Saturday, November 29, 2014

Anne Barnard: covering Syria again

This article by Ms. Barnard is typical for its flaws and fallacies. It basically is entirely and rigidly based on the claims and accounts of Syrian rebels.  First, notice what she says here: "In the first raid, on Sunday, United States warplanes hit an Islamic State building, with no report of civilian casualties. On Tuesday, Syrian jets struck 10 times, killing scores of civilians, according to residents and Islamic State videos."  But US planes also kills civilians unless she also wants to believe that it does not.  Furthermore, the Syrian regime basically--according to her and to her beloved Free Syrian Army goons--either does not fight ISIS or it fights ISIS and kills civilians.  So what do you want exactly, but I am now confused.  And there were times when Syrian rebels themselves reported that civilians were killed by US bombs but Ms. Barnard never reported on that.  She then reports the whole story based claims of Syrian rebels and March 14 people who support them.  Not one counter point of view in the whole article, not that it matters to her editors in the Times of course, provided that propaganda services are rendered to the "cause".  But wait: she does cite one source who is not on the side of the FSA: "Supporters of Mr. Assad say".  Wait: supporters of Asad? What is that? Is that a political party or a club?  And when you say that "supporters of Asad say" do you mean that they all share one mouth and tongue and speak in one voice?  She does mention Hizbullah and even implies that it is working with the Americans but not openly but does not report that Nasrallah said specifically that they are opposed to US war in Syria.  But these are details that are not convenient to the propaganda cause.