AFP quickly wraps up the latest from Syria:

Already weakened by political infighting, Syria’s opposition has been dealt another blow by the posting online of videos purporting to show rebel fighters committing atrocities, analysts say.

And on the back foot due to army advances on the ground, the opposition is also under international pressure to enter into dialogue with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Videos posted online that showed a rebel mutilating a soldier’s corpse, and of a jihadist summarily executing 11 Assad supporters “will undermine the opposition’s narrative of an uprising against a dictator”, said Swedish expert on Syria, Aron Lund.

Oh yeah, our mainstream propaganda’s precious narrative. Don’t speak too soon Aron, the narrative lives, at least in the U.S., in ways like this courtesy of Angry Arab (links in original and I always modify AA’s crappy grammar):

Syria

Syrian rebels eating internal organs: Guardian versus the New York Times

Look how the Guardian reports it: “‘Anti-Assad fighter appears to eat internal organ of dead government soldier in horrific video’: “The figure in the video cuts the heart and liver out of the body and uses sectarian language to insult Alawites [Assad's minority sect]. At the end of the video [the man] is filmed putting the corpse’s heart into his mouth, as if he is taking a bite out of it.”

And now look at how Syrian “revolution” groupie Anne Barnard [of the New York Times] reports it, and notice the title is about Syrian regime crime: “One rebel commander recently filmed himself cutting out an organ of a dead pro-government fighter, biting it and promising the same fate to Alawites, members of Mr. Assad’s Shiite Muslim sect.”

AA doesn’t clarify that this first reference, to an atrocity recorded proudly by its perpetrator on video, is buried in the second sentence (the first sentence is propaganda accusing the Syrian army of being anti-Islamic) of the fourth paragraph of a ‘story’ whose first three paragraphs transcribe evidence-free atrocity accusations against the Syrian government. Angry Arab sums up Western ‘reporting’
on the incident:

That face of Syrian “revolutionaries”: munching on body organs
Did you notice how defensive Western media are about that video? I note these reactions:
1) The New York Times as usual buries the story under a different story about crimes of the regime.
2) Many news media reported that the guy is really upset because he saw crimes by the Syrian regime.
3) Some media actually quibbled with the facts: that he did not really eat the heart of the man but ate parts of the lung.
4) Many news media opted to totally ignore the story.
5) Many media put the story in the context of war crimes in Syria where the regime is solely responsible.
6) Some media focused on the man, saying that he really is not representative.

So, I disagree with the sense that imperial propaganda’s narrative no longer reigns supreme, though it is surely shaken in the _immediate_ aftermath of the grisly body parts eating video. The real hope, though, is for an ever-rapider decline in the credibility and viewership of that propaganda and that media. The imperial media takes hit after hit but its careerism requires that it not abandon its narrative no matter how foolish, so it suffers the consequences. And those are good consequences for anyone who wants a public better-informed, or at least less disinformed by capitalist and imperial greed.

The real news alternatives — more accurate and more fun — are out there just waiting to be better organized and delivered. Here are some very recent Syria accounts from what might be, in a sane and democratic media, a counter-narrative at least on an equal footing with the imperial one:

May 18: Vote Reflects Shift in Syrian Public Opinion (Franklin Lamb: “Opinion in Damascus and surrounding areas visited this past week, confirms this observer’s experience the past five months of a sharp and fairly rapid shift in opinion that now strongly favors letting the Syrian people themselves decide, without outside interference, whether the Assad regime will stay, and indeed, whether, the Baathist party will continue to represent majority opinion, not through wanton violence but rather via next June’s election.”)

May 17: The main opposition National Coalition now has to decide whether to take part in an international conference called by Moscow and Washington to push for a political solution … The [group], which insists that Assad’s departure is a key condition for a political solution, will decide in an Istanbul meeting on May 23 whether it will take part in the international conference.

May 17: Syria – FSA rebels under SAA heavy fire 17/05

May 15: Syria: Civilians Come Under Fire From Rebels (“The demonstrators were predominantly Syrian Palestinians, many from the Yarmouk district of Damascus who had fled when it was taken over by opposition forces eight months ago. Some screamed at us: ‘Please tell the world the truth! We don’t want the fighters here, we want the army to kill them!”)

May 14: Syrian Rebels Face Increasing Criticism For Human Rights Violations – Analysis (by IRIN, “the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.”)

May 14: In Cairo, desperate Egyptian men search in vain for Syrian brides (“Men across the region are now seeking Syrian brides. In Turkey and Jordan, where refugee camps pepper the landscape, the desperation of the Syrians is far easier to spot as rich Persian Gulf men scour the camps to buy brides living in tents. Rape, child brides and temporary marriages are prevalent.”)
Read the rest of this entry →

Bashar al-Assad

… Kerry told reporters that only the Syrian regime and the opposition can determine the make-up of a transitional government to shepherd the war-torn nation towards democratic elections.

“It’s impossible for me as an individual to understand how Syria could possibly be governed in the future by the man who has committed the things that we know have taken place,” Kerry said as he wrapped up his first visit in office to Russia.

“But I’m not going to decide that tonight, and I’m not going to decide that in the end.”

Except for the middle paragraph, that is largely what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been saying for quite awhile (see paragraph four in blockquote below).

So how does the peace talks proposal play with the rebels? So far not well. From Reuters:

… Most opposition figures have ruled out talks unless Assad and his inner circle are excluded from any future transitional government.

“No official position has been decided but I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head,” said Samir Nashar, a member of the opposition’s umbrella National Coalition body.

“Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad’s role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made.”

In the past, the United States has backed opposition demands that Assad be excluded from any future government, while Russia has said that must be for Syrians to decide, a formula the opposition believes could be used to keep Assad in power. …

Inside the country, where rebel groups are numerous and have disparate views, a military commander in the north, Abdeljabbar al-Oqaidi, told Reuters he would want to know details of the U.S.-Russian plan before taking a view. “But,” he added, “if the regime were present, I do not believe we would want to attend.”

And here’s the Guardian:

Syrian opposition leaders have reacted sceptically to a joint call by the US and Russia for an international conference to discuss the creation of a transitional government in Damascus to end the country’s escalating 25-month crisis.

Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned last month as head of the National Opposition Coalition (NOC), the main western- and Arab-backed grouping, warned: “Syrians: be careful of squandering your revolution in international conference halls.”

Walid Saffour, the NOC’s London representative, said he was sceptical, though a formal decision had yet to be taken.

The rebels’ sad faces tell me that Syria’s long and bloody nightmare may soon be over, and it’s a day to be cheerful and optimistic. Someone else is happy too:

The US-Russia agreement was warmly welcomed on Wednesday by the joint UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, whose diplomacy has been stalled for months by divisions in the UN security council. “This is the first hopeful news concerning that unhappy country in a very long time,” said his office. “The statements made in Moscow constitute a very significant first step forward. It is nevertheless only a first step.”

Sorry rebels, (maybe) no more beheadings, and (maybe) no more  kidnapping Filipino peacekeepers on the Golan Heights.

Read the rest of this entry →

Thoughts on the major Israel missile strike on Damascus while reading a bit too much of the Western war propaganda …

Internal chaos weakens Syria and at least for now benefits Israel. However, the Syrian people have long tired of senseless killing there and support peace above all else. So, those still fighting the government are now largely either paid Western mercenaries or paid Islamic extremists bent on establishing a Saudi-style Sunni state in Syria. Not a surprise that, faced with such opponents the Syrian state was making progress on the battlefield (note such real news is not allowed on the mainstream ‘news’ because it counters the line/narrative that the Syrian government is on its last legs). Israeli missile attacks will help but won’t be enough, the rebels are too weak, so the attacks are primarily aimed at forcing Western intervention ‘Libya style’. (If you’ve forgotten what that did to Libya read this by Patrick Cockburn.) In sum, the ‘why’ of the Israeli attacks has nothing to do with the mainstream media’s explanation: “Israel strikes Syria, says targeting Hezbollah arms.” So please, read Robert Fisk:

The story is already familiar: the Israelis wanted to prevent a shipment of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon; they were being sent by the Syrian government. According, at least, to a ‘Western intelligence source’. Anonymous, of course. And it opens the old question: why when the Syrian regime is fighting for its life would it send advanced missiles out of Syria? … why would the Syrians send [the missiles to Lebanon], as US sources were also claiming last night, when the Americans themselves claimed only last December that the Syrians had used the same ground-to-ground missiles against rebel forces in Syria.

I think Fisk’s analysis makes a great deal of sense, especially in light of the fact that the attack was on a huge scale, killing over a hundred Syrian soldiers and civilians (note how the mainstream ‘news’ avoids mentioning casualties: the only reference I have seen is on page 2 of a long New York Times report and refers only to soldiers killed). Al Akhbar’s Ali Rizk comments on RT.com:

It seems that Bashar Assad militarily has gained the upper hand so Israel realizes Assad won’t be going unless there’s outside intervention. So Israel is trying to drag the US by saying “If you don’t go in, then we shall wreak havoc. We shall go ahead with our own military escalation.”

But how could huge Israeli missile strikes on Syria trigger a pro-Israeli intervention? Don’t such unprovoked attacks indicate the problem is Israel, the attacker, rather than the ‘attackee’? (You might have asked the same thing after Syria asked the UN to investigate the rebels’ use of chemical weapons.) No, that would make too much sense, so read on:

In Washington, the reported Israeli attacks stoked debate about whether American-led airstrikes were the logical next step to cripple the ability of the Syrian president to counter the rebel forces or use chemical weapons. That was already being discussed in secret by the United States, Britain and France in the days leading to the Israeli strikes, according to American and foreign officials involved in the discussions, with a model being the opening days of the attacks on Libya that ultimately drove Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power.

But but but, the problem for U.S. and Western intervention is the Big Bear to the north:

I think what you have now is that Iran and Hezbollah now have a new significant ally of real significant weight which is Russia, which is continuing to the Middle East scene once again. So I think that if we do have escalation, Iran will intervene, Hezbollah will intervene, and I think also we might speak about a Russian intervention or some kind of a Russia role because Russia clearly has been very much present and there saying “I am here and I have a significant say.”

Is the West prepared to go mano v mano with Mr. Putin?

My guess is no, in part for the additional reason that even from a rational Israeli perspective ousting the Assad government is counterproductive. I think we are observing an Israeli military-industrial complex out of control, acting for its own expansionary and profit interests rather than in the interest of the Israeli state. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are rational (and powerful) people within the Beltway who realize that.

P.S. — Another recent Fisk piece well worth reading is “Alawite history reveals the complexities of Syria that West does not understand,” which begins:

In Syria these days, we are resorting to our racist little maps. The Alawite mountains and the town of Qardaha, home of the Assad family – colour it dark red. Will this be the last redoubt of the 12 per cent Alawite minority, to which the President belongs, when the rebels “liberate” Damascus? We always like these divisive charts in the Middle East. Remember how Iraq was always Shias at the bottom, Sunnis in the middle, Kurds at the top? We used to do this with Lebanon: Shias at the bottom (as usual), Shias in the east, Sunnis in Sidon and Tripoli, Christians east and north of Beirut. Never once has a Western newspaper shown a map of Bradford with Muslim and non-Muslim areas marked off, or a map of Washington divided into black and white people. No, that would suggest that our Western civilisation could be divvied up between tribes or races. Only the Arab world merits our ethnic distinctions.

Prior to the last 24 hours it was joke publications like The Telegraph (source of the photo above) and other Murdochian, Fox News quality rags that trumpeted the simpleton propaganda video that Syrian rebels say shows poisoning by government sarin gas. In those good old days we could enjoy light-hearted blog titles like this:

Syria: Shaving Cream As Chemical Weapon

That title was above some very entertaining ridicule of the video and some serious (but easy) debunking (link is in the original: follow it to the Centers for Disease Control, which lists the signs and symptoms for sarin exposure):

The short video posted at the Telegraph site shows three persons laying on hospital stretchers. All three persons have some white foam around their mouths. None of them shows any acute breathing problem. All three seem rather relaxed. … This “foaming at the mouth” video proof of chemical weapons usage is fake. … “foaming at the mouth” is NOT a standard symptom of sarin exposure.

Thank you Moon of Alabama, but unfortunately matters have now taken a very serious Chuck Hagel face turn. The U.S. government is now running with the scam, and ‘prestigious’ operations like the BBC are now ‘required’ (careerism uber alles) to treat the video not as silly, crass entertainment but as real. Defense secretary Hagel announced yesterday that U.S. intel officials will now pretend, along with the Brits and Israel, that the video is serious evidence of sarin gas poisoning. No more laughs, shaving cream may bring war and bloody cruel death to tens of thousands more Syrians. So, ‘despite’ little blogs’ ridicule, big corporate media now use shaving cream as the foundation for headlines like this:

Syria chemical weapons: Where did they come from?

Acid test: America needs to take action against Bashar Assad

Why has Western imperialism (seemingly desperately) now reached for this video, such a flimsy, silly straw? Well, partly because there are now no limits to what its news media will say with a straight face, but also because the war looked to be turning and the wrong side seemed to be winning. Outside the propaganda field, which the Western corporate media obviously utterly dominates, the war on the ground goes very poorly for the deeply divided and Sunni fundamentalist dominated rebels and mercenaries. The following report is from April 24 (emphasis added):

In Damascus, Syrian [government] forces … seized a strategic town east of the city, breaking a critical weapons supply route for the rebels, activists and fighters said. Rebels have held several suburbs ringing the southern and eastern parts Damascus for months, but they have been struggling to maintain their positions against a ground offensive backed by fierce army shelling and air strikes in recent weeks.

“The disaster has struck, the army entered Otaiba. The regime has managed to turn off the weapons tap,” a fighter from the town told Reuters via Skype. …

“Now all the villages will start falling one after another, the battle in Eastern Ghouta will be a war of attrition,” another fighter in the area said, speaking by Skype.

More than two years into their struggle to end four decades of Assad family rule, the rebels remain divided by struggles over ideology and fighting for power. … The army appears to have been advancing on fronts across Syria in recent weeks, even in northern provinces where rebels seized large swathes of territory.

Finally, I give some credit to President Obama, because he remains reluctant to do a Libya on Syria without ‘further’ proof. Despite the administration ‘confirming’ with “varying degrees of confidence” that sarin gas had been used by Syrian government forces, it does seem to want more ‘proof’, something maybe a little more serious than the video? I’m pessimistic though. I mean, if that shaving cream video is a ‘go’, not even a snicker from the highest echelons of Western media and government, how hard will it be to generate further ‘evidence’?

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov commenting on the current government in Syria:

They are committed to a pluralistic Syria, to a Syria in which every minority has minority rights protected, that includes all of minorities in which everybody will have an ability to be able to make choices for the future.

It is a vision that rejects terrorism and rejects extremism. It is a vision that is pledged to never use chemical weapons. It is a vision that is committed to a political solution.

Whoops, no, that was actually U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, commenting on the Al-Nusra Front-dominated Syrian rebels. Un.be.lievable. (Instead of hallucinating, Lavrov is doing dumb stuff like encouraging ceasefire and dialogue with Syria rather than civil war and regime change.)

It gets stranger, of course.

Christian bishops released by Chechen rebels in Syria

Yes, I admit I appreciate the timing of the Chechen mercenaries in Syria. “Just for kicks, let’s kidnap some Christian archbishops at the same time as Chechen-immigrant-generated hell in Boston. How can the Western media ignore us?” Well, they can and they did guys cuz of course obedience to the moneyed narrative is the Western media careerist’s prime directive. Thanks for only killing their driver and not the bishops though.

In separate weirdness, National Journal polled its ‘National Security Insiders’, who seem like a very bright group just kidding. 60% of them now support U.S. military action to support the largely fundamentalist rebellion. (This contrasts with the most recent poll (why it was a such a suspiciously long time ago I don’t know) of the rest of us, non-insiders, in which 65% of us “oppose the U.S. and its allies sending arms and military supplies to anti-government groups in Syria.”)

Anyway, here’s one of those Insider geniuses: “The most important issue is to prevent al-Qaida from creating a safe haven in Syria. We cannot do that unless we are in the arena.” Hey, Mr. Insider, just saying but there is another SLIGHTLY easier way to prevent al-Qaida from creating a safe haven in Syria: Stop massively supporting the opposition. The rebellion would be over in days and Syria would go back to being a non-Al-Qaida country. Thanks you can bill me later.

P.S. – For the horrific and not at all funny facts on Syria, read Obama’s Syrian Horror, by Saul Landau. Excerpt:

The New York Times revealed Obama’s lies about the U.S. role in this war … The CIA has funneled and distributed large weapons shipments to the rebels – more than 3,500 tons worth to date – from Jordan and Turkey, while Obama claimed it as “non-lethal” military aid. (C. J.Chivers and Eic Schmitt, NY Times March 24, 2013)

“The C.I.A. role in facilitating the [weapons] shipments… gave the United States a degree of influence over the process [of weapon distribution]…American officials have confirmed that senior White House officials were regularly briefed on the [weapons] shipments.”

Obama supervised arms supplies to the Al Nusra Front, the Syrian rebels’ most effective fighting force, with links to Islamic terrorist groups.

Witnesses in northwest Syria testify that some rebels have used those weapons to slaughter Alawite and Christian villages.

Obama’s opposition to peace talks with the Assad government, from which he demands surrender, raises a question. Why demand as a “precondition” for negotiations the ouster of Syria’s government?

Decent rhetorical question, but the answer is easy: the U.S. goal is the ouster of Syria’s government (probably for two reasons: 1., Israel (maybe irrationally) wants/demands it; 2., it’s what the West’s corporate globalist imperialism does.)

CONFORMTOTHENARRATIVE CONFORMTOTHENARRATIVE CONFORMTOTHENARRATIVE

Sunday, April 21, 2013
Boston bomber and Syria

Notice that U.S. media are not reporting that the Boston bomber was an enthusiastic supporter of your Syrian “revolution”. He posted videos about it on his Youtube page.

Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil at 7:41 AM

Yup, let the self-censorship begin. Since April 20 (based on my Google search), the mainstream media has not mentioned the Tsarnaev brothers’ fundamentalist Syrian rebel sympathies. This even though there have been multiple mainstream articles in recent days on relations between Russia and the U.S. which mention the Syria rebellion. So, for example, in a USA Today column by Louise Branson we get this:

We’re fighting the same fight, has been [Putin's] refrain to U.S. presidents and officials. President Assad makes the same case in Syria. The Boston Marathon explosions have helped tip Putin’s argument. … Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the captured Boston marathon bomber will, over time, give answers about the brothers’ aims and ties.

Hey columnist Branson, haven’t you noticed that he’s already given ‘answers’ (that don’t fit the U.S. imperialist narrative)? … Take a look at his Youtube page.

Other very similar columns are in the Seattle Times and the Washington Post. Both discuss the bombings’ effect on Russia-U.S. relations, and they focus on Syria as a key conflict, but both also fail to mention the Tsarnaev brothers’ fundamentalist rebel sympathies. I understand the brothers’ sympathies are not the central focus of any of the three articles I’ve noted, but not mentioning those sympathies when you’re discussing Syria seems like self-censorship.

By the way, I was a little surprised by the negative reaction here at MyFDL to my Saturday article on the Tsarnaev brothers’ sympathies. (I thought it was obvious but) I hope the following comment I made there will help to clarify what the hell I’m about:

The mainstream media [back on April 19] says the Tsarnaev brothers were supporters of the Sunni fundamentalist side of the Syrian rebellion. Without apology I use those ‘facts’. If you’re opposed to U.S./EU/Saudi/Qatari imperialism in Syria, you post a post like mine.

Do you think the ‘conspiratorial’ theorizing about what ‘really’ happened will have any traction in the real world? We KNOW the majority of Americans, if they knew, would strongly oppose the U.S. de facto alliance with Al Qaeda and similar in Syria. You see that sentiment all the time on Yahoo discussion boards, for example. So I use the current newsworthy ‘facts’ to publicize (in tiny places like MyFDL) the realities that the imperialists want to keep quiet.

Nothing fancy or nuanced, I’m just one of those folks opposed to corporate globalist imperialism. And, I see a meme here that already resonates with regular America so I turn up the volume with these posts. Unfortunately I can’t turn it up much on tiny blogs, but every little bit helps. Frankly, as I’ve said before, the information war is in the mainstream media’s comment sections. Sadly it is not here at MyFDL.

P.S. — For the record, here are the two sources, the first mainstream (on the 19th), the second alternative (on the 20th), that noted the Tsarnaev brothers’ Syria sympathies:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev … expresses sympathy for rebel fighters in Syria and elsewhere. One video bears the Russian title “For those who have a heart,” showing people being brutalized by uniformed men in a country the video identifies as Syria. “They are killing your brothers and sisters without any reason,” the Russian subtitles of the video read. “Simply because they say our Lord is Allah.”

There are signs that the brothers showed interest in the conflict in Syria, which has drawn al Qaida fighters and other militants from across the Muslim world and Europe, according to a U.S. counterterror official. …

The brothers had viewed videos about the plight of Syrian Muslims, the official said. Syria is the latest hotspot on the world map of jihad. Holy warriors a decade ago were inspired by videos about brutal combat between jihadis and Russian troops in the brothers’ family homeland …

P.S.2 — By the way 2, here is the U.S. and EU backed rebellion in action (hip tat to Angry Arab):

Islamist rebels are clashing with tribesmen in eastern Syria as struggles over the region’s oil facilities break out in the power vacuum left by civil war, activists said on Saturday. One dispute over a stolen oil truck in the town of Masrib in the province of Deir al-Zor, which borders Iraq, set off a battle between tribesmen and fighters from the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda linked rebel group, which left 37 killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. … Masrib tribesmen called for help from Assad’s forces against Nusra, according to the Observatory and a fighter with the Islamist group. Nusra responded by blowing up 30 houses after the battle, in which 17 rebels were killed, at least four of them foreigners, the fighter said on Skype.

The bosses in the U.S./EU, the monolithic West, will of course continue to support the Syrian rebellion. It just makes less sense than ever today, this week. That rebellion has come a very long way from its peaceful 2011 origins and is now widely understood to be a religious war — whether the rebels are led by the Muslim Brotherhood or the Al Nusra Front and Al Qaeda– against a secular Syria.

And how obvious can the following be after Boston: violent Islamic extremism is a bad thing. And it is not as if who they oppose, Bashar Assad, is anything more diabolical than a run-of-the-mill non-ideological tyrant who’ll cling to power whichever way he can, but at least he has a desire not shared by the rebels: he has kept Syria secular and wants it to remain that way.

Specifically, Assad has refused to turn his country into an extreme (Salafist/Wahhabi) Sunni Islamic and grossly misogynistic state, i.e., into another Saudi Arabia. In contrast, folks like Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cheered for those fighting and killing to remake Syria into another Saudi Arabia:

There are signs that the brothers showed interest in the conflict in Syria, which has drawn al Qaida fighters and other militants from across the Muslim world and Europe, according to a U.S. counterterror official. …

The brothers had viewed videos about the plight of Syrian Muslims, the official said. Syria is the latest hotspot on the world map of jihad. Holy warriors a decade ago were inspired by videos about brutal combat between jihadis and Russian troops in the brothers’ family homeland …

But we can’t agree in the West that we should do whatever necessary to make sure the Tsarnaev brothers’ favorite rebels do not win in Syria or anywhere else? Why not?

Another thing, please look at the headlines below. After Boston, and knowing that the West is doing all it can to support the rebels, do they generate even a little cognitive dissonance:

Iraqi al Qaeda wing merges with Syrian counterpart
By Sami Aboudi, Reuters
Tue Apr 9, 2013 2:09pm EDT

Islamic Extremist Rebels In Syria Pledge Allegiance To Al-Qaida
By Barbara Surk, AP
April 10, 2013

The above alliance is the strongest Syrian rebel fighting force.

Finally, please check out a little truth and wisdom on the current situation:

“The West has paid heavily for funding Al-Qaeda in its early stages. Today it is doing the same in Syria, Libya and other places, and will pay a heavy price in the heart of Europe and the United States.” — Bashar Assad

“The United States has brought insecurity to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and now the threat has spread to other parts of the world. … When terrorism spreads in the world and the media supports that, then the extremists will be encouraged to commit more crimes and insecurity spreads across all countries.” — Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi

Kinda sad when the U.S., the West and their corporate media lead the fight for war and against reconciliation in Syria. (More Nobel Peace Prizes likely in the mix!) Once again all the pro-civil-war, pro-terrorism statements are being voiced by U.S. and Western officials, and their media are as biased as ever against peace and for more death and destruction. Not to mention Ban Ki-Moon … and the rebels themselves: “To date, opposition leaders have refused to consider any form of negotiations or compromise with the regime.”

Despite the predictable response, once again Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has presented a national reconciliation process leading to democratic elections, and the proposal is instantly rejected by the rebels, the U.S. and the West (and this is presented as ‘normal’ and ‘honorable’ in the corporate media). On Sunday Assad described his three-part plan:

Phase I would … entail making contact with the full spectrum of Syrian society, political parties and administrative bodies. These would include “all forces inside and outside the country who are interested in a solution,” he said.

In Phase II, the current government would chair a “comprehensive national dialogue conference” with these groups with the goal of drafting a national charter.

This document would uphold Syria’s sovereignty and unity, reject terrorism and “pave the way for the political future of Syria,” said Assad.

The charter would be put to a national referendum for approval.

Parliamentary elections would then be held within the framework of the constitution to form a new government that would represent all segments of Syrian society. …

In Phase III, a new government would be formed in accordance with constitutional law.

Now, what exactly is wrong with the preceding? Well, that’s pretty clear: it’s not a proposal for immediate regime change, which is the first and only demand of the rebels and their sponsors. Those sponsors unfortunately include the UN’s Ban Ki-Moon, who said he rejected Assad’s plan because it did not include “a political transition and the establishment of a transitional governing body with full executive powers that would include representatives of all Syrians.”

But Assad’s plan allows for transition, if that’s what Syrians vote for in elections. In contrast, Ban’s suggested path is anti-democratic, not allowing Syrians to choose “representatives of all Syrians” in any sort of election.

Me, uh, I’m for democracy … guess that ain’t cool anymore.

A final note on one of the imperial media lies about Assad’s Sunday speech, that he had “dismissed any chance of dialogue with the opposition.” In fact Assad asked for dialogue with the opposition, but lamented “that his government had not yet found any partners willing to back a solution to Syria’s ongoing crisis.” And who can deny his description of the violent opposition as largely Western puppets or terrorists? Or deny the good sense of his desire to dialogue with “the master not the servants”? And, finally, isn’t the opposition at the moment, as it has always been, badly fractured and riddled with sleaze?

Finally, a bit of optimism. In part because regime change in Syria by and for the West was never a very coherent plan, there are hints of peace despite its latest knee-jerk rejections. And after all, if the choice is really between “‘Somalia-ization’ of Syria Or a Political Settlement,” then whispers that the U.S. is secretly negotiating with Russia on a quiet, peaceful, end to the civil war might be true. Certainly almost all Syrians prefer peace to their present hell. Instituting a democratic transition that would lead to democratic governance and, if the Syrian people will it, Assad stepping down would also be real nice.

It’s just particularly cruel to fight against peace now, when both sides seem exhausted, and the winter is cold and food scarce in both government and rebel-held areas.

And you know why that’s the case. Because a credible video of an 11 or 12-year-old Free Syrian Army boy beheading an Allawite Assad loyalist [apologies if youtube has disappeared it by now] doesn’t fit the narrative of “kill to protect” (KTP) or whatever is the current justification for the U.S. sponsoring and funneling Qatari/Saudi money to ‘our guys in Syria’. (Preemptive disclaimer for non-reality-based attacks on anything anti Syrian rebel: that doesn’t mean I’m pro-Assad, in the same way that any criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq did not mean we were pro Saddam Hussein.)

youtube screengrab via humanrightsinvestigations.org

Anyway, thank you to Patrick Cockburn in Syria, who’s written an excellent column — Descent Into Holy War — on what is going on inside Syria, especially in Damascus, right now. He writes:

…a basically false and propagandistic account of events in Syria has been created by a foreign media credulous in using pro-opposition sources as if they were objective reporting.

The execution video is a case in point. I have not met a Syrian in Damascus who has not seen it. It is having great influence on how Syrians judge their future, but the mainstream media outside Syria has scarcely mentioned it. Some may be repulsed by its casual savagery, but more probably it is not shown because it contradicts so much of what foreign leaders and reporters claim is happening here.

Besides the glaring imperial propaganda substituting for news (why do we pretend it is otherwise, why do we stand for it?) and the lessons that should teach us, here’s the impression the video is making in Syria:

The film is being widely watched on YouTube by Syrians, reinforcing their fears that Syria is imitating Iraq’s descent into murderous warfare in the years after the US invasion in 2003. It fosters a belief among Syria’s non-Sunni Muslim minorities, and Sunnis associated with the government as soldiers or civil servants, that there will be no safe future for them in Syria if the rebels win. … The beheadings, so proudly filmed by the perpetrators, may well convince [Shiites and other Assad supporters] that they have no alternative but to fight to the end.

So the video and the bizarre anti-news ‘reporting’ on Syria remind Cockburn of the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi descent into sectarian war/hell, and how that didn’t appear in U.S. news until it was impossible not to report. The same descent into sectarian and worse war/hell is happening in Libya of course in the wake of our KTP invasion there, but the imperial propaganda sheets aren’t forced to report that.

The Syria headline today is Kofi Annan resigns as Special Envoy to Syria. But I think yesterday’s headline was much more enlightening: Obama authorized secret support for Syrian rebels. If you have even minimal understanding of real world power politics, you can learn exactly what imperialism looks like from that mainstream media source. The key information begins in paragraphs six and seven:

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.

I’d guess “a long time ago” and “anything goes,” based on the U.S. imperial track record. But the key paragraphs are nine to eleven:

A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.

Last week, Reuters reported that, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey had established a secret base near the Syrian border to help direct vital military and communications support to Assad’s opponents.

This “nerve center” is in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 60 miles from the Syrian border, which is also home to Incirlik, a U.S. air base where U.S. military and intelligence agencies maintain a substantial presence.

“Turkey and its allies” means Turkey and the two Gulf dictatorships, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Knowing the real relationship between the U.S. and those powers, translate “the United States was collaborating with” into “the United States was commanding.” And confirm that by noting the ‘secret’ base is essentially at a longstanding U.S. military and intelligence base.

Which leads to the following headline from Lebanon, NOT something allowed into the U.S. mainstream: Damascus says U.S., Turkey, Israel, Gulf states directing ‘terrorists’ in Syria. Obviously true, but misleading if it directs us away from the fact that the boss of bosses is the U.S. and its puppets and underlings better not forget that.

Which takes us to the next true headline, also, of course, not allowed into the U.S. mainstream: No happy outcome in Syria as conflict turns into proxy war, which begins:

Regional powers are pouring in money and guns, jihadists are joining rebels battling to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, while his own well-armed but hard-pressed forces are fighting back ruthlessly with combat aircraft and artillery.

Gruesome scenes of slaughtered civilians or executed rebel fighters provide daily snapshots of the worsening conflict in Syria. Video [Syrian rebels execute pro-Assad militiamen in Aleppo] apparently showing rebels gunning down Assad militiamen in cold blood suggests the insurgents are capable of brutality to match their enemies.

Brought to you by the Nobel Peace Prize winner himself.

Finally, to really get at what is going on inside Syria, I strongly recommend the short article Syria & blanket thinkers. I agree with all four of his main points, but will blockquote just one of them:

It is correct to deny the broad label of ‘sectarian gangs’ to describe armed opposition groups operating in Syria. Nevertheless, evidence exists that these groups are not uniform and there is no united leadership or central command. A sectarian dynamic exists in the current conflict and some of these groups have been galvanised by anti-Shi’a hatred preached by Saudi aligned Salafi preachers (Sheikh ‘Adnan al-’Arour being one prominent example). Human Rights Watch and United Nations reports agree on violence committed by some opposition armed groups (Human Rights Watch makes salient the sectarian dimension of some of these abuses).

The kidnapping of Iranian engineers and Lebanese pilgrims, for example, are examples of this sectarian dimension. Leading Syrian opposition figures (e.g. Burhan Ghalioun and Haitham al-Maleh) justified the kidnapping of Lebanese civilians, perpetuating the narrative of leading Hezbollah officers being captured. Further, documents and news are frequently fabricated from an array of opposition factions (armed and civilian) to establish, on sectarian terms, the armed presence of thousands of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Sadr Brigades and Hezbollah fighters (a propaganda industry in coordination with the different Saudi monarchy owned media stations). It is not coincidental that this orchestrated scheme of fabrication is largely run on sectarian lines. In other words, it is not only the regime and its backers that may operate along communal lines but also opposition groups.

Also, specific wordings and ideas from anti-Shi’a Salafi polemics and tracts, initially mass distributed during the Iran/Iraq war (e.g. the book ‘The Magians (Zoroastrians) turn has come’), has now become common currency across some opposition factions (it is common to find, in this discourse of derision, talk of the dangers of the Shi’ite esoterics [in this context meaning a communal trait of treachery], the Zoroastrian Twelver Shi’ite rejectionists, the expansionist conspiracies of the Safavids etc.). Popular Facebook pages, such as Shaam News Network and the Syrian Revolution, regularly repeat terms initially concocted by Wahabi preachers (whether Saudi aligned or not), though it is not clear if they realise the theological background of the terms used (these terms are used within a Salafi discourse to excommunicate Twelver Shi’ism from Islam and treat their beliefs and practices as both pagan and idolatrous. This de-humanising language is also used to establish communal traits of treachery and expansionist visions as part of this supposed belief system).

So, do we accept that our country, the U.S., is the critical actor in this tragedy? Do we understand that if the U.S. told its forces to accept and respect a ceasefire – i.e., to do the opposite of what the rebels did when there was a ceasefire in May – that that would of course stop the killing and be the key contribution toward a negotiated settlement of this part civil war part foreign intervention?

To most Syrians, I think, this war has lost any point aside from sectarian score settling. Let’s pressure our government to stop the killing. It has the power, and therefore so do the citizens of the U.S. Or do we?