Eric Blair

Activist Post

It’s more obvious everyday that propaganda is getting more blatant, more in our face. Mostly we just assume it has always been there but it’s usually cleverly subtle. Not lately though. It’s blood in your face time especially in regards to the “conflict” in Syria.

Take a look at this Huffington Post front page from today:

This struck me for several reasons which I’ll get into; but first, this is at least the third time they’ve plastered their front page with this propaganda in the last couple of weeks. These blood-soaked headlines always lead to an Associated Press story, or, in this case, Reuters.

It’s difficult to even know where to begin breaking down the blatant propaganda tactics used here. Let’s ignore the gory red paint splatters on the Syrian flag, as that one is pathetically obvious.

To bring some immediate perspective to this headline, imagine if it read “HORROR: NEW MASSACRE IN PAKISTAN — Activists: American Drone Bombs Slaughter 78…Women and Children Killed.“

But that headline would never happen because they (the State Department controlled AP and Reuters) would never allow those emotional trigger words to be used. Instead, “militants” were always killed with maybe a bit of collateral damage during “U.S. drone mission.” No one was ever slaughtered or massacred during drone “missions” . . . those words are only used to describe the enemy’s actions.

Focus on the emotional trigger words “Horror”, “Massacre”, “Slaughter”, and “Children Killed”. All it takes is a millisecond’s glance and you want revenge on the Syrian government.

Also notice the disclaimer words “Reported” and “Activists”, meaning it may not have happened but someone said it did — so we’ll call it a massacre.

Now look at the actual title and the article which appears to be a joint effort by Reuters and the Huffington Post: Hama Massacre: Qubair, Syria, Site Of Fresh Violence, According To Unconfirmed Reports.

The crux of the short article read:

Activists said pro-government militia men and security forces killed at least 78 people, including children, in Syria’s central province of Hama on Wednesday.

Some of those killed in the village of Mazraat al-Qubair were stabbed to death, the activists said, and at least 12 bodies had been burned.

The unconfirmed reports suggest that at least 40 victims were women and children. (emphasis added)

Do these reports ever really get confirmed, or just repeated over and over? It doesn’t really matter because the propaganda has served its shock value whether proven false later or not.

And why use the words “pro-government militia men and security forces”? Why not call them the Syrian army or local police forces? So many layers of manipulation going on here. Read “pro-government” as the bad guys, “militia men” as terrorist thugs, and “security forces” as a sort-of private mercenary guard.

The other line that struck me was, “The anonymous activist said that militias loyal to the regime raided the village and began executing people using knives and AK-47s.”

How did this anonymous activist know this ragtag knife-wielding “militia” was loyal to the regime? Did they announce it on their arrival? If so, that smells even worse like a false flag. Unfortunately no further details were given.

But they were efficient enough to tie this story to the previous “unconfirmed” massacre by “pro-government” forces from last week to continue to display a pattern of abuse by Syria to justify Western intervention.

Huffington Post is the epitome of the progressive hypocrisy in America; those who once vehemently opposed the Bush Doctrine of preemptive intervention and war to stop “bad guys” who never attacked or threatened to attack the U.S., but now support that policy with Obama in the White House.

They cheered for the Libya intervention, saying it wouldn’t take more than days when it turned out to take over six months to fully destroy that beautiful country who never harmed anyone outside of her borders.

And now it appears as though they’re cheering for more intervention into Syria, who also never harmed anyone outside her borders, and the harm (massacre) happening inside the country is coming from “unconfirmed reports” from “anonymous activists.”

Unconfirmed reports from anonymous sources shouldn’t be enough meat for such a bloody headline. Loaded with emotional trigger words, this is how they sell hatred and preemptive war. In other words, it’s clear war propaganda.

It matters not what is actually going on in Syria. I’m sure bad things are happening on both sides of the conflict. But to see a breaking “news” item presented this way over and over, only to find flimsy reports, you have to wonder what the real truth is.

It’s not quite as bad as the BBC getting caught using images from Iraq while reporting on atrocities in Syria, but it’s still going above and beyond to shill for war.

It’s time for real antiwar progressives to look past the ketchup stains on the Syrian flag at their favorite news site and dig deeper into how they are being manipulated to give up their principles of peace before they justify even more bloodshed in the name of America.

In other important news, CNN ran the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (commercial free), complete with the commentator repeatedly saying “and there’s the queen, smiling and waving to her subjects.”

Reminds me of Bill Hicks’ American Gladiator bit “Here, watch this America and shut up!”

Read more articles from Eric Blair HERE.