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.
