http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/images/oz_katerji_war.jpgArguably, no war has been more mediated by misunderstanding than the conflict currently taking place in Syria. This article will seek to correct some of the major fallacies in circulation, illuminate how dissenting voices are forced out of the mainstream debate through smears and intimidation, and unmask the ostensibly neutral stances of a number of prominent voices on the conflict. One of the many fallacies that predominate in this prevailing narrative is that the West has not intervened in the conflict in Syria. For instance, Amnesty International has recently described the UK as "sit[ting] on the sidelines" of the conflict. This fundamentally false position ignores several years of the West and its regional allies (primarily Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) arming, funding and training rebel groups, the crippling economic sanctions imposed against the Syrian Government, ongoing airstrikes, special forces operations, and a host of other diplomatic, military and economic measures that have been taken. Not only has the West (primarily the US) intervened, it has done so on a very large scale. For instance, in June 2015, it was revealed that the CIA's involvement in Syria had become "one of the agency's largest covert operations" in which it was spending roughly $1bn a year (about $1 for every $15 in the CIA's announced budget). At that time, this operation based out of Jordan had already "trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years". As Patrick Higgins has remarked, "[i]n other words, the United States launched a full-scale war against Syria, and few Americans actually noticed". It is vital to place this aggression in the context of long-standing US animosity to the Syrian Government. As diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed, since at least 2006, the US has consistently sought to undermine it "by any available means", utilising a variety of techniques including an effort -- in co-ordination with Saudi Arabia -- to encourage Islamic fundamentalism and sectarianism in the country by playing on fears of Iranian influence. Indeed, although it is rarely mentioned, a senior US intelligence official is on record in a televised interview with Mehdi Hasan confirming that facilitating the rise of ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups in Syria and Iraq was a "wilful decision" on behalf of the Obama administration. The BBC has recently reported that ISIS use ammunition bought legally in Eastern Europe by the US and Saudi Governments that is then transported via Turkey into Syria and Iraq, "sometimes only two months from leaving the factory". When US intervention in Syria is acknowledged, it is regularly portrayed as having been small-scale and insufficient. Professor Gilbert Achcar of SOAS has remarked that "Washington's support to the opposition is more the stuff of jokes than anything serious". Given that Achcar made this observation six months after the revelations concerning the enormous scale of the CIA's Syria operation, it is hard to imagine exactly what level of military support would be required in order to be considered more than a 'joke'. This misleading narrative of non-existent or inadequate US intervention, coupled with a propensity to defend it with insults, is extremely common, including among commentators who write for ostensibly left-leaning publications. Some pundits such as Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept have recently even gone so far as to claim that the US is in fact intervening in Syria, but "in favor of Assad", an absurd argument that Glenn Greenwald has also expressed.

More... (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/allday131216.html)

It must be obvious to most of us by now that Russia, via Putin, is being held responsible for pretty much everything which is no longer working well for Western engineered neoliberal/neocon globalism. In fact, the stream of accusations against Putin’s Russia have descended into near or actual farce, due mainly to the fact that they are not backed by any factual evidence. We are all simply supposed to ‘know’ that Mr Evil is at it again and that the West must ready itself to take action against his ‘tyrannical activities’.

Aleppo: BBC reports that returning pro Assad Syrian army troops are raping and murdering the civilian population of this once beautiful city in Northern Syria. That thousands are trying to flee the massacre going on night and day at the hands of Assad’s army, supported by Russia and Iran. That a systematic bombardment of the citizens of West Aleppo is being perpetrated by the liberating Syrian army. That children are being killed in schools and that all this is being done with cold blooded ruthlessness at the hands of the liberators.

You’ve seen this sort of ‘journalism’. It is based on fictitious information concocted and spread about by paid-off insiders, hired to tell lies at ten a minute. They are there to protect the geopolitical interests of the West. As if to officially rubber stamp this fact, the US Senate recently introduced a bill attempting to ban any story line which might contradict such ‘official’ version of events. Especially those surrounding the defeat of ISIS and the liberation of Aleppo which had been occupied – and virtually starved out – by ISIS terrorists for the past four years.

Attempts to silence truth are a direct attack on free speech. And such attacks are endemic in Westminster and Washington, as we have long been aware. But what we have been less focused on is the fact that mainstream media journalists are one hundred percent complicit. They are equally as worthy of the title ‘criminals’ as the editors who pay them to lie and the politicians who use these lies to further their ambitions.

I strongly doubt that any BBC, or other mainstream Western journalist, has carried out an in-depth investigation in Aleppo during the past two weeks. They don’t have to. The propaganda machine works best when nobody looks the reality in the eye. They are simply puppets, singing the hymns that NATO, the EU and USA wants the world to hear.

What has just happened in Aleppo is actually a disarmingly opposite reality. The Syrian national army has completed its recapture of the town. Supported by Russia and Iran, it has finally driven out the bloodcurdling terrorist executioners who had held thousands of terrified Syrian citizens hostage and in fear of their lives. The liberating army has brought food and has reconnected disconnected drinking water supplies. It is providing medical services to the sick and wounded and busing others out of still active danger zones. It is being greeted with relief and tears of joy.

While, in comparison with the West, Russia has emerged as a relative powerhouse of studied diplomacy, as well as an effective military force in directly combating the US and UK’s gruesome hegemony.

ISIS, let us not fail to reveal, had even bombarded the people of Aleppo in their own homes, as a deliberate ploy so as to directly accuse Russia and Syria of engaging in these horrors. Western sponsored NGO’s are also complicit in inverting such news horror stories to sound like the evil is being perpetrated by President Asad’s national army. There is no end to the attempts being made to distort and reverse the truth.

Now, let’s switch for a moment to that other closely related story of lies and deceit called ‘Fake News’. And, lo and behold, The gods of what is brazenly called ‘serious news’ (the mainstream media empire) are suddenly spooked by the fact that they might be loosing control over their people. That the feast of lies is not being absorbed as readily as before and that a significant number of those still able to think are turning over to alternative sources of information, like this one, in search of something plausible.

Well, well, this is clearly something that must not be allowed to happen! Let’s brand these clandestine truth seeking sites ‘Fake News’ outlets, spreading false propaganda and lies amongst our audiences! Let’s outlaw freedom of speech – err, I mean fake news – and impeach those who defie us. Yes, and now we ‘know’ Russia hacked into the US elections let’s try and get the West on a serious war footing and kick NATO into action against these anti Western infidels!

So what I have discovered concerning what actually occurred in Aleppo is now Fake News, and because I’m telling fake news I’m in danger of being criminalized and held up as a traitor of mainstream ‘serious’ news and no doubt my Country. Don’t worry, I’ve been on the front lines for years fighting the likes of Monsanto, Tesco and the European Union, and I’m not about to run and hide. .

http://www.globalresearch.ca/news-speak-and-the-duplicity-of-mainstream-journalism/5563834