Saturday, April 30, 2011

News on Syria

It is not easy to follow news on Syria. I do receive updates from Syrians: in Syria and abroad.  But I don't believe Syrian regime media and I don't believe Saudi and Qatari media on Syria.  (Of course, Western media are as unreliable.)  Look at this piece in New York Times:  "along with the resignations of nearly 300 low-level members of the Baath Party".  (No mention of official denials of the resignation--standards of professional journalism don't apply to countries that are enemies of the US).  This first appeared in Saudi and Qatari media and now it is fact.  The figure was first 30 and then suddenly jumped to 200, and now I see it is 300.  Just like that.  Hariri and Saudi media also have another trick.  They feed somebody like Robert Fisk or Nicholas Blanford some information or theory (hell, they fed Nicholas Blanford a whole book (which used to be given out for free by Hariri propaganda office) on Syrian responsibility for Hariri assassination--I now expect that he would be fed another book regarding Hizbullah's responsibility), and then they cite that same author as in: "and famous British reporter, Robert Fisk, said that."  We need a new name for this propaganda technique.