On Syria: "...The Western media has not only been wrong, but has lied on so many occasions in the past, that it cannot be expected to tell the truth now."

Top Three Media Lies About the Syrian Peace Talks  

By Shamus Cooke

The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the "Geneva II" Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace, but instead, to accomplish the Obama administration’s longstanding goal of Syrian regime change. 

Here are the top three Western media lies about the Syrian peace talks. 

1) The removal of Syrian Bashar al-Assad was an agreed upon "precondition" for the Geneva II peace talks. 

This lie has been repeated over and over by government and media alike. It has zero basis...

2) The U.S.-backed rebel militias are "moderate" Islamic groups.

The fact that this lie can even be uttered publicly without encountering ridicule is a major success of Western media propaganda...

3) New Evidence of Syrian government "industrial scale" torture.  

...the lie here is that the Western media promoted the "evidence" as being unquestionably true, when the story doesn’t reach first base when it comes to evidence-based journalism...

...How do these lies become such permanent fixtures in the Western media? An excellent article in the Guardian newspaper recently discussed in depth the principal sources the Western media has used to understand the Syrian conflict. 

The article exposed the incredible bias of some of the most important Western media sources on Syria, which is why they were handpicked in the first place to be "expert" sources: they had political agendas that were aligned with the US government’s foreign policy decisions. The other side of the conflict was completely ignored, except when it was targeted for ridicule. 

Thus, Americans and Europeans [and Australians] have a completely one-sided, if not fantasy-based perspective of what is happening in Syria. This has been systematic since the beginning of the conflict, as happened with the Yugoslav, Afghan, Iraq, and Libya wars...

 

“The West Publicly Claims to Be Fighting Terrorism, Whilst It Is Covertly Nourishing It.”

Must Read By Walid al-Moallem - Syria Foreign Minister

"...Today, in this gathering of Arab and Western powers, we are presented with a simple choice: we can choose to fight terrorism and extremism together and to start a new political process, or you can continue to support terrorism in Syria. Let us reject and isolate the black hands and the false faces, which publicly smile but covertly feed terrorist ideology, striking Syria today, but ultimately spreading to infect us all. This is the moment of truth and destiny; let us rise to the challenge..." Continue

The Ugly American (and Friends) in Geneva

By Daniel McAdams

"US Secretary of State John Kerry's delusions continued as he arrived in Montreux, Switzerland to open the "Geneva II" talks on the ongoing conflict in Syria... Kerry proceeded to bully and blunder his way through the pre-opening of the conference.

"We need to deal with reality here," Kerry said on the eve of the conference. "Bashar Assad will not be part of that transition government."

Kerry's pressure on Ban to uninvite Iran to the conference — though Iran is far more affected by the crisis than the majority of countries invited to participate — was based on Iran's refusal to endorse the pre-condition of support for "regime change" in Syria as the goal of the conference. 

At least "regime change" was the US interpretation of the Geneva I Communique issued after that conference in 2012.

However the US appears to be purposely misinterpreting the statement made after the Geneva I conference. 

According to the Communique signed after that conference, there is no demand that Assad must leave office. At most, the agreement calls for:

The establishment of a transitional governing body which can establish a neutral environment in which the transition can take place. That means that the transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers. It could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.

If anyone is violating the letter and spirit of the Geneva Communique, it is the US/Saudi side. The US government demanding that Assad must go clearly violates this statement in the Communique: 

The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria must be respected.

Therefore if any country should be disqualified from participation in Geneva II on the basis of refusing to observe to the Communique issued at the end of Geneva I, it should be the US and any other nation demanding the overthrow of the current Syrian government as a pre-condition to further talks...

This conference is a farce."      Continue

5 Reasons The Latest Report On Syria War Crimes May Not Be True

By Brandon Turbeville

"...Qatar is the sponsor of the report. Qatar is, one of the major sponsors of the Syrian invasion (aka the Syrian “rebels”) and has played a massively important role in financing, training, arming, and directing the death squads..." Continue

US Feigns "Horror" Over Cooked-Up Report on Syrian War They Engineered

By Tony Cartalucci

"...The ongoing conflict in Syria was engineered by the West and its regional allies as far back as 2007, revealed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article,  The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?  which prophetically stated (emphasis added):
 

‘To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. 

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.’

It is now admitted that Al Qaeda comprises almost entirely all of the militants fighting the Syrian government, many of whom are foreigners crossing into Syrian territory with NATO's aid.  

 Continue