In Part 1 we looked at the ‘official’ account of the so called Syrian civil war given to us by the Western MSM and the U.S led coalition who backed “opposition groups” inside Syria. In Part 2 we considered the Politcal reality inside Syria and asked if we could believe everything we have been told about the ‘Syrian regime.’
Another term consistently fed to us by the Western MSM has been ‘the Syrian civil war.’ A civil war can be defined as an intrastate war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country. That has never been true of the situation inside Syria. There were a number of protests during the ‘Arab Spring’ but these were nowhere near as widespread or as popular as we were led to believe. Syrian support for the armed struggle evaporated almost as soon as it began. Just like ‘regime’ the use of ‘civil war’ is just more disinformation. More ‘fake news.’
As we discussed in Part 2, Syria has a government not a ‘regime,’ similarly use of the term ‘civil war’ by the Western MSM was (and is) intended to mislead the public about the essential nature of the Syrian conflict. Syria has suffered a bloody insurgency by various groups of predominantly foreign Islamist terrorists who were armed, funded and equipped by the U.S. led coalition and its Gulf allies. Pretty much everything we have been told about the Syrian war comes from a well oiled, centrally controlled, corporate owned propaganda machine.
In the West we used to deride the Soviet news agencies and expressed our empathy for the people living in Warsaw Pact countries who received nothing but government propaganda. However, unlike most of us, nearly every Soviet citizen knew the information they received was controlled by the state. Consequently, they treated it with the critical scepticism it deserved. The amazing achievement of the Western MSM propagandists is that they have convinced a duped population that they have a ‘free press’ who can be trusted to provide objective ‘news,’ independent of the state or powerful corporate interests.
As the spurious drivel we have been told about the Syrian war demonstrates, the Western mainstream media is largely an extension of the state. Unless something changes, if you want independent journalism, you will have to look towards the so called ‘alternative media,’ while it still exists. However, most importantly, we need to develop our critical thinking skills and stop simply believing everything we are told, no matter who is doing the telling.
By the time of the 2014 Syrian election, possibly realising their own spin was starting to look painfully transparent, the U.S. led coalition had given up the pretence of supporting democracy. They had instead moved on to say combating terrorism was the reason for attacking Syria. Again this appeared to be more of an excuse than a reason. Especially as the U.S. led coalition were the ones backing most of the terrorists. The idea of bad Islamist terrorists and good Islamist terrorists is pathetic equivocation.
‘Regime change’ has always been the sole reason for Western intervention in Syria. A 1986 CIA memo from the ‘Foreign Subversion and Instability Center,’ declassified in 2012, indicated that plans to topple the Syrian government, with the assistance of the Muslim Brotherhood, were being considered at least fifteen years before the start of the ‘humanitarian efforts.’ Given what has happened during the war in Syria, some remarkable parallels are notable. On Page 2 it stated:
“Although we judge that fear of reprisals and organizational problems make a second Sunni challenge unlikely, an excessive government reaction to minor outbreaks of Sunni dissidence might trigger large-scale unrest. In most instances the regime would have the resources to crush a Sunni opposition movement, but we believe widespread violence among the populace could stimulate large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or mutiny, setting the stage for civil war.”
The Muslim Brotherhood were identified as a potential key asset in overthrowing the regime:
“Assad crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, but deep-seated tensions remain–keeping alive the potential for minor incidents to grow into major flareups of communal violence……..the Muslim Brotherhood–some returning from exile in Iraq–could provide a core of leadership for the movement. Although the regime has the resources to crush such a venture, we believe brutal attacks on Sunni civilians might prompt large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or stage mutinies in support of dissidents, and Iraq might supply them with sufficient weapons to launch a civil war………..”
The document was basically a theory paper suggesting different scenarios that could force the collapse of the Syrian government. The CIA author describes the document as ‘purposefully provocative’ and it is based squarely upon the Gladio ‘strategy of tension.’ It appears to dovetail with the apparent objectives of the P2OG and the use of Islamists insurgencies to destabilise Libya, Iraq and Syria. The document also outlined the reason for attacking the Syrian government.
“U.S. interests would be best served by a Sunni regime controlled by business-oriented moderates. Business moderates would see a strong need for Western aid and investment to build Syria’s private economy, thus opening the way for stronger ties to Western governments.”
This is extremely similar to the ‘failed state’ model we have seen in the Balkans, Afghanistan and elsewhere. However, corporate profits from enforced reparation loans and corrupt reconstruction contracts aren’t the only reasons behind the Western kleptocracy’s desire for ‘regime change’ in Syria.
In 2009 Qatar approached Damascus to build a gas pipeline from the Qatari side of the one of the world’s largest gas fields, called the South Pars. Qatar needed Syrian cooperation in order to run the pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, then Syria onward to Turkey for sale to European markets. However, in 2010 Syria, Iran and Iraq agreed a deal to construct a $10 billion natural gas pipeline from the Iranian side of the South Pars, through Iraq and into Syria, with the view of eventually extending the pipeline to Greece as the entry point to Europe. The three nations signed the agreement in July 2011, just 3 months after the start of the violence in Daraa.
Europe is heavily reliant upon Russian energy supplies from the Russian State gas giant, Gazprom. The EU had been unable to form any sort of cohesive energy policy for years, their reliance upon Russian energy is a clear strategic weakness. The agreed Iran, Iraq, Syria pipeline (the Islamic pipeline) led the EU to soften its stance over Iran’s nuclear program. Which also explains why the EU has been hesitant to support U.S President Trump’s reneging upon the Iran Nuclear deal. This proposal also made Syria, comparatively bereft of its own natural resources in Middle Eastern terms, an important energy corridor to Europe.
However, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were the losers. Qatar could not run its planned pipeline to Europe without Syria. The U.S. were equally disgruntled. The Iranian gas wouldn’t be traded in the petrodollar, U.S. vassal Gulf States were undermined and it raised the potential of significant strategic energy cooperation between Tehran and Moscow. Balkanising Syria offered a possible solution. The plan to destabilise Syria was well underway by July 2011. The U.S. led coalition set in motion their tried and tested method of geostrategic manipulation, using Islamist terrorism to break apart the target nation. If the Syrian government wouldn’t serve Western aligned global, corporate interests then killing hundreds of thousands Syrian people would be the best way to protect shareholder profits.
You didn’t really think our economic and political elite cared about the Syrian’s freedom and democracy, did you? Whatever gave you that idea?
The Western view of Syria, force-fed to us by our mainstream media, has been designed to stop us from applying any critical thought. If we really understood what our governments were doing, it is possible we would try to stop them. So we had to be lied to on an industrial scale. Consequently, almost everything we have been told about Syria is a complete fabrication. The Western mainstream media have been peddling fake news about Syria for years at the behest of their corporate and political controllers.
Professor Piers Robinson, Chair in Politics Society and Political Journalism at the University of Sheffield, led a study looking at Western MSM coverage of he 2003 Iraq War. He wrote:
“A substantial body of research conducted over many decades highlights the proximity between Western news media and their respective governments, especially in the realm of foreign affairs……….For reasons that include over reliance on government officials as news sources, economic constraints, the imperatives of big business and good old-fashioned patriotism, mainstream Western media frequently fail to meet democratic expectations regarding independence.”
With regard to the Iraq war Prof. Robinson revealed the MSM consistently acted to reinforce government narratives and rarely, if ever, challenged them.
The Chilcot Inquiry in the UK looked at how the WMD story had emerged as a justification for the Iraq War. It revealed how senior politicians in the West viewed their relationship with the MSM. Tony Blair, in a series of slimy emails to his pal George Bush, wrote that “a dedicated tightly-knit propaganda unit” was required in order to begin “softening up” the U.S. and British public. Once the ‘war on terror’ was underway we have been ‘softened up’ ever since.
For example, we were told the violence in Syria started in Daraa. The story was that some child graffiti artists tagged a few anti Assad slogans. The Syrian police responded by taking them into custody, where they were beaten and tortured. In response, the people of Daraa protested, asking what had happened to their children. Syrian police then opened fire on the unarmed protestors and four were killed. This effectively triggered the ‘civil war’.
All the evidence suggests this story is ‘fake news’ designed to foment unrest in Syria, create an acceptable narrative for Western audiences and promote ‘regime change.’ Furthermore, the evidence shows the confrontation in Daraa was yet another false flag attack, though on this occasion, it was an attack committed by terrorists in order to blame the Syrian government.
During the Arab Spring genuine protests, inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, began in Syria. They were largely peaceful and passed without major incident. In response the Assad government met some of the protestors demands. They lifted the 48yr old state of emergency (martial law) and issued a decree acknowledging the rights of the Syrian people, including:[210]
“……the right to peaceful protest, as one of the basic human rights guaranteed by the Syrian Constitution.”
Economic hardship as a result of IMF and World Bank pressure, coupled with Western sanctions had pushed many poorer Syrians towards food shortages. So the Syrian government launched tax reforms and a financial assistance program for those most in need.
However, by then, the violence had already started and events were spiralling beyond the control of the Syrian government. On the 18th March 2011 the Western world heard about Syrian police killing four unarmed protestors in Daraa. A brutal slaying of innocent people exercising their democratic rights. What you weren’t told is that seven Syrian police officers were also shot dead. If the protesters were unarmed, and they were, who shot the police?
Daraa was perhaps an unusual place for a revolution to start in Syria. You might expect it to kick off in a major city rather than a rural town on the Jordanian border. Nonetheless, reports started to come out about the Syrian authorities brutal crackdown. The reports were based upon the eyewitness accounts of unnamed, anonymous ‘opposition’ or ‘human rights’ activists. Something that would become a feature of ‘the news’ concerning Syria for the next 7 years.
Shortly before the violence erupted Syrian forces seized a large shipment of arms and equipment, including night vision goggles, at the Tanaf border crossing with Iraq. The protesters in Daraa were not armed but during the street demonstrations on the 17th/18th Syrian troops exchanged fire with someone. Reports emerged that there were rooftop snipers, in and around the central al Omari Mosque. The Qatari backed al Jazeera network stated that these were Syrian security forces trying to kill the protestors. Yet they shot more members of the security services than protestors. Given that these police deaths were also reported by Israeli news agencies, among others, it is safe to assume this wasn’t pro Assad propaganda. Clearly Syrian forces came under fire in Daraa, and the death toll suggests the Syrian security forces were initially outmatched by the gunmen. Shortly after the shootings the local police station and government buildings were burned down.
It was in response to the shootings and the violence that the Syrian government sent the Army. Following further gun battles they stormed the al Omari mosque where a significant weapons cache was discovered. However, the Western media unanimously reported this was a lie, and only reported the deaths of innocent ‘protestors.’ Undoubtedly innocent people were caught up in the violence and many were killed in the cross fire but the reports made no sense. We were told that six were killed when the mosque was taken. Were these the unarmed protestors? We learned that ‘armed gangs’ had attacked an ambulance, killing four people. Who were these armed gangs if the protestors were unarmed? This was resolved less than a year later.
Anwar Al Eshki, a former Saudi Major General and president of ‘Center for Strategic studies’ in Jeddah confirmed to the BBC world service the Saudi’s had given the weapons to gunmen who had set up a base in the al Omari mosque before the violence started, just as the Syrian government claimed.
Not a word of this was reported by the Western MSM. Notably the BBC said nothing, even though they had conducted the interview. Al Eshki’s statement was reportedly corroborated by the cleric of the al Omari Mosque, Sheikh Ahmad al Sayasneh, who stated that gunmen from Libya had worked with local men, sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, to set up defensive positions in and around the Mosque. As the ‘protests’ spread to the nearby cities of As Suwayda, and then nationally to major urban areas like Aleppo and Homs, the same pattern was repeated.
Daraa wasn’t the only part of the country where anti government protests took place, but it was where the violence first began. What happened in Daraa was not only the false flag catalyst for a nationwide insurgency, it was also a microcosm of Syria’s supposed ‘civil war.’ Genuinely peaceful, legitimate protests were hijacked by foreign backed Islamist terrorist groups whose only objective was to overthrow the Syrian government to create their caliphate. They were violently opposed to the Syrian people’s calls for democracy and were quite prepared to kill them to build their Islamist utopia. This was the enemy the Syrian government faced, not its own people. As al Nusra and ISIS waged war on the Syrians, the people sought the protection of their government.
Homs based Dutch Jesuit priest Rev. Franz van der Lugt was executed by masked gunmen in 2014. The Western MSM reported that he was a thorn in the side of the ‘regime.’ They quoted a spokesman from ‘the rebels’ who stated the ‘regime’ may have killed him because he supported the revolution.
Father van der Lugt, a fluent Arabic speaker, was a respected member of Syrian society having lived in Syria for more than 40 years. He was opposed to violence and promoted inter faith dialogue, opening his church in the Bustan al Diwan neighborhood in Homs to Muslims and Christians alike. He supported democratic reform but, like most Syrians, was also a supporter of Syrian unity. In 2012, he wrote a letter to the Dutch website ‘Mediawerkgroep Syriëwebsite’ in which he stated:
“From the start, the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”
As an independent eyewitness to the start of the protests, his observations were at odds with the narrative being pumped out by the Western MSM. Father van der Lugt stated the protests could not be termed a ‘popular uprising’ because the majority of Syrians opposed them and, once the violence began, the consensus against the protests became even greater. He said:
“…..from the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition….The opposition of the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government. Many representatives of the government have been tortured and shot dead by them……I expect little good to come from the opposition, which, moreover, has been instigated and paid by foreign interests.”
He was highly critical of the Western media reports designed to give a wholly one sided narrative:
“……because the US, Europe and certain Arab countries support the opposition, they endeavour, whether consciously or unconsciously, to idealize it as much as possible, without engaging in any careful analysis of the real situation. Certain interests are obscuring our view of the real situation and contaminating the description of it.”
It is that ‘obscured view’ we have been given about the Syrian conflict. Father van der Lugt questioned whether this was intentional or not. However, as the insurgency unfolded, the sheer volume of consistent disinformation emanating from the Western MSM clearly indicates that they have been acting almost entirely as state propagandists for the U.S. led coalition. That the MSM later exploited his murder for their own propaganda purposes was obscene.
Key to this is the use of Non Governmental Organisations and ‘charities’ who provide the perfect plausible deniability for the machinations of the Deep State. What we have seen in Syria is a nexus of Western backed NGO’s, private mercenary organisations, terrorist groups and Western MSM agencies who have given an entirely false perspective to the public of the Syrian insurgency, which they deceitfully call a ‘civil war.’
The reality, as highlighted by Father van der Lugt and many others, is that the Syrian Government (with Russian and Iranian support) has been fighting a U.S led coalition backed terrorist insurgency in an effort to maintain national unity and protect the Syrian people from the scourge of Islamist extremism. By no stretch of the imagination can the Syrian conflict be considered a ‘civil war.’ That we have constantly been exposed to unwavering propaganda, trying to establish the entirely false ‘civil war’ narrative, should anger any who value the role of the fourth estate as essential to democracy. Without a critical press it is difficult to see how Western politicians veneration of ‘western democracy’ is anything other than an absurdity.
Via NGO’s, such as the White Helmets, not only are the U.S. led coalition’s intelligence and security services able to maintain operational control and intelligence gathering inside terrorist held territory, they can also use them to create propaganda to be fed to the MSM. They don’t even need to carry out false flag attacks (although they still do) they just need to use their ‘opposition activists’ to create false reports of attacks.
In Part 4 we will look at how NGO’s have been abused by the Western military industrial intelligence establishment to lend legitimacy to their propaganda. We will look at some examples of how supposedly ‘humanitarian’ organisations have been coerced to increase calls for military action and how they have been used in the Syrian conflict to promote the western ‘regime change’ agenda.
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“In the West we used to deride the Soviet news agencies and expressed our empathy for the people living in Warsaw Pact countries who received nothing but government propaganda. However, unlike most of us, nearly every Soviet citizen knew the information they received was controlled by the state. Consequently, they treated it with the critical scepticism it deserved. The amazing achievement of the Western MSM propagandists is that they have convinced a duped population that they have a ‘free press’ who can be trusted to provide objective ‘news,’ independent of the state or powerful corporate interests.”
So well put Iain 🙂 Even as a Brit living in Russia (not Moscow) during the pseudo-pandemic this was still noticeable. Once people noticed there were no bodies piling up in the streets the vast majority smelled a rat!
Thanks Will. I am emailing you if that’s ok.