“It’s clear enough that the Sunni alliance led by Saudia Arabia and Qatar has ensured that the insurgency inside Syria will countenance no ceasefire offers; and that the propaganda machine … will continue a non-stop flow of mendacious bulletins eagerly seized upon by the western press,” writes ALEXANDER COCKBURN, at Counterpunch.

In “Murder on her Mind,” I described our foreign policy as an “‘angels and demons’ Disney production, starring the prototypical evil dictator who was killing his noble people,” until, in the case of Libya, “three amazon warriors—high on estrogen-driven paternalism—rode to the rescue.” The three Gorgon sisters (Medusa’s posse) included Samantha Power (special assistant to the president and member of his National Security Council), UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

AISLING BYRNE, also of Couterpunch, sees a similar pattern play out in Syria. “Arguably, the most important component in this struggle for the ‘strategic prize’, he writes, “has been the deliberate construction of a largely false narrative that pits unarmed democracy demonstrators being killed in their hundreds and thousands as they protest peacefully against an oppressive, violent regime, a ‘killing machine’ led by the ‘monster’ Assad,” except that where BYRNE sees a plan, I see only hubris and the heights of stupidity.

Iraq, Libya and, now Syria, all were relatively secular and stable compared to where they are headed with the aid of NATO, the US and the Arab League (and their propaganda arm, Al Jazeera). Just imagine, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are now on the same side–and whooping it up–for the Arab League and Al Jazeera!

MORE from AISLING BYRNE:

“Whereas in Libya, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) claimed it had “no confirmed reports of civilian casualties” because, as the New York Times wrote recently, “the alliance had created its own definition for ‘confirmed’: only a death that NATO itself investigated and corroborated could be called confirmed”. “But because the alliance declined to investigate allegations,” the Times wrote, “its casualty tally by definition could not budge – from zero”.In Syria, we see the exact opposite: the majority of Western mainstream media outlets, along with the media of the US’s allies in the region, particularly al-Jazeera and the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV channels, are effectively collaborating with the “regime change” narrative and agenda with a near-complete lack of questioning or investigation of statistics and information put out by organizations and media outlets that are either funded or owned by the US/European/Gulf alliance – the very same countries instigating the regime change project in the first place.
Claims of “massacres”, “campaigns of rape targeting women and girls in predominantly Sunni towns” ”torture” and even “child-rape” are reported by the international press based largely on two sources – the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights and the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCCs) – with minimal additional checking or verification.
Hiding behind the rubric – “we are not able to verify these statistics” – the lack of integrity in reporting by the Western mainstream media has been starkly apparent since the onset of events in Syria. A decade after the Iraq war, it would seem that no lessons from 2003 – from the demonization of Saddam Hussein and his purported weapons of mass destruction – have been learnt.

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region.
The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” – continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.
A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.
The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show, some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an “enemy” state.

UPDATE I (Feb. 16): MBS (below): Start using your head, or critical faculties. Had you been reading this site with any consistency over the last decade, you’d know that both members of “The Big Government Party” adhere to the neo-liberal or neoconservative ideology. The Counterpunch folks have always been onto—and upfront about—that aspect of the American foreign policy, as have I. Start reading and researching, sir. Times are too dire for you to continue to maintain the delusions of the two-party bifurcation. Certainly on matters of foreign policy, the two parties practically merge.

UPDATE II (Feb. 17): “The US spy chief has told the Congress President Bashar Al-Assad is fighting against Al-Qaeda of Iraq. James Clapper is the first top US official to acknowledge US might indirectly support insurgents. … He added that Syrian opposition groups, fighting against the existing regime of President al-Assad may have been infiltrated by Al-Qaida. ‘However likely without their knowledge,’ he said.” (RT)

Didn’t this happen in Libya, just the other day? Of course not. America would never be so stupid as to repeat mistakes.

In the face of such unadulterated idiocy, conspiracy becomes a viable explanation.