{"id":81613,"date":"2016-10-24T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=81613"},"modified":"2016-10-20T13:17:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T12:17:51","slug":"good-deaths-in-mosul-bad-deaths-in-aleppo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/10\/good-deaths-in-mosul-bad-deaths-in-aleppo\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Deaths in Mosul, Bad Deaths in Aleppo"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the U.S.-backed offensive in Mosul, Iraq, begins, the mainstream U.S. media readies the American people to blame the terrorists for\u00a0civilian casualties but the opposite rules apply to\u00a0Syria\u2019s Aleppo.<\/em><\/p>\n

17 Oct 2016 – <\/em>Note how differently The New York Times prepares the American public for civilian casualties from the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government assault on the city of Mosul to free it from the Islamic State, compared to the unrelenting condemnation of the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on neighborhoods of east Aleppo held by Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

In the case of Mosul, the million-plus residents are not portrayed as likely victims of American airstrikes and Iraqi government ground assaults, though surely many will die during the offensive. Instead, the civilians are said to be eagerly awaiting liberation from the Islamic State terrorists\u00a0and their head-chopping brutality.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.-backed<\/a>

U.S.-backed Syrian \u201cmoderate\u201d rebels smile as they prepare to behead a 12-year-old boy (left), whose severed head is held aloft triumphantly in a later part of the video. [Screenshot from the YouTube video]<\/p><\/div>\u201cMosul\u2019s residents are hoarding food and furtively scrawling resistance slogans on walls,\u201d writes<\/a> Times\u2019 veteran war correspondent Rod Nordland about this week\u2019s launch of the U.S.-backed government offensive. \u201cThose forces will fight to enter a city where for weeks the harsh authoritarian rule of the Islamic State \u2026 has sought to crack down on a population eager to either escape or rebel, according to interviews with roughly three dozen people from Mosul. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cJust getting out of Mosul had become difficult and dangerous: Those who were caught faced million-dinar fines, unless they were former members of the Iraqi Army or police, in which case the punishment was beheading. \u2026 Graffiti and other displays of dissidence against the Islamic State were more common in recent weeks, as were executions when the vandals were caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times article continues: \u201cMosul residents chafed under social codes banning smoking and calling for splashing acid on body tattoos, summary executions of perceived opponents, whippings of those who missed prayers or trimmed their beards, and destroying \u2018un-Islamic\u2019 historical monuments.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the message is clear: if the inevitable happens and the U.S.-backed offensive kills a number of Mosul\u2019s civilians, including children, The New York Times\u2019 readers have been hardened to accept this \u201ccollateral damage\u201d as necessary to free the city from blood-thirsty extremists. The fight to crush these crazies is worth it, even if there are significant numbers of civilians killed in the \u201ccross-fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

And we\u2019ve seen similar mainstream media\u00a0treatment of other U.S.-organized assaults on urban areas, such as the devastation of the Iraqi city, Fallujah, in 2004 when U.S. Marines routed Iraqi insurgents from the city while leveling or severely damaging most of the city\u2019s buildings and killing hundreds of civilians. But\u00a0those victims were portrayed in the Western press as \u201chuman shields,\u201d shifting the blame for their deaths onto the Iraqi insurgents.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that U.S. forces invaded Iraq in defiance of international law \u2013 and thus all the thousands of civilian deaths across Iraq from the \u201cshock and awe\u201d U.S. firepower should be considered war crimes \u2013 there was virtually no such analysis allowed into the pages of The New York Times or the other mainstream U.S. media. Such talk was forced to the political fringes, as it continues to be today. War-crimes tribunals are only for the other guys.<\/p>\n

Lust to Kill Children<\/strong><\/p>\n

By contrast, the Times routinely portrays the battle for east Aleppo as simply a case of barbaric Russian and Syrian leaders bombing innocent neighborhoods with no regard for the human cost, operating out of an apparent lust to kill children.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as \u201cshock and awe.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Rather than focusing on Al Qaeda\u2019s harsh rule of east Aleppo, the Times told its readers in late September how to perceive the Russian-Syrian offensive to drive out Al Qaeda and its allies. A Sept. 25 article<\/a> by Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta, entitled \u201cSyria and Russia Appear Ready to Scorch Aleppo,\u201d began:<\/p>\n

\u201cMake life intolerable and death likely. Open an escape route, or offer a deal to those who leave or surrender. Let people trickle out. Kill whoever stays. Repeat until a deserted cityscape is yours. It is a strategy that both the Syrian government and its Russian allies have long embraced to subdue Syrian rebels, largely by crushing the civilian populations that support them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in the past few days, as hopes for a revived cease-fire have disintegrated at the United Nations, the Syrians and Russians seem to be mobilizing to apply this kill-all-who-resist strategy to the most ambitious target yet: the rebel-held sections of the divided metropolis of Aleppo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, note how the \u201crebels\u201d are portrayed as local heroes, rather than a collection of jihadists from both inside and outside Syria fighting under the operational command of Al Qaeda\u2019s Nusra Front, which recently underwent a name change to the Syria\u00a0Conquest Front. But the name change and the pretense about \u201cmoderate\u201d rebels are just more deceptions.<\/p>\n

As journalist\/historian Gareth Porter has written<\/a>: \u201cInformation from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces [of Idlib and Aleppo] is engaged in a military structure controlled by Nusra militants. All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least since 2014 the Obama administration has armed a number of Syrian rebel groups even though it knew the groups were coordinating closely with the Nusra Front, which was simultaneously getting arms from Turkey and Qatar. The strategy called for supplying TOW anti-tank missiles to the \u2018Syrian Revolutionaries Front\u2019 (SRF) as the core of a client Syrian army that would be independent of the Nusra Front.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, when a combined force of Nusra and non-jihadist brigades including the SRF captured the Syrian army base at Wadi al-Deif in December 2014, the truth began to emerge. The SRF and other groups to which the United States had supplied TOW missiles had fought under Nusra\u2019s command to capture the base.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arming Al Qaeda<\/strong><\/p>\n

This reality \u2013 the fact that the U.S. government is indirectly supplying sophisticated weaponry to Al Qaeda \u2013 is rarely\u00a0mentioned in the mainstream U.S. news media, though one might think it would make for a newsworthy story. But it would undercut the desired propaganda narrative of \u201cgood guy\u201d rebels fighting \u201cbad guy\u201d government backed by \u201cultra-bad guy\u201d Russians.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The second plane about to crash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p><\/div>\n

What if Americans understood that their tax money and U.S. weaponry were going to aid the terrorist group that\u00a0perpetrated\u00a0the 9\/11 attacks? What if they understood the larger historical context that Washington helped midwife the modern jihadist movement \u2013 and Al Qaeda \u2013 through the U.S.\/Saudi support for the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s?<\/p>\n

And what if Americans understood that Washington\u2019s supposed regional \u201callies,\u201d including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, have sided with Al Qaeda in Syria because of their intense hatred of Shiite-ruled Iran, an ally of Syria\u2019s secular government?<\/p>\n

These Al Qaeda sympathies have been known for several years<\/a>\u00a0but never get reported in the mainstream U.S. press. In September 2013, Israel\u2019s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, then a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel favored Syria\u2019s Sunni extremists over President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc,\u201d Oren told the Jerusalem Post in an interview<\/a>. \u201cWe always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren\u2019t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.\u201d He said this was the case even if the \u201cbad guys\u201d were affiliated with Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

And, in June 2014, speaking as a former ambassador at an Aspen Institute conference, Oren expanded on his position, saying<\/a> Israel would even prefer a victory by the brutal Islamic State over continuation of the Iranian-backed Assad in Syria. \u201cFrom Israel\u2019s perspective, if there\u2019s got to be an evil that\u2019s got to prevail, let the Sunni evil prevail,\u201d Oren said.<\/p>\n

But such cynical \u2013 and dangerous \u2013 realpolitik is kept from the American people. Instead, the Syrian conflict is presented as all about the children.<\/p>\n

There is also little said about how Al Qaeda\u2019s Nusra Front and its allied jihadists keep the civilian population in east Aleppo essentially as \u201chuman shields.\u201d When \u201chumanitarian corridors\u201d have been opened to allow civilians to escape, they had been fired on by the jihadists determined to keep as many people under their control as possible.<\/p>\n

Propaganda Fodder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

By forcing the civilians to stay, Al Qaeda and its allies can exploit the injuries and deaths of civilians, especially the children, for propaganda advantages.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A heart-rending propaganda image designed to justify a major U.S. military operation inside Syria against the Syrian military.<\/p><\/div>\n

Going along with Al Qaeda\u2019s propaganda strategy, the Times and other mainstream U.S. news outlets have kept the focus on the children. A Times dispatch<\/a> on Sept. 27 begins: \u201cThey cannot play, sleep or attend school. Increasingly, they cannot eat. Injury or illness could be fatal. Many just huddle with their parents in windowless underground shelters \u2014 which offer no protection from the powerful bombs that have turned east Aleppo into a kill zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies. Though the world is jolted periodically by the suffering of children in the Syria conflict \u2014 the photographs of Alan Kurdi\u2019s drowned body and Omran Daqneesh\u2019s bloodied face are prime examples \u2014 dead and traumatized children are increasingly common.\u201d<\/p>\n

This propagandistic narrative has bled into the U.S. presidential campaign<\/a>\u00a0with Martha Raddatz, a moderator of the second presidential debate, incorporating much of the evil-Russians theme into a question that went so far as to liken the human suffering in Aleppo to the Holocaust, the Nazi extermination campaign against Jews and other minorities.<\/p>\n

That prompted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to repeat her call for an expanded U.S. military intervention in Syria<\/a>, including a \u201cno-fly zone,\u201d which U.S. military commanders say would require a massive operation that would kill many Syrians, both soldiers and civilians, to eliminate Syria\u2019s sophisticated air-defense systems and its air force.<\/p>\n

Based on the recent Wikileaks publication of Clinton\u2019s speeches to investment bankers and other special interests, we also know that she recognizes the high human cost from this strategy. In one June 2013 speech, she said<\/a>, \u201cTo have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we\u2019re not putting our pilots at risk \u2014 you\u2019re going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, during the campaign, Clinton has\u00a0spoken glibly about her own proposal to impose a \u201cno-fly zone\u201d over Syria, which has become even more dangerous since 2015 when the Russians agreed to directly assist the Syrian government in fighting Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

Also, left unsaid about such a U.S. intervention is that it could open the way for Al Qaeda and\/or its spinoff\u00a0Islamic State to defeat the Syrian army and gain control of Damascus, creating the potential for even a worse bloodbath against Christians, Shiites, Alawites, secular Sunnis and other \u201cheretics.\u201d Not to mention the fact that a\u00a0U.S.-imposed \u201cno-fly zone\u201d would\u00a0be a clear violation of international law.<\/p>\n

Over the next few weeks, we are sure hear much about the Islamic State using the people of Mosul as \u201chuman shields\u201d and thus excusing U.S. bombs when they strike civilians targets and kill children. It will all be the terrorists\u2019 fault, except that an opposite set of \u201cjournalistic\u201d rules will apply to Aleppo.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the <\/em>Associated Press and<\/em> Newsweek. His latest book, <\/em>Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush<\/a>, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat. His two previous books are <\/em>Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq<\/a> and<\/em> Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 consortiumnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note how differently The New York Times prepares the American public for civilian casualties from the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government assault on the city of Mosul to free it from the Islamic State, compared to the unrelenting condemnation of the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on neighborhoods of east Aleppo held by Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}