Well, that didn't take long…

by Kit

The past two weeks, the ten days following our article predicting a marked increase in a pro-Syrian war rhetoric…there has been marked increase in pro-war rhetoric. The Guardian, CNN and the Washington Post have all published editorials decrying the West’s “lack of action” in Syria, and especially in Aleppo.
In the Guardian, Janine di Giovanni declares that:

The West cannot stand back and let Aleppo be destroyed”

…although she is rather vague on what she would have “the west” do about it.
A little background on Janine de Giovani: She is the middle-east editor for Newsweek, a fellow of the New America Foundation and a frequent speaker and author for The Council of Foreign Relations. No prizes for guessing the general tone of her article.
She repeatedly compares Syria with Yugoslavia – maintaining the myth that the illegal NATO bombings were “humanitarian”, and neglecting to mention that the conflict nearly escalated into hostilities with Russia.
She quotes “experts” from notionally non-partisan NGOs such as the Carnegie Institute and The Atlantic Council. One such expert, Fred Hof, a former “ambassador for transition in Syria” (whatever that means) and a fellow of the aforementioned Atlantic Council says:

I’d not rule out [surface-to-air missiles] for defenders of our choice…I’d not rule out cruise missile strikes on regime airbases.”

Just to be clear, for any readers unsure on this concept, cruise missile strikes on “regime” airbases would be a declaration of war. If those missiles struck Russian personnel or Russian planes, that would probably be the end of civilization as we know it. This article was published in a supposedly liberal paper, with no counter-case given, and no mention of a possible global conflagration as a result.
The WaPo editorial is anonymous, written under the name of the “editorial board”, and again takes up long-disproved view that the war in Syria carries on because of US inaction. Their headline:

As Aleppo is destroyed, Mr. Obama stands by”

They cite the same unsourced facts, hit the same talking points, and deploy the same memes as the Guardian. They don’t go so far as to call for global annihilation, but they don’t recognise that danger either. There is, again, no reference to a possible conflict with Russia should America decide to stop “standing by”.
The CNN opinion piece, written by Hassan Hassan a fellow of Chatham House, headlines:

Why the United States must change its failed policy in Syria”

What exactly the US should “change” is never stated, but the tone is clearly against cooperating with the Russians….and for working with al-Nusra:

Four days after the doctors’ appeal to the US to help lift the siege — and as if to add insult to injury — Moscow announced that the US and Russia are close to starting joint military action against the very group that broke the siege in Aleppo last week — the newly rebranded Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), formerly al Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra.”

Finally, today, there was a The Guardian’s “reveal” of a reconstruction of Assad’s “torture prison”, and the suddenly “iconic” photograph of a little boy in an ambulance that totally accidentally went viral.
The prison article comes with accompanying horror stories (none of which are independently corroborated), and the now habitual practice of dead-panning absurdities as if they are grave revelations. The prison was apparently recreated using “ear-witness testimony” as “a sort of sonar”. Which is to say, the entire article could be totally meaningless if an alleged torture victim’s five-year old memory of an echo is slightly flawed. The article and even goes so far as to have an NGO employee openly declare the political motivation of the release. The aim, he said, is to:

…ensure that Assad is no part of any future peace deal.”

Conclusion

The media have already proved our predictions correct. The propaganda war on Syria is renewed, with the clear hope that they can sell the public on another disastrous conflict in the Middle East. Hiding behind mythic American “inaction”, they clamor for war in the name of peace and beg governments to take an action that was being planned in the Pentagon ten years ago. They employ NGOs they created, to cite statistics they invented, to try to prove that black is white and bombs can save lives.
It’s just the same as Saddam’s “super gun”, and the Kuwaiti babies being thrown out of incubators. It’s just the same as the 45 minutes.
It’s just the same as their last attempt in Syria, in 2013. Only this time with much higher stakes. Hopefully it will be just as effective.

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