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...
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...
Framed as sectarian war, the Syrian genocide and assaults on Gaza and Yemen are part of a long-standing UK-U.S.-Israeli-Western strategy to dominate the region via the erasure of the Axis of Resistance. Syria’s massacres can be defined by nothing less than genocide, having exceeded the slaughter of more than 10,000 dead...
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...
Alawites to the grave; Christians to Beirut.-- War slogan of anti-Assad militants As this article was written, Syria experienced the worst days of violence since Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—formerly the al-Nusra Front of al-Qaeda—took power from President Bashar al-Assad. Friday, March 7, 2025, is the date it may be said a...
In the past few months, Grayzone journalist Aaron Maté has interviewed two former ambassadors to Syria: former UK Ambassador Peter Ford and former U.S. Ambassador Robert S. Ford. The two ambassadors have a common surname but very different perspectives...
As It Did with Castro in Cuba and Noriega in Panama, the “Mighty Wurlitzer” of U.S. Propaganda Defused Antiwar Sentiment by Painting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a Brutal Animal Who Had to Be Removed. In 1991, famed MIT linguist Noam Chomsky published a political pamphlet called Media Control: The...
Part of a pattern of media omissions and deception in its coverage of Syria On December 8, 2024, Syria’s long-standing ruler Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia after being deposed by Sunni militia forces in what New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman called the “biggest…most game-changing event in the Middle...
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 March 4, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, made a surprise visit to U.S. troops stationed in northeast Syria to the chagrin of the Syrian government, which said the visit was “illegal" and a “flagrant violation of the country’s sovereignty.” The Syrian Foreign Ministry said...