When is 500 greater than 40,000? Syrian Math Redux

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 03/17/2018 - 10:51pm

The difference in the news media coverage of East Ghouta versus Afrin looks a whole lot like Aleppo versus Mosul.

Do you remember the rhetoric about Aleppo and Russia?

#Aleppo is joining Rwanda and Srebrenica as defining historical events that embody evil. #Assad, #Russia, #Iran know no shame.

— Samantha Power (@AmbPower44) December 13, 2016

people of Aleppo wish to inform you that tomorrow they will be killed with their families https://t.co/ghIBaSQRI8

— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) December 13, 2016

“To everyone who can hear me: We are here exposed to a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo,” she said. “This may be my last video. More than 50,000 of civilians who rebelled against the dictator al-Assad are threatened with field executions or dying under bombing.”

It sounds absolutely horrific, and it was.

The government assault has been backed by heavy artillery fire and air strikes, with at least 463 civilians, including 62 children, killed in eastern Aleppo since mid-November, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Now let's look at Mosul.
230 innocent civilians were killed in Mosul in a single night from U.S. bombs. The American media barely noticed.
It's not like we were responsible. Those hundreds of dead women and children were “human shields” for ISIS snipers, so it was their fault.

That would be an awful lot of human shields, of course, and there wouldn’t be much point of stashing them inside buildings where the US forces clearly either didn’t know where they were or didn’t feel it amounted to a deterrent to bombing those buildings anyhow.

So many civilians are being killed by U.S. bombs that Air Force Brig. Gen. Matthew Isler had to publicly deny that our bombing weren't "indiscriminate".
So when we bomb hospitals and slaughter civilians while "liberating" Mosul, it's "tragic".
It doesn't get much attention in the U.S. press, but Iraq has managed to solve their prison population problem - they don't take prisoners.

The major scoffs at claims made by some Iraqi soldiers that the jails in Baghdad were already too full to take any more IS prisoners.
"It's not true, we have plenty of prisons, but now we are not treating the prisoners like we did before," he says. "Earlier in this war, we arrested a lot of Daesh and brought them to the intelligence services. But now, we make very few arrests."

More than 40,000 are feared dead in Mosul, a number that dwarfs the destruction of east Aleppo.

Using this equation: 500 civilians killed by Assad and Russia is greater than 40,000 civilians killed by the U.S. and its allies.

We can see something like this ratio in the coverage of East Ghouta and Afrin.
East Ghouta:

The Syrian news agency SANA said more than 10,000 had escaped from the town of Hamoriya to government-controlled parts of the Syrian capital. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put the figure at more than 12,500.

Afrin:

More than 150,000 people have been displaced in the last few days from Syria’s Afrin town, a senior Kurdish official and a monitoring group said on Saturday.

So 10,000 refugees in one case, and 15 times as many in another case.
Guess which one Washington is outraged about? Guess which one caused the U.S. to threaten military action?

To be fair, roughly twice as many civilians have been killed in East Ghouta than in Afrin (500 vs. 280), but the fighting is almost over in East Ghouta, while the urban fighting in Afrin has just started.

As for the news media, they are playing the exact same tune.

Eastern Ghouta is another Srebrenica, we are looking away again
Syria regime threatens Eastern Ghouta with more genocide

When I did a search for "Afrin genocide" the results were a lot more sparse, although I did find this.

Syrian Arab militiamen leading the Turkish attack on Afrin in northern Syria are threatening to massacre its Kurdish population unless they convert to the variant of Islam espoused by Isis and al-Qaeda. In the past such demands have preceded the mass killings of sectarian and ethnic minorities in both Syria and Iraq.
In one video a militia fighter flanked by others describes the Kurds as “infidels” and issues a stark warning, saying "by Allah, if you repent and come back to Allah, then know that you are our brothers. But if you refuse, then we see that your heads are ripe, and that it's time for us to pluck them." Though the Kurds in Afrin are Sunni Muslims, Isis and al-Qaeda traditionally punish those who fail to subscribe to their beliefs as heretics deserving death.

“The video is 100 per cent authentic,” said Rami Abdulrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which released it, in an interview with The Independent.

Uh, excuse me?
Let me get this straight.
We are prepared to look the other way while our Kurdish allies in Syria are massacred by former ISIS and al-Qaeda jihadists?
In some cases we even support it.
In East Ghouta we abhor the government attack on an al-Qaeda-held enclave.

Something is seriously wrong here.

Mr Abdulrahman, who is the leading human rights monitor in Syria with a network of informants throughout the country, says he is worried that international attention is entirely focused on the Syrian army assault on Eastern Ghouta and “nobody is talking about” the potential slaughter of the Kurds and other minorities in Afrin.
Mr Abdulrahman points to growing evidence drawn from videos taken by themselves of militiamen claiming to be members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that the units advancing ahead of regular Turkish troops are extreme jihadis. This has previously been asserted by a former Isis member in an interview published by The Independent last month who said that many of his former comrades had been recruited and retrained by the Turkish military. He said that Isis recruits had been instructed by Turkish trainers not to use their traditional tactics, such as the of extensive use of car bombs, because this would identify them as terrorists.

Tags:

Syria

east ghouta

afrin

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Comments

Submitted by CB on Sat, 03/17/2018 - 11:51pm

The Duran has a good analysis of the Syrian propaganda

that has been pumped out by the western media since the start of the conflict. DKos has officially been promoting the first two, despite being offered a higher education. (BTW, their knowledge and understanding of the Libyan conflict was at the level of a pre-schooler.)

Many Americans have no clue what transpired in Syria. Here are 3 narratives explaining the conflict in Syria
Syrian War For Dummies – Three Versions

Syria could very well be one of the most heavily propagandized conflicts in modern history.

The lies told in the run up to the illegal Iraq invasion, in many ways dwarf the multiple fallacies told by the United States government, and its mainstream media cronies, as the regime change efforts in Syria have failed at every turn.
...
Via Zerohedge…

As the Ghouta campaign continues to unfold, we should expect that both politicians and mainstream media will give us – in the words of philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr – “necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications” intended to shape our perceptions of events.

It goes without saying that such “emotionally potent oversimplifications” on Syria have formed the dominant paradigm through which the American public has received its information over the past seven years of war. From the State Department officials to think tank “experts” to the Graham/McCain axis to CNN panelists to the neocon twitterati and all the usual interventionistas who cast everything in terms of Manichean good vs. evil, darkness vs. light, bloodthirsty tyrants vs. noble populace – we’ve had to endure and fight seven years of a constant stream of propaganda on Syria.

...
Zerohedge notes that although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies.

Below are three versions of the conflict as presented by Chris Kanthan via Sott.net…
...
Disney Version

Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. Eventually America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans and the Western mainstream media.
...
High School Version

Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.

America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Then, America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

The above version is presented in most of the global mainstream media.
...
College Version

Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last seven years (to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read: Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries).
...
Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans choose to believe?

P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:
...

Submitted by Steven D on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 12:50pm

We are so good at killing people

@CB for humanitarian reasons.

that has been pumped out by the western media since the start of the conflict. DKos has officially been promoting the first two, despite being offered a higher education. (BTW, their knowledge and understanding of the Libyan conflict was at the level of a pre-schooler.)

Many Americans have no clue what transpired in Syria. Here are 3 narratives explaining the conflict in Syria
Syrian War For Dummies – Three Versions

Syria could very well be one of the most heavily propagandized conflicts in modern history.

The lies told in the run up to the illegal Iraq invasion, in many ways dwarf the multiple fallacies told by the United States government, and its mainstream media cronies, as the regime change efforts in Syria have failed at every turn.
...
Via Zerohedge…

As the Ghouta campaign continues to unfold, we should expect that both politicians and mainstream media will give us – in the words of philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr – “necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications” intended to shape our perceptions of events.

It goes without saying that such “emotionally potent oversimplifications” on Syria have formed the dominant paradigm through which the American public has received its information over the past seven years of war. From the State Department officials to think tank “experts” to the Graham/McCain axis to CNN panelists to the neocon twitterati and all the usual interventionistas who cast everything in terms of Manichean good vs. evil, darkness vs. light, bloodthirsty tyrants vs. noble populace – we’ve had to endure and fight seven years of a constant stream of propaganda on Syria.

...
Zerohedge notes that although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies.

Below are three versions of the conflict as presented by Chris Kanthan via Sott.net…
...
Disney Version

Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. Eventually America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans and the Western mainstream media.
...
High School Version

Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.

America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Then, America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

The above version is presented in most of the global mainstream media.
...
College Version

Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last seven years (to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read: Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries).
...
Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans choose to believe?

P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:
...

—

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 5:07pm

Good article

@CB

I followed the links in it and there certainly is a lot of news that I haven't heard about going on there. Again, it's amazing that the other countries know that we are funding AQ and ISIS and they stayed quiet about it. This is a huge war crime and the Syrian civilians are paying the price for it and still nobody cares! What a huge statement on humanity.

that has been pumped out by the western media since the start of the conflict. DKos has officially been promoting the first two, despite being offered a higher education. (BTW, their knowledge and understanding of the Libyan conflict was at the level of a pre-schooler.)

Many Americans have no clue what transpired in Syria. Here are 3 narratives explaining the conflict in Syria
Syrian War For Dummies – Three Versions

Syria could very well be one of the most heavily propagandized conflicts in modern history.

The lies told in the run up to the illegal Iraq invasion, in many ways dwarf the multiple fallacies told by the United States government, and its mainstream media cronies, as the regime change efforts in Syria have failed at every turn.
...
Via Zerohedge…

As the Ghouta campaign continues to unfold, we should expect that both politicians and mainstream media will give us – in the words of philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr – “necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications” intended to shape our perceptions of events.

It goes without saying that such “emotionally potent oversimplifications” on Syria have formed the dominant paradigm through which the American public has received its information over the past seven years of war. From the State Department officials to think tank “experts” to the Graham/McCain axis to CNN panelists to the neocon twitterati and all the usual interventionistas who cast everything in terms of Manichean good vs. evil, darkness vs. light, bloodthirsty tyrants vs. noble populace – we’ve had to endure and fight seven years of a constant stream of propaganda on Syria.

...
Zerohedge notes that although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies.

Below are three versions of the conflict as presented by Chris Kanthan via Sott.net…
...
Disney Version

Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. Eventually America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans and the Western mainstream media.
...
High School Version

Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.

America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Then, America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

The above version is presented in most of the global mainstream media.
...
College Version

Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last seven years (to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read: Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries).
...
Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans choose to believe?

P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:
...

—

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

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 12:06pm

i just can't stand it.

—

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Submitted by earthling1 on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 2:01pm

From the American Patriots

who vote Democratic to the same Patriots who vote Republican; We must put our petty differences aside and take our democracy back from these warmongerers. Before it's too late and all of mankind suffers a horrible fate.

—

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Submitted by CB on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 2:48pm

Finally. A voice of reason from The Hill

I hope you don't mind me sticking this in your diary.

Time for the US to end democracy promotion flim-flams

Democracy promotion has long been one of the U.S. government’s favorite foreign charades....
...
NED has been caught interfering in elections in France, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and many other nations. NED’s operatives helped spark bloody coup attempts in Venezuela and Haiti; their efforts also helped topple the elected government in the Ukraine in 2014 and ignite the ongoing civil war.
...
Philosopher Hannah Arendt noted that during the Vietnam War, the U.S. government’s “policy of lying was hardly ever aimed at the enemy but chiefly if not exclusively destined for domestic consumption, for propaganda at home and especially for the purpose of deceiving Congress.” Similarly, NED exists to provide deniability to American politicians for their foreign meddling.

Gershman likes to portray NED as a “private and non-governmental” organization — as if billions of tax dollars had mysteriously showed up in its coffers via Congress over the decades. This facade usually passes muster with the docile American media but foreigners often see through the ruse — especially when Gershman publicly practically calls for ousting elected foreign leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
...
Democracy can be a wonderful thing but foreign aggression in its name usually doesn’t work out happily. President Obama invoked democracy to justify bombing Libya, leaving that nation in chaos, with terrorists running amok and slave markets openly operating. Promoting democracy was also one of Obama’s excuses for the U.S. government fueling Syria’s civil war, which has left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

U.S. interference taints every foreign election it touches. American politics continues to be roiled by Russian-financed Facebook and Twitter advertisements from a year and a half ago. This unending uproar should help Americans recognize how U.S. interventions in foreign referendums can pollute local political waters.

Unfortunately, many Washingtonians are blinded by self-serving sanctimony. National Democratic Institute president Kenneth Wollack claims that equating U.S. and Russian interventions in foreign elections is like “comparing someone who delivers lifesaving medicine to someone who brings deadly poison.” But the opiate crisis illustrates how easily therapeutic concoctions can produce vast carnage.

Democracy often provides a vast improvement in governance in foreign lands but bribery, finagling, and bombing are poor ways to export freedom. Can Washington politicians and policy wonks explain why the U.S. government deserves veto power over elections everywhere else on Earth? If not, it is time to end the “we see further” claptrap.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 4:25pm

gjohnsit,

if there are few comments to your essay so far, it may be for the reason I took so long to read it, fear of overwhelm. How long, I'm just asking rhetorically, how long is it going to take the American people to recognize the hypocrisy of the mouthpieces of war?

Thank you, gjohnsit, for the beautiful work that you do to move us forward. I am thankful every day that I have found this site and can read words like yours.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 4:35pm

Ditto what Linda said

Some times there just are no words or I've already said it a thousand times before. Killing without remorse is heinous!

—

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

Submitted by Mickt on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 5:59pm

Syria has baffled me

The confluence of forces that all meshed together is quite scary.

It was already known, but ignored, that the West was using PR to sell the war:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-...

Yet still they babble on. The comments on any Washington Post article about Syria is filled with people mocking the article. The original strategy was to have Bashar gone in months. It didn't work so now everyone is on autopilot. They have no way to change to narrative to fit their original fantasy world so they must go on.

But this didn't start in 2011. This started at least in the mid 2000s. The neo-conservatives did everything they could to keep Syria isolated while they dealt with the Iraq mess. Syria quietly offered to help close the borders, but we refused. We would rather Saudis and Libyans (from East Libya, the Islamic extremists that later became our friends) come in troves to Iraq to fight against the U.S. than dare speak with secular Syria. I could speak for hours of the balancing act President Bashar faced at the time, but as we see now, actively supporting extremists is nothing he did or want to do.

So 2011 came about and all of a sudden France, England, the U.S., and Saudi was chomping at the bit to get rid of Qadhafi. Out of nowhere. As stated earlir, we sided with Islamic groups to rid the country of its leader based on lies which required Soros' tool...R2P. So now Soros gets to decide which country lives and dies. He has a massive PR campaign at his disposal. Him and Bernard Henri Levy (France) and my who knows who led the British charge all went full bore with lots of momentum behind them.

With Libya now a rotting corpse of a nation with tribal warfare, slave trade, no stable government, it was off to Syria.

But this isn't just American/European elites. King 'Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hated both Qadhafi and Bashar. Orient TV (and others) spewed out the most vile, racists anti-Alawite garbage. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera Arabic went from being a respected news outlet to propaganda for the Qatari regime overnight.

(However, Al Jazeera’s increasingly explicit politicization of news narratives on Arab affairs led to a progressive loss of credibility. It soon became obvious that the channel’s coverage was unequal in terms of quality and intensity from a country to another, especially on Bahrain and Syria. https://www.inaglobal.fr/en/television/article/al-jazeera-when-politics-... )

Who is behind this? Is it just a perfect storm? I don't know.

These are factors thrown about:
- Petrodollar. Iraq switched to the petrodollar in 2002. France and Russia didn't support the war because they were making money. Saddam was selling his oil in Euros. All Iraqi oil is now sold in petrodollars again, Venezuela and others are also feeling the wrath of nations that don't prop up our all mighty dollar.

- Just plain oil. We are still pushing the TAPI pipeline in Afghanistan. (Which is why we sent more troops.) Soros and BHL both only care about Ukraine for the natural gas and wrest energy money from Putin. (Or is Soros afraid his money will be worthless if the world quits using the petrodollar?)

- Vandettas. King 'Abdullah hated Qadhafi. Then after Bashar called all the people that stood by while Lebanon was getting pummeled by Israel in 2006 half-men, that pretty much iced over that relationship.

- Israel. The all important 'land bridge' between Iran and Lebanon. The fact thy fly stuff now is irrelevant I guess. The same argument could be made in 2003. Iran, Iraq and Syria were about to build a railway system connecting them. (How horrible, devious and evil!) While I agree Zionists like weak states, Israel proper is looking at the fact that ISIS is still sitting on its border. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Golan-ISIS-threat-looms-large-over-Isra...

As the guardian article above shows, the media are intentionally feeding us PR designed story. They have for years. Our politicians play right along, and some like Hillary, McCain, Graham, Biden get rich going along with these games.

I honestly think that is why the full court press on Russia based on really flimsy arguments is going on. The Soros crowd (who paid Podesta quite a sum to help support Hillary) no longer has their fingers in the pie. The Republicans are trying to defend Trump while still saying Russia is evil to keep their fingers in the pie. The media will tear anyone apart for even suggesting this is happening. Just as the Washington Post did yesterday blaming Hungary for daring to suggest the noble and pure Soros would try to throw an election.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 7:23pm

The attack in London with the nerve agent

@Mickt

...was the US meddling in today's Russian election. It's the payback for Hillary.

There a lot of big picture out there.

Lot's of nations are not always using the Dollar for oil trades, now. Including Venezuela, China, and Russia. India and Iran. Once an OPEC country steps into the fastest growing market, it's over for the dollar. Not a minute too soon.

The confluence of forces that all meshed together is quite scary. It was already known, but ignored, that the West was using PR to sell the war: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-... Yet still they babble on. The comments on any Washington Post article about Syria is filled with people mocking the article. The original strategy was to have Bashar gone in months. It didn't work so now everyone is on autopilot. They have no way to change to narrative to fit their original fantasy world so they must go on. But this didn't start in 2011. This started at least in the mid 2000s. The neo-conservatives did everything they could to keep Syria isolated while they dealt with the Iraq mess. Syria quietly offered to help close the borders, but we refused. We would rather Saudis and Libyans (from East Libya, the Islamic extremists that later became our friends) come in troves to Iraq to fight against the U.S. than dare speak with secular Syria. I could speak for hours of the balancing act President Bashar faced at the time, but as we see now, actively supporting extremists is nothing he did or want to do. So 2011 came about and all of a sudden France, England, the U.S., and Saudi was chomping at the bit to get rid of Qadhafi. Out of nowhere. As stated earlir, we sided with Islamic groups to rid the country of its leader based on lies which required Soros' tool...R2P. So now Soros gets to decide which country lives and dies. He has a massive PR campaign at his disposal. Him and Bernard Henri Levy (France) and my who knows who led the British charge all went full bore with lots of momentum behind them. With Libya now a rotting corpse of a nation with tribal warfare, slave trade, no stable government, it was off to Syria. But this isn't just American/European elites. King 'Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hated both Qadhafi and Bashar. Orient TV (and others) spewed out the most vile, racists anti-Alawite garbage. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera Arabic went from being a respected news outlet to propaganda for the Qatari regime overnight. (However, Al Jazeera’s increasingly explicit politicization of news narratives on Arab affairs led to a progressive loss of credibility. It soon became obvious that the channel’s coverage was unequal in terms of quality and intensity from a country to another, especially on Bahrain and Syria. https://www.inaglobal.fr/en/television/article/al-jazeera-when-politics-... ) Who is behind this? Is it just a perfect storm? I don't know. These are factors thrown about: - Petrodollar. Iraq switched to the petrodollar in 2002. France and Russia didn't support the war because they were making money. Saddam was selling his oil in Euros. All Iraqi oil is now sold in petrodollars again, Venezuela and others are also feeling the wrath of nations that don't prop up our all mighty dollar. - Just plain oil. We are still pushing the TAPI pipeline in Afghanistan. (Which is why we sent more troops.) Soros and BHL both only care about Ukraine for the natural gas and wrest energy money from Putin. (Or is Soros afraid his money will be worthless if the world quits using the petrodollar?) - Vandettas. King 'Abdullah hated Qadhafi. Then after Bashar called all the people that stood by while Lebanon was getting pummeled by Israel in 2006 half-men, that pretty much iced over that relationship. - Israel. The all important 'land bridge' between Iran and Lebanon. The fact thy fly stuff now is irrelevant I guess. The same argument could be made in 2003. Iran, Iraq and Syria were about to build a railway system connecting them. (How horrible, devious and evil!) While I agree Zionists like weak states, Israel proper is looking at the fact that ISIS is still sitting on its border. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Golan-ISIS-threat-looms-large-over-Isra... As the guardian article above shows, the media are intentionally feeding us PR designed story. They have for years. Our politicians play right along, and some like Hillary, McCain, Graham, Biden get rich going along with these games. I honestly think that is why the full court press on Russia based on really flimsy arguments is going on. The Soros crowd (who paid Podesta quite a sum to help support Hillary) no longer has their fingers in the pie. The Republicans are trying to defend Trump while still saying Russia is evil to keep their fingers in the pie. The media will tear anyone apart for even suggesting this is happening. Just as the Washington Post did yesterday blaming Hungary for daring to suggest the noble and pure Soros would try to throw an election.

—

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

Submitted by CB on Sun, 03/18/2018 - 10:26pm

I would like to add that the causes of the Syrian conflict

@Mickt
are numerous. The Duran has an excellent discussion of this you may be interested in.

Many Americans have no clue what transpired in Syria. Here are 3 narratives explaining the conflict in Syria
Syrian War For Dummies – Three Versions

Syria could very well be one of the most heavily propagandized conflicts in modern history.

The lies told in the run up to the illegal Iraq invasion, in many ways dwarf the multiple fallacies told by the United States government, and its mainstream media cronies, as the regime change efforts in Syria have failed at every turn.
...
Zerohedge notes that although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies.

Below are three versions of the conflict as presented by Chris Kanthan via Sott.net…
...
After Russia had effectively defeated ISIS, the US didn’t just leave Syria, since the real goal is to Balkanize Syria and prepare for a war against Iran. Thus the West is now trying to use Kurds as a proxy tool in this effort. It’s likely that the US will have military bases in Syria for a long time. As long as the US government can keep borrowing money, such wild adventures will continue.

In their quest for hegemonic geopolitical goals, the elites are sowing more chaos around the world and irreparably damaging the western moral compass. The global mafia’s rule seems to be this: if you play by our rules, we will be nice to you. If you don’t…

Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans choose to believe?
...
P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:

b. 1983: CIA document on plans to obliterate Syria to enable an oil pipeline
c. 1986: CIA document on how to use Muslim Brotherhood to fuel a sectarian (Sunni v. Shiite) civil war in Syria
d. 2001: Wesley Clark told that USA will take out 7 countries in 5 years (Libya, Syria etc.)
e. 2005: CNN Interview. Christiane Amanpour tells Assad that the western governments are plotting a regime change in Syria
f. 2006: State Dept cable: Detailed discussion of various strategies to enable regime change in Syria
g. 2009: State Dept Email: Saudi Arabia is worried that a Shiite crescent is turning into a full moon (referring to a possible Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon coalition)
h. 2009: State Dept Cable: Saudi Arabia is the #1 source of funding of terrorism worldwide
i. 2012 State Dept Email: Conquest of Syria means a weakened Iran and this is important for Israel
j. 2012: State Dept Email: Use Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to arm/train rebels
k. 2014: Hillary Clinton admits in an email that Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund ISIS
l. 2015: Joe Biden says Saudi Arabia and Qatar arming/funding Al Qaeda in Syria
m. 2016: John Kerry in a leaked audio recording explains how the US trained/armed the opposition and was hoping to use ISIS to force Assad into negotiation
n. Israel’s Mossad chief admits helping Al Qaeda and says that it’s because Al Qaeda never attacks Israel

A mix of Israeli interests, Iran, oil, pipelines and the petrodollar is an explosive mixture (especially the first item). Israel is the foremost concern of the neocons running the show in the ME. Russia has also been the neocons prime target for destruction since the end of WWII.

Syria will morph into another forever war unless the neocons and Israel are removed from positions of power in the US government.

The confluence of forces that all meshed together is quite scary. It was already known, but ignored, that the West was using PR to sell the war: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-... Yet still they babble on. The comments on any Washington Post article about Syria is filled with people mocking the article. The original strategy was to have Bashar gone in months. It didn't work so now everyone is on autopilot. They have no way to change to narrative to fit their original fantasy world so they must go on. But this didn't start in 2011. This started at least in the mid 2000s. The neo-conservatives did everything they could to keep Syria isolated while they dealt with the Iraq mess. Syria quietly offered to help close the borders, but we refused. We would rather Saudis and Libyans (from East Libya, the Islamic extremists that later became our friends) come in troves to Iraq to fight against the U.S. than dare speak with secular Syria. I could speak for hours of the balancing act President Bashar faced at the time, but as we see now, actively supporting extremists is nothing he did or want to do. So 2011 came about and all of a sudden France, England, the U.S., and Saudi was chomping at the bit to get rid of Qadhafi. Out of nowhere. As stated earlir, we sided with Islamic groups to rid the country of its leader based on lies which required Soros' tool...R2P. So now Soros gets to decide which country lives and dies. He has a massive PR campaign at his disposal. Him and Bernard Henri Levy (France) and my who knows who led the British charge all went full bore with lots of momentum behind them. With Libya now a rotting corpse of a nation with tribal warfare, slave trade, no stable government, it was off to Syria. But this isn't just American/European elites. King 'Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hated both Qadhafi and Bashar. Orient TV (and others) spewed out the most vile, racists anti-Alawite garbage. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera Arabic went from being a respected news outlet to propaganda for the Qatari regime overnight. (However, Al Jazeera’s increasingly explicit politicization of news narratives on Arab affairs led to a progressive loss of credibility. It soon became obvious that the channel’s coverage was unequal in terms of quality and intensity from a country to another, especially on Bahrain and Syria. https://www.inaglobal.fr/en/television/article/al-jazeera-when-politics-... ) Who is behind this? Is it just a perfect storm? I don't know. These are factors thrown about: - Petrodollar. Iraq switched to the petrodollar in 2002. France and Russia didn't support the war because they were making money. Saddam was selling his oil in Euros. All Iraqi oil is now sold in petrodollars again, Venezuela and others are also feeling the wrath of nations that don't prop up our all mighty dollar. - Just plain oil. We are still pushing the TAPI pipeline in Afghanistan. (Which is why we sent more troops.) Soros and BHL both only care about Ukraine for the natural gas and wrest energy money from Putin. (Or is Soros afraid his money will be worthless if the world quits using the petrodollar?) - Vandettas. King 'Abdullah hated Qadhafi. Then after Bashar called all the people that stood by while Lebanon was getting pummeled by Israel in 2006 half-men, that pretty much iced over that relationship. - Israel. The all important 'land bridge' between Iran and Lebanon. The fact thy fly stuff now is irrelevant I guess. The same argument could be made in 2003. Iran, Iraq and Syria were about to build a railway system connecting them. (How horrible, devious and evil!) While I agree Zionists like weak states, Israel proper is looking at the fact that ISIS is still sitting on its border. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Golan-ISIS-threat-looms-large-over-Isra... As the guardian article above shows, the media are intentionally feeding us PR designed story. They have for years. Our politicians play right along, and some like Hillary, McCain, Graham, Biden get rich going along with these games. I honestly think that is why the full court press on Russia based on really flimsy arguments is going on. The Soros crowd (who paid Podesta quite a sum to help support Hillary) no longer has their fingers in the pie. The Republicans are trying to defend Trump while still saying Russia is evil to keep their fingers in the pie. The media will tear anyone apart for even suggesting this is happening. Just as the Washington Post did yesterday blaming Hungary for daring to suggest the noble and pure Soros would try to throw an election.