Russ Baker: Everything They're Telling Us About Syria is False!

Friday, we read in the New York Times and elsewhere about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most important supporters and allies having defected. The impression one gets is that Assad's government is in a state of collapse, and this gives credibility to those pushing for Assad to turn over power. But what the media are not mentioning is that Brigadier General Manaf Tiass did not defect directly from the Assad inner circle. He had already fallen into disfavor early in the uprising and lost his command in May 2011, 14 months ago. If you had that additional piece of information, you would interpret the news reports in a totally different way: When a piece of evidence that contradicts the overall impression is absent from the reportage, the reportage itself is almost worthless. As are reports of horrific events without adequate fact checking and follow up. Remember the Houla massacre? Who carried that out? The media told us that more than 100 people, including women and children, were brutally slaughtered at close range in the village of Houla in late May. The bloodshed, reported around the world, was ascribed to a militia, the Shabiha, which is loyal to Assad. Here's an example from the BBC website: Survivors of the massacre in Syria's Houla region have told the BBC of their shock and fear as regime forces entered their homes and killed their families. Most witnesses who spoke to the BBC said they believed that the army and shabiha militiamen were responsible. "We were in the house, they went in, the shabiha and security, they went in with Kalashnikovs and automatic rifles," said survivor Rasha Abdul Razaq. Later, a dribble of accounts cast doubt on this, since the people killed were, by and large, themselves supporters of Assad.