Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Pumpitout. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media
Topic Started: Jan 19 2012, 02:30 PM (601 Views)
seatnineb

Comment is free

Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media

Assad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war


Jonathan Steele
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 January 2012 18.40 GMT
Article history

Pro-Assad demonstration
A demonstration in support of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Damascus. 'Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war.' Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news? Especially as the finding would go against the dominant narrative about the Syrian crisis, and the media considers the unexpected more newsworthy than the obvious.

Alas, not in every case. When coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. So it is with the results of a recent YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by the Qatar Foundation. Qatar's royal family has taken one of the most hawkish lines against Assad – the emir has just called for Arab troops to intervene – so it was good that The Doha Debates published the poll on its website. The pity is that it was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go.

The key finding was that while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a spectre that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria's borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future. Assad claims he is about to do that, a point he has repeated in his latest speeches. But it is vital that he publishes the election law as soon as possible, permits political parties and makes a commitment to allow independent monitors to watch the poll.

Biased media coverage also continues to distort the Arab League's observer mission in Syria. When the league endorsed a no-fly zone in Libya last spring, there was high praise in the west for its action. Its decision to mediate in Syria was less welcome to western governments, and to high-profile Syrian opposition groups, who increasingly support a military rather than a political solution. So the league's move was promptly called into doubt by western leaders, and most western media echoed the line. Attacks were launched on the credentials of the mission's Sudanese chairman. Criticisms of the mission's performance by one of its 165 members were headlined. Demands were made that the mission pull out in favour of UN intervention.

The critics presumably feared that the Arab observers would report that armed violence is no longer confined to the regime's forces, and the image of peaceful protests brutally suppressed by army and police is false. Homs and a few other Syrian cities are becoming like Beirut in the 1980s or Sarajevo in the 1990s, with battles between militias raging across sectarian and ethnic fault lines.

As for foreign military intervention, it has already started. It is not following the Libyan pattern since Russia and China are furious at the west's deception in the security council last year. They will not accept a new United Nations resolution that allows any use of force. The model is an older one, going back to the era of the cold war, before "humanitarian intervention" and the "responsibility to protect" were developed and often misused. Remember Ronald Reagan's support for the Contras, whom he armed and trained to try to topple Nicaragua's Sandinistas from bases in Honduras? For Honduras read Turkey, the safe haven where the so-called Free Syrian Army has set up.

Here too western media silence is dramatic. No reporters have followed up on a significant recent article by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer who now writes for the American Conservative – a magazine that criticises the American military-industrial complex from a non-neocon position on the lines of Ron Paul, who came second in last week's New Hampshire Republican primary. Giraldi states that Turkey, a Nato member, has become Washington's proxy and that unmarked Nato warplanes have been arriving at Iskenderum, near the Syrian border, delivering Libyan volunteers and weapons seized from the late Muammar Gaddafi's arsenal. "French and British special forces trainers are on the ground," he writes, "assisting the Syrian rebels, while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers …"

As the danger of full-scale war increases, Arab League foreign ministers are preparing to meet in Cairo this weekend to discuss the future of their Syrian mission. No doubt there will be western media reports highlighting remarks by those ministers who feel the mission has "lost credibility", "been duped by the regime" or "failed to stop the violence". Counter-arguments will be played down or suppressed.

In spite of the provocations from all sides the league should stand its ground. Its mission in Syria has seen peaceful demonstrations both for and against the regime. It has witnessed, and in some cases suffered from, violence by opposing forces. But it has not yet had enough time or a large enough team to talk to a comprehensive range of Syrian actors and then come up with a clear set of recommendations. Above all, it has not even started to fulfil that part of its mandate requiring it to help produce a dialogue between the regime and its critics. The mission needs to stay in Syria and not be bullied out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda?commentpage=all#start-of-comments
Edited by seatnineb, Jan 19 2012, 02:38 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
shure
Member Avatar
Administrator
I was reading some similar stuff about Libya and Gaddafi...

"100 years from now, Gaddafi will be remembered as a man who sought to free all of Africa from the Debt-Slavery of the IMF. Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, & the NATO-Supported DICTATORS OF SAUDI ARABIA, BAHRAIN, & QATAR will be in the Dust-Bin of History."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYY_ws6axKo


Six reasons the West wanted Gaddafi to GTFO
http://jonrevere.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html





Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
jambatrumpet

Syrian poll backing Assad has no credibility

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 January 2012 16.00 EST
Article history

It is astonishing that you publish an article based on such poor evidence (Most Syrians back Assad, 18 January). We have no doubt that the Doha Debates are a respectable forum for dialogue, but in the poll Jonathan Steele quotes, 1,012 respondents completed the survey, with only 21% (211 respondents) from the Levant. Only 46% of those 211 were from Syria. That's about 97 respondents. How can this possibly be representative of Syrian opinion? And is it even possible to conduct an objective opinion poll in a tyranny ruled by fear, where expressing opinions freely can lead to arrest, torture, and even execution? Steele talks about western media bias, but does not mention that very few journalists have been able to enter Syria legally. Those that do are kept under tight surveillance. Neither does he mention the role of Syrian state media in spreading disinformation and fuelling armed conflict. He seems to have set himself an impossible task – proving the legitimacy of a dictatorship which kills its citizens on a daily basis.
Anas El-Khani, Kinana Saffour, Anass Toma, Amr Salahi, Hamza al-Sibaai, Hussam Hajjouk
British Solidarity for Syria
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/19/syrian-poll-assad-no-credibility?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038


1,012 polled (only 97 living in Syria) out of a population 0f 23,000,000

What is the % of 97 out of 23 million?

With 5-8,000 protesters dead, Steele's Guardian, MSM article should be looked at critically.




Edited by jambatrumpet, Jan 27 2012, 01:59 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
shure
Member Avatar
Administrator
Russia Sides Firmly With Assad

MOSCOW — There are not many world capitals today where President Bashar al-Assad of Syria can count on unstinting support. But diplomats who passed through Moscow this week hoping to secure Russia’s help in forcing him from power were met with cold refusal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/world/europe/russia-sides-firmly-with-assad-government-in-syria.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
shure
Member Avatar
Administrator
Covert Western weapons shipments to Syrian rebels

Opponents of the regime of Syrian President Assad are being secretly armed by the West. Unmarked airplanes belonging to NATO countries are landing at Turkish military bases close to the Syrian border. These flights deliver weapons originating from the arsenals of the late Muammar Gaddafi. The airplanes also contain volunteer fighters from the Libyan transitional council, 'experienced in pitting local volunteers against trained soldiers, a skill they acquired confronting Gaddafi’s army'. Also the next step has been taken. 'French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers', writes the well-informed former CIA officer Phil Giraldi.
http://deepjournal.com/p/43/a/en/3049.html




Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
shure
Member Avatar
Administrator
The United States appears to be using a strategy in Syria that it has perfected over the years, having succeeded most recently in Libya: arming small paramilitary groups loyal to U.S. interests that claim to speak for the native population; these militants then attack the targeted government the U.S. would like to see overthrown —including terrorist bombings — and when the attacked government defends itself, the U.S. cries “genocide” or “mass murder,” while calling for foreign military intervention.

This is the strategy that the U.S. is using to channel the Arab Spring into the bloody dead end of foreign military intervention.

For example, the U.S. media and government are fanatically giving the impression that, in Syria, the native population would like foreign militarily intervention to overthrow their authoritarian president, Bashar Assad. But facts are stubborn things.

After spinning these lies, The New York Times was forced to admit, in several articles, that there have been massive rallies in Syria in support of the Syrian government. These rallies are larger than any pro-government demonstration that the U.S. government could hope to organize for itself. The New York Times reports:

“The turnout [at least tens of thousands — see picture in link] in Sabaa Bahrat Square in Damascus, the [Syrian] capital, once again underlined the degree of backing that Mr. Assad and his leadership still enjoy among many Syrians, nearly seven months into the popular uprising. That support is especially pronounced in cities like Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two largest.” (January 13, 2012).

The New York Times is forced to admit that the two largest cities — in a small country — support the government (or at least oppose foreign military intervention).

This was further confirmed by a poll funded by the anti-Syrian Qatar Foundation, preformed by the Doha Debates:

“According to the latest opinion poll commissioned by The Doha Debates, Syrians are more supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign.” (January 2, 2012).

http://truth-out.org/truth-behind-coming-regime-change-syria/1327764094





Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
jambatrumpet

i agree..i can't believe i did not unravel this earlier...wow..the power of propaganda...another lesson in digging deeper before making assumptions...i keep forgetting that the information from the MSM is always choreographed, and 99% fiction. wrong again i was...
Edited by jambatrumpet, Feb 4 2012, 02:05 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
shure
Member Avatar
Administrator
I would be willing to bet these "democratic revolutions" going on in the middle east are encouraged and supported by intelligence agencies. They are using groups of criminal type people to do the destabilizing. All those regimes may be corrupt, but the people over there would rather have that over the so called "freedom" we are bringing them.

I've been looking at the media and the reporting of the Iraq war which is very helpful.

There are many out there. A few I've watched recently:

Operation Saddam, America's Propaganda War, Cutting Edge

Weapons of Mass Deception

Control Room Perils of War reporting






Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
ZetaBoards gives you all the tools to create a successful discussion community.
« Previous Topic · Lates News · Next Topic »
Add Reply