NP: Syria, part 1

[Thomas Eckhardt]

I don't doubt that the Syrian Army commits atrocities and/or war crimes. 
Patrick Cockburn:

"All wars always produce phony atrocity stories – along with real 
atrocities. But in the Syrian case fabricated news and one-sided reporting 
have taken over the news agenda to a degree probably not seen since the 
First World War. The ease with which propaganda can now be disseminated is 
frequently attributed to modern information technology: YouTube, 
smartphones, Facebook, Twitter. But this is to let mainstream media off the 
hook: it’s hardly surprising that in a civil war each side will use whatever 
means are available to publicise and exaggerate the crimes of the other, 
while denying or concealing similar actions by their own forces. The real 
reason that reporting of the Syrian conflict has been so inadequate is that 
Western news organisations have almost entirely outsourced their coverage to 
the rebel side."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n03/patrick-cockburn/who-supplies-the-news

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, Anne Barnard's source for the claim 
that 128,000 people killed or detained in Syria's prison system, obviously 
belongs to the "rebel side". The orgnisation has been calling for Western 
military intervention for years.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/14/syrian-network-for-human-rights-opposition-snhr/

It is clear that the SNHR is no neutral or independent organisation. Anne 
Barnard, however, claims that it is. Why?

Because, at least with regard to SNHR, she is laundering information from 
the opposition for public consumption in the West. She takes claims from an 
organisation linked to the opposition and funded by some of the nations who 
want to get rid of Assad and gives to this highly dubious information the 
imprimatur of the NYT.

She does the same with the extraordinary claims of individuals belonging to 
the opposition, and so does the author of the New Yorker article. Let us 
have a look at the second paragraph of the New Yorker article in which the 
author condenses what Barnard wrote in her original article in the NYT:

'(...) Anne Barnard, of the Times, tells the stories of numerous survivors 
of the prison system, including details of the torture, sexual violence, and 
dehumanization that they faced there. Former prisoners recalled a guard who 
went by the name Hitler, who forced them “to act the roles of dogs, donkeys 
and cats, beating those who failed to bark or bray correctly.” Mariam Khlief 
and six other women were held in a basement cell, where they were beaten, 
tortured, and repeatedly raped. Survivors recalled blood from violent rapes 
staining the floor, guards stuffing excrement in the mouths of prisoners, 
and “a man who doubled as a nurse and a guard and called himself Azrael,” 
the angel of death, who murdered prisoners at night. It is almost impossible 
to do justice to the depth of Barnard’s reporting and the evil it 
describes.'

(Note the shift between "prisoners recalled" and "Mariam Khlief and six 
other women were held", from merely reporting a factual claim to making a 
factual claim. This is very common nowadays. Journalism it is not.)

Do you take this at face value? Including "Hitler" and the "Angel of Death"?

To me it sounds like over-the-top atrocity propaganda with the indispensable 
concentration camp references laid on rather thickly.

But then, it could be true. Especially in a country that once provided 
refuge to the likes of Alois Brunner.

The point is, we don't know. As there is ample precedence for lies of this 
sort in order to promote regime change wars, we must remain sceptical.

I find the information Barnard provides from the UN and from the Commission 
for International Justice and Accountability much more trustworthy than the 
claims of the former prisoners and of the SNHR. Their information, however, 
does not point to some unimaginable evil, which seems to be the hallmark of 
governments the West wants to remove, but to something resembling a normal 
day at the office at one of the CIA's black sites.

Torture is despicable, no matter who does it to whom, but one would expect 
professional journalists to keep their sense of proportion and to treat the 
claims of interested parties with caution. One would also expect them to 
remember Abu Ghraib and the fact that the CIA and the BND outsourced torture 
to Syria when Assad was still perceived as a good guy.

My focus is much more limited, however. The OPCW whistleblowers' testimony 
proves that there was no CW attack in Douma and therefore that  a) the White 
Helmets staged the hospital scene in Douma b) the White Helmets or some 
other opposition group staged the scene with the dead bodies in the 
apartment building c) the OPCW management is compromised and d) the NGOs 
reporting a CW attack in Douma are not trustworthy as well as e) the Western 
media is spreading atrocity propaganda from the opposition which has been 
laundered by the NGOs and, of course, the Atlantic Council's Elliot Higgins 
who has once again been shown to be wrong.

All of which could have lead to that "last delta-t" in April 2018:

"We were actually on the brink of major confrontation between two nuclear 
superpowers."

http://www.diplomatmagazine.eu/2019/11/15/rising-tensions-within-opcw/

Highly recommended reading.