Syria-Western Media War (4)

From the beginning of the civil war, Syria has been exposed to a full-fledged media war of over 80 countries. In the previous part of this series we reviewed another part of the western media’s falsification towards Syrian crisis.

The current wars in West Asia began in 2003 with US-led invasion of Iraq which was justified under the pretext of possession of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam. At that that time, western reporters happily released fake documents to confirm the existence of WMDs in Iraq. In 2002 and 2003, several correspondents of New York Times issued reports doubting the existence of WMDs in Iraq but the news were obfuscated by the allegations on Saddam’s WMDs being a threat to world peace.

Such simplicity of media also took place during the 2011 NATO attack on Libya and overthrow of Qaddafi regime. In that year, France 24 TV network, based played a deceitful role as the news reference of the Libyan CNT network. During Tripoli’s war and while Libyan rebels were kilometers far from the city, NATO produced fabricated films in studio and broadcast them through Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya showing the revolutionaries in the capital’s main square. As a result the inhabitants of Tripoli thinking that they have been totally defeated in the war relinquished resistance.

But reporting the Syrian war is very difficult, for the groups affiliated to Daesh and Al-Qaeda have turned release of reports on the regions under their occupation into a very dangerous task. Many were interested in receiving news from these regions but the media just receive the news from second hand sources which are probably the agents affiliated to the terrorist groups.

Ben Rhodes is the White House Deputy National Security Advisor. A while ago he realized Syrian resistance against the media war, so he wrote a plan for Obama the result of which is a media coup against Syria. In this plan, Rhodes has proposed severance of all Syrian TV networks from NileSat and ArabSat. The proposal was immediately accepted by Saudi and Qatari regimes and since they have the most interets in these two channels they considered it a good suggestion.

Thus, during a specific period, all Syrian state-run TV networks were cut off and the TVs of the anti-Syrian terrorist front began their activity with Syrian anthems and flag. Therefore, not only the media link between the people and government was cut off but practically the government is apparently losing legitimacy. 

For the better implementation of this plot several meetings were held in Doha and Riyadh. The first two meetings were the technical sessions in Doha and the third meeting was the political meeting in Riyadh. In the first session the officers of the US army’s psychological war unit working on the satellite TV networks of Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, France 24, Fox News, Future TV and MTV gathered together. They agreed that a reciprocal credibility is taken into consideration and the media embark on repeating each other’s news so that their information is believed by the public. In this meeting, it was supposed to apply 40 Wahhabi TV networks. In the following meetings, combination of photos and studios has also been discussed.

The western media’s report-card has been full of false news and anti-people position. The advisor to Syrian information minister Ali Al-Ahmad says: the western media release false and improper news of the terrorists and we do not see these media making mention of the crimes committed by the terrorist groups against civilians in Aleppo.

In an exclusive interview with Sputnik news agency, Al-Ahmad added: hospitals and other public services centers are part of Syrian infrastructures that the government has set up with the people’s money; therefore, targeting them by governmental forces is unwise and illogical and it is impossible that Syrian forces target the public buildings especially hospitals and schools.

He added: the Daesh terrorists use children and animals as mobile bombs and attached bombs to them for striking the Syrian army and creating horror among civilians. This is the reality of which the media make no mention.

Political and media adviser to Syrian President Bouthaina Shaaban has also said: the western media distort the crimes committed by the so-called anti-terrorism US-led coalition in Syria and accuse Syria and Russia of committing them.

Speaking at the international conference on “National reconciliation and Future of Syria” in East Faculty of Russian Academy of Science, Shaaban stated: Syria and Russia fully cooperate with the UN but the American coalition has so far destroyed 300 schools and hospitals in Syria while not a single word has been mentioned about these crimes on western media and Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya networks.

The advisor to Syrian president noted Western media selectively cover the current events in Syria and broadcast them with distortion. These media receive the Syrian news from foreign spying apparatuses. She also argued that the world public opinion is not aware of the Syrian government’s efforts for ending the crisis in this country. The westerners try through supporting the terrorists to keep the fire of war burning in Syria.

All these attacks launched by the western media on the minds of the world people have depicted the Daesh terrorists as a group opposing the Syrian government. Even in the talks held between the Syrian government and the so-called opposition delegates, the media consider them Syrian, while this is not true. Syria’s permanent envoy to the UN Bashar Ja'fari says: what we witness in Syria can never be considered a civil war. Thousands of foreign terrorists from over one hundred countries of the world including the neighboring countries have entered Syria’s territory. Of course, Damascus continues its legal duty in defending the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and protecting the life of its citizens against the terrorist groups.

In confirmation of Ja’fari’s statements, one can refer to the training of terrorists by various countries who are dispatched to Syria after spending special courses. For instance, the Director of US National Intelligence James R. Clapper says thousands of foreign terrorists from 50 countries are present in Syrian lands. Some of them are members of Al-Qaeda who have gone to Syria through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Unfortunately the same media which accuse the Syrian government of violating human rights do not say that currently near the Syrian borders, 100 English instructors are engaged in illegal activity and the British war secretary Michael Fallon has confirmed the dispatch of British forces to West Asia. Fallon says 75 Britons are dispatched for training what he calls “militias” in a camp in Turkey. No specific news have been released on the identity of those who are trained in Turkey’s camp but it seems that they are Turks, Libyans and from Central Asia and Caucasus who have been brought from the borders of Azerbaijan republic to Turkey with the promise of money. Thus, with this black report card of the west in information dissemination, one can say that reporters and people should consider suspiciously all the information released on Iraq and Syria as well as the statements which are said about human rights. We should remind the remarks of the former UN envoy in Syrian affairs Lakhdar Brahimi in 2014 when he resigned from his post and said: all do their agenda and the interests of Syrian people are second or third or they may not be taken into consideration at all.

FK/RM/SS