Syria: Killing of Journalists Gave Birth to Fake Activist Movement in the Syrian War (AUDIO RECORDING)

Journalists have been targeted in war zones for decades, but according to freelance writer Sarah Abed for the Global Research site, the sheer scale of the problem since the Arab uprisings is unprecedented, since, of the 227 journalists killed globally since 2011, one-third died covering Syria. What follows are excerpts from her article “Syria: Killing of journalists gave birth to fake activist movement in the Syrian War.”

Audio Recording of this Article created by ParsToday

More than in any other war in recent history, a highly-funded, well-coordinated western propaganda campaign has fueled the aggressive interventionist invasion in Syria. Mainstream media has led entire populations of people, especially in the West into supporting a foreign created and imported war on a sovereign nation, that prior to this invasion did not have any of the issues that exist today. 

War propaganda has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria, and millions of refugees, and billions in losses due to infrastructure being destroyed. The fact that well-meaning people will support such a devious, deadly, unrighteous, harmful and illegal war without even questioning the motives behind, the key players, the amount of suffering and damage it has caused is both disheartening and outrageous.

It has also led to a significant number of journalists being kidnapped and killed while reporting on the ground. As a result, many fake activists have taken over social media and mainstream media. They have risen to fame under the guise of being truthful citizen reporters who just want the world to see the supposed misery that the government of President Bashar al-Assad is putting them through. They are in fact paid mouthpieces for the armed terrorist groups. They have strong connections with Anti-Assad media and are the darlings of the West’s mainstream media news such as CNN, BBC, and Al-Jazeera. They are eager to have them on, give them airtime to spew their scripted narratives and convince a slew of people that the Syrian Army, Russian Army, and the Syrian government are committing atrocities against civilians. Of course, these media outlets take everything they say as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them, God. They do not question nor do they debate. They will, however, push a story and make it into a headline and that is how propaganda is bought and sold to the masses. 

However, they will not afford that same attention, time, or respect for independent journalists that do not follow the demonization script. They will altogether ignore them and pretend like they do not exist. It’s really quite cynical.

This article will armor the everyday civilian with enough information to thoroughly convince any critical thinker of the truth. This serves two purposes, first, the reader is exposed to information from different sources that corroborate the same story and prove that the official narrative is nothing but a lie. Secondly, once they have fully understood and absorbed the information it is their duty to educate others. This ripple effect is critical if we are going to make any progress towards ending these bankers wars. This global war that is being waged on peaceful nations through staged uprisings and Soros funded Color revolutions needs to be stopped. Some may not realize the negative effect that these wars will have on humanity as a whole.

That’s why it’s imperative that We take whatever action necessary to get people out of this submissive trance that they are under, and free them from the chains of their own cognitive dissonance, which they have been placed under by the government, educational system, marketing, media etc. for far too long.

Robert Mahoney/CPJ Deputy Director wrote an article about journalist beheadings in Syria reigniting a debate over risk and safety for freelancers. In it, he said: “Now that the initial wave of revulsion at the beheading of two young journalists has passed, the international media is wringing its hands and asking how it can spare others the heartbreak of the families of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. 

In talking with freelance and staff journalists, and editors, it’s clear that the murders have rekindled the debate about safety and responsibility in the news business.” This is done in an effort to silence the truth. The most dangerous weapon against a mass media campaign is the truth. The “Stand with Aleppo” campaign in the US was started and is propelled by a Democratic Party operative who is also CEO of a public relations company and “strategic affairs consultant” in Chicago, Becky Carroll. The Cordeliere made some additional remarks on anti-Syria propaganda. They were about the US directed Information Warfare campaign from inside Syria. This leads me to the thoughts below about the US waged Unconventional Warfare in Syria and how it may be responsible for the elimination of “neutral” journalists on the ground.

We start with Club des Cordeliers remarks on the video campaign coming out of Syria: US State Dep’t has openly trained Syrian “activists” in social media propaganda techniques since 2012. The State Department has $25 million in nonlethal assistance that it can use for training purposes. The State Department is supporting Syria’s political opposition, in projects that have been under wraps until recently. One program, a multimillion-dollar media project called Basma, or “fingerprint” in English, is run out of an office in Istanbul where Syrian activists write and produce reports for a Facebook page and the Basma website. A promotional video explains the goals of Basma: “to support a peaceful transition for a new Syrian nation that supports and guards the freedom of all of its citizens.”

In another U.S.-funded program, kept quiet over security concerns, young activists, mostly those in the front lines in the early days of the revolt, are invited to Istanbul for workshops. They gather in hotels, from towns and villages inside Syria.US intelligence agencies are believed to be helping with the training of terrorist groups, while the Pentagon denies shipping arms to the rebels. In public, American aid has largely been limited to organizational advice and technical assistance.

To NATO military strategists, social media propaganda is an element of “winning the online information war” in Syria. The events of the Syrian Civil War have clearly demonstrated the power of cyber capabilities in warfare. However, it would appear that all of the actors have used cyber capabilities for propaganda purposes. This is illustrated by the fact that most of the information that the public receives about the conflict is transmitted through social media.A recent piece by Patrick Cockburn in the British daily ‘Independent’ points to the mass of propaganda about and out of Syria, mostly US-directed, and explains why we only see and hear this and nothing else: There’s more propaganda than news coming out of Syria.

In the same context, we have to see the killing and kidnapping of journalists as a (secret) part of the arsenal of the Unconventional Warfare and the U.S. created propaganda storm out of Syria. The same applies to humanitarian Non-Government Organizations. Neither the United Nations nor the Red Cross or any other neutral NGO had staff in Aleppo. Only the US trained so-called “media activists” on the Takfiri side reported or tweeted from inside east-Aleppo before its liberation by the Syrian army. Only these got interviewed. Only the US/UK created and directed “White Helmets” and the French government sponsored Takfiri “Aleppo Media Channel” produced pictures and videos from inside east-Aleppo. As this was the only available information source and sole available audio-visual material it was heavily used by news outlets around the world. It reflected solely the armed oppositions and its sponsors’ views and warfare needs.

If one intends to give a maximum effect to the propaganda output of one’s proxies in an Information Warfare operation, it makes great sense to eliminate all other potential sources of information from the wider warzone. Thus – the abduction and killing of neutral professional journalists is a conscious process that enables their replacement with one’s own Information Warfare assets. I believe we have seen such a process in Syria. A similar process was applied earlier when the US invaded Iraq. News outlets which gave a different than the official US view were targeted by US military forces. The Al-Jazeerah offices in Baghdad were bombed by the US military. The White House even considered bombing the Al-Jazeerah head office in Doha, Qatar. Wikileaks published a video which showed a US helicopter killing Reuters staffers. Only journalists embedded with the US military were protected against US military action. Their reports were naturally heavily skewed towards the official US propaganda view.

On top of all of that we have to consider that even regular news outlets and journalists are often vehicles of intelligence services and as such far from neutral. The killing or abduction of journalists in a war zone allows their replacement with better controlled and more partisan assets. Just raising the (security) costs for real journalists has such an effect. A news outlet has to pay for professionally made news agency photos or videos. The US/UK propaganda operation “White Helmets” has produced hundreds of supposedly “gripping” and “emotional” staged rescue operation pictures and videos. It distributed those for free in “ready to be used”. Many news outlets preferred these no-cost pictures even though their veracity is highly questionable.

Keeping journalists away from the battle zone by killing or abducting a few of them at the beginning of the conflict helped enormously to increase the effect of the later Information Warfare operation known as “White Helmets” and other similar organizations.In an August 21, 2016 interview with the Voice of America, Reporters Without Borders spokeswoman Soazig Dollet said five foreign journalists have been killed since the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, and that Syria “is now the most dangerous place for war reporter[s] in the world.”

“More than half of the journalists killed in the year died in combat or crossfire, for the first time since CPJ began keeping records. The conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and Somalia claimed the lives of 26 journalists who died covering the fighting.”

This year, 18 journalists were targeted directly for murder, the lowest number since 2002. The reason for the decline is unclear, and could be a combination of factors including less risk-taking by the media. According to the report, photographer and camera operator were the most dangerous media jobs in 2016. 20 of the journalists killed in 2016 were freelancers. 75 percent of journalists killed in this year were war reporters. Journalists who risked their lives in the conflict were also kidnapped and executed by Daesh and other militant groups.

CNN is seeking to distance itself from Bilal Abdul Kareem, a known propagandist for al-Qaeda, who was hired to create the network's award-winning documentary, “Undercover in Syria.” The man’s ties to the network are just the latest in a series of scandals that have dealt a blow to the network’s already tenuous grasp on credibility.”

CNN has had a difficult few weeks, with scandals ranging from false reporting in order to boost ratings to blackmailing a private citizen who created a meme lampooning the network. As a result, CNN has seen a massive drop in its prime-time ratings, suggesting that its viewership is shrinking amid the controversy.

Now, yet another controversy for the embattled network has come to light in the making of its award-winning “Undercover in Syria” documentary. While millions of Syrians have suffered since the current civil war evolved from the Arab Spring protests of 2011, it’s become all but impossible to separate real news from pro-war propaganda paid for by the United States and its allies. As dubious claims of genocide, often based on fake photos, flood social media and mainstream media alike, people are faced with the complex task of separating real reporting from US-government backed “fake news”.

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“Shortly after the Liberation of Aleppo in December 2016, media chaos erupted in what seemed like another coordinated and deliberate Assad demonizing worldwide mainstream media propaganda campaign. This in no way reflected the reality on the ground in Aleppo. What wasn’t shown on mainstream media was that people in Aleppo were actually engaged in joyous celebrations after being liberated from head chopping, organ eating, kidnapping and murdering terrorists.”

In conclusion, there are two sides to every story, and you’re quite frankly only being told one side of it on mainstream media. The information included in the coverage of most news agencies is carefully chosen to fit the warmongering US/NATO’s “regime change” narrative. The above information included in this article, reveals the other side, the less-known often hidden truths behind the headlines. With a little rational thinking, questioning, discussing, and researching, one can find these buried little nuggets of truth. It’s our responsibility as one human race to end the tyrant Western war-propagating fact deprived media’s reign. If we are at all concerned with the world we are leaving for generations to come.

Article published on Global Research, American Herald Tribune and The Rabbit Hole

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