Does the comical gullibility of the Western public have any bounds? Disregarding all the previous false alarms and thoroughly debunked psyop false flag operations designed to pin genocidal misconduct on the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Asad in order to produce a rationale for full scale intervention in Syria, the Western propaganda machine is now being reactivated, hoping to finally score where previously it had failed miserably. East Ghouta (2013), Aleppo (2016), Khan Sheikhun (2017), and now a resuscitated East Ghouta with the tedious “Assad killing his own people” narrative all over again — perhaps in this case the fourth time’s a charm, in Syria at least. After all, given the Western audience’s known attention span, the phony 2013 East Ghouta genocidal episode must by now appear pre-historical, so isn’t it about time to revisit the same location and give it another try? It just might work this time around.
Predictably (making accurate predictions is easy when arrogant but unimaginative propaganda hacks keep warming over the same cliches) the impending collapse of the terrorist-held enclave of East Ghouta in close proximity to Damascus is being bitterly denounced by their Western sponsors as a new “Srebrenica” in the making. That is meant primarily to evoke genocidal connotations and to create the pretext and concoct the appearance of moral legitimacy for broadening the scope of the current open-ended imperialist intervention on the ground in Syria. On cue, on February 20, and not mincing words either, the London Guardian newspaper made it unambiguously clear where the upcoming Propaganda ministerium campaign is going, even as it was gathering steam: “Eastern Ghouta is another Srebrenica, we are looking away again — The horror of the Bosnian Muslim massacre of 1995 is being repeated today in Syria.”
The Guardian’s colleagues over at CNN rushed the following day to fill in the gaps with an equally predictable litany of unverified allegations and rehashed sob stories which have been the standard feature of each of the previous Syrian psyops:
“The devastation wrought in Eastern Ghouta by a relentless bombardment by the Syrian regime,” CNN disinforms its viewers, “has forced doctors to use expired drugs and scramble for water as the number of dead reached 300 in three days, medics and activists said. At least 260 people were killed and 500 injured in the rebel held-enclave between Monday and Tuesday evening, the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), said. Activists with the Damascus Media Center activist group said another 45 deaths had been reported on Wednesday.”
In order not to be unfairly accused of originality in churning out war-escalation propaganda, the following day, February 23, the Guardian reiterated its by now forgotten Aleppo allegations of slightly over a year ago, but now recast to fit the new East Ghouta scenario: “Medical crisis in east Ghouta as hospitals ‘systematically targeted'”.
Determined to drive its Srebrenica parallel home, the Guardian served up to its bamboozled audience a few not so subtle hints about the background of the current East Ghouta controversy:
“’This could be one of the worst attacks in Syrian history, even worse than the siege on Aleppo … To systematically target and kill civilians amounts to a war crime and the international community must act to stop it,’ said Zaidoun al-Zoabi of the independent Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations. But for now at least, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad – like Mladic in 1995 – appears to be impervious to reason or outside pressure. The evidence implicating Assad in war crimes and crimes against humanity is plentiful. So far no charges have been brought, and he carries on regardless.”
However, a perspective that was somewhat different was offered by Vanessa Beeley, an independent journalist who has actually been on the ground in Damascus over the past few days and has considerable knowledge and experience in Syrian affairs:
“We have to ask if these factions are starving, as they claim, where they are receiving the supplies to continue targeting civilians in Damascus city. Where are they receiving these ammunitions and missiles from? So I think this story, this comparison to Srebrenica genocide, this comparison to the Day of Judgment, to Armageddon, to apocalyptic events is simply another way of the Western media calling for war, calling to escalate the conflict, calling to protect their assets on the ground, which also includes the White Helmets, who we know to be affiliated with the al-Qaeda and are financed by the UK’s foreign office, primarily.”
The utter contempt with which Western propaganda mavens regard their zombified audience, its capacity to connect the dots, and even ability to recall the most recent events, is best illustrated by juxtaposing the current “Srebrenica in East Ghouta” cant to mirror image Aleppo drivel that was broadcast not long ago, in late 2016.
As the Syrian Army was closing in on the terrorist stronghold of East Aleppo, and in the wake of the unsuccessful December 5 2016 Security Council Aleppo Resolution designed to stop its advance, which failed due to Russian and Chinese vetoes, just as now, as if on cue, the Western propaganda machinery moved into high gear with the same familiar and ominous rhetoric pointing unmistakably at Srebrenica.
Without any direct, verifiable evidence from the field whatsoever, just as with East Ghouta today, and reenacting uncreatively the threadbare Srebrenica scenario of 1995, Western government and media sources in 2016 began asserting in unison that Syrian authorities in Aleppo were arresting “hundreds of men and boys,” a standard Srebrenica meme for those who are familiar with the subject. Predictably, and also following the Srebrenica template, the abducted “men and boys” were allegedly disappearing in unknown directions.
On December 9 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Rupert Colville (today, for East Ghouta, the PR job is assigned to the man at the top personally, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres) dutifully set the stage for the Aleppo moves that were planned to follow by issuing a harrowing report on rampant improprieties in the domain under his supervision, with the Syrian government squarely to blame. After unctuously expressing “grave concern about the safety of civilians in Aleppo,” Colville pointedly stressed “very worrying allegations that hundreds of men have gone missing after crossing into Government-controlled areas.” For good measure, and to drive the vital Srebrenica point home, Colville added “reports that men were being separated from women and children.” And in case anybody missed the hint, the UN Report also conveniently recalled that “given the terrible record of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances by the Syrian Government, we are of course deeply concerned about the fate of these individuals.”
With just the right dossier thus helpfully furnished by the UN Human Rights department, Britain’s UN ambassador Matthew Rycroft sprang into action. (In the current East Ghouta scenario, the analogous task has been assigned to chief hegemon’s UN whip, Nikki Haley.) After a heartrending account of the situation in Aleppo, backed by not a shred of verifiable evidence and based entirely on an inversion of reality derived from Western mass media disinformation, Rycroft made his point:
“And yet, despite all of this, it could still get worse. Hundreds of men and boys are disappearing as they flee eastern Aleppo, taken by the regime, their fate unknown.”
On December 9, BBC issued its summary of the Aleppo allegations for international MSM dissemination and consumption. Under the headline “Aleppo battle: UN says hundreds of men missing”, the BBC World Service gave its imprimatur to the unsubstantiated allegation that “hundreds of men appear to have gone missing after crossing from rebel-held areas of Aleppo into government territory, UN officials say.”
Dissemination of similar Srebrenica-evoking imagery may confidently be expected in the coming days as the Syrian Army proceeds to clear East Ghouta of its terrorist occupiers.
The “debate” staged in the British parliament on December 13 2016 was very likely conceived in order to solidify the psychologically prepared public opinion behind the “humanitarian intervention” option in Syria, whenever the signal was given. The current East Ghouta hype has exactly the same purpose, and we should watch for attempts soon to pass high sounding parliamentary resolutions asserting the Srebrenica-anchored “R2P” (Right to protect) rationale.
In December 2016 the Aleppo intervention R2P scenario fizzled out when the Syrian Army swiftly defeated the terrorists in time to enable the people of Aleppo to celebrate a joyous Christmas holiday. Hopefully, the people of East Ghouta will soon be delivered with equal speed from their five-year nightmare in the clutches of Western-backed terrorists on Damascus’ doorstep.
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This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.
Stephen Karganovic is President of the Srebrenica Historical Project.
