Finally, a Tiny Fissure in the Wall of Lies

As far as most Americans can tell, world opinion is, with the single exception of Russia, otherwise unanimous on the subject of conditions in Syria.  President Hassad must go.   For listeners of National Public Radio's Sunday morning show, On the Media, however, a small fissure in the wall of lies we have been treated to managed to erupt.   (I would refer readers who wish a full account to the NPR web site where a full audiocast of the interview with Lauren Wolf of the Women Under Siege Project may be heard.)   Ms. Wolf's work with the project led her to probe more deeply into accusations made by Senator Joe Lieberman, (Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Senate), that members of the Syrian Army were raping large numbers of Syrian women.   Asked what had sent up a "red flag," Ms. Wolf stated that she began to see a pattern in the reports; they seemed remarkably similar, as if they might be coming out of a propaganda ministry rather than unbiased reports.  It seemed, she said, that "they only want us to be ctiticizing the Syrian army."   Recounting how false reports led us into the disatrous war with Iraq, she felt an obligation to verify the charges made by Senator Lieberman.  It so happened that the NPR broadcast coincided with the New York Times report on President Hassad's speech to his parliament.  Although it seems almost dangerous to commit this thought to print in the climate that prevails in this country, I find that Hassad's representation of the treatment his regime is receiving from the American-led campaign against him is essentially accurate:

"...some people went as far as denying the existence of the foreign factor altogether and considered this argument an escape from internal obligations. They argued that the gist of the problem a disagreement between Syrian parties and that what is happening on the ground is a purely peaceful movement and that the source of any violence is the state. Some people made this argument in malice and bad faith and others made it with naivety, lack of knowledge, and as a result of media  forgeries. Now, and after more than a year from the beginning of these events, things are clearer and masks have been lifted. The international role in what is happening is already well-known not only for decades, but for centuries past. And I don't think it's going to change in the foreseeable future. Colonialism is still colonialism. It only changed in terms of methods and ways of  attack."                                                            
    On the subject of whether or not anti-government activities have taken the form of peaceful protests, the Western press seems unconcerned about contradicting itself almost daily.  While on the one hand having presented a scenario in which innocent protesters have been massacred by the Syrian army, it concurrently publishes numerous reports of the U.S. and its allies arming the "resistance," and of armed conflict occurring in many of Syria's population centers.  There are frequent threats of a military intervention similar to that Nato (the U.S.) employed in Libya.  Even the French, only recently seen as bad boys unwilling to join the "coalition of the willing,"  have threatened military intervention.  Someone finally succeeded in placing a pod beneath France's bed, it seems.  It is obvious that the U.S. has persuaded its allies that it will tolerate nothing less than unanimity next time around.
     Of course, anyone who focuses on the contradictory pronouncements made by those who are clearly seeking "regime change" in Syria is placed in the position of appearing to defend dictatorship over democracy.  One need not, however, be exactly an admirer of Assad to be appalled by the gross intervention in the affairs of sovereign states.  The late Bush administration's brazen broadcasting in its official statement of U.S. foreign policy its self-appointed right to pre-emptively attack any and all of its perceived enemies without regard for sovereignty only brought into the light of day a policy which the U.S. has long followed somewhat more covertly.
     Even so, not since the era of Yellow Journalism has there been more unbridled saber rattling than over Syria.  The campaign to pacify and bring under the U.S.-Israeli "peace umbrella" the swath of Muslim nations that stretches from Tunisia to China, coyly labeled the Arab Spring, has for now, beyond its ultimate goal of a Pax Americana for the entire globe, the shorter term goal of isolating and conquering Iran, seen as the major obstacle to the U.S.'s plan.