I'm always disappointed with Democracy Now's (DN) coverage of Syria. Its reporting on the fall of the country's president, Bashar al-Assad was no exception. It described Assad's deposition as primarily a triumph of freedom and the will of a brutally repressed people.
Absent from DN's narrative was the straightforward truth that the fall of Assad was the fruit of another regime change operation. It was part of the U.S. plan announced in 2001 to depose seven governments in five years, viz., Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Iran.
Though the American timetable was overly optimistic, with the change of regime in Syria, the U.S. has succeeded in hitting six of its seven targets. Only Iran's government remains in place.
Let me show you what I mean by summarizing DN's account, contrasting it with its counter narrative, and sketching the way U.S. regime change operations work.
The Official Syrian Story
For years DN's usually critical founder, Amy Goodman, has for some reason sided with the United States and Israel by uncritically repeating their official story about the Zionists' neighbor to the north. It tells us that:
- Bashar al Assad is a brutal dictator who succeeded his dictator father to rule Syria with an iron fist for the last half century and more.
- He has not only claimed absolute power in Syria,
- But has run an extensive secret prison system there (a "human slaughterhouse") where captives are systematically mistreated, tortured, and held without charge.
- His use of chemical weapons against those objecting to his rule is well documented by independent witnesses such as the Syrian Civil Defense Organization, the "White Helmets."
- For all these reasons, the U.S. and Israel have long held that "Assad must go."
- "Moderate rebels" have recently transformed that imperative into facts on the ground. Thankfully, they have successfully overthrown the hated dictator.
- Since his removal from office, his brutality and consequent unpopularity have received ample testimony and denunciation by ordinary Syrians who are universally celebrating his fall from power.
- Thus the U.S. and Israel (as champions of democracy, just war, and humane incarceration, and as opponents of torture and the killing of innocent civilians) have triumphed once again in yet another mid-east country.
- The triumph mirrors what they have accomplished so idealistically and benevolently in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia and other countries benefitting from their wars fought for democracy and peace.
That's the official line DN's Amy Goodman consistently presents and/or implies.
A More Complete Picture
However, what Goodman's account fails to explore or soft-pedals are its following contradictions that would have us forget that:
- The foreign powers advocating and celebrating the end of Assad's cruelty (i.e., Israel and the U.S.) are the current perpetrators of genocide in Palestine. Arguably, that deprives them of ability to convincingly champion human rights in any forum. It demonstrates that they have no concern about civilian deaths, secret prisons, unjust torture, democracy, freedom, or peace.
- In fact (according to George Galloway) during its war on terror, the U.S. used Syrian prisons as black sites to which they rendered "terrorists" for torturous interrogation.
- Moreover, the "moderate" agents fulfilling the U.S. and Israel's imperative to remove Assad from power are successors to the very "terrorists" responsible for al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks 23 years ago.
- That is, while designating Syria as a "state sponsor of terrorism," the U.S. has once again allied itself with al-Qaeda as it had in Afghanistan during Russia's war there (1979-1989).
- Additionally, the U.S. has crippled the Syrian economy by illegally occupying its eastern oil fields since 2014 effectively stealing its oil revenue since then.
- While Israel has similarly occupied its neighbor's Golan Heights.
- Syria's economy and population have suffered severe hardships under a U.S. sanctions regime that started in 2011 and whose effects worsened following a massive earthquake in February, 2023. For years they've had to function on the provision of a single hour of electricity each day.
Civil Discontent in Syria
As for the testimony of Syrians applauding and celebrating the fall of Assad . . .. It too demonstrates the effectiveness of standard American policy against designated enemies whose political "regimes" the U.S. wishes to change. That policy never deviates from the following procedure:
- Vilify the regime leader as the latest incarnation of Hitler.
- Under the pretext of punishing him, use sanctions, economic blockades, bombing, propaganda, bribery, election interference, terrorism, and internal subversion whose real purpose is to make the lives of locals so miserable
- That they will arise,
- Overthrow the regime in question,
- And celebrate the victory as the triumph of democracy.
This is the standard policy followed not only against Syria, but against official enemies such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
The subversion invariably causes the threatened governments to adopt their own counter-policies that the U.S. and its allies then describe as authoritarian, oppressive, and brutal. The policies include imprisonment of compromised political opponents, jailing and mistreatment of terrorists (no harsher btw than the mistreatment of prisoners in Israel and the U.S.), and restrictions on (usually foreign allied) press along with fifth column civil and religious organizations. All these government actions provide further evidence of the illegitimacy of the regimes in question.
They also provide well-meaning news sources like Democracy Now with reasons to uncritically repeat imperialist talking points.
Conclusion
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
