Deconstructing the Western War Propaganda
The anti-Syrian propaganda continues to be cranked out by western and other pro-terrorist media outlets such as al-Jazeera as seen above, and the latest propaganda push now turns to making a giant fuss about the poor children in Idlib freezing in the cold winter temperatures, allegedly due to the ongoing successful Syrian military operation to liberate the province from its current occupation by tens of thousands of radical Jihadist terrorists.
All the while, these same media reports and the western governments creating the absurd propaganda narratives fed to them, are completely ignoring the plight of the entire Syrian population outside of terrorist-occupied Idlib, whose access to oil used to heat their homes and cook their food is severely restricted, or who in other cases are entirely unable to obtain fuel for heat or cooking at all. This severe oil shortage has been directly caused by a combination of US economic sanction against Syria and continued US occupation of Syria’s own oil fields in the northeast of the country.
The screenshot above is from an article published last March, but the dire situation has only worsened for the Syrian population this winter. At that time, Aron Lund wrote:
Syria’s severe fuel shortages have had far-reaching knock-on effects, including a rise in food prices, driven by higher transport costs and currency depreciation in government-run areas that had largely avoided such economic hardship. According to the UN, two thirds of Syrians live in “extreme poverty” and 90 percent spend at least half their income on food, so there’s limited ability to cope with these price hikes.
He went on to note that, “Idriss Jazairy, the UN Human Rights Council’s rapporteur on sanctions, reported last year that the US and EU oil embargoes had ‘dramatically raised the cost of fuel oil for heating, cooking, and lighting,’” but the rising prices of oil and decreased value of Syrian currency due to inflation caused by the US and European economic war on the country is the least of the problems for Syrian civilians when there are such massive oil shortages that there is not even enough oil supply available for Syrians to heat their homes or cook their food!
Economic sanctions always impact the civilian population of the country which they target, while rarely affecting the government they claim to be targeting, and US sanctions on Syria are no exception. The US occupation of the majority of Syrian oil fields makes it impossible for Damascus to produce enough of its own oil, so that it must rely on oil imports, but US and EU embargo’s make it practically impossibly for any country to export oil to the country, and only Iran has been brave enough to stand in the face of the threats and military might of the US empire, by continuing to send oil tankers to Syria anyway.
As the US proxy war to topple the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad by military means continues to fail, and Syria continues to win the war against the foreign-backed al-Qaeda terrorists, the US has only continued to ramp up its economic war against Syria by imposing more and more economic sanctions, which continues to worsen economic conditions for the average Syrian civilian, as the inflation of Syrian currency continues to skyrocket and fuel becomes both more expensive as well as more difficult to obtain. These intensifying US sanctions imposed on Syria only increasingly harm the very civilian population the US claims to be fighting for in the face of what it describes as ‘brutal Assad oppression’, while at the same time doing nothing to actually weaken President Assad or the ‘Syrian regime’ the US claims to be targeting with these same sanctions.
The oil tanker seen above is just one of many that has been intercepted on its way to deliver oil to Syria, for suspicion of violating or attempting to circumvent US and EU embargo’s and sanctions, this one detained off the coast of Gibraltar by Gibraltar police.
As a Veteran’s Today article which was recently published on January 17 of this year explains:
The Syrian currency called the Syrian pound or lira has lost value over the war and the situation has gotten much worse just over the past few months, heavily impacted by the closing of the banks in Lebanon which wealthy and entrepreneurial Syrians were using because US sanctions prohibit flow between Syrian banks and the rest of the world.
It was also the US that forced the closing of these banks in Lebanon by sanctioning them late last year, which was done in direct response to an Israeli request, and purported to target Hezbollah, which has been fighting on the front lines of the war against NATO- and Israeli-backed al-Qaeda terrorists alongside the Syrian Army.
The article goes on to relate that: “As a dear Syrian friend just shared with me, the economic suffering is often worse than the war of bullets because you can’t fight it.”
Last year, economic analyst Shadi Ahmad, speaking with SANA, explained exactly how these sanctions used as a form of economic warfare against Syria cripple the economy and negatively impact the civilian population:
The effects of economic sanctions and embargo on living conditions are nothing new to Syrians; according to economic analyst Shadi Ahmad, ever since Western states prohibited the importation of petroleum from Syria, the annual income of the state’s budget was affected, thereby reducing the government’s ability to provide the local market’s needs compared to how things were before 2011.
Ahmad mentioned other steps that put pressure on the economic situation, including preventing some oil tankers from entering Syrian waters even though this is illegal, but this happened nonetheless and caused shortages due to the lack of fuel.
He also mentioned the EU’s sanctions against Syrian businessmen to restrict their business which contributed to providing supplies and goods to the Syrian market, in addition to the decisions to restrict money transfers by Syrians abroad which also had detrimental effects.
The most recent of the hostile acts that target Syrian economy is the bill passed by the American Congress, which bears the hypocritical name “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act” despite the fact that it effectively cuts off essential and necessary supplies for the Syrian people.
Ahmad said this act seeks to punish non-Syrian companies, whether they are Russia, Chinese, Indian, etc. if they provide Syrian with any of the essential materials needed by the economic sector.
The Caesar Act targets any potential contributor to the funding or implementation of reconstruction projects, power sectors, civil aviation companies, and the Central Bank of Syria.
Multiple independent journalists who have actually gone into Syria and talked to Syrian civilians on the ground there confirm that the US sanctions (combined with US occupation forces denying the country access to its own oil) have had such a large effect on the oil supply, that not only is it commonplace to have to wait in line for hours just to purchase enough oil to heat one’s home for a few hours, but that there are often many days with no oil available at all for some families. This in turn causes many to go both cold and hungry, and creates a feeling of desperation.
There is of course also the issue of affordability, as many can’t even afford the little oil that may be available, due to the inflation. And while the US claims all of this is done to target the ‘Assad regime’, President Assad and those closest to him are among those who are in fact not at all affected by this same economic war.
Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil are among those journalists who have actually been to Syria and had the opportunity to speak with the civilian population which is directly affected by this US economic warfare, for which oil shortages and price hikes are among the greatest concerns, and they discuss the topic in the following interview on Moderate Rebels.
Award winning independent British journalist Vanessa Beeley, who is currently on the ground in Syria reporting on the developing situation, also attests to the massive oil shortages causing a large number of Syrian civilians to often go without heat in the heart of winter. Recent Vanessa Beeley interview on The Last American Vagabond discussing this and much more is below:
Unlike such independent journalists who actually visit Syria and talk to the Syrian civilians directly affected by the US sanctions campaign, the western propagandists report from the Turkish border or terrorist-occupied Idlib, rarely stepping foot inside any liberated Syrian territory and thereby ignoring the voices of millions of suffering Syrians inside Syria; instead relying solely on Turkish sources, civilians inside terrorist-occupied territory who are sympathetic to the Jihadist cause, and the official US/Turkish government narrative.
The headline of a recent AP propaganda piece seen below implies that the Syrian offensive to liberate Idlib from terrorist control is somehow responsible for children in Idlib freezing in the cold.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing a Russian-backed Syrian offensive are being squeezed into ever smaller areas near Turkey’s border “under horrendous conditions” in freezing temperatures that are killing babies and young children, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Wednesday.
What is being altogether ignored by western media is that this entire humanitarian crisis, no matter how responsible the current Syrian offensive is for causing the mass displacement of Syrians in Idlib, is that the entire problem was created in the very first place by the US proxy-war against Syria via Operation Timber Sycamore. There would currently be no Syrian military operation to liberate legitimate Syrian territory from the US-backed fighters currently occupying Idlib, if the US, UK, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar had never launched the terrorist proxy war against Syria in the first place eight years ago. There would therefore be no humanitarian crisis in Idlib if not for the belligerent and imperial US foreign policy and attempt to violently topple the Syrian regime on behalf of Israel.
The picture being painted by this western narrative is rather that hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing the violence of evil Assad and the Russian Death Machine which intentionally targets these same civilians, are being “squeezed into an ever smaller area” near the Turkish border, with nowhere left to go, being forced to slowly freeze to death as they await certain slaughter by the quickly advancing Syrian and allied forces, who want nothing more than to kill as many civilians as possible.
What these propaganda pieces fail to mention is that the Syrian and Russian side has repeatedly set up numerous civilian corridors to give these fleeing civilians the opportunity to enter the safety of government-controlled Syria, but the terrorists in Idlib prevent them from doing so, repeatedly opening fire on and shelling those who attempt to do so, and setting mines along the roads to these exits in order to deter any civilians trapped in Idlib from fleeing back into Syria.
They fail to mention that Idlib is “the largest al-Qaeda safe-haven since 9/11,” according to US anti-ISIS envoy Brett McGurk himself, and that the majority of the so-called rebel opposition occupying the province consists of tens of thousands of radical ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked Jihadist terrorists, including numerous ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters who were shipped to Idlib from southern Syria on busses when they refused to lay down their arms and accept reconciliation offered by the Damascus government in late 2018 when they were defeated in those regions.
They fail to mention that until successfully liberated by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), these poor civilians they pretend to care so much about are forced to live under brutal terrorist occupation in Idlib.
We know from firsthand accounts by Syrian civilians who formerly lived under the rule of these very same Jihadist terrorists who were later shipped by the bus load to Idlib, relayed directly to independent journalists on the ground in Syria, such as Eva Bartlett and Max Blumenthal, that life under this terrorist rule was nothing less than brutally oppressive radical Jihadist occupation, under which the civilian population was subjected to some of the most horrendous evils imaginable under the strictest and most violent enforcement of radical Islamic Shariah law.
Living under this so-called moderate opposition was described as “worse than Saudi Arabia,” where the so-called freedom-fighting rebels enforced their version of Sharia law with instant public executions for any alleged first-time violations rather than bothering to cut off their hands as might be typically done under Shariah law. These ‘moderate’ rebels starved the civilian population, by looting civilian homes and hoarding all humanitarian aid being sent in, and then selling it back to the civilians it was meant for in the first place at exorbitant rates. Furthermore, they regularly used civilians as human shields, kidnapped and tortured any civilians suspected of helping the SAA, raped the women, killed minorities or anyone who spoke out against their policies, engaged in organ theft and trafficking, and murdered civilians for use in the staging of false flag chemical attack hoaxes which were in turn used to form the pretext for western intervention against Syrian targets, among other atrocities and war crimes.
But according to the western propaganda narrative, it is only the Syrian government and Russia committing atrocities against Syrian civilians!
These western media propaganda outlets also fail to mention that many of the civilians in Idlib actually desperately want to be liberated by the SAA, and are in fact risking their lives by helping the SAA with its current operation by secretly passing information and intelligence on locations of key terrorist targets to the Syrian side, which is one reason the SAA advance has been so rapid.
The headline for the recent New York Times propaganda piece goes so far as to describe the situation for civilians fleeing the Syrian liberation to be ‘Like the end of the world’.
The Syrian government, backed by Russian forces, has accelerated its monthslong offensive to seize control of Idlib, the last province held by the opposition. Facing heavy bombardment of towns and villages, about 900,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled their homes since December, joining the largest exodus of Syria’s civil war since it began nine years ago.
“Most have headed north, toward the Turkish border, and are living out in the cold,” the Times piece added, failing to mention that the “opposition” has violently prohibited any civilians from fleeing towards the south into government controlled Syria, even if they wanted to.
The swift Syrian advance certainly does mean the ‘end of the world’ for the tens of thousands of Turkish-backed Jihadist terrorists currently occupying but quickly losing their grip over the province, though this reality is strangely not mentioned.
And while the Times quotes what it describes as numerous civilians who are most likely terrorist sympathizers who feel hopelessly desperate, as if the ‘end of the world’ has arrived for them due to the Syrian operation to defeat the terrorists occupying Idlib, it completely fails to mention another group of civilians nearby in northern Syria, who also feel as if the end of the world has come for them, but for very different reasons.
France 24 English reported on February 7 that:
“In northeastern Syria, the Christian community is more threatened than ever,” not by the Syrian Army however, but rather by a revival of ISIS in the area combined with the actions of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) which not only backs the Jihadist terrorists in the region, but which they say also uses the exact same tactics as ISIS so that the two are practically indistinguishable, and is also actively engaged in ethnically cleansing their local villages of all Christians and Armenians.
These are the same Turkish forces being sent into Idlib by the thousands in a desperate attempt to defend the al-Qaeda terrorists there from the Syrian onslaught, which are portrayed by western media as ‘the good guys’ standing against ‘evil Assad’ and the ‘Russian Death Machine’, in a bid to bring to a halt the many ‘atrocities’ allegedly being intentionally carried out by the Syrian government against its own civilian population.
The Syrian Christians in northeastern Syria who spoke with the France 24 reporter described feeling betrayed by western media for ignoring their plight, despite representing so-called Christian nations or at least nations with large Christian populations. And considering that not only is western media ignoring this story in favor of the story of Jihadist sympathizers in Idlib, and casting the Turkish regime in a good light despite its blatant support of al-Qaeda terrorists in Idlib and the numerous atrocities carried out by its own forces in northern Syria, while at the same time focusing only on the so-called ‘atrocities’ carried out by the very Syrian regime which has throughout the entirety of the war gone to great lengths to protect Syrian Christians from the genocidal attacks by the Us-backed moderate head-chopping rebels, it seems increasingly apparent that the western media is intentionally standing on the side of all those in and around Syria who wish to wipe Syrian Christians off the face of the map.
After all, the real absurdity of the Anti-Assad narrative being parroted by western media outlets - that the Syrian Army which they claim is actively engaged in carrying out as many atrocities against its own civilians as it can, by targeting only Syrian civilians as it clears Idlib of the Jihadist terrorists - lies in the fact that hundreds upon hundreds of fighters of this same Syrian Army have given and continue to give their lives to liberate these same Syrian civilians from brutal terrorist occupation and to protect Syrian Christians and other minorities from the Turkish-backed Jihadist agenda of ethnic cleansing.
The New York Times sneakily manages t push this agenda without the author ever overtly doing so in their own words, by carefully quoting only those people from Idlib whose claims and stories support the official western narrative, and who claim the SAA is targeting the civilian population despite so much evidence to the contrary.
Instead of directly calling for American airstrikes on Syria, they simply quote a local who does so for them.
“We wish the Europeans would strike the government,” the trader, Muhammad, said. “We wish America would come. But we do not expect them to.”
“Bashar is killing us,” he blurted out, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “Every day hundreds are dying and now America needs to do something.”
Such rhetoric being peddled by the Times may well be part of a lead up to another planned false flag chemical attack staged by the White Helmets to form the pretext for the American and European intervention being sought by the terrorists and their supporters. In the past, the ‘rebels’ and their sympathizers publicly called for such western strikes on Syrian targets in order to ‘rescue’ them in the days leading up to the staged chemical attacks in April of 2017 and 2018, both of which were successful at prompting such intervention by the US, UK and France, but which attacks on Damascus were not enough to ‘rescue’ the terrorists by stopping or even slowing the Syrian offensives at those times.
Another important part of the Idlib equation being completely ignored in these western propaganda pieces, whether intentionally or by sheer ignorance, is that the majority of these 900,000 or so poor freezing civilians who are fleeing towards or already trapped at the Turkish border consist mainly of the families of the terrorist fighters as well as other terrorist sympathizers, supporters and propagandists, including the White Helmets. And though this fact is not outright admitted, the evidence is inadvertently written right into the propaganda pieces, and is readily apparent to anyone who can read between the lines.
Al Jazeera openly admits that Idlib is “home to more than a million people, the majority of whom were transferred there en masse from other areas captured by government forces.” In other words, the majority of the current Idlib residents are the extremist ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters who refused to reconcile with Damascus when areas they had previously controlled were captured by government forces, along with their families.
The New York Times propaganda piece noted that most of the people who spoke with them were only willing to identify themselves by their first name, “out of fear of being identified by the Syrian government.” The only people who would have a legitimate fear of being identified by the Syrian government are the terrorists, or those actively engaged in supporting the terrorists, as Damascus has continually offered immunity to any fighters who are willing to lay down their arms and re-join Syrian society or join the Syrian Army, as part of the reconciliation process. Only those entirely unwilling to reconcile with Damascus in this way, or avowed members of ISIS and al-Qaeda have anything to fear from the Syrian government.
That the Times only interviewed ‘civilians’ who strongly condemned the Syrian government while having only good things to say about Turkey and nothing bad to say about the Jihadists, while it is known that a multitude of civilians in Idlib are systematically oppressed by the Jihadists and seek liberation by the SAA, is another sign that western media is relying on terrorist sympathizers and propagandists as its ‘civilian’ sources, whether intentionally or by sheer ignorance.
Two of the women the Times referenced were widows, and although the cause of their husbands’ deaths weren’t mentioned, it is very likely because they were ‘opposition’ militants killed by the SAA, or terrorists, meaning these women are most likely family members of the Jihadist fighters and therefore sympathetic to their cause.
The Times quotes one “medical doctor” as describing the situation in Idlib in terms that also quite accurately describes the current situation in government-controlled Syria being caused by US sanctions, but which is in turn completely ignored by the author in favor of covering only the plight of those in terrorist-occupied territory.
“Fuel oil is scarce or very poor quality,” he said. “Prices are getting higher and higher.”
And of course a great western propaganda piece such as this wouldn’t be complete with a photo of the heroic, organ-trafficking, head-chopping White Helmet rescuers carrying a victim out of the rubble of a Syrian airstrike; which the White Helmets claim only ever target schools, markets, hospitals, civilian homes and fleeing civilians, but never the terrorists, except on the occasions they bomb White Helmet centers...
At least their caption read read ‘victim’ instead of ‘civilian’, probably because the ‘victim’ was a known terrorist fighter...
Western Empire Openly Supports Terrorists in Idlib
For its part, the AP article focused more on the western condemnation of the Syrian liberation of terrorist-occupied Idlib and calls for a ceasefire by the US, UK, France and Germany, which is also being sought by Turkey.
German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, following the lead of Donald Trump, urged Russia to stop supporting Syria, as Trump himself likewise just did last week.
“If you tell the Syrians that there is no longer military support to the Syrian regime, they will have to stop the onslaught on their own population,” he said.
Speaking of the UN Security Council’s responsibility to “stop what is happening,” in regards to the Syrian liberation of Idlib from the hands of the terrorists, he said: “We must spare no effort.”
US Ambassador Kelly Craft likewise showed her support for the terrorists by decrying the Syrian liberation of its own territory from al-Qaeda terrorist occupation, and by urging the implementation of a new ceasefire, which would only benefit the terrorists who never adhere to such ceasefires, while punishing Syrians who consistently come under attack by these al-Qaeda extremists in Idlib throughout the duration of all such previous ceasefires, until the SAA responds with new military offensives against them.
She told the council that “the clearest path we see to an immediate end to violence in northwest Syria is for the U.N. to take full charge of a new cease-fire initiative.” This patently absurd claim is an absolute deception because so long as the terrorists remain in Idlib, such cease-fire initiatives will never bring and immediate end to violence in northwest Syria as she claims it will. It will only bring an immediate end to the violence being perpetrated against the terrorists and their supporters, not the Syrian civilians who are constantly targeted by these same terrorists.
The British Ambassador likewise condemned Syria’s attacks against the terrorists, that she claims are indiscriminately killing innocent civilians, but no mention of the hundreds of Syrian civilians who have been and will continue to be killed by the terrorists if another ceasefire is enacted.
Britain’s ambassador, Karen Pierce, said Russia and Syria need to stop “indiscriminate and inhumane attacks” in the northwest that are killing and injuring innocent civilians.
“French Ambassador Nicolas De Riviere said he proposed that the Security Council issue a statement on the escalating situation,” that “called for a cessation of hostilities in northwestern Syria,” AP reported. However Russia blocked it, because they “insisted on an additional line that would have allowed the fight against ‘terrorists’ to continue.”
The response to this reasonable Russian demand by the western members of the Security Council betray their absolute and total support of the terrorists in Idlib.
“That [additional line] was unacceptable to the vast majority of council members, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the consultations were private.”
To the US, UK, France, Germany, and Turkey, it is unacceptable for any ceasefire agreement in Idlib to include a provision allowing the Syrian and Russian militaries to continue targeting the “terrorists” who themselves consistently and persistently violate every single such ceasefire that has ever been implemented.
As Turkey continues to take the steps of preparations for waging war on Syria in defense of their proxy-terrorists in Idlib, by dumping hundreds of pieces of military equipment and thousands of Turkish soldiers into Idlib in a desperate attempt to deter the ongoing Syrian advance, and the US and its European allies in the Security Council at the UN desperately attempt to use diplomatic pressure to protect these terrorists, it couldn’t be more clear that the US and Turkey are proud supporters of al-Qaeda in Syria.
The US government message repeated by western propaganda outlets is coming through loud and clear: Only the lives of radical al-Qaeda terrorists in Idlib, along with their supporters and the few civilians killed by Syrian attacks on those terrorists matter. The lives of Syrian civilians threatened by these same terrorists and by US sanctions don’t matter in the slightest, because it has never been about protecting and standing up for oppressed Syrians as they falsely claim, but about pushing a pre-planned agenda to topple the Syrian government.
Their soon-to-be-defeated proxy-terrorist army in Idlib, the economic warfare, and the occupation of Syrian oil fields are all just a means towards that end; all parts of one unified all-out western war on the nation of Syria and her people that the US is now on the loosing end of.