Liberation of Aleppo brought setback for US-Led Aggression

The Liberation of Aleppo: A Regional Turning Point. Setback for US-Led Aggression

By Prof. Tim Anderson

Global Research, December 21, 2016

In late 2016, at the cost of many young lives, Syrian forces took back the eastern part of the city of Aleppo, occupied by NATO and Saudi backed terrorists for more than four years.

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.

But this great war of aggression – called the creation of ‘New Middle East’ by former US President George W. Bush – has hit a rock in Syria. The massive proxy armies bought and equipped by Washington and its regional allies the Saudis, Turkey, Qatar and Israel, have been beaten back by a powerful regional alliance which supports the Syrian nation.

The endgame in Aleppo involves a handful of foreign agents – US, Saudi, Israeli and others – said to remain with the last al Qaeda groups in a tiny part of what was once their stronghold. The US in particular is keen to secure their release, because their presence is further evidence of the foreign command of what was claimed to be a ‘civil war’.

After a storm of western government and media misinformation (claims of massacres, mass executions and ‘civilians targeted’) over the evacuation of around 100,000 civilians and many thousands of terrorists, the UN Security Council authorised some ‘independent observers’ to monitor the process. However most of that evacuation is now over. Resettlement and reconstruction is already underway, and army reserves have been called up to defend the city.

Syrian, Iranian, Russian and independent reporters (including Maytham al Ashkar, Shadi Halwi, Asser Khatab, Khaled Alkhateb, Ali Musawi, Lizzie Phelan, Murad Gazdiev, Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and the late Mohsen Khazaei) have already told us quite a lot. What they said bore little resemblance to the western apocalyptic stories. For example, outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, a close ally of Washington, claimed in his last press conference that ‘Aleppo is now a synonym for hell’. Those claims were based on stories from NATO’s desperate jihadists.

Reporters on the ground told a different story. As Syrian forces smashed the al Qaeda lines, the trapped civilians streamed out. They published video of long lines of people leaving east Aleppo and finding relief, food and shelter with the Syrian Arab Army. Tired and relieved, they told their stories to anyone who cared to listen. Russia and Iran gave many tonnes of food, clothing, blanket and shelter aid. By contrast, western countries generally gave nothing and the terror groups rejected all aid from the Syrian alliance.

Civilians were prohibited from leaving the al Qaeda enclave, many were shot dead when they tried to do so. The armed gangs had food reserves but kept it for their fighters. Arms factories including toxic chemicals were found and were being made safe. Some of the armed men were taken into custody, but most were shipped out to Idlib, where Damascus has been concentrating the foreign-backed fighters.

When the hell canons fell silent, and no more home-made gas cylinder mortars landed in the heart of the city, there was elation and dancing in the streets, shown widely on social media. The US State Department spokesman claimed he had not seen this.

Al Qaeda in Aleppo was crushed. All the anti-Syrian government armed groups in Aleppo were either the ‘official’ al Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat al Nusra aka Jaysh Fateh al Sham) or deeply embedded associates. When the US pretended to suppress Jabhat al Nusra in 2012 and 2016, all the ‘Free Syrian Army’ groups protested, saying ‘we are all Jabhat al Nusra’. One might have thought that the US Government – which once claimed to be engaged in a global war against terrorism, in the name of 3,000 people murdered in New York back in September 2001 – would be as elated as those on the streets of Aleppo. They were not.

Much of the western media, reflecting their governments, solemnly reported on ‘the fall of Aleppo’. The Syrian victory over the al Qaeda groups was a great tragedy, they said. On the other hand, the near simultaneous recapture of Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, by the eastern al Qaeda group ISIS, was reported differently. That city was said to have been ‘retaken’.

All this underlines what should have been an obvious point, admitted by many US officials, that every single armed group in Syria (whether ‘moderate’ or ‘extremist’) has been armed and financed by the US and its allies, in an attempt to overthrow the Syrian Government. All the talk about ‘moderate rebels’, a ‘brutal regime’ and a ‘civil war’ just tries to hide this.

The final evacuations of Aleppo – which included an exchange of civilians besieged for 20 months in the Idlib towns of Faoua and Kafraya for remaining NATO-jihadists in eastern Aleppo – were organised between Russia and Turkey. There was some serious sabotage of these agreements, but the understandings have so far stayed on track. Now Iran is engaged with Russia and Turkey, in three way talks. Practical matters are being discussed.

It is notable that the Obama administration is playing no direct constructive role in the endgame over Aleppo. Its ‘regime change’ proxy war on Syria is failing and, in its place, the incoming Washington regime promises a new approach. More importantly, a new regional alliance has formed to reject any new aggression from the colonial powers.

Many things have changed during the war on Syria. The Syrian alliance has beaten back powerful NATO-GCC forces. The Muslim Brotherhood and its patrons in Egypt, Qatar and Turkey have received another beating. Egypt and Iraq now support Syria. The Saudis have joined with Israel against Iran and Syria. Russia has built stronger bonds with Syria and Iran. The Arab League, having backed the destruction of two Arab states, seems all but dead. Will the new, enhanced ‘Axis of Resistance’ take its place?

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Prof. Tim Anderson, Global Research, 2016

NATO's Belligerent War & Goebblesian Propaganda

These are nothing but arms sales tactics by Major Powers i.e. USA, UK, France, Germany, Sweden...

Say “No” to War and Media Propaganda: Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire

By Mairead Maguire

Global Research, December 21, 2016

Inter Press Service 15 September 2014

 

While the United States, United Kingdom and NATO are pushing for war with Russia, it behooves people and their governments around the world to take a clear stand for peace and against violence and war, no matter where it comes from.

We are at a dangerous point in our history of the human family and it would be the greatest of tragedies for ourselves and our children if we simply allowed the war profiteers to take us into a third world war, resulting in the death of untold millions of people.

NATO’s decision at its summit in Wales (September 4-5) to create a new 4,000 strong rapid reaction force for initial deployment in the Baltics is a dangerous path for us all to be forced down, and could well lead to a third world war if not stopped. What is needed now are cool heads and people of wisdom and not more guns, more weapons, more war.

NATO is the leadership which has been causing the ongoing wars from the present conflict in the Ukraine, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and others.

NATO’s latest move commits its 28 member states to spend two percent of their gross domestic product on the military, and to establish a series of three to five bases in Eastern Europe where equipment and supplies will be pre-positioned to help speed deployments, among other measures.

“We are at a dangerous point in our history of the human family and it would be the greatest of tragedies for ourselves and our children if we simply allowed the war profiteers to take us into a third world war, resulting in the death of untold millions of people.”

This decision by the United States/NATO to create a high readiness force with the alleged purpose of countering an alleged Russian threat reminds me of the war propaganda of lies, half-truths, insinuations and rumours to which we were all subjected in order to try to soften us all up for the Iraq war and subsequent horrific wars of terror which were carried out by NATO allied forces.

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) observation team, NATO’s reports, including its satellite photos which show Russian combat forces engaged in military operations inside sovereign territory of Ukraine, were based on false evidence.

While NATO is busy announcing a counter-invasion to the non-existent Russian invasion of Ukraine, people in Ukraine are calling out for peace and negotiations, for political leadership which will bring them peace, not weapons and war.

This spearhead military force will be provided by allies in rotation and will involve also air, sea and special forces. We are also informed by a NATO spokesperson that this force will be trained to deal with unconventional actions, from the funding of separatist groups to the use of social media, intimidation and black propaganda.

No doubt the current Western media’s demonisation of President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people, by trying to inculcate fear and hatred of them, is part of the black propaganda campaign.

NATO’s latest proposals of 4,000 soldiers, and a separate force of 10,000 strong British-led joint expeditionary force also proposed, is a highly aggressive and totally irresponsible move by the United States, United Kingdom and NATO. It is breaches the 1997 agreement with Moscow under which NATO pledged not to base substantial numbers of soldiers in Eastern Europe on a permanent basis.

NATO should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact disintegrated but it was not and is now controlled by the United States for its own agenda. When speaking of NATO, one of President Bill Clinton’s officials said “America is NATO”. Today NATO, instead of being abolished, is re-inventing itself in re-arming and militarising European states and justifying its new role by creating enemy images – be they Russians, IS (the Islamic State), and so on.

In an interdependent, interconnected world, struggling to build fraternity, economic cooperation and human security, there is no place for the Cold War policies of killing and threats to kill and policies of exceptionalism and superiority. The world has changed. People do not want to be divided and they want to see an end to violence, militarism and war.

The old consciousness is dysfunctional and a new consciousness based on an ethic of non-killing and respect and cooperation is spreading. It is time for NATO to recognise that its violent policies are counterproductive. The Ukraine crisis, groups such as the Islamic State, etc., will not be solved with guns, but with justice and through dialogue.

Above all, the world needs hope. It needs inspirational political leadership and this could be given if President Barack Obama and President Putin sat down together to solve the Ukraine conflict through dialogue and negotiation and in a non-violent way.

We live in dangerous times, but all things are possible, all things are changing … and peace is possible.

The original source of this article is Inter Press Service

Copyright © Mairead Maguire, Inter Press Service, 2016

MSM & Obama cabal failed with their Russia hacking propaganda !

Surely, the MSM are having their bad days...

Russia-Hack Story against Donald Trump, Another Media Failure

By Joe Lauria

Global Research, December 20, 2016

Consortiumnews 19 December 2016

President Obama admitted in his press conference on Friday that his government hasn’t released any evidence yet of Russian interference in the election, but he said some would be coming.

That’s proof that an uncritical press has already printed stories as if true without any evidence just on the say-so of the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization long dedicated to deception, disinformation and meddling in other countries’ elections, not to mention arranging coups to overthrow elected governments.

Forty years ago, the established press would have been skeptical to buy anything the CIA was selling after a series of Congressional committees exposed a raft of criminal acts and abuses of power by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Today’s journalists work for newspapers that fraudulently still bear the names New York Times and Washington Post, but they are no longer the same papers.

The vast U.S. news media also is not the same. The working journalist today is living off the reputation for skepticism and determination to get beyond government pronouncements that was established by their papers decades ago. Rather than add to that reputation, the credibility of the biggest newspapers continues to erode.

Both the Times and the Post should today be stained by their credulous reporting of official lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Instead of showing professional skepticism, the big papers became cheerleaders for an illegal invasion that killed hundreds of thousands of people and left behind a disaster that still reverberates today. Neither the Times nor the Post suffered any consequences and have picked up where they left off, still uncritically reporting anonymous U.S. officials without demanding proof.

On the contrary, any reporter who did demand evidence was in danger of career consequences. An editor for a newspaper chain that I was reporting for called me to chew me out because he said my stories were not in support of the Iraq war effort. He told me his son was a Marine. I told him I was sure he was proud but that my job was to report the news based on the evidence. On the very day when the invasion began, I was fired.

Of course, the television networks, including CNN, were most egregious for selling the war. I was shocked when I heard reporter Kyra Philips from aboard a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf gleefully announce: “Welcome to Shock and Awe!” just after a cruise missile was shown being fired. The people it killed on the receiving end were almost never mentioned.

CNN, which has accepted Russian interference in the U.S. election as a given, is also living off its reputation of a once very serious news organization. On its very first broadcast on June 1, 1980, Cable News Network aired as its second story a lengthy investigative report on faulty fuel gauges in commercial airliners. It broadcast an in-depth live report from the Middle East, and veteran newsman Daniel Schorr interviewed and challenged President Jimmy Carter.

But 1980 was when the period of skeptical, professional journalism that demanded proof from its own government started to decline as Ronald Reagan was elected. He worked to stamp out the skepticism bred from Watergate, Vietnam and the Congressional intelligence hearings. Reagan did this, in part, by resurrecting the most obvious and adolescent myths about America. And he worked with the CIA to manage America’s perceptions away from the critical thinking of the 1970s, as journalist Robert Parry has extensively reported.

There have been a few periods in American journalism when demanding proof from government was expected. The muckraking period led by Lincoln Steffens of the Progressive Era was one. The 1970s was another. But mostly it has been a business filled with careerists who live vicariously through the powerful people they cover, disregarding the even greater power the press has to cut the powerful down to size.

Egregious Case

The reporting on the supposed Russian hack of the elections is one of the most egregious examples of unprofessional journalism since 2003, particularly because of the stakes involved.

There have now been a slew of stories, each of which seems to offer a new promise of evidence, such as one under the ludicrous New York Times headline, “C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence.” But when you read the piece, its only sources are still unnamed intelligence officials. A later 8,000-word Times article was the same, as though the length by itself was supposed to lend it more credibility.

If there were any doubts, Obama wiped them away with his admission that no evidence had been released. Worse still, perhaps, is that counter-evidence has been suppressed, another consistent feature of today’s journalism.

The former British diplomat Craig Murray, has written and told at least two radiointerviewers that the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta emails were not obtained by WikiLeaks through hacks, but instead from leaks by American insiders.

This story was totally ignored by established media until the Daily Mail in London reported it online, but incorrectly said Murray had himself received the leak. In the U.S., only The Washington Times reported the story, quoting the Mail. But that story took a swipe at Murray’s reputation, merely saying he was “removed from his diplomatic post amid allegations of misconduct.” In fact, Murray was let go for blowing the whistle on U.K. use of evidence extracted by torture by the corrupt Karimov administration in Uzbekistan. The rest of the Washington Times story just repeats what every other reporter has written about Russian interference.

Two Obstacles

Even if it were proven that Russian government operatives hacked these emails as part of their intelligence gathering, there remains the additional evidentiary hurdle that they then supplied the data to WikiLeaks, when the recipients, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, say the source or sources weren’t Russians.

It’s also noteworthy that none of the information in the emails has been shown to be false. The leaks provided real insights into how the DNC favored Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders and revealed some shady practices of the Clinton Foundation as well as the contents of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street bankers that she had tried to hide. In other words, the leaks gave voters more information about Hillary Clinton, confirming what many voters already believed: that she was beholden to the financial sector and benefited from her insider connections. But none of that was particularly news.

It is important to note, too, that Obama himself in his press conference said there is zero evidence Russia tried to hack into the electronic voting systems. In fact it now emerges from dogged reporting by a local Atlanta TV station that the Department of Homeland Security appears to have been behind earlier attempted hacks of voting systems in several states.

So, it would be virtually impossible to prove that the DNC and Podesta emails were the deciding factor in the election. Indeed, before the election, pro-Clinton corporate media downplayed the email-related stories and Podesta said the emails may have been faked (although none of them appears to have been made up).

The emails also revealed numerous instances of reporters colluding with the Clinton campaign before publishing stories, something no hard-boiled editor from an earlier era would have stood for.

Democratic Misdirection

By focusing on the alleged Russian role now, Democrats also have diverted attention from other factors that likely were far more consequential to the outcome, such as Clinton largely ignoring the Rust Belt and not going once to Wisconsin or her calling many Trump supporters “deplorables” and “irredeemable.” Further, Clinton was a quintessential Establishment candidate in an anti-Establishment year.

And, there was the fact that in the campaign’s final week, FBI Director James Comey briefly reopened the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State, a move that reminded many Americans why they distrusted Clinton.

Yet, as the mainstream U.S. media now hypes as flat fact the supposed Russian role, there remains the inconvenient truth that the Obama administration’s intelligence community has presented no verifiable evidence that the Russians were the source of the leaks.

Demanding to see the evidence on Russia, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee called the CIA, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to a closed-door briefing. Though these agencies are obligated to show up in response to requests from their Congressional oversight committees, the three agencies flatly refused. Then, DNI James Clapper refused to brief concerned Electoral College voters whose votes for or against Trump may have been influenced by the news media frenzy about alleged Russian interference. Clapper reportedly is preparing a report on Russia’s “hacking” for Congress.

Political Strategy

The Russia fiasco appears to have been part of a political strategy that I first wrote about on Nov. 5 – three days before the election – that a fallback plan, if Trump won a narrow victory, would be to influence the electors to reject Trump when they assemble in state capitals on Dec. 19. Playing the Russian card was designed to appeal to the electors’ patriotism to defend their country against foreign interference.

Assuming that Electoral College long shot failed, there would be one more chance for Clinton to stop Trump: on Jan. 6, when Congress meets to certify the election. The Clinton camp needs one Senator and one Representative to sign an objection to Trump’s certification (no doubt citing Russia) forcing a vote by both chambers.

If Trump loses – and there are a number of anti-Trump Republicans in Congress – the election would be thrown to the House where Clinton or a more conventional Republican could be selected as President.

Given those stakes for the American democracy and the risks inherent in U.S. relations with nuclear-armed Russia, the fact that the most influential establishment media has bought into this extremely flimsy story about Russian hacking should condemn them further in the minds of the public.

Joe Lauria is a veteran foreign-affairs journalist based at the U.N. since 1990. He has written for the Boston Globe, the London Daily Telegraph, the Johannesburg Star, the Montreal Gazette, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers. He can be reached at joelauria@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @unjoe.

The original source of this article is Consortiumnews

Copyright © Joe Lauria, Consortiumnews, 2016

Mainstream Media (MSM) caught with its pants down !

Sooner people around the world wake up to the reality, the better it is for them and the world...

Silencing the Truth? The Mainstream Media Declares War on the Alternative Media

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Global Research, December 20, 2016

Silent Crow News 16 December 2016

When it came to the art of lying to the public, German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels said it best:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Since World War II, the U.S. government has been involved in numerous wars and orchestrated coups in more than fifty countries based on fabricated lies created mainly by the CIA to destroy or remove governments not subservient to Washington’s interests. Goebbels knew that “the lie can be maintained only for such time.”

And time and time again, the mainstream-media (MSM) has been exposed as an agent of propaganda. For example, at the start of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government was supplying the MSM with information on the Gulf of Tonkin incident and they accepted it without question. On August 5th, 1964, The Washington Post headlined ‘American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression.’ Other MSM sources followed with similar headlines. Washington’s official story was that on August 2nd, the North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an “unprovoked attack” against the U.S. destroyer Maddox that was supposedly on a routine patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two days later, another so-called “deliberate attack” was committed by North Vietnamese PT boats.

All the claims by the U.S. government and the MSM were based on lies. In fact, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was engaged in an intelligence-gathering mission that also helped coordinate attacks with the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force against the North Vietnamese forces. The result of the lie ended with more than 50,000 U.S. deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties. According to the Vietnam Red Cross, over 3 million Vietnamese including 150,000 children were affected with Agent Orange chemicals sprayed on the countryside by the U.S. Air Force to eliminate forest cover for North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong troops since the war ended in 1975. Agent Orange was also used to destroy crops that were meant to feed the Viet Cong. Numerous books had been published on the lies that led to the Vietnam War. One of the books, ‘The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam’ by Daniel Hallin who said journalists had “a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn’t used” Hallin claimed.

The lies perpetrated by MSM are a component of the Military-Industrial Complex. The MSM is a public relations firm that represents the establishment’s hidden agenda disguised as a noble cause to spread “American style democracy” to the rest of the world. Without the MSM, wars cannot be waged. Wars are based on the lies and deceptions provided by Washington and their special interest groups (corporations, lobbyists, etc..) therefore, the MSM’s job is to win the “hearts and minds” of the public with propaganda. Without public support, the U.S. government cannot engage in its imperial wars like they did in Vietnam. On the ‘Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs’ website under the United States Department of State archived the results of the Harris Poll documenting public support for the U.S. government’s bombing campaign against North Vietnam: ‘Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson’ on June 30, 1965 under the subject ‘France in Vietnam, 1954, and the U.S. in Vietnam, 1965—A Useful Analogy? Stated the following:

The latest Harris Poll (June 28) shows that 62% of the public expresses overall approval of the President’s handling of the Vietnam crisis. Well over 70% of the people believe that Southeast Asia will go Communist if we do not stand firm in Vietnam, and they approve the President’s call for unconditional negotiations. Twenty-three percent are not sure about bombings in the North or the sending of more troops during the monsoon season. However, of those with an opinion, almost 80 percent approve of the bombing and over 60 percent believe we should send more troops

The war in Iraq with the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” hoax with help from The New York Times also convinced the public to support the Bush administration’s Neocon agenda to remove Saddam Hussein. The American public fell for another lie and what was the outcome? A disastrous war that left Iraq permanently fragmented. The Iraq war created more terrorist networks that happen to be supported by the U.S. government and its allies ready to destroy other sovereign nations in the Middle East including Syria. The Iraq war also created a refugee crisis and impoverished Iraqi society for future generations.

Goebbels’s claimed that the state can lie and keep that lie going, however, they can only maintain the lie only for so long until the public (with help from the alternative media) can expose their lies. The consequences of MSM propaganda has led to wars of conquest, theft by Wall Street megabanks, demonizing their perceived enemies both foreign and domestic, promoting the phony war on drugs and the list goes on. The MSM has been exposed, they are in panic so what are they to do? Goebbels had said “It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Hillary Clinton recently made it clear that the truth by the alternative media is the enemy of the state. Clinton recently came out from her cave and blames the alternative media for her loss to Donald Trump during a ceremony for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who is retiring from Congress. The queen of lies said

“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear that so-called fake news can have real-world consequences.”

Clinton actually has the audacity to claim that the alternative news on social media (that has exposed the U.S. government‘s crimes against humanity in the past and present) has “real world consequences.”

What does she mean by real world consequences? Does she mean the war she waged on Libya by the US-NATO alliance during her time as Secretary of State under the Obama administration that caused the deaths of thousands of people and displaced millions more who is now flooding the shores of the European Union? Or does she mean the total destruction of one of the wealthiest nations in North Africa that was economically independent with its own money, its own water resources, its own oil reserves and even its own central bank?

Does eliminating the benefits of a nation that once provided its citizens with a free education, healthcare and having a home of your own which was considered a human right has “real world consequences”? How about the real world consequences of the lies that destroyed a once prosperous and stable nation that created a new breed of terrorists which helped form the Islamic State that currently engulfs the Middle East, including Syria? So who’s fake news and lies had real world consequences Hillary? It sure wasn’t the alternative media. Maybe Clinton should ask the Libyan people whose policies have wretched havoc on their lives. Last August, Martin Kobler, the United Nations secretary general’s special representative for Libya said “More than 2.4 million people in Libya are in need of humanitarian assistance.” Clinton and the establishment’s hypocrisy are astonishing. According to an RT News report back in October 28th, 2011 appropriately titled ‘Biggest success? NATO proud of Libya op which killed thousands’ reported on what Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli had observed during his time in Libya:

Speaking on March 31, Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, reported that “the so-called humanitarian air raids have taken the lives of dozens of civilians in various areas of Tripoli.” The senior cleric went on to say “in the district of Buslim, a building collapsed because of the bombing, killing 40 people,” as cited by Agenzia Fedes, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies. However, despite the decision to turn a blind eye to the casualty figures, one of the few instances the alliance could not deny culpability in was a June 19 NATO missile strike that resulted in the deaths of nine civilians.
Attacks of this nature were happening on a daily basis throughout the intense bombing campaign. Speaking in September, the health minister in the new Libyan government estimated that at least 30,000 people had been killed and 50,000 wounded during the first six months of the war. Some, however, have estimated that the real figure could be much higher

Of the thousands of emails released by Wikileaks from Hillary Clinton’s private email server in late December 2015, one in particular stood out it in regards to why Gaddafi was a target for regime change. According to an email sent to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior adviser to Bill Clinton who worked for the Clinton Foundation from 2009 until 2013 exposed the real reason to remove Gaddafi from power:

On April 2, 2011 sources with access to advisors to Saif al-Islam Qaddafi stated in strictest confidence that while the freezing of Libya’s foreign bank accounts presents Muammar Qaddafi with serious challenges, his ability to equip and maintain his armed forces and intelligence services remains intact. According to sensitive information available to this these individuals, Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011 these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli. 
This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide, the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA)

The truth to the matter regarding what Hillary Clinton said about “real-world consequences” regarding social media and the onslaught of fake news is ludicrous. It was Clinton’s lies that led to the death of Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and the total destruction of Libya, not the alternative media.

The MSM is exposed. They lost control of the narrative. The alternative media is growing with an array of independent news organizations, websites, bloggers, citizen journalists and a public that is sick and tired of the lies who just want the truth. If they (Western governments including the U.S.) were to manage to censor the alternative media which will be difficult to do, there will be other ways to inform the public. Remember the printing press? Then again, the MSM will be in a full-blown panic as their newspaper sales continue to plummet. Viewership for the MSM on basic television and cable has declined dramatically thanks to the internet.

One other important note to consider, instead of being objective, the MSM, particularly in the U.S. had sided with Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump during the elections, since then, it all has been downhill for the MSM. No one can trust the MSM and they never should. Welcome to the alternative world where once, the dinosaur media roamed the earth and are now are going extinct, a new breed of journalism and the quest for truth is here to stay. Throughout my life, people always told me that we can never change the world because it is filled with evil people that will do anything to remain in power even if it means lying to the public. That may be true to a point, but I don’t believe that we as a people cannot change the course of history because the ruling elites from past imperial powers to the present American Empire have always lied to the people to advance their agendas, now we are turning the tide. I have hope in humanity because the truth is the foundation of humanity. My friends, it’s up to us, the people, to tell the truth to power because the lies perpetrated by the MSM have led the world to endless wars, poverty and a self-absorbed society based on useless consumption.

The cadre of MSM organizations and personalities including losers like former NBC Nightly news host Brian Williams (who is laughably in the battle against “fake news”), Hillary Clinton, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS, NPR, The BBC, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and others are fighting for their survival. The alternative media is now the enemy. “Fake news” accusations against the alternative media are the only weapon they have as the establishment and their MSM minions move forward in an attempt to censor the “real news.” The ghost of Joseph Goebbels whispers in the ears of the establishment and that is for them to “use all of its powers to repress dissent.” It will be an epic failure because the truth always finds its way.

The original source of this article is Silent Crow News

Copyright © Timothy Alexander Guzman, Silent Crow News , 2016

Top 10 MSM Fake News Stories On Aleppo Conflict...

Unfortunately, most people in both the Muslim countries and the West fell victim to concerted propaganda churned out by the Western MSM and being blindly followed by the media in the Muslim countries...

Ten Massive Fake News Stories Western Media Has Been Feeding You On Aleppo

By Baran Hines

Global Research, December 20, 2016

The Free Thought Project 18 December 2016

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has secured control of Aleppo city after more than 4 years of fighting in what is Syria’s most strategically important city, second to the capital Damascus. Western media has chosen to explain this victory to the world as bad news for the interests of peace and humanity in Syria, claiming that thousands of civilians will now die from government retaliation.

The reason the battle for Aleppo is so significant in the Syrian proxy war is because of its strategic importance to the country of Syria as a whole. Controlling Aleppo would give opposition groups leverage in a situation where Syria is broken into pieces. It is also part of the geopolitical concerns over competing natural gas pipelines which would be built partially in Syria.

The battle for Aleppo has been described inaccurately for years and what follows is an explanation of 10 common lies or omissions which still continue today.

1. The city is still under total siege because of the Syrian Army and Russians

Aleppo is an ancient city and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, populated since at least the 3rd millennium BC. Aleppo is both a rural province and an urban city inside of it, which is about the same size as Washington D.C. by land area. Western media reports about the ongoing battle do not account for this and conveys the images that millions of people are trapped in an urban city where the Syrian Army and Russians will not stop bombing them. Aleppo had a pre-war population of over 2 million people. It is a center of commerce and trading with Turkey, as well as a conduit between the Middle East and Europe.

The battle for Aleppo has been intense and has destroyed significant parts of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. However, even at the height of the battle, western media reported claims that 250,000 people may be left in rebel-held areas and might die from starvation, water shortages, and lack of medical care. This number has been disputed and thought to be lower, however Russian officials say over 100,000 people have been escorted to safety from East Aleppo. Videos have shown thousands of people passing through corridors opened by the Syrian Army.

It is unknown how many civilians are left in the areas still under bombardment, but the scale of conflicting information is significant. There are no credible reports of how many casualties have been caused by bombing. The only specific number that western news has consistently reported claims 82 civilians have been executed by Syrian government forces in recent weeks, which comes from the controversial Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

BBC
It is hard to know exactly how many people are in the besieged areas, although UN envoy Staffan de Mistura put the figure at about 50,000. He said there were approximately 1,500 rebel fighters, about 30% of whom were from the jihadist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front. Other local sources say there could be as many as 100,000 people, many of them arriving from areas recently taken by the government.

Other reports claim what seems to be obvious, that East Aleppo is basically empty and most that are left are part of extremist groups or held hostage by them.

WASHINGTON POST
East Aleppo, which was under rebel control, is destroyed.
Syrian state television broadcast live footage throughout the day on Tuesday showing its reporters roaming through the ruins of the newly reconquered neighborhoods, trumpeting the government’s victory as they climbed over piles of rubble, peered into abandoned homes and sifted through the remains of rebel defenses. There was no other sign of life in the empty streets.

About half of the city was controlled by government forces prior to the major offensive to retake the city began in July. Many civilians have been killed by shelling from opposition fighters who fire randomly into these parts of the city.

Opposition fighters have contributed to the siege over the years by controlling the major highways into the city, especially the two roads leading west towards Turkey and other major cities to the southwest. The opposition-controlled these strategic highways until July 2016 when the Syrian Army was able to make enough gains on the ground to re-open the roads. Fighters used the roads to receive weapons and supplies from Turkey.

Aleppo city was the largest hub for distributing fighters, weapons, and supplies to other parts of Syria. Al Mayadeen recently reported on one of the weapons caches found in an East Aleppo basement after the neighborhood was cleared by the Syrian army. The bunker contained GRAD missiles, which are typically fired from a system mounted on a truck.

There were other military grade weapons found, with English language labels, and enough of each to mean the weapons could have only been shipped in by truck. If the opposition fighters could receive so many weapons and supplies into Aleppo from Turkey, why could the Syrian Army somehow stop critical food and medical supplies as U.S. officials claim?

2. The Syrian Army is blocking humanitarian aid to Aleppo, creating the crisis

U.S. officials blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for ordering the army to block aid delivery and remove medical supplies from shipments that do come in. They ignore any role the terrorists groups play in that, as reported in September.

TELEGRAPH
A convoy of 20 UN trucks carrying enough aid for 40,000 people is languishing at the Turkish border as diplomats try to secure agreement from both rebels and regime forces to allow the vehicles through.
“Some parties to the conflict are trying to use this for political gain,” said David Swanson, a UN spokesman. “The challenge for us is ensuring that all parties to the conflict are on the same page. If one element of the chain is not there we cannot proceed.”
The UN would not say if the hold was up was being caused by the Assad regime or its rebel opponents but at least part of the problem appeared to be inside east Aleppo itself.
Activists there said they intended to reject the UN aid in protest at the ceasefire agreement which was brokered between the US and Russia without input from the Syrian opposition.
Video from Aleppo showed a large demonstration against the UN had gathered at Castello Road, the key supply route that the aid convoy would have to travel down.
At least some of the demonstrators were waving the black flags of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), an al-Qaeda linked jihadist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front.

3. The rebels in East Aleppo are ordinary Syrians who are fighting a civil war against government abuse

While it is unclear how many civilians remained in Aleppo, what is known is that most of the fighters are from the official Al Qaeda group in Syria called Al Nusra, and other groups that have formed public alliances with them. There have been dozens of groups under different names that the United States has called “moderate” opposition, however, many of them were either in alliance with or commanded by Al Nusra itself.

Colonel Steve Warren, spokesperson for the U.S. coalition against Islamic State, said “it’s primarily al-Nusra who holds Aleppo,” in April 2016 prior to the Aleppo offensive.

In 2012, as the intensity of the war grew, thousands of foreign jihadists came to the city and helped take over neighborhoods in the east. Most of these fighters had no ties to Syria before the war and were given support and weapons by wealthy terror financiers from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Qatari foreign minister just pledged to continue sending weapons and assistance to these groups regardless of what Western allies do.

The war crimes committed and infighting with “moderates” became so bad that the U.S. government and the United Nations was forced to declare them terrorists after regional news reporting led the Washington Post to write that Al Nusra was the most effective and influential group on the battlefield. Al Nusra was then declared a terrorist organization by the U.S., other western countries and the United Nations. That was after almost a year of clandestine U.S. support as part of opposition groups.

The November 2012 article describes Al Nusra when they were still part of the popular term “Free Syrian Army” which was used by the U.S. to describe a moderate opposition who should not be bombed.

WASHINGTON POST
The Jabhat group now has somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters, according to officials of an non-governmental organization that represents the more moderate wing of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). They say that the al-Qaeda affiliate now accounts for 7.5 percent to 9 percent of the Free Syrian Army’s total fighters, up sharply from an estimated 3 percent three months ago and 1 percent at the beginning of the year.
The extremist group is growing in part because it has been the most aggressive and successful arm of the rebel force. “From the reports we get from the doctors, most of the injured and dead FSA are Jabhat al-Nusra, due to their courage and [the fact they are] always at the front line,” said a message sent today to the State Department by the moderate Free Syrian Army representatives, warning of the extremists’ rise.
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“In some areas, other extreme groups are merging with [Jabhat] al-Nusra, in others many are leaving it because they did not fulfill promises of support,” notes one report sent to the State Department.
In the chaos of the Syrian battlefield, smaller battalions drawn from neighborhoods or small towns are combining forces with larger groups to form brigades, many of them led by extremists. “This means more [mergers] of extreme groups within Jabhat al-Nusra as it becomes more and more franchised,” the report explains. “Their risk is paying off. They are on a high [rate] of growth.”

After this occurred, many groups began to merge and change their names, however, the majority of what became the Free Syrian Army has been proven to be made up of extremist groups who would otherwise be declared terrorists. The largest “moderate” groups in Aleppo, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, and Nour Din al-Zinki have been prevented by the United States from being declared terrorists at the United Nations. The U.S. fought with Russia for months to keep these groups off the list of terrorist groups in Syria. This was a consistent point of failure in Syria peace negotiations. As a result, the groups continued to receive protection from America by including the groups in the Syrian ceasefire.

Ahrar al-Sham was known to consistently have over 20,000 fighters, despite frequent losses.

Jaysh al-Islam grew to 25,000 fighters by some recent estimates. Jaysh al-Islam integrated over 100 smaller groups, and led Syria’s largest remaining alliance, Fatah Halab as they renamed themselves in Aleppo. This alliance also included Ahrar al-Sham and Nour Din al-Zinki.

U.S. and Russian officials have been arguing over whether these groups should be targeted for bombing since they fight in the same areas as Al Nusra. The U.S. has claimed since February 2016 that it would persuade moderate groups to separate from Al Nusra, but it never happened despite the U.S. being in daily contact with them.

In response to this continued trend, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) introduced Stop Arming Terrorists Act last week to ban funding of terrorists groups, whether direct or indirect.

HOUSE.GOV
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said, “Under U.S. law it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda, ISIS or other terrorist groups. If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the U.S. government has been violating this law for years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.[i]
“The CIA has also been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. This support has allowed al-Qaeda and their fellow terrorist organizations to establish strongholds throughout Syria, including in Aleppo.

4. Rebels in East Aleppo are not terrorists. They are “moderate” and do not commit war crimes.

The most unbalanced part of Western news reporting on Aleppo is the deliberate effort to not report the war crimes committed by opposition groups, while confirming unverifiable claims about atrocities by the Syrian Army or from Russian airstrikes. Reporters have brought up this concern multiple times with U.S. officials and specifically when making the claim that Russian airstrikes hit hospitals in Syria but refusing to give evidence, twice.

In April 2016, Jaysh al-Islam admitted to using chemical weapons in the city of Aleppo. They have consistently used civilians as human shields, sometimes locking them in metal cages on the back of trucks.

The US also defended Ahrar al-Sham after they recently massacred an unknown number of people and kidnapped over 100 from the small village of Zaara in May 2016. State Department officials were confronted about specifically on May 24 with one reporter asking “Is this a yellow card? How many villages do they have to massacre before they become bad guys?” in relation to removing them from the protection of being declared a moderate group.

Ahrar al-Sham has was singled out for war crimes by Amnesty International just before the Zaara massacre. The Amnesty report also condemned the group for torture, kidnapping, and rape as well as using chemical weapons on multiple occasions.

Nour Din al-Zinki became most well known for beheading a sick young Palestinian boy on video which went viral on social media. U.S. State Department officials refused to condemn the group and still allowed them protection under Syrian ceasefire agreements.

The United Nations admitted last week that they received reports of opposition fighters shooting at civilians trying to leave East Aleppo, despite months of ignoring these claims. The U.S. State Department has also declined to admit the groups they call moderate have been involved in shooting at civilians.

INDEPENDENT
Take the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. After last week running through its usual – and perfectly understandable – fears for the civilian population of eastern Aleppo and their medical workers, and for civilians subject to government reprisals and for “hundreds of men” who may have gone missing after crossing the frontlines, the UN suddenly expressed other concerns.
“During the last two weeks, Fatah al-Sham Front [in other words, al-Qaeda] and the Abu Amara Battalion are alleged to have abducted and killed an unknown number of civilians who requested the armed groups to leave their neighbourhoods, to spare the lives of civilians…,” it stated.
“We have also received reports that between 30 November and 1 December, armed opposition groups fired on civilians attempting to leave.” Furthermore, “indiscriminate attacks” had been conducted on heavily civilian areas of government-held western as well as ‘rebel’ eastern Aleppo.

Aleppo MP Fares Shehabi also confirmed that terrorists had turned state-run hospitals into command centers in a heated argument on the UK’s Channel 4 News.

The terrorists even had their own prisons and torture centers.

RUPTLY
Soldiers showed what appears to be militant flags, graffiti, and machine tools for making munitions, and even cells and alleged means for torturing captives.
SOT, Muhammad Hamud, Soldier, Syrian Arab Army (Arabic): “We released nearly 15 civilians. That was in a male prison. In Qadi Askar there was another prison which was a joint male and female prison. It was in the headquarters of the Sharia centre.”

5. People are unhappy the Syrian Army has taken over the city again

There is a reason the leader of the Syrian Kurds said it “would be a disaster for everyone” if the Assad government were to fall to the extremist opposition. The alternative to Aleppo city being controlled by Al Nusra, or worse, extremists could fight for control of it and further divide the region.

Western news reports described the victory in different degrees of terror, saying the people of the city were in shock at the army’s victory, ignoring the thousands of people celebrating in Aleppo areas controlled by the government. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby made the most controversial of the statements saying that he had not seen “any dancing in the streets” as celebrations were ongoing.

“I’ve been many times to Homs, to Maaloula, to Latakia and Tartus [in Syria] and again, Aleppo, four times. And people’s support of their government is absolutely true. Whatever you hear in the corporate media is completely opposite,” Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett described at a United Nations press event.

“And, on that note, what you hear in the corporate media, and I will name them – BBC, Guardian, the New York Times etc. – on Aleppo is also the opposite of reality,” she added.

6. Desperate pleas for help on social media by local Syrians show just how bad the situation is in East Aleppo

Western news media marketed a coordinated campaign of videos claiming to be average Syrian citizens pleading for international action to intervene in the Syrian war as the battle of Aleppo came to an end. A combination of children, social media activists and claimed independent journalists have been featured as genuine accounts from East Aleppo, however, these transmissions have been questioned.

THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
But there is one major problem with these well-articulated video pleas: these aren’t simple civilians of Aleppo, but bloggers and filmmakers – who have played active roles in supporting the regime change operation – who are now magically being given prime time slots for worldwide TV coverage. Interestingly, Aleppo has no cell service or electricity, so how these “civilian” videos are being recorded/disseminated is also an open question, which implies less than organic means.
According to Anissa Naouai, host of RT’s ‘In the Now’, a quick search of the Internet reveals the identities of these “civilians.”

A 7-year-old girl named Bana Alabed has become a known Twitter personality during recent months for her videos which are said to be recorded in Aleppo. Confirmed Syrian activist Maytham Al Ashkar contacted the account for Bana on November 27, offering to evacuate her family from eastern Aleppo. According to screenshots of conversations, someone who identified herself as Bana’s mother responded about a month later. The responses received led him to believe the account was fake and being operated by someone who preferred speaking in English instead of Arabic.

SPUTNIK Bana’s account, designated by Twitter as “verified”, was set up three months ago, and has since gathered over 310,000 followers. The tweets, written by both Bana and her mother, Fatemah, who says she taught her daughter to speak English, depict life under siege in east Aleppo.
—
Many have called the authenticity of the account into question, pointing to videos where Bana appears to be reading from a prompt. It is also unclear whether Bana’s posts are genuine, since any user, anywhere in the world can post from the account, as long as they have the password.
Pro-government activist Maytham Al Ashkar is originally from Al-Zahraa in northern Syria, currently in Beirut, but often travelling to Damascus and Aleppo. He offered to help evacuate Bana and her family, contacting Bana’s Twitter account on November 27.
“This person was contacted by Bana, who told him she wanted my offer. Once he got my approval, Bana (the account) contacted me directly,” Maytham explains.
“When I got contacted by Bana’s account, I started to chat in Arabic since we are all Syrians and Arabic is our mother tongue. However, it was obvious that the person behind the account preferred English as a language of communication.”

Another problem has been the spread of false images represented as civilian casualties in Aleppo. One fake image of Aleppo violence was actually a screenshot from a 2014 music video.

7. The Syrian Army is now butchering people, executing civilians in the streets

If United States officials are watching the battle of Aleppo so closely, why has it not released any evidence of civilian casualties being caused by Syrian and Russian airstrikes? No satellite imagery, no pictures or video of large-scale casualties, no documentation of the alleged hundreds of bodies in the streets as claimed by news media like the New York Times. In the same article, the New York Times was forced to show pictures of the thousands of civilians being escorted to safety by the Syrian Army. Many pictures showed soldiers helping civilians, even carrying them when needed.

There have been genuine images from hospitals showing innocent civilians wounded in the fighting or people rescued from the rubble of buildings, but where are the images showing the mass casualty events described?

BBC
Syrian pro-government forces in eastern Aleppo have been killing people, including women and children, on the spot in their homes and on the street, the United Nations says. The UN’s human rights office said streets were full of bodies.
Meanwhile, the UN children’s agency cited a doctor as saying a building housing as many as 100 unaccompanied children was under heavy attack.

As noted earlier, the only consistent report of civilian deaths last week was the claim that 82 people were executed by Syrian government forces. The claim was reported as verified fact by most of Western news media, including Reuters, BBC, New York Times.

The common source for these claims is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which sounds like an independent and official source, but is an unaccountable organization made up of sources on the ground who are kept private.

NEW YORK TIMES
Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.
Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city [Coventry, England].
—
All sides in the conflict accuse him of bias, and even he acknowledges that the truth can be elusive on Syria’s tangled and bitter battlefields. That, he says, is what prompts him to keep a tight leash on his operation.
—
He does not work alone. Four men inside Syria help to report and collate information from more than 230 activists on the ground, a network rooted in Mr. Abdul Rahman’s youth, when he organized clandestine political protests. But he signs off on every important update. A fifth man translates the Arabic updates into English for the organization’s Facebook page.

8. The Syrian Army prevents civilians from leaving

It is reported that many civilians feared leaving East Aleppo for government-controlled areas because they might be tortured or killed. These reports cannot be verified and will not be trivialized here, however Russian officials noted that more than 100,000 civilians had been evacuated since operations began in November.

Wednesday, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a statement confirming it received reports that the opposition was preventing civilians from leaving, holding them hostage as human shields.

UNITED NATIONS
Alongside a pattern of indiscriminate attacks, the Commission has further received allegations of opposition groups, including the terrorist group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and Ahrar al-Sham preventing civilians from leaving as well as opposition fighters embedding themselves within the civilian population, thus heightening the risk to civilians of being killed or injured.

Tens of thousands of civilians have been seen on video leaving the areas of battle, being received by Syrian and Russian soldiers. Russia announced it distributed 35 tons of humanitarian aid this week in eastern Aleppo to civilians in need.

9. The “Regime” is slaughtering the opposition

In a show of restraint, Syrian government forces honored an agreement to allow militants in east Aleppo to evacuate the city with some of their light weapons. The deal was reached earlier this week between Turkey and Russia, without the influence of the United States. The evacuation of militants from east Aleppo has begun as dozens of buses were seen lined up on major roads beginning Wednesday.

RUSSIA TODAY
Nearly 3,500 militants from eastern Aleppo have surrendered to the Syrian government, while thousands have seized the chance to leave through special corridors with light weapons. The evacuation was partly halted on Friday after militants tried to leave the city with heavy weapons, which is not permitted under the agreement allowing them to exit eastern Aleppo.

It is also reported that opposition groups fired artillery shells at one of the evacuation routes, causing the process to be delayed.

Aleppo MP Fares Shehabi has been one of the loudest supporters for the Syrian Army clearing the city of terrorists.

10. The Syrian Army is purposely destroying civilian infrastructure

One favorite propaganda lie told by U.S. officials when justifying war is that the dictator’s army is destroying public resources to hurt the civilian population.

As it relates to Aleppo, U.S. officials and allies have said that the Syrian government forces have purposely destroyed drinking water supplies to the city in an effort to hurt opposition fighters and the civilians supporting them.

However, in 2014, Al Nusra sabotaged the entire city’s water system while trying to target government-controlled areas. The Syrian Army recently restored the same water plant destroyed in this attack.

INDEPENDENT – MAY 12 2014
In a botched attempt to stop drinking water reaching government-held districts of Aleppo, rebels managed to cut off water supplies to large parts of the city in northern Syria including their own strongholds. Women and children are being forced to queue up with cooking pots, kettles and plastic bottles to get water from the fountains of mosques and wells that may be contaminated.
The water shortage started 10 days ago when the rebels, who control the two main pumping stations, tried to keep water flowing to their areas in east Aleppo, but stop it reaching the government-held west of the city. Describing the action as “a crime”, Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the al-Qa’ida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and other rebel groups were responsible for the water shortage.
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A member of the Aleppo Water Department told the Beirut paper al-Akhbar that the Sharia Authority, which unites the rebel movements, controls a crucial pumping station in the Suleiman al-Halabi region. He said that there is a “danger of insurgents pumping water only to the neighbourhoods that they control as it might lead to the collapse of the integrated water system”.

The original source of this article is The Free Thought Project

Copyright © Baran Hines, The Free Thought Project, 2016

Mainstream Media spewed fake news on Aleppo conflict

We can't afford to let ourselves fall victim to MSM's lies...

Mainstream Media on Syria and Russia; “Fake News”

By Joe Clifford

Global Research, December 18, 2016

 

I try my best to be an informed about what is, and has happened, in Syria.  When I watch mainstream media’s coverage I am horrified at their “Fake News”. For example, Lester Holt of NBC nightly news recently referred to Bashar Assad as the “brutal dictator”. Does Lester know that in 2014 there was a multiparty election in Syria? Does he know that Assad won the election with 88% of the vote?  Critics might say, but it was not a fair election! Was ours?

Most of the coverage has centered around Aleppo, and the mainstream Aleppo narrative has been, it was besieged by the brutal dictator, who wanted to slaughter all the residents of Aleppo.  The fact is, Aleppo is divided into two parts and has been for four years. West Aleppo is controlled by the Syrian government, and East Aleppo was captured, and has been held by terrorists and thugs for the past four years. Residents of East Aleppo have not been allowed to leave, and have been shot in the streets for trying. The jihadists who control East Aleppo, these would be the same “moderates” and “rebels” that beheaded the 9-year-old boy, and showed the beheading to the world, have also controlled the hospitals in east Aleppo and have used them to treat their own, and to launch artillery barrages into west Aleppo, killing innocents every day for the past four years.

Finally, with the help of the Russians and others, the Syrian government  liberated East Aleppo and rescued its’ resident from the terrorists.  This is a completely different narrative from what one gets watching mainstream news, which gets its news from “anonymous” twitter accounts, “unnamed activists”, and the “White Helmets” That fake organization is funded by the US, France, and other western nations to the tune of $100 million, and is nothing more than a propaganda tool for the west. It has been completely exposed and thoroughly discredited, except by mainstream media, which uses its propaganda as if it were factual. The US had no actual reporters anywhere near Aleppo.  There are however, reporters from other countries who were in and out of Aleppo daily, like Vanessa Beeley and Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett, who fully understand what has happened and report it accordingly. If your goal is trying to defeat the terrorist and jihadists forces in Syria, the liberation of east Aleppo is a major victory. If, on the other hand, you support terrorists, or have as your goal, prolonging the war to weaken Assad, then the taking of Aleppo represents a tragedy. According to mainstream media, the retaking of Aleppo by government forces and defeating the terrorist is a tragedy.

One of the best journalists in the world, when it comes to the middle east, is Patrick Cockburn.  You probably never heard of him if you rely on mainstream “fake” media, because his voice is not allowed. He is however, recognized as one of the best sources in the world on Syria and the Middle East, but his voice and work cannot get by the censors of mainstream media. Cockburn’s most recent article: “There’s More Propaganda Than News Coming Out of Aleppo This Week” argues that jihadists early on, killed or captured western journalists, and gained the narrative using fake sources, twitter accounts and the like. When is the last time you heard Noam Chomsky on mainstream media? He is one of the best minds in the country, but he cannot get by the censors. Other great foreign policy journalists such as Eric Margolis, Pepe Escobar, the great Glenn Greenwald, and Jeremy Scahill, are not tolerated  by mainstream “fake” media.

It is interesting to see mainstream media shed crocodile tears for the civilians of Aleppo, yet when the US besieged the city of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, the “fake” news folks were cheerleaders. This was a city of 300,000, which was basically leveled by the US led forces. The US claimed Fallujah was held by terrorists and proceeded to level the city to save the city.  No one knows, nor will ever know, how many civilians were killed in a brutal assault on a civilian city. The point here is, mainstream “fake” news acted as cheerleaders, and never once worried about civilians being slaughtered, nor did they shed any tears during the “Shock and Awe” destruction of Baghdad. Funny how they can just turn around and shed crocodile tears for the civilians of Aleppo, but cheer when we kill civilians.

In no way am I a champion of Bashar Assad, but I respect the right of the Syrian people to pick their own leader.  How many times have you heard Obama and officials in the administration, along with crazies like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, chant in unison: “Assad must go”.  None of the crazies ever tried to explain what gives the US government the legal right to decide who should lead the Syrian people.  Then again, what is the law, when you have power. Still, it is interesting to see how upset and angry these same folks are, when Russia is falsely accused of trying to hack into our elections. Julian Assange and Craig Murray claim them never got anything from Russia, and they know who leaked the e-mails. Former ambassador Craig Murray, even claims to have met the individual, and insists the individual is an insider. William Binney, the man who designed the NSA’s surveillance system, has come forward and vehemently argued if anyone hacked those e-mails, the NSA would instantly know who hacked, when, where, and whether those e-mails were passed on to another party.  Binney, the foremost expert in the world, is banned from mainstream “fake” media, as are Murray and Assange. They cannot get over the wall of censors who wish always to control the narrative.

If you really are curious about world events, you must work at it, and find good alternative sources. You are ignorant of world events if you only rely on mainstream “fake” media.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Joe Clifford, Global Research, 2016