PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Syria starts
Thread: Syria starts
View Single Post
Old 15th Aug 2011, 02:49
  #5 (permalink)  
GreenKnight121
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: by the Great Salt Lake, USA
Posts: 1,542
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The source article for the first link uses as its primary source (for anything past the arrest of 3 men for arms-smuggling) an article by Sahand Avedis on World Socialist Web Site, which is a self-described Socialist news organization... the text of their article contains numerous references to "countering US Imperialism"... so that source has an emotional and political agenda which supports exaggerating and distorting "facts"... we actually see that the arms were supplied by Saudi interests, which the US has found are not as controllable by the US as many believe.
Lebanon intercepts covert arms shipments bound for Syria
That organization got its info from a Hezbollah-backed news organization (Al-Akhbar newspaper) and a Lebanese daily Al-Safir, which is close to Syria.
They both cite the Lebanese government, which (with the aid of Syria) overthrew the government of the alliance they are now accusing of participating in the arms-smuggling. Not a very objective source of info.

The second source article linked is Press TV, a 24-hour English language global news network. Its headquarters are located in Tehran, Iran. Iran supports Hezbollah and any anti-US effort. This article cites no sources at all, making it more an editorial of opinion than "hard news".

So the claim that "A selection all giving same message and pretty much none of them allied together." isn't quite accurate. There are distinct ties between all of those organizations and governments.


Debka.com, the source of the last article, has a history of trying to inflame the right-wing of Isreal into action, and is famous for exaggerated reports which cite no sources, but which mash second-hand info, rumors, and similar static into stories supporting its views... a report that the US & NATO were trying to undermine Syria would be fully in line with its bias, so its writers and editors would not reject such a gift due to unreliable sources.

Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli paper well-known to be open to a wide range of political views, says that Israeli intelligence officials do not consider even 10 percent of Debka.com's content to be reliable.



This reminds me of US politics, in which both the hard-left part of the Democratic Party and the hard-right of the Republican party have both (for opposing reasons) believed the same conspiracy rumors... which turned out to be false.


The first ones remind me of MoveOn.org, and the last of Rush Limbaugh.




Were arms being smuggled to the Syrian opposition? Absolutely!

Does the US and NATO support the Syrian opposition? Of course!

Would Turkey like to see the Shiite-based government of Syria fall in favor of the Sunni-majority? Sure.

Might either or both take steps to support and supply that opposition? Very possibly.


Are there unbiased and impartial sources supporting these claims of US/NATO support/control of the arms smuggling that are independent of these specific reports? Not that I have seen.
GreenKnight121 is offline