Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Anne Barnard's contetion

Repeatedly over the last year (and more), Anne Barnard has been consistently writing that the Syrian regime always refers to ALL opposition in Syria as terrorists.  I gave up pointing out that this in fact is blatantly untrue--to put it politely.  Just the other day, Faysal Muqdad in Geneva went out of his way to say that the lousy regime makes distinctions between different strands of the opposition, and he specifically said that not all opposition groups are terrorists.  I know that Anne Barnard does not know Arabic but he said that specifically. Of course, the regime has never been hospitable of any opposition except what he terms the "loyal" opposition, but respect for facts and truths is really totally disregarded in the propaganda dispatches on Syria that I read in the New York Times.   It is now considered bad for the cause of the opposition to report the government side in the Syrian conflict.   Whether you like it or not, there are some in Syria who still support the regime, just as there are some who support the opposition and just as there are some who hate both sides.  But Western correspondents are not in the business of covering the news on Syria:  You should read the twitter's accounts of Western correspondents in the Middle East: they read like the news bulletin of the Free Syrian Army.