Propaganda 101

On Sunday the 5th of May 2013 a lady called Carla Del Ponte (former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals) appeared on Swiss-Italian TV and stated that it was her belief (after reading a well researched report) that the Western backed rebels in Syria had used chemical weapons.

Even the BBC ran an article on this bombshell of a story.

I was waiting for the Guardian to post a story about this revelation. They post stories based on accusations made by rebels against Assad almost immediately – without any proof. Accusations from an overtly biased source. Accusations based on unverified video footage. But here we have an accusation made by the United Nations itself and the Guardian waits until late Monday evening to mention the claims made by Carla Del Ponte.

And In doing so they led the story with US dismissal and they led the story using an alternative source at the United Nations who uses less accusatory language. 

This is propaganda 101 and it doesn’t go unnoticed by many of its readers. I’ll leave you with some comments from below the line.

SPG700
Guardian, this is shocking reporting. The BBC (and a host of other normally one sided media organisations) have been headlining Carla’s findings all day.
As for you? Diddlysquat, no mention at all. As soon as your buddies (the US) cast doubt, you’re in there like a rat up a drain pipe. Honestly Guardian, shocking beyond all proportion. I really do wonder what your pay master’s role is in all this mess. Hang your head in shame. Shame on you indeed.

CarefulReader
So far, we’ve had plain old biased reporting, because the opinion at the Guardian seems to be firmly on the rebel side. That makes for shoddy journalism, but it’s still within bounds of journalism.
But this episode today went far beyond that. This is not journalism, it’s opinion engineering, i.e. propaganda.
Shame on you indeed.

UtgardLoki
So the USA dismisses the possibility that Syrian insurgents use chemical weapons, without evidence, yet the USA is minded to believe Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons, without evidence.
Nice to see the USA maintains its spotless record as an honest broker.
And nice to see the Guardian reporting this story… once it could be spun to make del Ponte’s comments seem questionable

 

Rewriting the Syrian script

Countless articles on the Guardian website and other mainstream media sites repeat certain statements over and over again. Articles regularly state that there were months and months of peaceful protests in Syria before the opposition decided to take up arms in order to defend themselves from violent repression – despite evidence of security forces being killed within weeks of the unrest starting. Articles regularly state that the uprising in Syria was popular and majority led despite the two biggest and most populated cities (Aleppo and Damascus) staying relatively quiet. Articles regularly state that America has played a minimal role in supporting the movement and has almost been a neutral player in the rebels attempt to violently overthrow the Syrian government.

It is true that Assad was in control of a repressive regime inside Syria and he cannot escape culpability for the situation currently unfolding within its borders. However, here is an alternative timeline that may highlight how some of the basic and most important facts being reported about Syria are not exactly concrete.

In 2001, retired General Wesley Clark met with Donald Rumsfeld in person and was told about a plan to topple the Syrian government. 

Since 2004 the US Government have been imposing tough economic sanctions against the Syrian government. 

Since 2006 the State Department has been spending millions of dollars on anti Assad propaganda.

In 2008 top members of the SNC (the main opposition group) were seen attending the secretive Bilderberg conference in Chantilly, Virginia.

In March 2011, weeks before the unrest began, weapons were discovered being smuggled into Syria from Iraq.

In April/May 2011 a joint US-NATO secret training camp in the US air force base in Incirlik, Turkey, began operations to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria (according to a Boiling Frogs article posted in November 2011).

In May 2011, weeks after the unrest began, Al Jazeera staff witnessed foreign fighters crossing the border into Syria but the media organization refused to air the footage.

In June 2011 (just a month or so after the unrest began) 120 Syrian security officers were attacked and many of them killed.

In June 2011 it was reported that Aleppo and Damascus had been “largely quiet since the beginning of the uprising”.

In August 2011 it was reported that “To date, most residents of Syria’s two main cities, Damascus and Aleppo, have tried to look the other way vis-à-vis the uprising”.

In May 2012 (a year after the unrest began) the State Department admitted that it was coordinating the shipment of weapons and hardware to the rebels.

There were peaceful protests in Syria that called for genuine reform – I am not debating that fact – but most of the links I have provided will direct you to official news sites. These events are well documented but rarely pieced together by the mainstream media, who seem to prefer telling a much simpler story.

Editorials For War

Someone recently tweeted something along the lines of… “To get an idea of a tabloids stance read its headlines and to get an idea of a broadsheets stance read its editorials”.

I’ve been meaning to write about the Guardians editorials on Syria for some time as almost every single one of them objectifies the situation in Syria in a way that promotes confrontation with the regime and peddles a good vs bad narrative for its readers to digest.

Whether it’s an editorial during the very early days of the conflict which overtly demands Syria face tough and crippling sanctions or an editorial after 2 years of civil war (one which could see Assad and his family killed) which announces Bashar al-Assad actually wanted this war in the first place. It reads;

“Two years after an Arab spring uprising that saw hundreds of thousands of unarmed Syrians filling the streets of provincial cities, Bashar al-Assad has got the conflict that he wanted”

Whether it’s an editorial that suggests the Assad regime has been carrying out false flag car bombings (which in turn kill his own security team) or an editorial that accuses Assad of actively seeking a larger, more serious international conflict, by stating;

“Assad is doing his utmost to provoke a Turkish incursion.”

Whether it’s an editorial that tells us how Assad’s “military hold is slipping” or it’s his “last stand“ or that Russian support for the regime was “doomed to failure from the start” and how the Russian government is now “having second thoughts“ when it quite clearly isn’t.

The 7 editorial pieces that I have linked to in this blog post have been written anonymously but all of them seem to face in the same direction. Towards accusation & confrontation.

“Terrorists” or opposition fighters?

On Monday the 8th of April 2013, a suicide car bomb was detonated in the business district of Damascus which killed at least 15 people. The Guardian posted the following article.

It is the final few paragraphs and phrases which caught my eye with regards to this blog.

“There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but state media blamed “terrorists”, a term the government uses for opposition fighters. Opposition groups accused the government of carrying out the attack”

The language used to report this horrific crime and how the word “terrorists” is placed in quotation marks seems to call into question how suicide car bombers should be referred to.

History tells us that if this type of event were to occur inside the UK or US – the term “terrorists” would be used without question or hesitation by the Guardian and other mainstream media.

The blatant acts of terrorism inside Syria over the last few years have been receiving special treatment from Western backed news organisations and this article is just one example of how.

Fictional Headlines

This example of propaganda could easily be excused as a simple mistranslation – and a simple mistranslation it may be. However, I feel that it’s still important to document this case as it continues a worrying trend.

It’s the 22nd of March 2013 and a Guardian headline reads…

“Syria’s president says his forces will ‘eliminate’ infidels”

Quite a statement from the embattled leader. It’s the type of statement that we would usually associate with religious extremists. Prehaps the same types of extremists that have flocked to Syria in order to fight the Assad regime.

However, looking at the transcript of the Assad speech that the Guardian quotes from – several commentators have highlighted that Assad didn’t actually utter those words.

The Guardian prints the following:

“We will adhere to your thought as we are fighting to eliminate their obscurantist and takfiri [infidel] thinking until we purge our country of them.”

As many Guardian readers have pointed out:

“A Takfiri (from Arabic: تكفيري‎ takfīrī) is a Muslim who accuses another Muslim ofapostasy.^[1] The accusation itself is called takfir, derived from the word kafir (infidel) and is described as when “…one who is, or claims to be, a Muslim is declared impure.” ~ Wikipedia

Here are some comments from Guardian readers regarding this issue:

PatriceLumumba
I wonder how long it will take the Guardian to change their sub-heading after a number of commentators have shown that “takfiri” does not mean “infidel”.
Clearly this mistranslation is a great propoganda feat, the secular Assad is now declaring to eliminate all non-believers!

Wissam Shaheen
‘takfiri’ is not translated into’infidel’…
a ‘takfiri’ is a guy who consider all others are ‘infidel’..
We expect from The guardian to be very careful in translations.. what a shame!!!

gibbon199
Three people have already exposed your blatant mis-translation of Bashar Assad’s comments. Trying to make him look like the one who is waging holy wars against ‘infidels’ is a new low for you Guardian when your Al-Queda ‘rebels’ are terrorising an the country, chopping peoples heads off all in the name of Allah!
Change the headline Guardian – you are fooling no-one!

*** UPDATE 22.03.13 ***

The headline in question has now been removed from their webpage. Below is a screen grab of the original text.

Good extremists/Bad extremists

It’s hard to contemplate the audacity of the Guardian in their feigning concern for the victims of extremism in Mali as 2 years ago they were cheering on almost identical extremists in the very same region. 

The UK Government and media outlets downplayed and largely ignored the brutalization of black communities during the Libyan conflict and in its aftermath reports of ethnic cleansing were conveniently swept under the carpet. The extremists who were committing these atrocities and war crimes were subjected to the least amount of scrutiny possible as they were essentially fighting on behalf of Western interests and were backed up militarily by NATO. Compare this to the current situation in Mali. A near autonomous/highly ungoverned region in the North of the country is this time directly threatening Western interests so miraculously its all systems go with regards to rigorous reporting and faux outrage.

What does this duplicity tell us about government policy and the news reports that shamelessly support it?

It tells us that human rights and democracy play little to no part in the decision to promote and pursue wars. The Guardian can, and do, propagandize a cause based solely on the Governments financial interests.

Ignoring facts to fit the propaganda model

The Guardian is as guilty as almost every other mainstream news outlet in the UK with regards to its heavily biased coverage of the Libyan & Syrian conflicts. If picking sides in a civil war was classed as a crime then the Guardians online editorial team would be found guilty on several counts.

This propaganda technique is one of the most effective ways of ‘managing consent’ and shaping a narrative whilst at the same time being one of the hardest to highlight to those who do not see a problem. Outright lies and misinformation can easily be brought to the attention of people with the use of source material but when uncomfortable facts/incidents are blatantly ignored it can be harder to illustrate. Facts that are ominously omitted by media outlets can be simply excused as either not news worthy or the omission put down to human error. This propaganda technique is especially effective in the early days of a conflict (see Libya & Syria) as readers opinions are usually formed in the opening days and weeks of following a story.

Please bear in mind that this blog is not trying to support or berate any particular side in the conflicts mentioned. This is about propaganda and media bias.

Using the reporting on Syria as an example of the propaganda technique mentioned above I have highlighted 3 key points;

1. Video footage and reports of Syrian rebels committing war crimes do not paint the opposition in a good light and there have been many documented occasions when certain incidents have gone unreported. Here is an extract from “The Angry Arab” blog which highlights one specific case;

“Al-Quds Al-`Arabi, which is a Qatari-funded newspaper that staunchly supports the opposition to the Asad regime had a front page article yesterday an IN PASSING reference to a “armed men” storming into a housing complex in rural Homs and shooting at Christians and `Alawites, and killing 16 and injuring others. Even the Syrian Observatory for Qatari Human Rights acknowledged the massacre but tried to obfuscate by adding that some Sunnis were also hit. Did any Western media report on this massacre? Any? At all?”

2. Interviews with Syrian residents who do not support the Syrian rebels offer readers an alternative viewpoint to a very complex situation. Despite hundreds of these people voicing their opinions online (YouTube/Twitter) mainstream media very rarely (if ever) gives these people a platform by talking to them and in turn helps paint a simplified, black and white/good vs bad narrative. Here is a video of independent media giving a voice to the constantly ignored.

3. Influx of foreign fighters and Al Jazeera bias: Very early on in the conflict, staff members of Al Jazeera decided to resign in protest at the stations biased coverage. One ex employee of the Qatari owned news network called Ali Hashem, also went on record as seeing foreign fighters entering Syria only weeks after the conflict began. The claims of media bias at Al Jazeera and the eye-witness accounts of foreign fighters was completely ignored by The Guardian. Once again it was left to independent media to investigate the story by interviewing Ali Hashem.

I’ll add more links which back up these claims in the near future. To conclude this blog post I’ll leave you with a comment from a regular Guardian reader that was left in response to a Guardian contributor;

philbobaggins1
24 January 2013 12:31pm (link to comment)
@PaulOwen: “Come on Paul, thats a shocking rebuttal, i think what upsets most people, including me is that this newspaper is given the title of “the flagship of liberal media” around the world. Whatever that means.

In all honesty i dont think for one minute either you, Chulov, Borger or anyone else cannot see the skewed and one sided narrative the Guardian has been following since the Syrian conflict started, granted the tone has changed somewhat since the now unmissable emergence of large numbers of undersirable groups have swelled the ranks of the opposition but this newspapers lack of ability or willingness to look at this conflict from an objective point of view has been obvious to say the least.

In reality when it comes to foreign policy you follow the government line, that is a fact, you have controlled dissidence and debate but it goes no further than that. Your undeniable support and stenography of the opposition in the Syrian conflict and constant attempts to portray one side as the “goodies” and the other as the “baddies” is just a symptom of this newspapers unwillingness or inability to go against govt foreign policy”