‘Chemical Weapons’ media propaganda in US, UK is designed to hide the truth in Syria
Source: 21stcenturywire.com
Yesterday’s report of an alleged ‘chemical weapon’ attack near Damascus has prompted the US and UK media machines to spin into overdrive in the push for a military intervention and regime change in Syria.
Washington’s official response is predictable by now: “The White House is ‘deeply concerned’ about reports that chemical weapons were used by Syria’s government against civilians”.
In the UK, the mainstream media has put on a full-court press, clearly delivering a guilty verdict even before any claims can be independently verified, a coordinated trial-by-media which looks to be designed to coax a majority public support for either a direct supply of arms to the confab of ‘rebel’ insurgencies in Syria.
Pre-Iraq War talking points have been dusted off by the UK press and others, as the PR war begins for the hearts and minds of voters begins. It is alleged that hundreds have been killed by this latest ‘gas attack’ which is being compared by the UK media to Iraq where thousands of Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein in Halabja in 1988.
The focus of the UK and US government-media-complex led efforts to win public support for a “humanitarian intervention” similar that which was perpetrated in Libya in 2011, is now centred around the main victims of the conflict being portrayed as that of children.
No one within the government media complex is asking the most fundamentally important question here: were real military-grade chemical weapons actually used at all? The reason no one is asking this is because the answer to this question so far is a resounding ’no’, which means that despite all the media hype neither the UK nor the US governments have a case against the Assad regime regarding the use of chemical weapons during this conflict.
Media invent a ‘chemical weapons’ incident
In reality, this is nearly an identical government and media PR campaign to that which was launched in the run-up the invasion and bombing of Iraq in 2003.
Varying reports estimate between 90 and 500 killed in this incident, yet, the Guardian was quick to ramp-up the death toll to 1,400. Every media report of the incident is based on the same dubious source material, described by the Daily Mail as:
“Extensive amateur video and photographs purporting to show victims appeared on the Internet. A video puportedly shot in the Kafr Batna neighbourhood showed a room filled with more than 90 bodies, many of them children and a few women and elderly men.”
Today’s Daily Mirror led with the headline, “NOW THEY ARE GASSING OUR CHILDREN”, but when you actually read the article, the ambiguity of the claims becomes obvious. ”At first they were being affected by the gas. But now they’re dying in the regular shelling. The bombs just won’t stop.”
Rupert Murdoch’s newest war promotion paper, The Times, was even more ambiguous and misleading today, with one headline reading, “Horror video is no fake but cannot tell the full story”. This was referring to the Pièce de résistance of this latest chemical attack, a video of the dead. The Times went on to debunk itself, with Dan Kazela, a former chemical warfare officer stating the obvious, “You can’t autopsy a video”, adding, “In the end stages (of a chemical attack) there are tremors and convulsions. There are a lack of the immediate symptoms (in the footage). I am confused.” In other words, the videos do match the allegations.
If there was a military-grade chemical attack involving thousands of death, how come that entire area of the city was not evacuated, and how could videographers and photographers be on the scene so quickly after the attack without suffering the effects they claim to be documenting?
The Times continued in a desperate bid to cover all its bases with the next article entitled, “Ignore the conspiracists: We must find the truth”. This headline is a breathtaking example of high level propaganda, and mixed messaging. It implies that anyone who thinks that the Syrian government are innocent, or the rebel opposition guilty – of chemical weapons charges, is a conspiracist, and that “the truth” must be the opposite conclusions. The article goes on to attack the Russian press coverage of the conflict specifically, stating:
“The Russian press scrambles to demonstrate the depravity of the rebels – making much of the commander who who appeared on film to be eating the body parts of an opponent”.
It seems lost on this Times writer Roger Boyes, that the Russian press didn’t need to scramble, because the rebel cannibal in question was very depraved and was part of the insurgent-terrorist confab backed by both the US and UK governments.
The press continue their PR campaign to intervention in Syria with the headline image (see below) for the Mirror depicts an image of eight children sleeping, and it is a fact that no one can independently verify as yet who these children are and if indeed they were killed in a chemical weapons attack in Syria on Tuesday evening. Nonetheless, the story and pictures run in the press and the desired public perception is created.
IMAGE: Today’s headline on the UK Daily Mirror. Who are these children in the photo, are they alive and what exactly happened to them?
Read the rest of the article at 21st Century Wire
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