton of alternative internet news sites.

"Islamic State Has Reportedly Recruited 400 Children In 2015"

"A Syrian rights monitor has reported that the Islamic State (IS) militant group has recruited some 400 children to its ranks in Syria since the beginning of the year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Tuesday that the Sunni Muslim group has focused on recruiting children around mosques, schools, and public areas where executions by stoning, beheading, crucifixion, and other brutal acts of violence are carried out on non-conforming individuals.

"They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead," Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of SOHR, told Reuters."

https://news.vice.com/article/islamic-state-has-reportedly-recruited-400...

After getting fully exposed as a tool of the western ruling class propaganda system, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, i.e., Mr. (Top) Rahman, is still being fully utilized in that very system. Reuters, CNN, Fox news, Top is the go to guy for the Syria war propaganda network. He's very busy these days with the latest push for western military action in Syria. Even in the so called progressive "alternative" news sites like Democracy Now. They don't do their homework, don't care, or are part of it, I don't know which.

War propaganda is real. As a country and a people, we keep forgetting that.

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Big Al's picture

but I can't find it and need it to set up another essay I'll publish here pretty quick. Some good information for those interested.

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snoopydawg's picture

“We are looking very closely into this matter and considering next steps,” he said. “While we cannot yet confirm details, if true, this would be only the latest tragic example of the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people, which the entire international community must condemn.”

What about the atrocities that this country commits on a daily basis somewhere in some country that is no threat to us or any freedoms that we have left?

From spraying agent orange over the people in Vietnam, the deliberate bombings of weddings and the people who came to help them, the hospital bombing in Afghanistan and being part of the war crimes that Saudi Arabia is committing to the people in Yemen, to..........

I'm seeing people defending the new Iraq war because we have to help them fight ISIS and protect the Iraqi people from them. And that our military should just nuke them and get it over with. No regards for the innocent civilians who would also be killed.
The comments I read about the wars tells me that people have bought the propaganda that our military is needed for helping people from the latest boogeyman and they are defending our freedoms.
I wonder if they even bother to think how terrorists could take our freedoms from us?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

mimi's picture

essays.

Don't you ever sleep, you guys? I will not finish to digest both of them til after my afternoon nap and then it's about time to get ready for the next EB.

Help! Is 'less more' or is 'more less' or is it 'just me'? Don't answer those question.

Just saying thanks to both for your work.

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CB's picture

Syrian War Propaganda at the Oscars

The Western-backed war in Syria, like the invasion of Iraq, was so smothered by propaganda that truth was not only the first casualty but has been steadily suffocated for five years, now reaching the Oscars, says Rick Sterling.
...
Whether or not the White Helmets snag the Academy Award, they surely deserve recognition for their skillful marketing and advertising. In 2016, the group received the Rights Livelihood Award and was seriously considered for a Nobel Peace Prize. The Oscar nomination for “The White Helmets” movie is just the latest success in the ongoing campaign of distortion and deception around Syria.

Amy Goodman at Democracy Now lost any respect I had for both her and the site at the beginning of the hostilities against Syria. They had done a good job during the Iraq conflict under Bush but failed miserably when it came to the foreign interventions under the Obama regime.

Democracy Now! Criminal Cheerleaders for US-NATO-GCC’s Perpetual Conflict and Bloodshed in Syria

“A closer look at what Goodman’s “Democracy Now” is reporting on Syria shows that the purported critical broadcaster has become a purveyor of Western government propaganda. While the mainstream media’s propaganda function is obvious to the informed public, Goodman’s “Democracy Now” plays a more subtle role. Camouflaged with the trappings of critical, independent journalism, “Democracy Now” serves to sow powerful seeds of misinformation in a way that the “compromised” mainstream media cannot.”

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complaining about fake news, all the while shoving SOHR bullshit down everyone's throats. Just as bad are the staged videos produced by the "White Helmets", another MI6 operation. Anyone who thinks msm reporting on Syria represents the truth, is being taken for a fool.

Excellent expose Big Al. If only this information were broadcast to a wider public, we might be able to avoid being hustled into ever more deadly, and insanely expensive misadventures. As it is, Americans continue to sleepwalk through a teevee fantasy-land version of these wars of aggression -- one that bears little resemblance to anything real.

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native

CB's picture

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The US war on Vietnam was illegal and immoral and based on fake news, the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The USSR came to the aid of Vietnam and at a great cost defeated the US. The US was really pissed off. A third world country, with the aid of our global adversary had completely defeated the great U.S.of A. So with great wisdom, the US admitted its mistake and acknowledged a just defeat .... not. Instead the US trolled for revenge. That came in 1980 when the Soviet Union became mired in its own Vietnamese War, the Afghan War. The opposition, the mujahedin, were a religious fundamentalist group using terrorist tactics, although really a bunch of warlords distributed all over Afghanistan. The West, and China by the way, saw an opportunity to punish the Soviet Union and financing for the opposition came mainly from the CIA, 3 billion dollars, and Saudi Arabia. Certainly the USSR suffered a significant loss and this perhaps contributed to the dissolution of the USSR, although irreversible changes were already taking place in the Soviet Union and particularly in the Russian Soviet Republic in the late 1980s. The financing, training, and supplying of weapons to the mujahedin, along with the religious training of young refugee Afghan males in Pakistan, contributed to the formation of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and eventually ISIS, with a great deal of help from George W Bush's Iraq war. Here's what Wiki has to say about blowback:

Blowback, or unintended consequences of funding the mujahideen, was said to have come to the United States in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the September 11 attacks.[259] In the 1993 bombing, all of the participants in the bombing "either had served in Afghanistan or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-raising organ for the Afghan jihad" that was later "revealed to be al Qaeda's de facto U.S. headquarters".[259] Principals in the 2001 attack—Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed[266] — had both fought in Afghanistan, and bin Laden was a lieutenant of Abdullah Azzam. His group Al Qaeda, returned to Afghanistan to take refuge with the Taliban after being expelled from Sudan.[259] Before the 9/11 attack, Al Qaeda had bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and nearly sank the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000.

The parallels of the two wars are very depressing. Estimates of civilian casualties in both cases run to two million. In both cases, global superpowers tried to control the politics of third world countries by military means. The US should have stayed out of Vietnam and the USSR should have stayed out of Afghanistan. The problem now is that global blow-back is consuming the Middle East and threatening all of the West. It certainly has had very serious repercussions in the US, with the political annihilation of the now war-mongering Clinton/Democratic Party and the election of Donald Trump, playing on fears of "Radical Muslim Terrorism", his term.

My conclusion is that the US is still trying to punish the USSR in Syria, but this war was massive overreach by the West and the outcome will be significantly different. Will the US collapse as an indirect effect of all of this? Perhaps, but I do think that we will never be the same. We have too many self-inflicted wounds, we have killed too many people, and we have irritated the other global superpower and are at the brink of Nuclear War and we are totally unaware, thank you MSM.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.