Syria-Western Media War (2)

For 3000 years Aleppo has undergone many events but 4 years of war and presence of terrorists have ruined the major part of the city, the war and destruction which has been totally reversed by the narrative given by the western media.

Concurrent with liberation of Aleppo, the media affiliated to the supporters of terrorists have applied expert teams to release false reports and fake pictures to pretend that the Syrian army and its allies in eastern Aleppo have committed massacre and crimes. According to some Syrian sources, some information shows that some of the Persian Gulf Sheikhdoms are seeking to launch a huge media war against the Syrian government and that too with immense expenses. Accordingly, some of the Arab media have put fake photos, reports and footages on the alleged occurrence of war crimes in Aleppo at the disposal of western media horns and TVs. By showing pictures of killed women and children they instigate tribal and sectarian war. Some western media try, through claiming violation of human rights, to tarnish the image of the Syrian government and its allies.     

Now let us go to the past performance of the western media. Perhaps no one has forgotten that since the beginning of demonstrations in Damascus and Syrian cities bordering with Jordan, Turkey and Iraq which led to armed clashes, Aljazeera and other west-affiliated media started their war.

The media, distorting the realities and using virtual studios in Doha, incessantly attempted to make full coverage of protests against the Syrian government. The media including Al-Arabiya, Al-Hadath, Persian and Arabic BBC and other hired media and numerous social networks tried to show pictures of Aleppo showing the genocide is intentionally carried out by the Syrian government and its allies.

The media backing terrorism in West Asia endeavored by creating a psychological war and shaping public opinion to undermine the morale of Syrian army and popular forces in fighting terrorists. The military and political intervention of the west and its accomplices to hijack popular protests was accompanied by extensive efforts of media horns.

Therefore, different functions were assigned for different media. Aljazeera as the most powerful Arab media had to shape the mind of the Arabs and BBC, VOA, Reuters, Associated Press and other western media were responsible for coverage of news for non-Arabs. 

The importance of Aljazeera in playing this role in the entire Arab world was due to its past performance. Founded in 1996, this news channel managed through professional coverage of news to win the trust of the Arab people. The former head of the Iranian Interests Section in Cairo and the expert of media policies Mahmoud Mohtadi says in this regard: over 20 years have passed since the foundation of Aljazeera and it has passed two different periods. In the first period, Aljazeera’s performance was professional but with the beginning of Islamic Awakening, it tilted toward other objectives. The new mission of Aljazeera was to exploit popular trust for guiding political currents in the Arab world so much so that even some believe that the overthrow of Ben Ali in Tunisia was the result of Aljazeera’s influence. Mohtadi, stressing the role of Zionists in shaping the news of the media, adds: Qatar’s investment on launching a credited media in the Arab world was carried out while there was no professional non-European and non- American media. The Zionist covert interference in this planning is observable in Aljazeera’s severe criticism of George Bush policies in war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the White House’s silence. It was due to the support of Zionist lobby for Aljazeera that the US regime remained tacit. 

The review of Aljazeera’s performance since 2010 reveals its true image and nature. In the first decade of the new century, feigning a popular and justice-seeking media, Aljazeera was seeking to increase its credit and then enter the developments of Islamic Awakening. The Arab people demanded serious changes in the existing situation and the regional despots realized that they have taken the Islamic revolution of Iran as their role model. Meanwhile Iran’s successes in Iraq after Saddam’s fall had emboldened peoples of some of the Arab countries which had been repressed for long years.

In these circumstances, Aljazeera entered the arena and before Syria’s facing with the direct interference of anti-Syrian regimes, media war against Damascus had begun. The status of Syria in the strategy of the regimes in Washington and Tel Aviv turned BBC into the mouthpiece of the west and its allies by broadcasting live programs in several languages. Thus, the rallies of the Syrian opposition were magnified and every insignificant event was turned into the top news of the day. Along with BBC, VOA, Reuters, Sky News and Al-Arabiya used certain news tactics to mould the audience that all the Syrians have opposed Bashar Assad. In the past 6 years, these media tried through releasing false news such as the fall of Damascus and Aleppo and killing of Assad and escape of his family from Syria to incite public opinion.

This process intensified with Russia’s military entrance in the battlefield and reinforcing the Syrian army. Persian BBC by releasing reports on killing of civilians in Russian air raids and the Syrian army’s artillery fire showed reaction to the failure of terrorists and their pull -back. The media hired by or affiliated to the British monarchy, magnifying the role of Iran and presence of popular and Hezbollah forces in Syria, has tried to question the competence of the country’s national army. In this regard, the BBC Persian site, occasionally publishes articles on the martyrs defending the holy Shrine of Hazrat Zainab (Peace be upon her) and their role in increasing tension in Syria and accuses some countries of purposeful dispatch of fighters to Syria and creating military battalions but it makes no mention of exporting terrorist by Saudi and other Arab regimes. Moreover the terrorist-sympathetic media horns often make no mention of killing of civilians in the terrorist chemical attacks in Syria and Iraq and military aid to the armed opposition forces on Turkey’s border but by forging news on killing of civilians by Assad’s allied front, they have aimed at stirring people’s sentiments.

In fact, the media accomplices of terrorists in the region with the wide news coverage, especially in the past year, might be able to change the direction of war to some extent. But the resistance of popular forces hindered these efforts. A media expert says: Since 2011 the western and international networks, in a coordinated measure, embarked on confronting the Syrian government on the regional and international scene. Referring to the research conducted on the four news channels of Arabic BBC, Sky News, the Saudi’s Al-Arabiya and Qatar’s Aljazeera, the media expert said: for the first time in the world, in Syrian crisis, media cooperation was made among the Arab, western and Hebrew media under a single management.

The importance of pursuing these objectives by anti-people news networks in West Asia is to the extent that the famous anchor of Aljazeera Faisal Qassem explicitly expresses concern towards the Syrian army’s heavy attacks against terrorists in Aleppo and requests the help of groups active in the suburb of Damascus to save the terrorists deployed in Aleppo. Moreover, the BBC director general Tony Hall, despite the demand of the then British Premier David Cameron and 12 MPs for not using the expression of the Islamic government for Daesh under the pretext of the news network’s impartiality he rejects the request. All these issues show in general that while Saudi regime, Turkey and Qatar support and equip terrorists with various types of weaponry and financial sources, their media has embarked through engineered news coverage, on widespread psychological operation against the Syrian army and popular forces.

FK/RM/SS