History is written by the winners as they say and nowhere is there more evidence of this than the Syrian conflict, having now closed one chapter and opened another. For thirteen years, Western countries including NATO and the United States as well as the GCC and Israel, have funded, armed, trained, and directed terrorist forces of overwhelmingly foreign elements (and some Syrians) in order to overthrow the Assad government in Syria. In the course of that plot, Western media outlets demonized Assad and the Syrian Army as the epitome of evil. Every single person killed was the fault of Assad and, if you listened to Western media, you might easily be convinced Assad’s only goal was to kill every single Syrian residing in the country.
The terrorists, by contrast, despite voluminous accounts of atrocities, wholesale slaughter, beheadings, rapes, and torture, were “freedom fighters,” “peaceful protesters,” “rebels,” and the “Syrian opposition.” They never killed anyone except in self-defense and only wanted freedom and prosperity for all.
This was the mainstream media account from Western countries but it wasn’t at all the truth.
Over those 13 years, the alternative media revealed and, in some instances, even forced the mainstream media to reveal, the level of horror these terrorists inflicted upon the Syrian people. In fact, as time went on, the idea that the “opposition” was anything but a ruthless gaggle of religious extremists became something western governments were less and less able to peddle successfully. But they gave it a good college try. That is, in between the moments where they admitted the terrorist nature of the “opposition” in order to justify bombing various targets in Syria.
During the course of this 13 year war, however, the alternative media was successfully purged from the scene due to changes in online search algorithms (reducing visibility), massive purging on social media platforms, and a campaign labeling anyone countering the State Department nonsense as “disinformation,” or “malinformation.” As a result, MSM was largely allowed to continue peddling its propaganda with little challenge and only those who were savvy enough to discover new media outlets during the short window of competitive alternative press were able to obtain a different view.
Now, Assad has fallen. The “opposition” has won, though largely as a result of some shadowy international deal whose details we are still not sure of.
Thus, the historical cleanup begins. Terrorist forces are now opening the prisons, coercing stories from witnesses and victims, and reporting outright falsehoods that are being peddled back to the Western world through their mainstream media outlets as proof that the original claims were indeed true. Indeed, they are claiming that Assad’s crimes are even worse than what they reported early on.
One need only look at the recent headlines in mainstream media outlets to see that the cleanup effort is in full swing.
Syrian rebels seize vast haul of banned drug Captagon, country’s largest export
Syrians gather at Damascus mosque for first Friday prayers since fall of Assad
Damascus street erupts in celebration as Syrians mark end of Assad dynasty
‘The army just ran away’: how Bashar al-Assad lost his brutal grip on Syria
Most of these are headlines from The Guardian but they are similar to every other mainstream outlets publishing the same kinds of stories.
It’s true that some Syrians did hate Assad and also supported terrorist forces. As I traveled all over the country between two trips to Syria in 2017 and 2019, however, I found very few. The isolated several I did find were actual members of the “opposition” forces, not civilians.
The overwhelming majority of Syrians I spoke to supported keeping Assad in power not because he was a good man or because they liked his policies or his methods of ruling the country at all, but because the alternative was the destruction of their country and hell on earth. To be fair, Assad and his family’s corruption were legendary. Syria was a police state and, yes, the Syrian government did arbitrarily arrest civilians and torture them as a matter of course. But it wasn’t a President or a personality Syrians supported but a functioning, religiously plural, independent country. Most Syrians didn’t want Iran or Russia, for that matter, involved in the governance or defense of their country but the alternative was defeat to other foreign powers who had even less concern for the welfare of the Syrian people and who wanted to replace the authoritarian Presidency with a religiously fanatical tyrant, provided with the best beheading knives Western tax money could buy. Many Syrians would have liked to see a different President, elected by them and focused entirely on the preservation and prosperity of Syria, but they were never given that option by any of the interested parties and, between those parties, the choice was easy.
But now the rewriting of history has begun and we are to be told that Syrians are rejoicing at the newfound terrorist leader taking the throne. But what else are they to do? Protest? Western white liberals, lounging about in the comfortable West, have no understanding that protesting authority often brings the worst of consequences for the protesters.
While there is no doubt a minority celebrating the fall of Assad, there is always a minority in any country willing to celebrate the fall of something, despite the fact that what will be built on the ashes may not be any better and, in fact, may be much worse. Does anyone remember the videos of Iraqis celebrating the arrival of the Americans? Does anyone remember how it turned out?
We will now be told that the “opposition” forces are confiscating Captagon, the very same drug they used for years, provided by foreign governments, to numb and intoxicate their doomed fighters on the front line. [1] A quick online search, however, will reveal countless articles from mainstream sources alleging that the Syrian government, under Assad's rule, were manufacturing Captagon for the military at an industrial scale. It's as if the reports of jihadists using the drug never existed.
It’s all a big party in Syria, according to the Western media. The new government were never terrorists. Assad killed everyone and the “rebels” killed no one. The Syrian people aren’t suffering anymore. It’s peaceful and everyone’s bellies are full. You might as well just forget about them.
Those of us who covered and wrote about this war for 13 years will be labeled conspiracy theorists and accused of, ironically, attempting to “rewrite history.” It’s all very Orwellian and, quite frankly, predictable.
Syria is now led by an outright terrorist, complete with an army of terrorists under his command. Another option, now becoming more possible by the minute, if some reports of clashes are to be confirmed, is that the country will sink into a bloody civil war, similar to the Lebanese Civil War where various religious sects and ethnicities simply slaughter each other for a decade or so until foreign powers intervene to create another impotent government or several micro states based upon religion or ethnicity, a plan that was drawn up and promoted years ago by Western pro-war think tanks.
Any hopes that Syria, by virtue of Assad’s departure, will at least see Western sanctions lifted and an end to violence, is ebbing quickly with each passing day.
[1] Gidda, Mirren. “Drugs In War: What Is Captagaon, The ‘Jihad Pill’ Used By Islamic State Militants?” Newsweek Magazine. May 12, 2017. https://www.newsweek.com/drugs-captagon-islamic-state-jihad-war-amphetamines-saudi-arabia-608233
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