“Hagop Tchouroukian, an Armenian shopkeeper, lost his home when a homemade bomb struck two years ago, killing a woman and two children in his building in the Midan neighborhood. He has moved elsewhere but returns to the area every day to work in his shop.
His 4-year-old twins play in the street, something that would not have been possible before the cease-fire, he said. Before the truce, two or three mortar shells fell every day. Now there have just been one or two in the past two weeks, he said.” ~ Washington Post
Perhaps more than any other region in Syria, Aleppo has been the hub of the NATO/US/Gulf media and NGO propaganda, intent on demonization of the Syrian Government and Syrian Arab Army. White Helmet central, Aleppo has been the concealed nest of Al Nusra operatives, overt or covert, disguised as the ‘Syria Civil Defence’, white helmeted “saviours of all Humanity” provided the Humanity has no associations with the Syrian Government, Shia, Kurdish or Christian factions in or surrounding Aleppo.
Since the Syrian Arab Army has advanced deeper into Al Nusra and ISIS territory uprooting the terrorist cells, the truth has revealed itself by degrees.
Probably first to break mainstream media ranks, was Stephen Kinzer of the Boston Globe:
“COVERAGE OF the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.
For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it.”
This was followed by Peter Oborne of the Daily Mail:
“The Syrian army is approaching her town [Aleppo teacher] as it regains ground from Islamic State across eastern Aleppo: “The fighters are preparing ambushes with explosives. They are moving their wives and families out. They are keeping us as human shields for them.”
The heroism of some of the people I met is beyond computation.
One headmaster told me how he has tried to keep his school open in an Islamic State area. He was held in solitary confinement for 30 days in a cell with no toilet. Occasionally, he was beaten with an electric cable. Once a box full of scorpions was put into his cell. He was told that “this was the fate of every Shabiha [government worker]. You will be an example to everyone who works for the government.”
More recently, even the Washington Post has reluctantly joined the small band of truth-sayers disseminating the reality of terrorist besieged and occupied Aleppo. Finally it is being revealed that the streets claimed to be furrowed by Syrian Government barrel bombs were in fact scarred by terrorist Hell Cannon missiles ranging from crude cooking gas canisters filled with nails, glass and a variety of projectiles to mortars & shells fired indiscriminately into Government held civilian areas.
This information comes as no surprise to 21st Century Wire, we have been reporting the reality on the ground in Aleppo for some time now thanks to updates received from residents living inside the Government held areas, which offer some refuge from terrorist atrocities being committed elsewhere in the City.
We have also mentioned how the City of Aleppo has been reduced to one fifth of its original size, residents being driven from their homes by terrorist factions into the relative safety of the Government held pockets.
One particular resident has been particularly outspoken regarding the “moderate rebels” and the unstoppable tide of Rami Jarrah, Syria Campaign, White Helmet propaganda. All names are withheld for their security as there is an ever present risk of reprisals from the now pressurized terrorist gangs and brigands who remain trapped by the SAA, Hezbollah advances.
“President Assad is not exterminating his people. I’m still alive, and no one said a word to me. If something bad happened to me in the near future, it would be because of the terrorists’ policy of extermination. I’m living happily because there are Syrian soldiers who are defending us in hot summers and cold winters. The UN is lying as usual in their reports about Aleppo and Syria in general.” ~ Voice From Aleppo: Stop the Lies
For all previous reports from this individual who has lived through the daily terrorist incursions and shelling in Aleppo, for the last 9 months please go to The Wall Will Fall.
We are publishing their latest report in full [with minimal edits] as it contains valuable insights not reported by the Western media even with their new found counter-propaganda zeal.
Voice From Aleppo:
“The best thing outside powers can do in the interest of peace is to include civil society groups in future negotiations, listen to what they have to say, and refrain from imposing top-down solutions that ignore the Syrian people”.
The above paragraph is mentioned at the end of an article in the Boston Review, “Syria after the Ceasefire”, by Stephen Zunes.
However, if the Syrian people dared to say that they want Assad, the western powers will either punish the Syrian people more and more till they are all well tamed; or the western media will explain what is happening as follows: “Syrian people are not free, they are terrified from regime repression and punishment. They are forced to vote for Assad”.
Therefore, let’s go and free those people by killing their leader and destroying their army!
How to Fix a Country That’s Broken Beyond Repair?
Although the Boston Review article is talking about how complex the Syrian crisis is, they persist with mentioning all the stereotypes and clichés, as if they are tying themselves with ropes and asking stupidly:
“What a mess! What shall we do now?”
Imposing democracy on countries and societies that have different ruling types, is like imposing Apple Macintosh operating system upon a Microsoft Windows one. Result is a failed and damaged PC. The usual next argument that comes after that mess would be:
“Now that we have a damaged PC, what shall we do to clean the mess?”.
The PC could be useful only for junk markets, where people can buy its dismantled contents by piece. Dismantling war-torn countries and societies have the same result and future.
“Corruption!”: Everyone Has It
After years of 24/7 brainwashing of the world with tons of lies, on all type of media, in focusing on ‘spreading democracy’ by force on other nations, or changing regimes that don’t obey them, and after all these evil strategies were in vain… perhaps they could solve the problem by removing the “democracy glasses” they forced the globe to wear in the first place. Apart from anything else, no one believes that they really wanted to spread real democracy and freedom in the world. It’s all phony and fake versions of democracy that destroy nations.
Syrians were living peacefully for decades, happily and independent. We had corruption? And who doesn’t have it [Organized crime, and white collar crime? Who doesn’t have it? An ever increasing wealth gap? Who doesn’t have it?]?
They need serious reforms in politics and government? Many reforms actually took place between 2000-2010, and many of the old corrupted figures left Syria before 2005 to live abroad – with their stolen fortunes. These same corrupt figures went on to become the “moderate rebels” greatest supporters.
Yes, a new layer of corrupted figures started to pop up, and it’s just a continuous work, just like cleaning houses. There will be new dust covering the surface every week. You deal with new dust by cleaning it again, not by burning the house or tearing it down around its inhabitants.
I always asked normal people over here, such as taxi drivers, how their lives were before the crisis. They always say that they were so happy. Everything was cheap. The poor and rich were working, and happy.
On weekends you would see the poor people parking their mini pick-up vehicles or bicycles on the highway outside Aleppo in front of a green zone [we call that area al-Mohallaq]. They would gather with their families for picnics, BBQs, smoking sheisha or eating corn in the Summer. Those were the poor ones’ weekly entertainment, where they might stay from midday till midnight. It was peaceful. Today, it’s the other way around.
What I always used to say is that before the crisis, Syria had almost 80-95% of what any nation seeks to have – a 75-80% legal and straightforward progress. 15-20% corruption at worst. A society where the progress is possible after paying bribes, something no one is proud of but we can’t do much about it unfortunately. We only lacked 3-5% of political reforms and freedom.
This whole crisis, destruction, cleansing, uprooting people from their homes, poverty, refugees problem, infrastructure systematic destruction, raping women, beheading innocents, looting, erasing priceless heritage and historical and sacred buildings and architecture, creating all zombie-like trash criminals that invaded us from all over the world…..
All that and a lot more, was created in the name of gaining those missing 3% of rights. As result, Syrians lost 80% of what they had before, and didn’t gain the 3% that was promised to them.
Today we might still have 20% of our original rights and order, however corruption is controlling more than 75% of it. In the past, bribes were somehow like taxes in the west, we pay it to one party [corrupted employee] and guarantee that our problem is going to be solved, or the paperwork going to be submitted.
Today, people might pay hundreds and thousands – if not millions, as bribes, ransoms, taxes, looting and theft. The payment is forced out of too many of us and there is no guarantee whatsoever that we will survive even once we have paid.
Still, the same lame mentality, of searching for solutions, by concentrating on their first big fat lie of toppling leaders and replacing them with puppets, in the name of freedom and democracy. Some misled Syrians are still pursuing those rosy lies, like thirsty travellers in the desert running after a mirage. They just don’t want to or simply can’t wake up and smell the coffee.
Updates [9/3/2016]:
The road to Aleppo is still under daily attacks, and the SAA is protecting it. Sometimes the terrorists are occupying little part of the road for couple of hours before being defeated or fleeing the scene. People are travelling on it safely, yet it’s still a worrying subject for every traveller.
As for the city, and as I mentioned in my last email, the terrorists of al-Nusra in Aleppo city are targeting the Kurds sector of the city so badly. The SAA is defending them from time to time by air-strikes and artillery.
Naturally the mainstream media is reporting that the SAA is violating the ceasefire, which is not true. Civilians are dying in their dozens in the Kurdish sector [Sheikh Maqsoud] after heavy mortar shelling, yet writers are saying that its the “regime” that is breaking the ceasefire! I’m attaching photos that came on the media from Sheikh Maqsoud.
Syria became another Palestine, where the blames always goes on Palestinians reactions, never on Israeli provocations. That is the Israeli flavour in conflicts.
Everything that has been blamed on the Syrian Government for the last five years has actually been carried out by those who are portrayed as blameless, the “moderate rebels” and their associates.
They [US NATO GCC Israeli coalition proxy terrorists] used chemical weapons against civilians. They besieged villages and towns and cut all food and water supply of reaching them, the hunger strategy in wars. They forced people to leave their homes and to become refugees. They forced people to vote for them and didn’t give them their freedom. They occupied entire cities and tortured masses of people because they don’t share the same religion, sect, or political opinion. They brought multinational fighters [from 80+ different nationalities] to fight with them, years before Syria asked for help from Hezbollah, Iran, Russia.
They committed all kinds of atrocities and yet dare to blame it on the Syrian government. That is typical of the Israeli flavour in wars. Who targeted hospitals, schools, and markets in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan; claiming that the enemy is launching rockets from them?
Yet they dare to talk about Russian or Syrian jets attacking terrorist hospitals!
Going back to what the Syrian people want, I’m afraid there won’t be much of them left any more in the next presidential elections. The refugees in Europe and other countries can’t vote. They have been replaced with multinational fighters. They are the new Syrians now, and they could change the voting results in their favour. Maybe that is one of the reasons of emptying the country of its real people and scattering them in the world as refugees?”
Children going to School in Aleppo. Photo: Peter Oborne
A glance at the comment section of Stephen Zunes Boston Review article “Syria after the Ceasefire” demonstrates that people are no longer swallowing the propaganda pill, this from Judith Bello:
“Zunes’ stance that ISIS control 1/3 of Syria is inaccurate and was never true. They control large areas of uninhabited desert while the Syrian government controls all the populated regions with the exception of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa. Even there, though ISIS occupies, the Syrian government continues to provide resources to the population.
The statement that the supporters of Assad are a [substantial] minority is not true. The majority of the people in Syria choose the government over any available alternative. Furthermore, Assad’ s popularity derives from real initiatives on his part to open up the government to popular participation. Under his leadership, the Syrian government has provided amnesties to fighters who want to return and to political prisoners. They have been open to talking to any opposition not wielding guns and presided over a substantial revision of the constitution. Prior to the war Assad invested in improving the free education and social welfare projects. He negotiated with the west in an effort to have the onerous sanctions eased.”
Or Rick Sterling:
“If the west or reactionary neighbouring countries do not intervene, the Syrian Arab Army and allies may well be able to completely oust the terrorist factions. That will be a good thing for anyone who cares about peace, justice and respect for international law.”
The liberation of Aleppo from the terrorist hordes has been a game changer for the Syrian Army and its allies. The re-taking of the main highways used by Turkey to supply terrorist arms and equipment has sliced through the umbilical cord tying the terror gangs to their Turkish handlers and supporters. It has also driven a stake into the heart of Turkey’s stolen oil revenue, while preventing any further Turkish plundering of the huge industrial resources, once Aleppo’s pride and joy. It has liberated Syrian people, who from the outset, resisted any calls to arms by the phoney revolutionary gangs who employed all manner of coercion against Aleppo to drag them into the conflict being manufactured by NATO, US and their Gulf sidekicks.
For the duration, media outlets with integrity have been reporting the reality from Aleppo despite the ceaseless propaganda storms being whipped up by the Purpose cabal, Syria Campaign, White Helmets, Rami Jarrah and their ilk. The people of Aleppo have withstood incursions, shelling, desecrating of their homes, terrorization, rape, abuse, electrical outages, diseased water supplies, food shortages, in order to protect their right to decide their future in their country. It appears that the West has failed to impose its will upon the Syrian people, as it has, with disastrous consequences, elsewhere in the region.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to these courageous people inside Aleppo who risked all to report what was actually happening on the ground. These people have lived a life of a prisoner in their own homes for over 4 years and finally they can see an end to their prison term. Yes, there are western media outlets who are suddenly confronted by a truth they can no longer avoid reporting, but they should surely be prosecuted for having propagated the lies and propaganda for so long, that served to increase the suffering endured by the Syrian people.
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” ~ George Orwell
The Syrian people have overpowered the all- powerful US NATO propaganda apparatus. The war is not over yet, but for many of us, our geopolitical perceptions have been irreversibly altered thanks to the Syrian resistance, and this alone, is one huge victory for mankind and one giant nail in the coffin of US global hegemony.
Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her personal blog The Wall Will Fall.
