AntiWar's Apparent Editorial Shift on Syrian Coverage

by Scott Creighton

Justin Raimondo gets it right on Syria. Is he making an editorial policy statement, setting a new tone for his website when it comes to coverage of the Syrian destabilization campaign? Is it a reaction to negative comments posted on his website and blow-back from an article and discussion posted here? Are they trying to be more “anti-war” or just doing a little damage control? Inquiring minds want to know.

The other day I wrote a scathing review of the job AntiWar has been doing covering Syria. I and several readers here were remarking about how often one of their writers, Jason Ditz, would directly quote or use propaganda from “activists say” sources often representing those unsupported reports as facts.

I got into a rather lengthy discussion with one of AntiWar’s research editors, Thomas L. Knapp. It started when a reader here, Chris, linked to the article over at AntiWar (you can read the exchange starting here)

Knapp didn’t have much of an answer to the issues we brought up and he kept trying to smooth over the ripples of dissent as best he could till I found an article written by him in which he made various claims including “Does Bashar al-Assad deserve to be overthrown? Certainly.” and “In what significant respect is Assad different from Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Bahrain’s Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Abdullahs of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Yemen’s Saleh, the Shah of Iran…”

I even pointed out that while we were having this discussion, another article appeared at AntiWar pushing even more unsupported anti-Assad spin and I quoted it.

“Asked about the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has committed atrocities throughout the brewing civil war, Annan said he doubted Syrians would “select people with blood on their hands” to lead them” John Glaser

It’s NOT a “civil war” and Assad has NOT “committed atrocities”… but, there it was, yet another example of AntiWar ginning up support for Hillary Clinton’s regime change agenda.

What became clear as the thread wound round and round was that Mr. Knapp was fully aware of the not so subtle slant AntiWar was putting on the Syrian destabilization campaign and he was angered that a certain percentage of their readership recognized it for what it was.

The discussion with Mr. Knapp went on for sometime until, it appears, I posted this comment. Have not heard back from Knapp since.

“Would someone please email this whole thread to Raimondo? I hate to think this guy is the best defense “Anti”War has. Perhaps Raimondo can clue us in to why not so subtle propaganda is now being spoon fed to his readers” SC

Now, I am certainly not vain enough to think that something written here would have influenced an editorial change of direction over at AntiWar, but it seems they have taken a slightly different approach to the destabilization campaign in Syria. More than likely the gist of our argument keeps showing up in the comments sections over there, or Justin is getting some critical emails from his regular readers.

But in the spirit of complete honesty, I need to point out a good article recently written by Raimondo himself and then point out a new article by Glaser, the guy who I quoted earlier.

(excerpt)

Tall Tales in Tremseh

Another day, another fake Syrian atrocity

… The title of the Times story — “Details of a Battle Challenge Reports of a Syrian Massacre” — succinctly encapsulates the issue at hand: the Syrian government is engaged in a battle with armed opponents. The propaganda of the rebels, freely broadcast by the US government and its allies, seeks to depict every act of self-defense on the part of the regime as an atrocity. Our complicit media, which routinely takes the word of “activists” as gospel, is an essential element in establishing the right narrative, one that will justify intervention by the Western powers under the guise of the UN.

The real meaning of this propaganda campaign is clear enough: nations targeted for regime change that dare mount a military defense are engaging in “war crimes.” This is the first law of the New World Order, one that Bashar al-Assad and his like defy at their peril….” Raimondo

The crux of the article is pretty straight-forward: the destabilization campaign is the work of the Western NATO backed countries and the media is complicit for simply regurgitating the reports of the “activists”. Furthermore he goes on, rightly, to say that the message being sent to other leaders is quite clear, do not defy the New World Order.

In one of today’s articles, John Glaser seems to be taking a more even-handed approach to the news out of Syria.

I don’t know what precipitated this apparent shift in AntiWar’s editorial leanings with regard to the Syrian destabilization campaign, but for the most part I am glad to see more accurate information being presented to their readers without the little sound-bite disinfo slogans being tossed in for good measure.

Let’s hope they stick with this new editorial policy shift and don’t resort back to their old ways in future articles about Sudan or Iran or even Russia (when Hillary finally gets around to that little project)

Good to see Raimondo setting the standard over at AntiWar (let’s face it, that is clearly what he was doing) and making AntiWar, well, anti-war.

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