{"id":331632,"date":"2017-10-22T21:08:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T20:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=331632"},"modified":"2017-10-22T21:08:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T20:08:30","slug":"black-white-white-black-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/black-white-white-black-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Is White, White Is Black, in the Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/i> presents a shockingly imaginary Syria, in which the U.S. Government has been the friend of the Syrian people by trying to eliminate in Syria simultaneously the jihadists and the Syrian Government that\u2019s been fighting against the jihadists, and in which the Syrian war has not<\/i> been between<\/i> the Syrian Government and<\/i> those tens of thousands of jihadists, many of whom have actually been armed by the U.S. Government and financed by the American Government\u2019s allies, especially by the Saudi Government, and brought into Syria through America\u2019s allies, first Turkey,<\/span><\/a> and then more recently Jordan, and the jihadists tended medically by yet another U.S. ally, Israel<\/span><\/a>. Obviously, the U.S. Government supports jihadists when doing so serves its higher goal, of overthrowing Syria\u2019s President, Bashar al-Assad. But this fact is unmentionable in the \u2018authoritative\u2019 media. The reality hidden by the Western press is that, according to Western-sponsored polls of Syrians, 82% of Syrians blame the U.S. for the plague of ISIS in their country, and well over 50% want Bashar al-Assad to continue as Syria\u2019s President.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Such extreme reality-denial in the Washington Post<\/i> is ordinary for the U.S. newsmedia; but, nonetheless, as in this particular case, it reaches occasionally absurd proportions, which the entire world would instantly recognize as being the propaganda-media of a dictatorship, if only the entire world knew about it (rather than its being hidden from the public by and within all of the aristocracies that are allied with the U.S. aristocracy). To mention that the Emperor has no clothes would be a capital offense.<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent example of this 1984<\/i>-style \u2018news\u2019-coverage in today\u2019s American \u2018news\u2019-reporting, is the Washington Post’<\/i>s October 7th “Civilian casualties spiral in Syria as air raids target areas marked for cease-fire\u201d<\/span><\/a>. It opens by alleging: \u201cCivilian casualties have spiraled across Syria in recent weeks as pro-government forces launch hundreds of bombing raids across areas marked for international protection. Groups monitoring the conflict have recorded hundreds of strikes since the end of a sixth round of peace talks among Russia, Iran and Turkey in mid-September. On Friday, the White Helmets rescue group reported that 80 percent of those attacks targeted civilian areas.\u201d<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

Here is some of the background reality, which that propaganda-piece ignores and\/or blatantly flouts:<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, the White Helmets is an Al Qaeda affiliate that\u2019s heavily backed by UK\u2019s MI6 and America\u2019s CIA in order to stir hatred among Westerners against Syria\u2019s Government and especially against its President, Bashar al-Assad (seen here<\/span><\/a> in an interview) by both actually rescuing people in jihadist-controlled areas of Syria and also outright staging \u2018rescues\u2019 of children and other residents in those areas who have been alleged to have been hit by Syrian or Syrian-allied bombings of those areas. The best brief introduction to the White Helmets was given on 23 September 2016, \u201cHow US Propaganda Plays in Syrian War\u201d<\/span><\/a> by the great American investigative journalist Rick Sterling, which was based largely upon an exhaustive earlier account which had been given on 23 October 2015 by the great British investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley, \u201cSyria\u2019s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception\u201d<\/span><\/a>. Here\u2019s an excerpt from Sterling\u2019s article:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

There were three contestants in the <\/i>Syrian presidential election<\/i><\/span><\/a> of June 2014. Turnout was 73 percent of the registered voters, with 88 percent voting for Assad. In Beirut, the streets were clogged with tens of thousands of Syrian refugees marching through the city to vote at the Syrian Embassy. Hundreds of Syrian citizens living in the U.S. and other Western countries flew to Syria to vote because Syrian Embassies in Washington and other Western capitals were shut down.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

While Secretary of State John Kerry was condemning the Syrian election as a \u201cfarce\u201d before it had even happened, a marketing company known as The Syria Campaign waged a campaign to block knowledge of the Syrian election. Along with demonizing President Assad, the company launched a campaign which led to <\/i>Facebook censoring information<\/i><\/span><\/a> about the Syrian election.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

A heart-rending propaganda image designed to justify a \u201cno-fly zone,\u201d a major U.S. military operation inside Syria against the Syrian military<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Incubating Propaganda<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Syria Campaign was created by a larger company named \u201cPurpose,\u201d which \u2013 according to its website \u2013 <\/i>\u201cincubated\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/a> The Syria Campaign.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

[ <\/i><\/span>That should have been linked to: <\/i>https:\/\/www.purpose.com\/white-helmets-profiled-by-nicholas-kristof-in-new-york-times\/<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/i><\/b>or better yet, to <\/i>http:\/\/archive.is\/phAjI<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a> ] <\/i><\/span>The company\u2019s website says, \u201cPurpose creates new movements, brands and organizations from the ground up to address complex global challenges. We apply this experience as movement creators to our work with progressive companies, nonprofits and philanthropies, helping them to put purpose and participation at the heart of what they do.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cWhite Helmets\u201d are marketed in the West as civilian volunteers doing rescue work. On Sept. 22, it was announced that the <\/i>Right Livelihood Award<\/i><\/span><\/a>, the so-called \u201cAlternative Nobel Prize,\u201d is being given to the U.S.\/U.K.-created White Helmets \u201cfor their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war.\u201d The major achievement of The Syria Campaign has been the branding and promotion of the \u201cWhite Helmets,\u201d also known as \u201cSyria Civil Defense,\u201d which began with a British military contractor, James LeMesurier, giving some rescue training to Syrians in Turkey with funding provided by the U.S. and U.K. The group stole this name from the REAL Syria Civil Defense as documented in this <\/i>recent report<\/i><\/span><\/a> from Aleppo.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Both the Rick Sterling article, and the Vanessa Beeley series of articles, are recommended reading, for anyone who trusts the Washington Post<\/i> and other U.S.-or-allied newsmedia, to report to them what is happening in the world and why it\u2019s happening, and who is actually behind it, and for what reasons. Recommended, that is, in order to disprove the validity of that trust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beeley published, at 21st Century Wire on 11 March 2017<\/span><\/a>, her extensive interview of Assad, and one of her questions to him was:<\/span><\/p>\n

Question 12<\/i><\/b>: Mr. President, as you may be fully aware that the \u201cWhite Helmets\u201d took an Oscar this year for the best documentary short, but folks are saying that the truth about this \u201cWhite Helmets\u201d is not like what Netflix has presented, so what is your take on this?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

President Assad<\/i><\/b>: First of all, we have to congratulate al-Nusra for having the first Oscar! This is an unprecedented event for the West to give Al Qaeda an Oscar; this is unbelievable, and this is another proof that the Oscars, Nobel, all these things are politicized certificates, that\u2019s how I can look at it. The White Helmets story is very simple; it is a facelift of al-Nusra Front in Syria, just to change their ugly face into a more humanitarian face, that\u2019s it. And you have many videos on the net and of course images broadcasted by the White Helmets that condemn the White Helmets as a terrorists group, where you can see the same person wearing the white helmet and celebrating over the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers. So, that\u2019s what the Oscar went to, to those terrorists.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, Al Nusra, which is Al Qaeda in Syria, was the main group that the Obama Administration relied upon to organize and train the other jihadist groups there<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, of course, the U.S. regime itself knows the truth about this mater, as I had reported, on 4 August 2016, at Strategic Culture, headlining, “U.S. State Department Refused Entry to Jihadist It Employed for Overthrowing President Al-Assad\u201d<\/span><\/a>. The head of the White Helmets had been barred entry into the U.S. back in April, because the U.S. Government knew that the head of the White Helmets \u2014 which group also calls itself \u201cSyria Civil Defense\u201d in order to give itself an official, legitimate, and even government-sounding name \u2014 the Government knew that he was a jihadist, a \u201cterrorist,\u201d and President Obama simply wanted to avoid a possible terrorist incident on U.S. soil. The event \u2014 this man\u2019s landing at Dulles International Airport only to be barred entry by the U.S. Government there \u2014 had occurred on April 20th of 2016<\/span><\/a>, and here\u2019s the way that the U.S. propaganda-media had dealt with the event, at that time: \u201cA man who has helped save more than 40,000 lives in Syria was just denied entry into the US\u201d<\/span><\/a>. That report made his having been barred entry seem like it had been simply an error by unidentified U.S. Customs official(s) at the airport. That report was, basically, a lie. And the report that appeared in the New York Times<\/i> about the event<\/span><\/a> pretended that the man who had been denied a visa was leading a Syrian charity, and gave no indication whatsoever that he was on Al Qaeda\u2019s side, helping their war to overthrow Syria\u2019s Government. This was presented as a nonpartisan charity: \u201cIt was a stance of the unity of humanity.\u201d It was \u2018nonpartisan\u2019 like Al Qaeda itself is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though you might not have been informed of that matter, perhaps you do remember having seen, during 18 August 2016, this staged \u2018rescue\u2019 by the White Helmets being shown on all mainstream U.S. \u2018news\u2019media including the networks and<\/span> including the Washington Post<\/i><\/span><\/a>, but not at all the reality, which the terrific independent reporter Brandon Turbeville described so well, in the following<\/span><\/a>, 9 June 2017, as soon as the truth behind the matter became fully revealed (and the mainstream U.S. press ignored the truth<\/i> altogether, because it was a very \u201cinconvenient\u201d truth):<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly a year ago, Western corporate media <\/i>outlets paraded video of a young Syrian boy<\/i><\/span><\/a>, injured in a blast and allegedly being saved by the White Helmets. That video was presented as evidence of \u201cAssad\u2019s cruelty\u201d and his \u201cindiscriminate bombing of civilians\u201d as well as the heroism of the White Helmets.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The picture of the boy, seemingly injured in some type of bombing incident, sitting alone in an orange chair in the back of an ambulance, blood stains on his face and covered in dust from cracked concrete also comes in video form, footage that lasts for about two minutes, showing the boy being carried to a well-equipped ambulance (with English writing on some of the equipment). The boy\u2019s story was also accompanied by \u201cheart wrenching\u201d stories from \u201cactivists\u201d in east Aleppo alleging the crimes of the Syrian government and the horrific situation in the area.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

It was rather clear that the child was being used as a stage prop. After being passed to the medical \u201cattendants,\u201d little Omran was placed in an orange chair facing the camera and immediately left alone. He was not treated, no one else was lifted into the ambulance, and no one was even in the vehicle with him. Instead, he was left to face the \u201cactivists\u201d outside the vehicle and their cameras for what seems like too long a time to be anything other than a photo op for the \u201cactivists\u201d videotaping him.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

While the Western public was whipped into a fury of concern for one child, largely uninjured, they were able to completely ignore the thousands upon thousands of children murdered by the United States, NATO, and their proxies in the same country. Still, little Omran was paraded in front of Western audiences as an unfortunate little propaganda tool, part of a play where the other actors were the same people who <\/i>behead children on camera<\/i><\/span><\/a> and <\/i>hang them from doorposts<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Turbeville then presented the interview with the boy\u2019s father, telling the man\u2019s outrage during the actual event, while the jihadists were staging and filming this propaganda-video, which had been broadcast to Western audiences uncritically as \u2018news\u2019. Until the Syrian Government rescued the residents of that area from Al Qaeda, in the liberation of eastern Aleppo<\/span><\/a>, neither the boy nor his family were allowed to speak to the press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back again to the Washington Post’<\/i>s October 7th “Civilian casualties spiral in Syria as air raids target areas marked for cease-fire\u201d<\/span><\/a>, that article\u2019s attempt vaguely to convey the false impression that the \u201chundreds of strikes since the end of a sixth round of peace talks among Russia, Iran and Turkey in mid-September\u201d were a result of some kind of failure of the current Russia-Iran-Turkey \u201cAstana\u201d peace-process for Syria, which process had replaced the previous U.S.-Saudi peace process, which had ended when U.S. President Barack Obama sabotaged his own Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s signed 9 September 2016 peace-agreement with Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, when the U.S. unprovokedly bombed the Syrian Army at Deir Ezzor in Syria on September 17th of last year<\/span><\/a>, is simply false. Whereas the prior, U.S.-Saudi \u2018peace\u2019-process demanded the immediate ouster of President Assad, the current peace-process does not<\/span><\/a>, and is, in fact, making steady progress, despite continued efforts by the U.S, Israel, and Saud, regimes (and their \u2018news\u2019media such as the Washington Post)<\/i>, to discredit this peace-process, and so to help to make it fail.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 1 March 2017, the BBC bannered \u201cLies, propaganda and fake news: A challenge for our age\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and presented a lengthy report on \u2018fake news\u2019 which itself constituted fake news, because it focused entirely upon non<\/i>-mainstream \u2018news\u2019media as being the sole creators of \u2018fake news\u2019, and pretended as if media such as the BBC itself weren\u2019t fake \u2018news\u2019media, perhaps even worse than some of the non<\/i>-mainstream ones. That BBC report itself demonstrated \u2014 as propaganda for<\/i> itself and for its friends (such as at the Washington Post, NYT<\/i>, etc.) and against<\/i> their desired victims, such as the Syrian people, who persist in wanting Bashar al-Assad to lead their nation<\/span><\/a> \u2014 demonstrated that, despite all of the West\u2019s lying, the similar deception of foreign publics wasn\u2019t possible, and the deception of their own public was not sufficient. No \u2018solution\u2019 that the BBC\u2019s article proposed urged that the system<\/i>, which causes their \u2018news\u2019 to be distorted or even downright false, must be ended, but instead the proposals were all to distract the public, about what the problem itself is:<\/i> For example, one solution \u201cis an approach being attempted by a number of different groups around the world. Researchers at the University of Mississippi and Indiana University are both working on an automated fact-checking system.\u201d But, when the aristocracy \u2014 who own, and whose corporations\u2019 products and services are advertised in and thus fund, the \u2018news\u2019media \u2014 leave out of their \u2018news\u2019reports, the key facts that are essential in order to enable a true understanding to be conveyed of what\u2019s happening and why; then, automating fact-checking (even if it can be done) ignores, instead of addresses, the real problem, which is institutional, and thus can\u2019t possibly be solved merely by automation. In any case, \u201csays Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol in the UK, who studies the persistence and spread of misinformation, \u2018Having a large number of people in a society who are misinformed and have their own set of facts is absolutely devastating and extremely difficult to cope with.\u2019\u201d But, why should people such as that, be consulted by a \u2018news\u2019medium as \u2018experts\u2019, on a matter such as this? They don\u2019t know anything more about it than, say, Americans know about the Syrian war. No computer scientist, nor cognitive scientist, is an expert on, say, political corruption, and all the rest of the system that causes<\/i> \u201cmisinformation\u201d \u2014 that causes it to be very profitable, for \u2018the right people\u2019<\/i> \u2014 such as for the propagandists (including the executives, the decision-makers, at BBC). <\/span><\/p>\n

That kind of excuse for failure (failure in the efforts by U.S. and allied regimes, against the government of Syria and of other countries whose governments ours want to overthrow) which alleges that \u201cWe\u2019re a democracy, and their government isn\u2019t,\u201d or that \u201cTheir news-media lie to their public about the war in their country, and \u2018ours\u2019<\/i> tell our public the truth about that war,\u201d can be believed by the publics in the U.S. and in its allied regimes (and, so, we invaded and destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., just as the regime intended), but it\u2019s not necessarily going to be believed by the publics in the intended victim-countries \u2014 and it really shouldn\u2019t be believed by anybody anywhere<\/i>. But, the sad fact is that, many countries, which claim to be \u2018democratic\u2019, are not<\/span><\/a><\/span>. The \u2018news\u2019media are an important part of that problem, because they\u2019re the way that their public \u2018know\u2019 their own country. And \u2014 obviously \u2014 very few Americans have any realistic idea about \u2018our\u2019 Government. Realistically, it\u2019s not really \u201cours\u201d at all<\/span><\/a>. The system deceives us, because the people who control it want<\/i> it to \u2014 and they fire and demote any of their employees or other agents who refuse to cooperate and do their job, for which they\u2019re being paid<\/span><\/a>. Deceiving the public, in the intended ways, is part of their job<\/i>. They\u2019re being paid to do it. And, \u201can automated fact-checking system\u201d or etc., won\u2019t affect that, at all<\/i>. And, to the extent that such a proposal is imposed, it will be designed to rely instead upon mainstream sources as defining<\/i> what is \u2018true\u2019, and what is \u2018fake\u2019. Automated censorship<\/i> would be the real<\/i> goal. Truth, and the public, would be even more<\/i> victimized by the system, if such automated censorship becomes imposed.<\/span><\/p>\n

For news-consumers, there is no short-cut. Buying a subscription to some mainstream \u2018news\u2019media won\u2019t solve the problem, but will only cause to become less costly to the owners, their existing and very successful (at least domestically) system of deception and manipulation of the domestic public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing should be trusted; everything should be at least spot-checked, many times, and right down to its ultimate sources. Are all of the root-sources reliable? Not every newsmedium is fake, even if all of the mainstream newsmedia now are<\/i>. But no newsmedium should be trusted. Only if they\u2019re all distrusted, can the few honest ones become even so much as recognized, and \u2014 only then \u2014 worthy of perhaps donating to, after some free trial period. Because, only in this way, can a person intelligently decide, on one\u2019s own<\/i>, which those few worthy newsmedia actually are<\/i> (worthy of being subscribed to). And, as regards \u2018free\u2019 newsmedia, nothing is actually free. Every newsmedium has an agenda; but, only if at the very top of that agenda is total honesty and never deceiving about anything, can a newsmedium reasonably be relied upon, as being purely honest<\/i> news and opinion, never anything else<\/i> than that \u2014 never propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all: propaganda is produced and marketed so as to seem<\/i> to be honest. Nothing should be trusted, unless one has long and carefully vetted it so as to have confirmed, in a strict and rigorous way, its thorough honesty. Because, in this world, to be trusting of \u2018news\u2019, or for a person not to know how to test the honesty of \u2018news\u2019, is to invite being deceived. There is no short-cut, to truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org The Washington Post presents a shockingly imaginary Syria, in which the U.S. Government has been the friend of the Syrian people by trying to eliminate in Syria simultaneously the jihadists and the Syrian Government that\u2019s been fighting against the jihadists, and in which the Syrian war has not been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":143419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[30,96,535,907,541,839,753,526,524,754,523,76,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-331632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"tag-big-brother","9":"tag-cover-up","10":"tag-global-news","11":"tag-isis","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-news-media","14":"tag-police-state","15":"tag-propaganda","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-syria","18":"tag-ukraine","19":"tag-warfare","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}