Konflikten i Syrien

Irakiska F16-plan har på torsdagen korsat in i syriskt flygrum och där bombat flera IS-positioner inne i Syrien, meddelar en talesman för den irakiska militären till nyhetsbyrån Reuters.

Enligt brigadgeneral Yahya Rasul skedde flygbombningarna med syriske presidenten Bashar al-Assads goda minne, och båda länders militärer ska ha samordnat sig kring attacken.

A great number of the Islamists are now dead or have left. The war should be almost over. Assad’s enemies, on one level, are almost powerless and defeated. Yet, through a bizarre promotion of their interests and aims, their cause has been revived, with the help of our own politicians, media and some NGOs. It’s worth saying that again: our own political elite and most of the media are working in the interests of murderers who wish to see us dead. If yesterday’s reports of a chemical attack achieve what they’re supposed to achieve, it’s likely Assad will be attacked and militants will be allowed to bring chaos and hundreds of thousands more deaths over the coming year or two. It will also risk a direct confrontation between the US and Russian forces in the region.

For years now, in the Western media and on the lips of most politicians, we’ve hardly heard about who Assad is actually fighting. The battles, whether in Aleppo or more recently in Eastern Ghouta, are framed as one of Assad versus his own people, despite many of those people supporting Assad. At most, his enemies are portrayed in the abstract, as rebels struggling against Assad’s tyranny. It is the strangest war, in which often there appears to be only one side fighting: the Syrian army and air force, backed up by Russia. Sometimes the truth about the ‘rebels’ is mentioned in news stories. But references to them are pushed way down the report, where you might not ever notice them. Briefly and quietly we are told who they are: among the most prominent in recent years are Tahrir al-Sham, closely affilitated with al-Qaeda, and Jaish al-Islam. Both are fanatically Islamist in nature. So much so that journalists are rightly too fearful to report from rebel-held zones. There are no Western journalists there.

The news stories are usually accompanied by short videos, often the same set of videos being used repeatedly by the same organisation, such as the BBC, across different Syria-related stories. Because reporting is framed as Assad versus his people, it is rarely if ever asked or stated who made the videos, who took the photos, or who supplied the information. This results in stories purporting to be objective when in fact the truth is not known. Only one side of the story is given, that of the ‘rebels’. The videos were necessarily made in Islamist-held zones. Everything coming out of them has passed through their hands. The BBC, among other outlets, publish these videos as neutral portrayals of what is happening. The videos consistently contain the same type of material and the people in them say the same things. The same doctors appear, speaking to camera with great presence of mind even in the midst of apparent chaos and carnage. And very young children appear too, using the same phrases in different videos, specifically about barrel bombs and making direct appeals for the UN to do something. Or in other words, for the West to bomb Assad’s forces. Many, though by no means all of the videos, show the White Helmets, which claims to be a rescue organisation, but which only ever operates in rebel-held areas and whose members always seem to be carrying babies and young children just when the camera is there. They’re funded, at least in part, by the US government.