The scale of destruction of health facilities, combined with attacks on pharmaceutical factories, schools, universities and civilians shows the armed groups have been intent on destroying a functioning state, with no interest in trying to win public support.
The liberation of Aleppo, Syria’s second city and an ancient marvel, represents the most serious setback for the 15-year long Washington-led aggression on the entire region. An effective recolonisation of the region has stretched from Afghanistan to Libya, under a range of false pretexts. Invasions and proxy wars have been backed by economic sanctions and wild propaganda.
If you believed the western corporate media you might think that the Syrian Government, for some unknown reason, has been bombing its own hospitals, and had killed Aleppo’s only paediatric surgeon. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Most of the weapons ISIS used were from the US , with some ammunition from Israel. ISIS had US Hummers, spinning explosive projectiles and military rations from the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
While there is a semblance of political negotiation with armed group representatives in Geneva, Syria’s 2016 congress elections are taking place according to the Syrian constitution and electoral law.
The armed groups have shown little interest in elections.
Regardless, Syria’s government and people are clearly taking to heart UN recognition – most recently in UNSC resolution 2254 of December 2015 – that the country’s political future must remain in the hands of Syrians, and no-one else.
Why did the western liberal media (WLM) engage with such passion in the US-led ‘humanitarian war’ against Syria? Have western journalists shown any recognition of their own moral and, at times, criminal responsibility for the consequences?
In English-language media terms, the terrorist attacks on Damascus had virtually disappeared. In their place the military response to terrorist atrocities was presented as a slaughter of civilians and children. The toxic marriage of sectarian sources and western media, once again, turned events on their head. Sectarian fanatics became innocent victims, while the actual civilian casualties disappeared into thin air.
Such is the disinformation of the dirty war on Syria.
It should go without saying that the internal political processes of a sovereign country belongs to the people of that country, and no-one else. Nevertheless, as Washington insists on a prerogative to determine who can or cannot lead another country, some background on Bashar al Assad and the political reform process in Syria might be useful.
Western mythology relies on the idea of imperial prerogatives, asking what must ‘we’ do about the problems of another people; an approach which has no basis in international law or human rights. The next steps involve a series of fabrications about the pretexts, character and events of the war. The first pretext over Syria was that the NATO states and the Gulf monarchies were supporting a secular and democratic revolution. When that seemed implausible the second story was that they were saving the oppressed majority ‘Sunni Muslim’ population from a sectarian ‘Alawite regime’. Then, when sectarian atrocities by anti-government forces attracted greater public attention, the pretext became a claim that there was a shadow war: ‘moderate rebels’ were said to be actually fighting the extremist groups. Western intervention was therefore needed to bolster these ‘moderate rebels’ against the ‘new’ extremist group that had mysteriously arisen and posed a threat to the world.
While it is important to recognise the sources of bias, the repetition of anti-Syrian stories based on partisan sources cannot be a matter of simple bias. We know from independent evidence that earlier claims of massacres were fabricated by the sectarian groups, then backed by Washington. This has been documented with respect to mass killings at Houla, Aqrab, Daraya, and East Ghouta
