U.S. media accounts of the fall of the Assad dynasty in Syria failed to disclose that the U.S. had engaged in a thirteen-year-long operation that started with the Arab Spring and continued with the launching of Operation Timber Sycamore by the Obama administration, the largest covert operation...
How do you sell the idea of a moderate rebellion without alienating the extremists who will do the actual fighting?
When foreign powers started supporting armed groups to overthrow the Ba’athist government in Syria after 2011, they were unsure about who could, or should, take...
Dirty war in Syria continues as media attention focuses elsewhere
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Israel secretly coordinates with the U.S, on many of the airstrikes it carries out in eastern Syria near the al-Tanf military base, a U.S. outpost near the Syria-Jordan border.
Since 2017, the Israeli Air...
Recipient of the Serena Shim Award for uncompromised integrity in journalism, Vanessa Beeley gained an excellent reputation for first-hand reporting during the Syrian War (2011-2024) that challenged dominant media narratives.
In December 2024, Beeley was forced to flee Syria after the overthrow of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who was replaced...
On Friday July 9 the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to a conditional one-year extension of the Turkey/Syria border crossing at Bab al Hawa. As part of the agreement, the UN Secretary General needs to report regularly on what is happening with the aid going into the Al Qaeda dominated...
United States warmakers have become so skilled at propaganda that not only can they wage a war of aggression without arousing protest; they can also compel liberals to denounce peace activists using language reminiscent of the McCarthy era.
Take the case of Syria. The people and groups one would normally...
In late June, Syrians experienced the worst attack on a Christian church since 1860
On June 29, 2025, I attended a church service at St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. St. Moses is an Antiochian church, also known as the Church of St. Peter, and harkens...
At the end of November, groups aligned with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) or the “Levant Liberation Committee” and previously known as the Al-Nusra Front, launched significant attacks on the Syrian government in the Idlib and Aleppo regions, taking part of the city of Aleppo. The Syrian Arab Army has mobilized to push back against HTS...
Public relations machine transformed hard-line jihadists—whom Hillary Clinton famously called “hard men with guns”—into valiant freedom fighters in the eyes of the U.S.-UK public
Imagine if an armed rebellion took place in the United States against the federal, state and local governments.
Given 21st century...
It may be no surprise that the “mainstream” corporate news media have turned into advertising agencies for U.S. government policy. But it still surprises that what the CIA called a compatible left—those on the left it deemed compatible with maintaining imperialist rule—celebrates another successful U.S. “regime change,” this time,...
