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    Re: Apologies, missed Keith's earlier posting...me too... Archived Message

    Posted by Si on April 29, 2019, 11:30 am, in reply to "Apologies, missed Keith's earlier posting (nm)"

    Thanks, Margo - a good summary - with all the shit that's going down here, there and everywhere, it's tricky keeping abreast of the pertinent details of the distinct horrors - it's v useful to be able to bookmark decent recaps - - look forward to part 2.

    Just wanted to highlight this:

    "Journalists were not dupes in this conflict. Western journalists covering Syria were, for the most part, believers in the liberal order, U.S. exceptionalism, interventionism — these people are hired because they think that way. They quote their governments’ statements unquestioningly, despite the lies of Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, etc. They are fundamentally uninterested in the legalities of warfare — the U.S. and U.K. bombardment of Syria, the establishment of military bases there, the funding and arming of terrorist groups — all of it illegal under international law.

    A number of Western journalists who dared to probe deeper were sacked, silenced or smeared. I know a couple of journalists who lost their jobs. The Huffington Post stopped publishing my work once I started reporting from inside Syria — and then a year or so later, they quietly removed my entire archive from their site. Other mainstream journalists who questioned the Syria narratives were badly smeared — by their colleagues, quite shockingly — which made more than a few of them back down, write less, tweet differently. The intimidation tactics by our peers have been relentless in the coverage of Syria.

    In short, Western media helped to stage and grow this conflict. I no longer think journalists should be treated with a special kind of immunity when they get a story this wrong, repeatedly, and people die in the process. I prefer to call them “media combatants,” and I think that is a fair and accurate description of the part they play in wars today"

    Right on! The era of our pondering the role of 'journalists', and allowing for ignorance, plain stupidity and gullibility is surely over - they must know by now that they are lying propagandists.

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