{"id":376098,"date":"2018-09-04T21:01:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T20:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=376098"},"modified":"2018-09-04T21:06:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T20:06:50","slug":"how-u-s-government-relies-on-lying-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/how-u-s-government-relies-on-lying-media\/","title":{"rendered":"How U.S. Government Relies on Lying Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

On Friday, August 31st, the neoconservative U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said<\/span><\/a> \u201cThe 3 million Syrians who have already been forced out of their homes and are now in #Idlib, will suffer from this aggression. Not good. The world is watching.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

By \u201cthis aggression,\u201d he was referring to the completion, by the Syrian Government and its allies Russia and Hezbollah, of their elimination of jihadist terrorists from Syria. Pompeo\u2019s remark was a veiled threat, especially to Russia, not to intervene in the U.S.-led invasion of Syria, which Pompeo and his boss, U.S. President Donald Trump, and the U.S. \u2018Defense\u2019 Department, have planned, in continuation of the policies of aggression against Syria, by the prior U.S. President, Barack Obama, and by his Administration \u2014 their policies to protect and train and arm those terrorists, so as to overthrow and replace Syria\u2019s Government. <\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo, as a politician, can say things like that \u2014 pontificate \u2018morality\u2019, to the portion of the world that\u2019s deceived by their national \u2018news\u2019-media to believe the opposite of what is about to be documented here. He can do it only because of what the U.S.-and-allied \u2018news\u2019-media have assiduously kept hidden from their respective publics. The Syrian people blame U.S. \u2014 not Assad \u2014 for the \u2018civil war\u2019 there, which they know actually has been a U.S.-Saud-led invasion<\/i> of Syria, an invasion and military occupation so as to overthrow Syria\u2019s Government, and to replace it by the Sauds\u2019 s\u2018elected\u2019 stooges. <\/span><\/p>\n

So that the publics in the U.S. and its allied countries can know the truth here, they must be informed, finally, of truths hidden by the media, truths such as these:<\/span><\/p>\n

For years, Syria\u2019s Government has been liberating increasing numbers of cities and towns and villages, from the approximately one hundred thousand jihadists that have been fighting in Syria to overthrow and replace their Government. Those jihadists have been supported by the U.S. Government in this overthrow-effort. Most of the jihadists were recruited into Syria as fundamentalist-Islamic (actually fundamentalist-Sunni-Islamic) mercenaries, by the U.S. coalition, which have worked with Al Qaeda\u2019s Syrian branch to train and arm these jihadists<\/span><\/a>, for them to serve as the U.S. coalition\u2019s boots-on-the-ground, to overthrow Syria\u2019s non-sectarian Government. The U.S. coalition aim to install in Syria rulers who have been selected by the fundamentalist-Sunni Saud family, the world\u2019s wealthiest family, who own Saudi Arabia, and who want to control also Syria.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of jihadists have surrendered to the Syrian Government and been bussed by the Government into Idlib Syria \u2014 those were the surviving jihadists who chose surrender and relocation to Idlib, instead of immediate death<\/span><\/a> at the hands of the Syrian Government, and of its allies, Russia and Hezbollah.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever since the start of the Syrian Government\u2019s operation to transport surviving jihadists to Idlib, there has been a question as to what would be done with them: either to free them to go back to their home countries or to any country that will take them, or else to slaughter them. The expectation has increasingly become that they will be slaughtered, because no peaceable land wants them, and because even the U.S. and its allies say that they want to kill all jihadists. America\u2019s Islamic allies, such as the royal Saud family, say that jihadists need to be educated to convert away from jihad, but everyone knows that with only rare exceptions, that\u2019s impossible to do \u2014 and the countries that claim to be doing it are secretly funding jihadists such as Al Qaeda abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is evidence that most Syrians want the jihadists to be slaughtered. The British polling firm Orb International\u2019s 2014 Syrian poll<\/span><\/a> asked \u201cQ5. Who do you feel best represents the interests and aspirations of the Syrian people?\u201d The top two most-favored choices were: \u201cThe Assad Government\u201d 35%, and \u201cPolitical Opposition\u201d 21%. Both of those are secular, not sectarian. All of the armed groups who were trying to overthrow Assad wanted Sharia law, and they were supported by only 27% of Syrians, but they were supported and armed and trained by all of the U.S. international coalition.<\/span><\/p>\n

A year later, Orb polled again, and found<\/span><\/a> (\u201cTable 3\u201d) that 47% of Syrians in 2015 said that Assad had a \u201cpositive effect\u201d on the country; 43% said Iran did; 37% said \u201cArab Gulf Countries\u201d (the U.S. Government\u2019s allied nations against Syria) did; 36% said \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d (America\u2019s proxies or boots-on-the-ground fighters in Syria) did; 35% said \u201cNusra Front\u201d (Al Qaeda in Syria, which trained and led the Free Syrian Army<\/span><\/a>) did; 26% said the \u201cSyrian Opposition Coalition\u201d (America\u2019s other proxy fighters to overthrow Assad) did; and 21% said \u201cIslamic State\u201d (ISIS or ISIL, or simply \u201cIS\u201d) did. 76% said IS had a \u201cnegative effect\u201d on Syria. IS was hated by Syrians, but apparently not as much as U.S. was hated by them: When Syrians were asked \u201cto explain the presence of ISIL in Iraq\/Syria\u201d 82% answered (Table 26) that the explanation \u201cis US.\u201d Syrians might not have agreed on whom they supported, but they agreed overwhelmingly that America was their nation\u2019s enemy. And it is. Syrians don\u2019t want to be ruled by stooges selected for them by the Sauds<\/span><\/a>. But that\u2019s whom the U.S. coalition lined up to rule them<\/span><\/a>. Except that Russia decided not to accept it<\/span><\/a>. And now Pompeo is warning Russia (which is legally in Syria at the request of the Government, while the U.S. itself is only an invading power there) to give up and let Syria be conquered by America\u2019s proxies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the 2015 Orb poll<\/span><\/a> (Table 4) also found that Idlib was the region of Syria which had the lowest percentage of its inhabitants (only 4% \u2014 versus 47% in the nation-at-large) supporting Assad. Table 6 there shows that 35% of Idlib\u2019s residents supported ISIS. Table 7 shows that 70% of Idlib\u2019s residents supported Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria). So: when Assad made the decision to relocate surrendered jihadists to Idlib, he knew that he was sending them to the Governate that\u2019s far more supportive of the jihadist cause than any other area of Syria is. Only a tiny portion of Idlib\u2019s residents oppose jihadists. And, now, suddenly, to America\u2019s Mike Pompeo, all of the people in Idlib are somehow (as he suggests, but is sly enough not to state outright) refugees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Orb\u2019s 2018 poll<\/a><\/span> of Syrians reported that, \u201cOnly 26% think that the influence of the International Coalition has been positive, and 69% think their influence has been somewhat or strongly negative. A further 57% think The West has played a negative role.\u201d Orb, the pollster \u2014 since it\u2019s allied with the U.S. instead of with Syria \u2014 also blamed Assad, instead of blaming Trump, for the worsening situation their latest poll found in Syria. Orb\u2019s 2018 report says: \u201cWhether or not an Assad victory is good for the future of the country is wide open \u2014 Although 39% agree that the country is heading in the right direction, this is a large drop since 2017 when 57% agreed with this statement.\u201d Between 2017 and now, most Syrians, just like most Americans, became disillusioned that Trump really was going to let Syria win the war that the U.S. Government has been waging against Syria ever since 1949<\/span><\/a> and which exploded into the open once Obama came into the White House. During the past year, it has become increasingly clear that Trump is continuing and even escalating this war; so, of course, Syrians, who know that the U.S. is their enemy, don\u2019t think \u201cthat the country is heading in the right direction.\u201d Like Americans, the people in Syria had believed Trump\u2019s lies about what his intentions regarding Syria were. They know better now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore: Pompeo\u2019s allegation that \u201cThe 3 million Syrians who have already been forced out of their homes and are now in #Idlib,\u201d is itself blatantly false, because the population of the entire region \u2014 and not just of the city of Idlib \u2014 is only 1.5 million<\/span><\/a>, and far fewer than 100,000 have been added to that population by Syria\u2019s bussing all of the surrendered jihadists there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, as of January 2017, there have been, \u201cSince 2011, \u2026 1 million new Syrian refugees\u201d<\/span><\/a> added to the worldwide refugee total, throughout that 7-year period of the Syrian \u2018civil war\u2019. And the perhaps ten thousand surviving and surrendered jihadists who have been bussed and added to the 1.5 million total population of Idlib Governate, are surviving members of the cause<\/i> of that refugee-crisis; they\u2019re certainly not themselves<\/i> refugees, such as Pompeo slyly has implied. They are instead surrendered combatants. <\/span><\/p>\n

So: only deeply fooled people would trust anything that a leader of the U.S. Government says. Lies by them are so routine. <\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, to report or publicize their lies without at the same time documenting that they are<\/i> lies \u2014 such as the present article does<\/i> \u2014 is not merely propaganda instead of being actual news-reporting; it is propaganda to aid and assist the U.S. Government\u2019s evil there.<\/span><\/p>\n

The vast majority of Syrians consider America and its allies to be their enemies, but Pompeo can pompously pretend to be their defenders even while he is actually threatening them and their defenders; and he can perpetrate such lies only because of The West\u2019s lying \u2018news\u2019-media, which constantly feed those same lies to their publics.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, on August 30th, columnist David Ignatius headlined in the solidly neoconservative Washington Post<\/i>, “How to stanch Syria\u2019s bloody final showdown\u201d<\/span><\/a> and bloviated, <\/span><\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s personal commitment to Syria is unclear, given his frequent past comments that America\u2019s role there should be limited to fighting terrorists. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

This 11th-hour rediscovery of Syria is poignant, because it comes as America is mourning the death of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who anguished in his final years about the United States\u2019 inability to check the slaughter there. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The administration has signaled a stiffer stance by warning Russia against its planned escalation in Idlib, which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described Wednesday as \u201ca festering abscess\u201d that must be \u201cliquidated.\u201d \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Idlib, located in the northwest corner of Syria, has become a haven for terrorists, anti-regime fighters and desperate civilians who fled there after the fall of Aleppo and Daraa. The province\u2019s population is now about 3 million.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That \u201c3 million<\/i>\u201d there links to this<\/span><\/a> on August 29th, which says, “According to news reports, the three million people \u2013 roughly half of whom are native residents and the other half persons displaced within the country \u2013 of Idlib, the last big rebel enclave, are bracing for Syrian Government forces to begin a phased offensive.\u201d So, at least Pompeo could cite \u201cnews reports\u201d as \u2018confirmation\u2019 for his lie. It\u2019s a house-of-mirrors, which the U.S. Government and its many minions have produced.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps among those \u201cnews reports\u201d was one from the solidly neocon Financial Times<\/i>, on 4 May 2018, \u201cIdlib offers uncertain sanctuary to Syria\u2019s defeated rebels\u201d<\/span><\/a>, in which, apparently, only persons who were part of the U.S. coalition were interviewed as sources:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201dYour choice was die in Ghouta, or leave for Idlib,\u201d said the 35-year-old from his new home in a village in the province<\/i> [Idlib] \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He is one of more than 70,000 rebels and civilians who made a similar calculation, fleeing the besieged enclave <\/i>[Eastern Ghouta]. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Idlib \u2026 has become a dumping ground for defeated rebels, their families and supporters. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Idlib\u2019s population has swelled from about 1.5m before the war to 2.6m, making it the largest populous area controlled by rebels. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That \u2018news\u2019paper likewise failed to source its number in any empirical data. And, of course, the Al Qaeda and ISIS forces who were among those \u201crebels\u201d weren\u2019t being labelled as \u201cterrorists,\u201d nor even as \u201cjihadists\u201d: they were instead \u2018rebels\u2019, even if they had come from a foreign country to fight to overthrow the Government of Syria. This is Western \u2018journalism\u2019 \u2014 it\u2019s not being honestly<\/i> called Western \u201cpropaganda.\u201d People actually pay<\/i> for that filth as \u2018journalism\u2019. Even the term \u2018journalism\u2019 is fake, for propaganda, which is what actually reigns, in U.S.-allied territories.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 16 May 2018<\/a><\/span>, the U.N.\u2019s chief person on the Syria matter, Staffan de Mistura, told the Security Council that \u201cIf we see a Ghouta scenario in Idlib, this could be six times worse, affecting 2.3 million people,\u201d and this likewise-undocumented estimate would mean that since 2011 there has been an influx into Idlib of 800,000 people from other governates in Syria, who have chosen Syria\u2019s by-far-most-jihadist Governate, as the place they prefer to live. That estimate, of 800,000 increase, is credible, but (like the others) undocumented. In any case: still, the total population of Idlib would likely be considerably more than 90% pro-jihad. Why does The West specialize in defending such people, against the vast majority of Syrians, who have suffered so much from them? In some places, freedom-from<\/i>-religion is more needed than freedom-of<\/i>-religion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Donald Trump has prohibited any refugees from Syria into America. If he is so solicitous about the welfare of the residents in Idlib, why doesn\u2019t he make an exception for them, and simply inform Russia that America will now allow all of the residents in Idlib to enter the U.S. as \u2018refugees\u2019? Would he rather start World War III against Russia, in order to try protecting everyone in Idlib, where they are? He even wants Armageddon, if that\u2019s the only way for him to protect everyone in Idlib? And yet, he doesn\u2019t give a damn about the Palestinians? Obviously, the official stories are lies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who would have thought, on September 11th of 2001, that within just ten years, the CIA-stirred \u2018Arab Spring\u2019 could be started, and that just a year later the U.S. Government would already commit itself to Syria\u2019s Al Qaeda as the local Syrian group that would be chosen by the U.S. to serve as the trainer and leader of America\u2019s main proxy-forces fighting on the ground<\/span><\/a> in Syria to bring down the only non-sectarian Government in the entire Middle East: Syria\u2019s Government? Perhaps a person who knew that the Sauds and the White House were behind the 9\/11 attacks<\/span><\/a> would have thought it, but the U.S.-allied \u2018news\u2019-media have hidden that fact, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, there is the possibility that a million or more Syrians have fled the war into the relative safety (for themselves) of Idlib \u2014 safety (for them) if and only if<\/i> they supported the jihadists, because that\u2019s the province which overwhelmingly supported jihadists, even before the \u2018civil war\u2019 had started. But lying \u2018news\u2019-media don\u2019t really care about such fine points, anyway, since those would only confuse their readers with truth. Mustn\u2019t do that \u2014 not if the \u2018news\u2019-medium is actually just propaganda. The demand, in The West, is: \u201cDon\u2019t confuse the reader!\u201d (such as would happen if the lies were exposed instead of touted, or \u2014 which is even worse \u2014 hidden altogether).<\/span><\/p>\n

Once, the Secretary General of the United Nations contradicted the U.S. President twice in one day for his having said<\/span><\/a> that Bashar al-Assad must not be allowed to remain in office. Barack Obama was the U.S. President, the putative dictator-of-the-world, at that time. Now Donald Trump stole the White House by promising voters he would abandon Obama\u2019s international aggressions, and by (as the new President) instead continuing and even intensifying<\/i> them. By such lies, all significant control that the American public have over their Government has become lost<\/span><\/a>. Thus, even the American people are ignored by the U.S.<\/span><\/a> and its allies \u2014 the global alliance for evil<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

That alliance\u2019s \u2018news\u2019-media have been an essential part of this scam. It could not function, but for them \u2014 the aid that they provide in deceiving (instead of informing) their public \u2014 the aid at reinforcing<\/i> the regime<\/span><\/a>\u2019s lies.<\/span><\/p>\n

A stunningly brilliant expos\u00e9 of America\u2019s (and its media\u2019s) latest lies about Syria can be found at the September 2nd \u201cMoon of Alabama\u201d article, \u201cSyria Sitrep \u2014 U.S. To Stay To \u2018Create Quagmires\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/a>. Everyone should read it, but it\u2019s found nowhere in \u201cAll the News That\u2019s Fit to Print\u201d<\/span><\/a> (in any of the Establishment\u2019s \u2018news\u2019-media) \u2014 it\u2019s far too honest and well-documented for that. It documents that the U.S. is adding considerably to its military occupation of Syria, digging in there, for a long and maybe permanent stay. If this intention really is so, WW III can be expected to start, perhaps soon, with Syria being merely the first battlefield in the war that will end all wars (and end everything).<\/span><\/p>\n

On September 11th of 2001, America was attacked by the Government of Saudi Arabia, the royal Saud family who own it and are that Government<\/span><\/a>, and now America has invaded countries that had nothing to do with it \u2014 Iraq, Libya, and now Syria and Yemen, and threatens to attack also Iran<\/span><\/a> \u2014 while having done everything possible to hide the evidence implicating the Saud family<\/span><\/a> and to block their prosecution. Perhaps Donald Trump will finish the job, and end up invading Russia, which also wasn\u2019t involved. <\/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 On Friday, August 31st, the neoconservative U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said \u201cThe 3 million Syrians who have already been forced out of their homes and are now in #Idlib, will suffer from this aggression. Not good. The world is watching.\u201d By \u201cthis aggression,\u201d he was referring to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":356300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[96,34,67,59,524,20344,754,92,523,49,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-376098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-cover-up","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-sauds","15":"tag-syria","16":"tag-terrorism","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-white-house","20":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376098","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=376098"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376100,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376098\/revisions\/376100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}