"careless use of language" in re Syria - Walt

 
 

"What worries me, of course, is that careless use of language will convince people that the war is rising rapidly up some sort of “escalation ladder” and strengthen the chorus of voices demanding that the United States get more heavily involved. Reasonable people can disagree about that point, but the mere fact that Assad has now used Scuds is largely irrelevant. This decision may be a sign of growing desperation on his part; if so, I hope that some creative diplomacy can convince him to blow town before the entire country is destroyed. But unless he puts chemical warheads on top of them or starts attacking a new category of targets, the fact that Scuds are involved is not in fact very significant."  Walt in FP

 ----------------------------------------

Walt is correct.  Is the Syrian government actually firing these enormously expensive and not very accurate weapons systems at small groups of guerrillas?  If they are, then the decision to do so is incredibly stupid, but it is not an "escalation" of the war.  Air weapons already in use in the civil war are more effective as are the vehicle bombs used by the rebels.  SCUDs are nuclear weapons delivery systems.  That is why they don't need to be extremely accurate.  Syria has no nuclear weapons and never  did have any or any real propects of having any.

Michael Gordon's by-line should tell us what this is all about.  Maybe he can find a WMD factory somewhere in Syria as he and Judy Miller did in Iraq.  "All the news that's fit to print."  pl  

Comments

[Alba Etie]

This is a classic 'information operation " this loose use of the language . Ah Judith Miller legacy - wonder whose 'aspen roots Mr Gordon " is "entwined with " in this latest drum line for War ?

[David Habakkuk]

From a report today by Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, entitled ‘Syria: The Descent into Holy War.’

‘Syria today resembles Iraq nine years ago in another disturbing respect. I have now been in Damascus for 10 days, and every day I am struck by the fact that the situation in areas of Syria I have visited is wholly different from the picture given to the world both by foreign leaders and by the foreign media. The last time I felt like this was in Baghdad in late 2003, when every Iraqi knew the US-led occupation was proving a disaster just as George W Bush, Tony Blair and much of the foreign media were painting a picture of progress towards stability and democracy under the wise tutelage of Washington and its carefully chosen Iraqi acolytes.

‘The picture of Syria most common believed abroad is of the rebels closing in on the capital as the Assad government faces defeat in weeks or, at most, a few months. The Secretary General of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said last week that the regime is "approaching collapse". The foreign media consensus is that the rebels are making sweeping gains on all fronts and the end may be nigh. But when one reaches Damascus, it is to discover that the best informed Syrians and foreign diplomats say, on the contrary, that the most recent rebel attacks in the capital had been thrown back by a government counteroffensive. They say that the rebel territorial advances, which fuelled speculation abroad that the Syrian government might implode, are partly explained by a new Syrian army strategy to pull back from indefensible outposts and bases and concentrate troops in cities and towns.’

(See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-denies-it-is-switching-support-to-syrian-rebels-8418172.html )

Our political elites have lost the ability to distinguish between their propaganda and reality.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Gordon and Miller, yes deja vu from the Iran War disinformation they spread through the NYT. They don't seem to miss a chance to lie for Israel. Floats their editors boats though.

David Habakkuk,

Yes. Their propaganda is their reality and thus they live in a world of self-delusion and fantasy.

America's al-Qaeda and salafi allies in Syria are slaughtering children and other innocent civilians on a daily basis. The Connecticut mass murder by a deranged youth floods the media here. What about those whom our Islamic allies have slaughtered in Syria?

[Fred]

Here comes a bit more disinformation:
"Richard Engel, ..freed ...after five days of captivity in Syria, said he believed his kidnappers were Shiite militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad who planned to exchange the U.S. news team for prisoners held by the rebels."
Sure, they were so loyal they had zero government support? Certainly this couldn't have been a simple kidnapping for money? No way could this have been a false flag project. There’s photos of dead Syrian’s all over the place, just missing from this particular report.
"I think I have a very good idea who they were," Mr. Engel told NBC of his captors. He described them as pro-government Shiite militiamen who were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group—both major allies of the Assad regime throughout its crackdown on rebels.
How’d this ‘investigative journalist’ conclude the IRG conducted the training of these militiamen? Evidence? “I think I have a very good idea…” Yes indeed. To paraphrase the commercial, I’m not a journalist, but I have slept in a Holiday Inn, boy doesn’t that make me an expert! Well I have shoveled manure before, and read plenty of the same about WMD, they’ll great us as liberators in Iraq, etc. This sure fits the bill.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324407504578186911390459672.html