Western Media is Key to Syria Deception

In the past, I have often termed western media ‘dishonest’. Today, I refer to an elaborate work of Jonathan Cook, lately published by "Information Clearing House" to substantiate my assertion. He has referred to the claim recently made by al-Qaeda-linked fighters that they were targeted with chemical weapons by the Syrian government in Idlib province – their final holdout in Syria.

It is known to all that the US and other western governments enthusiastically picked up such claims, which lack credibility.  This particular news also lacked authenticity because no evidence has yet been produced to confirm the jihadists’ claims. Syrian government is poised to defeat these al-Qaeda groups without resort to chemical weapons – and without provoking the predictable ire (yet again) of the west.

Public has all the reason to doubt the credibility of this statement at a time they have learnt that the last supposed major chemical attack – which took place in April 2018 and was, as ever, blamed by all western sources on Syria’s president, Bashar Assad – was a false-flag operation by those very al-Qaeda groups now claiming the Syrian government has attacked them once again.

Most astounding in this week’s coverage of the claims made by al-Qaeda groups is the fact that the western media continues to refuse to learn any lessons, develop any critical distance from the sources it relies on, even as those sources have repeatedly deceived it.

This was true after the failure to find WMD in Iraq, and it is now even truer after the international community’s monitoring body on chemical weapons, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), was exposed this month as deeply dishonest.

It is bad enough that warmongering governments and their expert institutions deceive and lie. But it is even worse that the corporate media is addicted to such content to promote its importance. The conviction that the western media is dishonest is getting stronger with each passing day.