NOVANEWS
The recent beheadings of three Westerners, Foley, Sotloff and Haines, at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) has sparked a wave of indignation and strong condemnation by Western heads of state.
For anyone aware of what has been truly going on in Syria from the outset of the war in March 2011, there is something unusual in these strong statements, which are now the object of a wave of “humanitarian bombings” under a counter-terrorism mandate directed against the Islamic State.
Lest we forget, from the outset of the war on Syria in March 2011, the US and its allies supported so-called “Freedom fighters” largely composed of the Al Nusrah and ISIS brigades. Trained in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, these pro-democracy terrorists were routinely involved in atrocities including beheadings directed against Syrian civilians.
Double standards? In the course of the last three years, no Western leader made any statements in regards to these atrocities committed by “Muslim extremists”. They passed virtually unnoticed. No concern was expressed by the international community in this regard. With some exceptions, these beheadings were barely the object of media coverage.
Is it because the “freedom fighters” integrated by ISIS and Al Nusrah forces were beheading Syrian civilians rather than Westerners. Was it because the victims of these atrocities were opposed to the bloody “pro-democracy revolution sponsored by US-NATO against the government of Bashar Al Assad?
Why are Western leaders only appalled now? Is it because now Westerners rather than Syrians are being decapitated?
These recent beheadings of American and British nationals, whether authentic or not, are obviously exploited to pave the way for a military intervention in Syria. This is a basic propaganda technique used time and time again to gather support for war and the mainstream media is there to convey this propaganda.
The mainstream media’s role is not to inform people but to appeal to their emotions and manipulate them into approving what they would otherwise refuse.
Westerners don’t want to go to war in the Middle East again? Show them one of their fellow countrymen getting his head cut off by a Muslim and they will change their mind. And you don’t even need to show anything, just say that people in high office have seen the horrific act and have their media mouthpieces repeat what they have said. It works every time.
This tactic can either be considered as an appeal to fear and/or an appeal to emotions:
An appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metum or argumentum in terrorem) is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by using deception and propaganda in attempts to increase fear and prejudice toward a competitor. The appeal to fear is common in marketing and politics. (Wikipedia)
The appeal to emotions, or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient’s emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. (Wikipedia)
If this technique is used rather than valid arguments, it’s in part because it always works like a charm and this is what the mainstream media is for, but also because the valid arguments which could be used to intervene could only be lies and easily refuted, as this article will attempt to demonstrate.
Several independent media have questioned the authenticity of the beheading videos and some experts have clearly qualified them as fake, at least in the cases involving journalists Foley and Sotloff. The true identity of both men has also been questioned, especially Sotloff’s, who has known ties to the Israeli secret service (Mossad), and has been allegedly photographed behind a machine gun belonging to the Syrian rebel fighters.
As “Operation Mocking Bird” has documented, journalism is the best cover for an intelligence operative. Several former CIA officers have confirmed that it is used to plant stories that are picked up by news outlets as facts when they actually are propaganda pieces (see CIA Manipulation: The Painful Truths Told by Phil Agee and John Stockwell about false reports generated by the CIA). The DC based producer of the terror videos, SITE, with its close links to the Pentagon and the FBI, is also suspicious and tends to point to a major propaganda stunt originating in the US.
For the purpose of this article we will however examine the situation and the reaction of Western leaders from the point of view that these beheadings actually took place and that the videos are authentic.
Beheadings from Western-backed rebels: business as usual
Atrocities committed in Syria were reported from the outset of the unrest in 2011 by independent media. It took some time for the mainstream media to mention those atrocities, but since 2012, many reports have been published by the mainstream press, in spite of which the prevailing discourse on Syria remained essentially the same: the tyrannical Assad regime was brutally repressing a pro-democracy rebellion and the West was still expressing its unyielding support for the pro-democracy fighters.
The only difference was that at some point the U.S. authorities had to admit the presence of terrorist groups among the moderate rebels even though these so-called moderate rebels were never clearly identified. Even former CIA operative Bob Baer said in a CNN interview following Sotloffs alleged beheading that there are no moderate rebels in Syria.
Here are only a few excerpts of various mainstream and independent articles and videos mentioning beheadings by rebels in Syria in 2012 and 2013, including reports from the UN and Human Rights Watch, which are usually used to support humanitarian interventions abroad.
The video you can find here was published on July 3, 2013 and shows a Christian priest and another Christian being decapitated. The host of the web site explains:
WARNING GRAPHIC: A priest and another Christian were beheaded before a cheering crowd by Syrian insurgents who say they aided and abetted the enemy, President Bashar Assad’s military, foreign media reported. An undated video that made the Internet rounds on Wednesday showed two unnamed men with tied hands surrounded by a cheering crowd of dozens, just moments before their heads were cut off with a small knife, Syria Report said. The attackers in the video then lifted the head for show, and placed it back on the body. The incident took place in the countryside of Idlib, the media report said. (RAW: Syrian Rebels Behead Christians, Military.com, July 3, 2013)
This Daily Mail article from December 2012 describes how another Christian was beheaded and his body fed to dogs in a town close to the Turkish border, where most rebel fighters are said to transit into Syrian territory:
Christian Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped and beheaded by rebel fighters in northern town of Ras Al-Ayn on the Turkish border.
News came as pro-government forces celebrated their victory against rebels near Aleppo Airport.
Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists.
The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits.
She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father…
Sister Agnes-Mariam de la Croix said: His only crime was his brother criticised the rebels, accused them of acting like bandits, which is what they are.
There have been a growing number of accounts of atrocities carried out by rogue elements of the Syrian Free Army, which opposes dictator Bashar al-Assad and is recognised by Britain and the West as the legitimate leadership.
The free and democratic world is supporting extremists, Sister Agnes-Miriam said from her sanctuary in Lebanon. They want to impose Sharia Law and create an Islamic state in Syria. (Nick Fagge, Syria rebels ‘beheaded a Christian and fed him to the dogs’ as fears grow over Islamist atrocities, Daily Mail, December 31, 2012)
The term rogue elements is used to create distance from and excuse the FSA, but the frequency of beheadings and other atrocities committed by rebel fighters prove the contrary.
The German magazine Der Spiegel published in March 2012 a story featuring an executioner part of a burial brigade, some sort of death squad responsible for the arbitrary execution of 350-400 people who expressed their opposition to the rule of terror of the Free Syrian Army (FSA):
This single burial brigade, according to the executioners testimony, was responsible for the arbitrary execution of 350-400 people including prisoners and traitors. The traitors are Sunni civilians within the occupied urban and rural areas, who express their opposition to the rule of terror of the Free Syrian Army (FSA):
Since last summer, we have executed slightly fewer than 150 men, which represents about 20 percent of our prisoners, says Abu Rami. … But the executioners of Homs have been busier with traitors within their own ranks than with prisoners of war. If we catch a Sunni spying, or if a citizen betrays the revolution, we make it quick, says the fighter.According to Abu Rami, Husseins burial brigade has put between 200 and 250 traitors to death since the beginning of the uprising. (Ulrike Putz, Syria: Atrocities Committed by US-NATO Sponsored Opposition. Executioner for Syrias Rebels Tells His Story, Der Spiegel Online, March 30, 2012)
In this independent report from Human rights investigations, a child is shown using a machete to cut a mans head off and mentions the involvement of the Free Syrian Army (if you wish to see the video, click on the link to the original article):
Extensive and horrifying footage of an incident in which two men are executed by beheading in which a child participates now comes from two different sources.
Footage posted to YouTube by Voice of America Arabic (Radio Sawa) anchor and journalist Zaid Benjamin, shows a child hacking a prisoners neck with a machete.
In fact, different footage of the same incident was previously shown on 26 November on Sama TV (A Syrian channel) as part of a segment which demonstrated the difference between Turkish propaganda on the Syrian conflict and the actual reality.
The footage shown by Sama was edited to remove the most graphic content, but shows more of the background to the incident. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigade involved is apparently the Khalid ibn al-Waleed brigade. (Syrian rebels use a child to behead a prisoner, Human rights investigations, December 10, 2012)
A United Nations report from June 2013 describes what appears to be the same scene:
Syrian opposition forces recruited a 14-year-old boy from Homs as a fighter and had a child take part in beheading two government soldiers, according to a United Nations report…
The report drew attention to video footage, submitted by the Russian mission to the UN in Geneva, showing the decapitation of two regime soldiers, with a child responsible for one beheading. Following investigation, it is believed that the video is authentic and the men were soldiers, killed as depicted, the UN panel said. (Flavia Krause-Jackson and Sangwon Yoon, Beheadings by Syrian Rebels Add to Atrocities, UN Says, Bloomberg, June 4, 2013)
Even the very conservative Economist reported in October 2013 about an assault by rebels, led by al-Qaeda affiliates against Alawites considered to be heretics by the jihadists.
This was day one of an assault by rebels, led by al-Qaeda affiliates, on Syria’s northwestern coastal region. Early in the morning bands of opposition fighters overran a government checkpoint and pushed into an area of ten villages, carrying out killings that Human Rights Watch, a New York-based pressure group, says may amount to crimes against humanity. Local residents reported indiscriminate gunfire and murder.
Home to Syrians of all creeds, the area is also the heartland of the Alawites, the esoteric Shia offshoot to which the ruling Assad family belongs and whose adherents the jihadists consider heretics. Over the course of the operation, Human Rights Watch says the fighters killed 190 civilians. Residents and hospital staff in Latakia, the nearest city, spoke of burned bodies, beheaded corpses and graves being dug in backyards. Two hundred people from the area remain hostage. (S.B., The war in Syria – Rebel atrocities, The Economist, October 13, 2013)
The BBC also commented on the same Human Rights Watch report:
The report names 190 civilians killed by the rebels, including at least 57 women, 18 children and 14 elderly men. The total number of dead is likely higher because many residents remained missing and bodies were buried in mass graves, it adds…
A doctor at a hospital in Latakia said several of the bodies had multiple gunshot wounds, stab wounds or had been decapitated. Some were burnt or had their feet bound, he added…
HRW says Islamist rebel groups – which include foreign fighters – are financed by individuals in Kuwait and the Gulf. It calls on the UN to impose an arms embargo on all groups credibly accused of war crimes. (Syria rebels executed civilians, says Human Rights Watch, BBC, October 11, 2013)
Like every Western mainstream news outlet, the BBC has been biased on the Syrian issue and has defended the Western-backed Free Syrian Army right from the beginning. Confronted with this evidence of atrocities by the ones they kept promoting as being pro-democracy freedom fighters, the public broadcaster attempted to whitewash the Free Syrian Army with a somewhat absurd and contradictory statement:
HRW says about 20 opposition groups took part in the offensive and that five were involved in the attacks on civilians – the al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Jaysh al-Muhajirin wa al-Ansar, Ahrar al-Sham and Suqour al-Izz
None are affiliated to the Western-backed Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, thoughSMC chief Gen Salim Idris did say at the time that fighters under his command participated in the assault… (Ibid.)
The phrasing is very insidious since it leads the reader to believe that if the groups which committed the assault are not linked to the Western-backed FSA, the latter did not participate in the assault. But the FSA DID participate in the assault since fighters under [the FSA Generals] command participated in the assault.
The US was Supporting ISIS via the Free Syria Army
Salim Idriss, who was replaced in February 2014 by Col Abd al-Ilah al-Bashir, ev
