Who outside of Syria knows the names Yara Abbas, Maya Naser, Mohamed al-Saeed…? The corporate media has inundated us with news of the two American journalists allegedly beheaded, the first of whose execution video has been deemed faked. But what of the non-Western journalists and civilians beheaded and murdered by ISIS, al-Nusra, and associated terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine?
Why didn’t the August 2012 execution (which some reported as a beheading) of TV presenter Mohamed al–Saeed, claimed by the Nusra gang, create the same outrage? Or the December 2013 kidnapping and point blank execution in Idlib by ISIS of Iraqi journalist Yasser al-Jumaili?
Why wasn’t the murder of Yara Abbas—a journalist with al-Ikhbariaya, whose crew’s car was attacked by an insurgent sniper—broadcast on Western television stations? Or that of Lebanese cameraman for al-Mayadeen, Omar Abdel Qader, shot dead by an insurgent sniper on March 8, 2014 in eastern Syria.
Maya Naser, Ali Abbas, Hamza Hajj Hassan (Lebanese), Mohamad Muntish (Lebanese), Halim Alou (Lebanese)…all were media workers killed by the Western-backed insurgents in Syria. Their deaths were reported by local media, some even got a passing notice in corporate media, but none resulted in a media frenzy of horror and condemnations as came with the alleged killings of Westerners. Another at least 20 Arab journalists have been killed by NATO’s death squads in Syria in the past few years.
The killing of 16 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, at least 7 targeted while working, during the July/August 2014 Zionist Genocide of Gaza, also fell on deaf ears. Nor were the previous years of murdering Palestinian journalists noted, let alone whipped into a media frenzy. [see also: Silencing the Press, Sixteenth Report, Documentation of Israeli Attacks against Media Personnel in the opt ]
In Syria, there are thousands of civilians and Syrian soldiers who have been beheaded—and in far more brutal and realistic manner than the SITE videos insinuate—by the so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA), al-Nusra, Da’esh (ISIS), and hoards of other Western-backed mercenaries. At the hands of the various NATO-gangs, tens of thousands more civilians have been assassinated and subjected to various sadistic practices—torture, mutilation, crucifixion, burning in ovens, throwing into wells, and a sick lot more. Thousands more, including children and women, remain missing after being kidnapped during mercenary raids and massacres.
‘Sam Hamad is a Scottish-Egyptian writer based in Edinburgh. He specialises in Middle Eastern affairs.’
Whereas independent journalists working in Syria and the Middle East come to a more nuanced conclusion.
So, could you point me to the bits where Fisk and Cockburn refute the claims about mass death and torture in detention that Jenny linked to? Or was there just no point to you re-posting (yet again) these articles? I know which one I think it is, but feel free to prove me wrong.
As per my comment 1.1.1.1.2 above, the articles you linked to don’t refute the claims in Jenny’s posts or even cast doubt on them, so there wouldn’t be much point in her reading them, except maybe for entertainment. Why do you believe those articles are relevant to her posts?
If you read Jenny’s posts, there is a clear inference that one side are the ‘goodies’ and the other the ‘baddies’. Such simplistic ideas are dangerous.
Opinion, no matter how ilustrious the person giving it, is still just that, Opinion.
Personally I post links of verified facts, backed up by my own personal experiences and observations of my time in Syria.
I notice that most of the Assadists try to avoid making statements on these facts, or offer any counter argument against them. And continually make claims with no factual backing at all.
Having been in Syria, not long before the Arab Spring, I was surprised and dismayed when John Pilger made statements in support of the Bathist regime of Bashar Assad.
In my opinion Pilger has let his well justified hatred of US imperialism cloud his judgement.
Syria is not Iraq, Syria is not Afghanistan.
The Syrian popular revolt and civil war is a completely different thing altogether.
The Syrian revolt has more in common with the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt.
Leftists and those who pride them selves on their liberal credentials should never support the mass aerial bombing of civilian cities whatever the excuse.
Pilger, Fisk and countless other lesser luminaries who support the Assad regime’s one sided genocidal air war against its people, believing it is necessary to defeat terrorism, might justify this support by agreeing with the saying; “The end justifies, The means.”
What these lunimaries great and small need to keep in the front of their minds instead, is the saying; “Rotten means, usually mean rotten ends”.
You’re obviously far beyond reason, Jenny. I and many others here have tried to make you see sense, but you are indifferent to the truth, and clearly believe everything you are told on radio and television.
Paul jenny has as much right as you to post here. Your attitude here is pretty repugnant IMO. Someone posts an alternate view to yours and you challenge their right to air their opinions. That’s the way of tyrants.
For what it’s worth I think your own argument has deteriorated to a pissing contest. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that you’ve started deliberately inflating the ‘credentials’ of your copy & paste sources and framing your argument along the lines of “My journalistic references are better than yours so mine must be right and yours therefore are wrong”. It’s quite irritating.
“….you are indifferent to the truth, and clearly believe everything you are told on radio and television.” Morrissey
If you thing that is where I get my information from, you are mistaken.
I have been to Syria Morrisey and seen the Assad regime close up. (Admittedly getting out just before the Arab Spring erupted.) But that was enough to convince me that this was nightmarish police state, no need for any persuasion from the MSM radio or TV.
But if I get the meaning of your words Morrissey, then we shouldn’t believe the evidence of our eyes provided by the drone video of Syrian cities flattened by massive Aerial bombardment by the regime and its allies, scenes that humanity has not witnessed since the bombing of Warsaw by the Nazis in WWII.
Would you really have us believe, Morrissey, that all this drone video footage which is a record of genocide, is digitly altered computer generated fiction?
Seen any work by independent journalist Vanessa Beeley?
“…Through the White Helmets we are seeing the eradication of Syrian state institutions and the implanting of a Syrian shadow state by predominantly the UK, the US and supported by EU governments, says Vanessa Beeley, independent researcher and journalist.
With Syria’s White Helmets having been in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, grabbing headlines as ‘Heroes of Peace’, with the media and politicians endorsing them, RT spoke with Vanessa Beeley, independent researcher and journalist.
Beeley discussed whether The White Helmets are indeed “independent, impartial and unsullied by Western cash”.
I have taken the time to do a lot of googling from a variety of sources on the ‘White Helmets’ of Aleppo Syria.
In my view, given who set them up, funds them, and their role – it’s to push ‘regime change’ in Syria, and, in my view serve USA / European corporate / militarist interests.
In my view, NZ should NOT be supporting in ANY way the ‘White Helmets’ in Aleppo, Syria.
I guess I should apologise. I skimmed Penny’s comment and didn’t recall that actually I have read stuff by Vanessa Beeley, and that she’s an Assad regime shill, not a nutcase. I’m not sure “regime shill” is an improvement on “nutcase,” but accuracy is important.
Why are you here?
Assuming that’s not a general philosophical question, the reason I’m responding to all these pro-Assad propaganda links is outlined in this comment.
An alternative narrative to the simplistic and outdated and clunky “US regime change” narrative template, that Western leftists have tried to force over the Syrian civil war.
Below is video from Tahrir Square in Egypt, part of the heroic region wide 2011 people’s revolt, against dictatorship and authoritarianism, commonly known as the “Arab Spring”.
After witnessing the toppling of his fellow dictators Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the dictator of Syria Basha Assad faced a choice, step down and grant the democratic reforms the protesters were demanding, or attempt to drown the Arab Spring in blood with unbelieveable levels of state violence.
In move he since may have had cause to regret, the beleagured dictator chose the second option.
Just like in Egypt and Tunisia many of the members of the Syrian armed forces refused to shoot down the protesters and instead turned their guns on the regime.
Only the Syrian airforce remained loyal.
And so began the ferocious genocide from the sky that has killed over 400,000 Syrians and driven millions more from the country.
Without an army to speak of, (or at least one that could be relied on), and with the loyalist airbases being slowly over ran, one by one, the regime turned to foreign allies to preserve their rule and turn the tide of the war.
Witnessing all this the Western powers and the UN turned a blind eye and stood aside. There has never been a popular movement that they didn’t distrust.
Thanks for sharing this Jenny. Nobody is saying there was not popular support for the Syrian uprising (except idiots) but the question is was it largely an Islamist uprising or was it more people in search of secular democracy?
Either way that is their right. Or democracy means nothing.
For instance in the Egyptian revolution; in the elections that people fought so hard for, despite the clearly secular and multi-denominational nature of the uprising, the electorate delivered up the Muslim Brotherhood led government of Mohamed Morsi. Rather than letting this democratically elected government work out its contradictions. Under US pressure and the payment of a bribe of an extra $6billion in military aid by the Obama administration, the Egyptian military stepped in to take power, and another pro-Western dictator Adel Al Sisi rules again.
This coup has been followed with the business as usual massacres and banning of protests.
What it might pay to remember is that the Muslim Brotherhood is a close political ally of Hamas in Gaza, which was also elected democratically.
I think we need to stop looking at this issue through Western eyes and see it how those in th Middle East see it. Hamas which is an Islamic movement, started as a religious charity providing medical and food aid to the Palestinians displaced and living in the refugee camps in Gaza. The reason Hamas became so popular in Gaza, (and the Westbank), is that the secular political movements like the Palestine Authority had failed the Palestininan people. Unfortunately for all its early hope, the PA had become corrupted and infiltrated by the Zionists.
The Zionists had a lot more trouble infiltrating and buying off Hamas compared to the PA, finding the religious Islamist movement completely impenetrable, and because of their deep held faith, pretty much incorruptible.
So Israel is not simply bombing hospitals, cutting water off at whim, attacking peace convoys with lethal force, blowing up houses and illegally dispossessing people of their land. We now find that all these apparent crimes are nothing more than fighting “against Islamism.”
Tim, your post at 1:12 p.m. is as depraved as it is stupid.
What did you suspect? That I’d side with the clearly more just and rational side in a longstanding conflict? Your nonsense transcripts confirm to me how biased and out of touch you are.
Tim your arrogance does not strengthen an argument. It weakens it. It looks like you don’t support democracy after reading your points about Egypt and Israel. Israel has killed many innocent Palestinian children in Gaza – great you support a country that does this. You need to read more widely than Fox and CNN to get the news.
According to Bensaada, the MENA Arab Spring revolutions have four unique features in common:
None were spontaneous – all required careful and lengthy (5+ years) planning, by the State Department, CIA pass through foundations, George Soros, and the pro-Israel lobby.1 All focused exclusively on removing reviled despots without replacing the autocratic power structure that kept them in power. No Arab Spring protests made any reference whatsoever to powerful anti-US sentiment over Palestine and Iraq. All the instigators of Arab Spring uprisings were middle class, well educated youth who mysteriously vanished after 2011.
@Penny Bright. My that is certainly some conspiracy theory.
I had no idea that all those millions of people were all being paid by the CIA. Who Knew. And that they were all magically spirited away afterwards, presumably to the US, that was something else.
Next you will be telling us that NASA faked the moon landings and the satelite evidence of climate change.
That climate change is a conspiracy invented by the Chinese to destroy our jobs.
None were spontaneous – all required careful and lengthy (5+ years) planning, by the State Department, CIA pass through foundations, George Soros, and the pro-Israel lobby.
That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows the Arab Spring uprisings were orchestrated by the Lizard People. The CIA is behind the chemtrails.
In October, the Chicago Tribune ran a story covering #StandWithAleppo, a popular twitter handle and hashtag created by “two Chicago moms” looking to document the plight of children in besieged E. Aleppo. But as some observant social media users have since discovered, one of the women turned out to be a journalist, the other the head of a SuperPAC.
In the run-up to eastern Aleppo’s liberation by the Syrian army last week, #StandWithAleppo was turned into an extremely popular Twitter hashtag, users joining the Western mainstream media in condemning the Syrian government and accusing it of committing war crimes in the city. In spite of numerous stories, photos and video materials by alternative media showing that the city’s residents were actually mostly relieved by their liberation, the hashtag has effectively become a rallying cry for the anti-Assad, anti-Russian narrative pushed by the mainstream media and Western governments. But as one very observant Twitter user searching for the origin story behind the viral #StandWithAleppo campaign has since discovered, Becky Carroll and Wendy Widom, the “two ordinary moms” who launched the campaign, are anything but ordinary. 2. Described by Chicago Tribune as a “Chicago mom,” Carroll is in fact CEO of “public affairs & strategic communications firm ” C-Strategies — Club des Cordeliers (@cordeliers) 15 декабря 2016 г. The Chicago Tribune, which interviewed the two women in October, described Carroll as a strategic affairs consultant who “decided it was time to do something” to help the suffering people of the city.
Such simplistic ideas are dangerous.
However, she can expect to be challenged on her support for extreme Jihadist groups.
I admire your patience with the man.
Rather than letting this democratically elected government work out its contradictions. Under US pressure and the payment of a bribe of an extra $6billion in military aid by the Obama administration, the Egyptian military stepped in to take power, and another pro-Western dictator Adel Al Sisi rules again.
Not so funny for folk from Gaza though.
It looks like you don’t support democracy after reading your points about Egypt and Israel.
Israel has killed many innocent Palestinian children in Gaza – great you support a country that does this.
You need to read more widely than Fox and CNN to get the news.
All focused exclusively on removing reviled despots without replacing the autocratic power structure that kept them in power.
No Arab Spring protests made any reference whatsoever to powerful anti-US sentiment over Palestine and Iraq.
All the instigators of Arab Spring uprisings were middle class, well educated youth who mysteriously vanished after 2011.
My that is certainly some conspiracy theory.
So like the colour revolutions in the Ukraine?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/asia/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-confirms-killings-davao.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
very courageous.