Another Dangerous Rush To Judgment In Syria
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Educate! Propaganda, Syria, US Foreign Policy
By Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com
April 6th, 2017
Above Photo: Above Photo: From CreativeResistance.org. Turkish Confusion by
Anthony Freda.
Exclusive: The U.S. government and the mainstream media rushed to judgment
again, blaming the Syrian government for a new poison-gas attack and
ignoring other possibilities, reports Robert Parry.
With the latest hasty judgment about Tuesday's poison-gas deaths in a
rebel-held area of northern Syria, the mainstream U.S. news media once more
reveals itself to be a threat to responsible journalism and to the future of
humanity. Again, we see the troubling pattern of verdict first,
investigation later, even when that behavior can lead to a dangerous war
escalation and many more deaths.
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Before a careful evaluation of the evidence about Tuesday's tragedy was
possible, The New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets had pinned
the blame for the scores of dead on the Syrian government of Bashar
al-Assad. That revived demands that the U.S. and other nations establish a
"no-fly zone" over Syria, which would amount to launching another "regime
change" war and would put America into a likely hot war with nuclear-armed
Russia.
Even as basic facts were still being assembled about Tuesday's incident, we,
the public, were prepped to disbelieve the Syrian government's response that
the poison gas may have come from rebel stockpiles that could have been
released either accidentally or intentionally causing the civilian deaths in
a town in Idlib Province.
One possible scenario was that Syrian warplanes bombed a rebel weapons depot
where the poison gas was stored, causing the containers to rupture. Another
possibility was a staged event by increasingly desperate Al Qaeda jihadists
who are known for their disregard for innocent human life.
While it's hard to know at this early stage what's true and what's not,
these alternative explanations, I'm told, are being seriously examined by
U.S. intelligence. One source cited the possibility that Turkey had supplied
the rebels with the poison gas (the exact type still not determined) for
potential use against Kurdish forces operating in northern Syria near the
Turkish border or for a terror attack in a government-controlled city like
the capital of Damascus.
Reporting by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and statements by some
Turkish police and opposition politicians linked Turkish intelligence and Al
Qaeda-affiliated jihadists to the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside
Damascus that killed hundreds, although the Times and other major U.S. news
outlets continue to blame that incident on Assad's regime.
Seasoned Propagandists
On Tuesday, the Times assigned two of its most committed
anti-Syrian-government propagandists to cover the Syrian poison-gas story,
Michael B. Gordon and Anne Barnard.
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The controversial map developed by Human Rights Watch and embraced by the
New York Times, supposedly showing the flight paths of two missiles from the
Aug. 21 Sarin attack intersecting at a Syrian military base.
Gordon has been at the front lines of the neocon "regime change" strategies
for years. He co-authored the Times' infamous aluminum tube story of Sept.
8, 2002, which relied on U.S. government sources and Iraqi defectors to
frighten Americans with images of "mushroom clouds" if they didn't support
President George W. Bush's upcoming invasion of Iraq. The timing played
perfectly into the administration's advertising "rollout" for the Iraq War.
Of course, the story turned out to be false and to have unfairly downplayed
skeptics of the claim that the aluminum tubes were for nuclear centrifuges,
when the aluminum tubes actually were meant for artillery. But the article
provided a great impetus toward the Iraq War, which ended up killing nearly
4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Gordon's co-author, Judith Miller, became the only U.S. journalist known to
have lost a job over the reckless and shoddy reporting that contributed to
the Iraq disaster. For his part, Gordon continued serving as a respected
Pentagon correspondent.
Gordon's name also showed up in a supporting role on the Times' botched
"vector analysis," which supposedly proved that the Syrian military was
responsible for the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin-gas attack. The "vector analysis"
story of Sept. 17, 2013, traced the flight paths of two rockets, recovered
in suburbs of Damascus back to a Syrian military base 9.5 kilometers away.
The article became the "slam-dunk" evidence that the Syrian government was
lying when it denied launching the sarin attack. However, like the aluminum
tube story, the Times' "vector analysis" ignored contrary evidence, such as
the unreliability of one azimuth from a rocket that landed in Moadamiya
because it had struck a building in its descent. That rocket also was found
to contain no sarin, so it's inclusion in the vectoring of two sarin-laden
rockets made no sense.
But the Times' story ultimately fell apart when rocket scientists analyzed
the one sarin-laden rocket that had landed in the Zamalka area and
determined that it had a maximum range of about two kilometers, meaning that
it could not have originated from the Syrian military base. C.J. Chivers,
one of the co-authors of the article, waited until Dec. 28, 2013, to publish
a halfhearted semi-retraction. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Backs Off Its
Syria-Sarin Analysis."]
Gordon was a co-author of another bogus Times' front-page story on April 21,
2014, when the State Department and the Ukrainian government fed the Times
two photographs that supposedly proved that a group of Russian soldiers -
first photographed in Russia - had entered Ukraine, where they were
photographed again.
However, two days later, Gordon was forced to pen a retraction because it
turned out that both photos had been shot inside Ukraine, destroying the
story's premise. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Retracts Russian-Photo
Scoop."]
Gordon perhaps personifies better than anyone how mainstream journalism
works. If you publish false stories that fit with the Establishment's
narratives, your job is safe even if the stories blow up in your face.
However, if you go against the grain - and if someone important raises a
question about your story - you can easily find yourself out on the street
even if your story is correct.
No Skepticism Allowed
Anne Barnard, Gordon's co-author on Tuesday's Syrian poison-gas story, has
consistently reported on the Syrian conflict as if she were a press agent
for the rebels, playing up their anti-government claims even when there's no
evidence.
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A heart-rending propaganda image designed to justify a major U.S. military
operation inside Syria against the Syrian military.
For instance, on June 2, 2015, Barnard, who is based in Beirut, Lebanon,
authored a front-page story that pushed the rebels' propaganda theme that
the Syrian government was somehow in cahoots with the Islamic State though
even the U.S. State Department acknowledged that it had no confirmation of
the rebels' claims.
When Gordon and Barnard teamed up to report on the latest Syrian tragedy,
they again showed no skepticism about early U.S. government and Syrian rebel
claims that the Syrian military was responsible for intentionally deploying
poison gas.
Perhaps for the first time, The New York Times cited President Trump as a
reliable source because he and his press secretary were saying what the
Times wanted to hear - that Assad must be guilty.
Gordon and Barnard also cited the controversial White Helmets, the rebels'
Western-financed civil defense group that has worked in close proximity with
Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and has come under suspicion of staging heroic
"rescues" but is nevertheless treated as a fount of truth-telling by the
mainstream U.S. news media.
In early online versions of the Times' story, a reaction from the Syrian
military was buried deep in the article around the 27th paragraph, noting:
"The government denies that it has used chemical weapons, arguing that
insurgents and Islamic State fighters use toxins to frame the government or
that the attacks are staged."
The following paragraph mentioned the possibility that a Syrian bombing raid
had struck a rebel warehouse where poison-gas was stored, thus releasing it
unintentionally.
But the placement of the response was a clear message that the Times
disbelieved whatever the Assad government said. At least in the version of
the story that appeared in the morning newspaper, a government statement was
moved up to the sixth paragraph although still surrounded by comments meant
to signal the Times' acceptance of the rebel version.
After noting the Assad government's denial, Gordon and Barnard added, "But
only the Syrian military had the ability and the motive to carry out an
aerial attack like the one that struck the rebel-held town of Khan
Sheikhoun."
But they again ignored the alternative possibilities. One was that a bombing
raid ruptured containers for chemicals that the rebels were planning to use
in some future attack, and the other was that Al Qaeda's jihadists staged
the incident to elicit precisely the international outrage directed at Assad
as has occurred.
Gordon and Barnard also could be wrong about Assad being the only one with a
motive to deploy poison gas. Since Assad's forces have gained a decisive
upper-hand over the rebels, why would he risk stirring up international
outrage at this juncture? On the other hand, the desperate rebels might view
the horrific scenes from the chemical-weapons deployment as a last-minute
game-changer.
Pressure to Prejudge
None of this means that Assad's forces are innocent, but a serious
investigation ascertains the facts and then reaches a conclusion, not the
other way around.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
However, to suggest these other possibilities will, I suppose, draw the
usual accusations about "Assad apologist," but refusing to prejudge an
investigation is what journalism is supposed to be about.
The Times, however, apparently has no concern anymore for letting the facts
be assembled and then letting them speak for themselves. The Times weighed
in on Wednesday with an editorial entitled "A New Level of Depravity From
Mr. Assad."
Another problem with the behavior of the Times and the mainstream media is
that by jumping to a conclusion they pressure other important people to join
in the condemnations and that, in turn, can prejudice the investigation
while also generating a dangerous momentum toward war.
Once the political leadership pronounces judgment, it becomes
career-threatening for lower-level officials to disagree with those
conclusions. We've seen that already with how United Nations investigators
accepted rebel claims about the Syrian government's use of chlorine gas, a
set of accusations that the Times and other media now report simply as
flat-fact.
Yet, the claims about the Syrian military mixing in canisters of chlorine in
supposed "barrel bombs" make little sense because chlorine deployed in that
fashion is ineffective as a lethal weapon but it has become an important
element of the rebels' propaganda campaign.
U.N. investigators, who were under intense pressure from the United States
and Western nations to give them something to use against Assad, did support
rebel claims about the government using chlorine in a couple of cases, but
the investigators also received testimony from residents in one area who
described the staging of a chlorine attack for propaganda purposes.
One might have thought that the evidence of one staged attack would have
increased skepticism about the other incidents, but the U.N. investigators
apparently understood what was good for their careers, so they endorsed a
couple of other alleged cases despite their inability to conduct a field
investigation. [See Consortiumnews.com's "UN Team Heard Claims of Staged
Chemical Attacks."]
Now, that dubious U.N. report is being leveraged into this new incident, one
opportunistic finding used to justify another. But the pressing question now
is: Have the American people come to understand enough about "psychological
operations" and "strategic communications" that they will finally show the
skepticism that no longer exists in the major U.S. news media?