"There is more than one truth to tell in the awful story of Aleppo" - article

Had to bring this article I just read.
A rare example of mainstream journalism, (the Independent, in this case) that goes beyond the same tired narrative.

Excerpts:

And we’re going to learn a lot more about the “rebels” whom we in the West – the US, Britain and our head-chopping mates in the Gulf – have been supporting.

They did, after all, include al-Qaeda (alias Jabhat al-Nusra, alias Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), the “folk” – as George W Bush called them – who committed the crimes against humanity in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001. Remember the War on Terror? Remember the “pure evil” of al-Qaeda. Remember all the warnings from our beloved security services in the UK about how al-Qaeda can still strike terror in London?

Not when the rebels, including al-Qaeda, were bravely defending east Aleppo, we didn’t – because a powerful tale of heroism, democracy and suffering was being woven for us, a narrative of good guys versus bad guys as explosive and dishonest as “weapons of mass destruction”.

Back in the days of Saddam Hussein.... it was incumbent upon us, always, to profess our repugnance of Saddam and his regime. We had to remind readers, constantly, that Saddam was one of the Triple Pillars of the Axis of Evil. So here goes the usual mantra again, which we must repeat ad nauseam to avoid the usual hate mail and abuse that will today be cast at anyone veering away from the approved and deeply flawed version of the Syrian tragedy.

But it’s time to tell the other truth: that many of the “rebels” whom we in the West have been supporting – and which our preposterous Prime Minister Theresa May indirectly blessed when she grovelled to the Gulf head-choppers last week – are among the cruellest and most ruthless of fighters in the Middle East. And while we have been tut-tutting at the frightfulness of Isis during the siege of Mosul (an event all too similar to Aleppo, although you wouldn’t think so from reading our narrative of the story), we have been willfully ignoring the behaviour of the rebels of Aleppo.

It is highly instructive to look at our reporting of these two parallel events. Almost every headline today speaks of the “fall” of Aleppo to the Syrian army – when in any other circumstances, we would have surely said that the army had “recaptured” it from the “rebels” – while Isis was reported to have “recaptured” Palmyra when (given their own murderous behaviour) we should surely have announced that the Roman city had “fallen” once more under their grotesque rule.

Words matter. These are the men – our “chaps”, I suppose, if we keep to the current jihadi narrative – who after their first occupation of the city last year beheaded the 82-year-old scholar who tried to protect the Roman treasures and then placed his spectacles back on his decapitated head.

Next month, we shall also be reading a frightening new book, Merchants of Men, by Italian journalist Loretta Napoleoni, on the funding of the war in Syria. She catalogues kidnapping-for-cash by both government and rebel forces in Syria, but also has harsh words for our own profession of journalism. Reporters who were kidnapped by armed groups in eastern Syria, she writes, “fell victim to a sort of Hemingway syndrome: war correspondents supporting the insurgency trust the rebels and place their lives in their hands because they are in league with them.” But, “the insurgency is just a variation of criminal jihadism, a modern phenomenon that has only one loyalty: money.”

Source

Its good to see an actual reporter saying this but its something most of us on this site have been saying all along.

Just more proof that nothing the MSM says can be trusted

Once upon a time we had war correspondents like Neil Davis who saw combat in Vietnam and Cambodia,he was the guy that stayed to the bitter end when North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates at the Saigon palace,unfortunately real footage of war on tv at night put people off their dinner and the Vietnam war became unpopular.The Pentagon realised it had to control the narrative so this didn't happen again so starting with Kosovo it started its own briefings and released its own videos,reporters had to be embedded the networks replaced war correspondents with celebrities that would embed with 5 star hotels and be spoon fed by the MIC,Pentagon shills became the talking heads or go to experts.

What they couldn't control however was alternate media and multimedia and for any of us watching the Syrian conflict it became obvious that many mistruths were being told.This is a good article especially for a very controlled British press perhaps the journalist is onto the fact the public is getting onto the facts.

People are waking up to the B.S narrative we have been sold.

The supply of natural resources is the sole reason proxy wars are breaking out in the M.E, always have been, always will.

Millions of innocents slaughtered in the name of the world's demand for a cheap continuous supply of exhaustive fuels.

Remember when Assad was being lauded by Prime Minister Blair? How having him on side was crucial to the success of the illegal war in Iraq?

Of course Assad and the Russians are just as bad, but they have almost squashed Al-Qaeda in Aleppo, maybe they will hate the U.S even more after this?

9/11 was Bullshine and again, the little man had to make the sacrifice.

a reply to: athousandlives

Kudos to The Independent, I think if anything good comes of the media's part here in the U.K., it's that more people wake up to the fact that they are for the most part bullsh*t sources of information at best, and purely serving of an evil agenda at worst.

Vile distraction move by the media here since the liberation of Aleppo, focusing on un-fabricated, alleged war crimes by Russia & Syria (the story apparently sourced from The White Helmets, who are of course funded by the U.S. and U.K. and have provided no proof), instead of praising that the conflict is almost basically over in Aleppo