Oh, it was a very big deal, one of those Defining Moments our media likes to chortle over. There was Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson on “Morning Joe” being interviewed by a panel of pundits including Mike Barnicle. “What,” asked Barnicle, “would you do about Aleppo?”

Johnson looked puzzled, because he was: “And what is Aleppo?” he answered.

“You’re kidding,” said Barnicle.

“No,” said Johnson.

“Aleppo is in Syria,” explained Barnicle, looking and sounding both smug and incredulous. “It’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis.”

The media – which has finally realized that Johnson is taking more votes away from Hillary than he is from Trump – was all over this. Joe Scarborough declared – as if he were delivering a Papal Bull – that this automatically disqualified Johnson from any serious consideration as a presidential candidate. And the rest of the media pack followed suit: How could he not know about Aleppo? After all the propaganda about that poor little soot-covered boy, Omran Daqneesh, who was uninjured but very photogenic, and those dastardly Russians bombing those sweet innocent Islamic rebels – how could Johnson not know that Aleppo is the epicenter of the War Party’s latest attempt to drag us into yet another foreign war?

What the heck is wrong with him – is he some kind of moral monster?

Actually not, opined Barnicle in a piece for the Daily Beast, Johnson is just like the rest of us, selfishly going about his business. After all, that “iconic” photo of little Omran Daqneesh was taken in August,

“The heart of summer and there were picnics and pennant races, a week of vacation, family demands for fun, the beach, for a day without a bill in the mail, for back-to-school shopping or the dread of taking your oldest child off to college for the very first time and the loneliness that might fill your soul. So you might not remember it.”

Cut to violins playing softly, sadly, in the background, as those narcissistic Americans cavort and play on a summer day while the world burns.

Are you feeling manipulated yet?

You probably saw that photo of Omran Daqneesh – the latest of a series of propaganda images emitted by the Syrian rebels over the years. How could you have missed it? It was everywhere. The Syrian rebels have plenty of sympathizers in the Western media. After all, the rebel demands for US intervention on behalf in their war to establish an Islamic state have met with the approval of Hillary Clinton, and her journalistic camarilla faithfully follows suit.

In his Beast piece, Barnicle opines that Hillary “hasn’t been asked” about Aleppo — but that’s because there’s no need to ask. Her position is well-known. It was Hillary, while she was Secretary of State, who lobbied fiercely on behalf of Aleppo’s defenders – the “moderate” Islamic anti-government rebels – along with Gen. David Petraeus. Indeed, Petraeus pushed for allying with the local al-Qaeda affiliate, so eager was he to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Oh, but these are the “moderate” faction of al-Qaeda, he assured us – and if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.

So what’s really going on in Aleppo, the supposed “epicenter of the refugee crisis”? Of course, all of Syria is in the throes of that crisis, not just Aleppo – but that ancient city is indeed the epicenter of the rebels’ propaganda campaign. For if Aleppo falls, the rebels are finished, defeated, and their foreign masters – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the oil-rich emirates of the Gulf, as well as our CIA – will have been stopped in their tracks in their bid to Islamicize Syria.

And here’s something else that’s going on in Aleppo, which you no doubt haven’t heard about. There’s another little boy in that city whose fate is largely unknown in the West. Captured by the US-backed rebel group known as Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, one of the most powerful armed groups in Aleppo, Abdullah Tayseer, a prepubescent boy who looks to be about ten years old, was beheaded, and the vile act was filmed and posted online. The al-Zenki movement, a favorite of the Saudis, has received funding from the US government, including the delivery of TOW antitank missiles. These are the “moderates” so beloved by our media, and actively promoted by Hillary Clinton during her tenure at the State Department.

And just to add that extra note of irony: the photographer who took that“iconic” photo of Omran Daqneesh, one Mahmoud Raslan, a “media activist,” is seen here posing with these murderers two weeks after the beheading. (He denies any involvement.) The al-Zenki movement claims the beheaders were arrested, and yet their leader, Umar Salkho, is seen clearly in the beheading video – and he’s still roaming free, still the leader of these US-backed barbarians, as can be seen here in a video made about 10 days after the beheading.

As for Raslan, identified as a “Syrian media activist” with the Aleppo Media Center, he is seen here smiling as he’s posing with suicide bombers. And he has good reason to smile: after all, his “work” being broadcast on CNN while an anchor sheds tears.

The recently concluded agreement with the Russians for a cease-fire leading to a winding down of the Syrian civil war is already being broken by the Americans and their head-chopping allies: apparently only the Syrian government forces are observing the truce. And the Pentagon is openly disputing with John Kerry’s State Department at the prospect of having to cooperate with the Russians. The generals have been agitating for more money in the Army’s budget, and this requires making the Russians out to be a major threat. The Syria agreement contradicts that narrative.

The rebels, too, are against the agreement: they and their Saudi sponsors want the war to continue. Fanatics who behead little boys are like that. Kerry himself has said in private that he doubts the agreement will end the war.

This conflict was started by the Islamists, who took advantage of the “Arab Spring” to launch their terrorist assault on Christians and other “infidels”: they were enabled by the Obama administration, which funded and directed these “moderate Islamists” while the rebels fought alongside al-Qaeda and defected to ISIS in droves.

The spider at the center of this web is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where beheading is a national pastime and the strict Wahabist doctrine upheld by the Syrian rebels is the state religion. The Saudis and other Gulf tyrannies are among the biggest contributors to the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary Clinton has openly attacked Donald Trump for calling out Saudi influence on US politicians. This is an alliance forged on the lowest rung of Hell.

If Mrs. Clinton makes it to the White House, the US-Saudi-Syrian rebel axis of head-choppers will continue to wreak death and destruction in Syria and throughout the Middle East. There’s just one way to stop these murderous crimes against humanity: end all aid to the rebels, butt out of Syria, and let Mike Barnicle whine and whinge all he wants. The sooner this happens, the sooner Aleppo will be liberated from the beheaders of young boys.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.