FINIAN CUNNINGHAM | 21.04.2016 | OPINION
It should be seen as a measure of good news: the Syrian army and its Russian and Hezbollah allies are inflicting heavy losses on al-Qaeda-linked terror groups in and around the strategic city of Aleppo.
Yet the Western media are reporting the uptick in violence as breaches of the truce that was tentatively brokered by Russia and the United States on February 27.
The ceasefire «violations» are also said to be putting the Geneva peace talks in jeopardy.
German newspaper Deutsche Welle reports: «Syria truce strained by Aleppo fighting». The implication is that the Syrian armed forces of President Bashar al-Assad are acting in bad faith and undermining the UN diplomatic efforts in Geneva to end the five-year conflict.
On closer reading of the report and others in the Western media it becomes apparent that the «rebels» that the Syrian army is making gains against are none other than those of Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or Daesh), Jabhat al-Nusra and other radical Islamist groups also affiliated to al-Qaeda.
These groups which are officially defined as terrorists by the UN and by Western governments were never part of the ceasefire that was brokered on February 27. Syria and Russia clearly stated from the outset that they reserved the right to continue their campaign to defeat these illegally armed groups.
So, for the Western media to spin the recent surge in defeats of these terror groups as somehow constituting a violation of the ceasefire by the Syrian government forces is completely disingenuous, and an astounding feat of double-think.
Agence France-Presse reported a member of the Saudi and US-backed political opposition, the High Negotiations Committee, as saying: «We might suspend [our participation in] the talks if things carry on this way, and then there will be no prospect for any political solution».
The HNC is largely an exile-based collection of regime-change assets, which through US sponsorship and UN acquiescence has somehow come to «represent» the so-called Syrian opposition. But the HNC is just a front for al-Qaeda-linked militia, such as Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar ash-Sham, which are in cahoots with the more overtly associated al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra and Islamic State.
The AFP report cited above goes on to quote another member of the HNC, Mohammed Alloush who is a leader in the Jaysh al-Islam group. He said of the ceasefire: «Don’t trust the regime and don’t wait for their pity. Strike them at their necks [kill them]. Strike them everywhere».
This is all consistent with Washington’s so-called Plan B which was disclosed last week in a rare candid report in the Wall Street Journal. Plan B is where US officials have said if political talks in Geneva fail to gain traction, then «all bets are off» and the US and its regional allies would step up covert military support to Syrian «rebels» – which is Orwellian code word for terror groups.
By talks «failing to gain traction» what Washington means is that the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies refuse to capitulate to demands for a «political transition» whereby Syrian President Assad stands down. That is, consents to foreign-backed regime change. So far, the Syrian government and its allies have steadfastly rejected any such precondition to peace talks.
This firm Syrian stance against regime change through political means in conjunction with continuing military operations striking severe blows at the West’s terror assets on the ground is why the West’s political agents and the Western media are now spinning the story that the ceasefire is coming apart.
Plan A – the political track – has evidently failed to deliver Western objectives. But the US and its regional allies can’t very well resume covert military operations without the cover of blaming the Syrian government for a breakdown in the truce.
But how can you have a breakdown in a truce with terror groups that were never part of that truce in the first place? If it is of course illogical, and that is the function of Western news media: to conceal what is illogical and render it plausible.
Not only has it been disclosed that Washington intends to step up military support of the «rebels» with anti-aircraft Manpads and Stingers, it is also reliably reported that Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been agitating against the shaky truce ever since it was apparently implemented. Reports from Syrian and Russian sources over the past week say that hundreds of armed fighters have been allowed to infiltrate Syria from across the Turkish border – right under the noses of Turkish army checkpoints.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin last week told the Security Council that Turkey was the main supplier of weapons and ammunition, including chemical weapons, to terror groups in Syria. He called for international monitors to halt the flow of fighters and weapons from Turkey into Syria. His call apparently fell on deaf ears of US ambassador Samantha Power, the British and the French. Not surprisingly, if you understand the reality behind the Syrian conflict. But if the Western media were really doing a job of critically informing, then why aren’t Samantha Power and other Western authorities being called out over their tacit support for Turkey and the criminal fueling of war in Syria?
It should be abundantly clear what is going on in Syria. The US, its NATO allies and regional partners like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are orchestrating terrorist proxies for regime change. Why this is not abundantly clear is simply because Western mainstream media are systematically running a propaganda campaign – under the guise of «news» – in which reality is outrageously inverted.
Unable to get its way through political machinations – dressed up as «peace talks» in Geneva – Washington now wants to revert to the covert war track using its terror assets.
However, that reality is unspeakable in Western public discourse, so the Western media then have the task of sanitizing the criminality of their governments – by blaming the return to violence on the Syrian army and its Russian ally – the two forces that are actually defeating terrorism in Syria.
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