NP: Syria, part 6

[David Morris]

Assad has been so maligned, poor dear!

So the opposition was fake news?

David Morris

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 4:09 PM Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
wrote:

> "Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an
> advanced infrastructure of propaganda to stimulate support in the West
> for Syria’s political and armed opposition.
>
> Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and
> marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their
> political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where
> they said it.
>
> The leaked files reveal how Western intelligence cutouts played the
> media like a fiddle, carefully crafting English- and Arabic-language
> media coverage of the war on Syria to churn out a constant stream of
> pro-opposition coverage.
>
> US and European contractors trained and advised Syrian opposition
> leaders at all levels, from young media activists to the heads of the
> parallel government-in-exile. These firms also organized interviews for
> Syrian opposition leaders on mainstream outlets such as BBC and the UK’s
> Channel 4.
>
> More than half of the stringers used by Al Jazeera in Syria were trained
> in a joint US-UK government program called Basma, which produced
> hundreds of Syrian opposition media activists.
>
> Western government PR firms not only influenced the way the media
> covered Syria, but as the leaked documents reveal, they produced their
> own propagandistic pseudo-news for broadcast on major TV networks in the
> Middle East, including BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Orient TV.
>
> These UK-funded firms functioned as full-time PR flacks for the
> extremist-dominated Syrian armed opposition. One contractor, called
> InCoStrat, said it was in constant contact with a network of more than
> 1,600 international journalists and “influencers,” and used them to push
> pro-opposition talking points.
>
> Another Western government contractor, ARK, crafted a strategy to
> “re-brand” Syria’s Salafi-jihadist armed opposition by “softening its
> image.” ARK boasted that it provided opposition propaganda that “aired
> almost every day on” major Arabic-language TV networks.
>
> Virtually every major Western corporate media outlet was influenced by
> the UK government-funded disinformation campaign exposed in the trove of
> leaked documents, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, CNN to
> The Guardian, the BBC to Buzzfeed."
>
>
> https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/23/syria-leaks-uk-contractors-opposition-media/
>
> "So, the U.S. [and the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, their
> allies from the Gulf etc., TE] helped create the war, helped create the
> destruction, created the so-called heroes (who want more destruction),
> created the award-winning documentary about the 'heroes,' and created
> the news reports about the documentary about the 'heroes.' That isn’t
> just wag the dog; that’s wag the whole fuckin’ kennel and the buildings
> next to the kennel and everything down the street and the whole city."
>
>
> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/two-massive-new-leaks-show-dirty-underbelly-of-empire/
>
> For those who enjoy shooting messengers (Counterpunch author Lee Camp
> works for RT, I am told, the Grayzone people are anti-imperialist, which
> some people don't like), you can always read the original documents.
> Their authenticity has been confirmed:
>
>
> https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-uk-government-probing-cyber-attack-over-syria-propaganda-leaks
>
> Author Ian Cobain used to work for the Guardian:
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/03/how-britain-funds-the-propaganda-war-against-isis-in-syria
>
> See also Patrick Cockburn's and Stephen Kinzer's articles on the press
> coverage of the Syrian proxy war:
>
>
> https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n03/patrick-cockburn/who-supplies-the-news
>
>
> https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/18/the-media-are-misleading-public-syria/8YB75otYirPzUCnlwaVtcK/story.html
>
>
> Am 20.11.2019 um 08:38 schrieb Thomas Eckhardt:
> > Lovely, if subtle, satire. Yes, this is precisely how atrocity
> > propaganda works. Stimulus, response. Thanks for the laugh!
> >
> > On Mon, 18 Nov 2019 20:24:38 -0600
> >    David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Portrait of a Monster
> >
> >
>