The arrival of new media, like
The Duran and so many others, are helping to educate a public increasingly sick
and tired of illegal war.
By Adam Garrie
The Duran
The Duran
In many ways, George Bush and Tony Blair’s
war on Iraq feels like yesterday. Colin Powell’s jewel case of lies before the
UN, Tony Blair’s Parliamentary debate during which he listened neither to
reason nor to warnings, the ‘shock, and awe’ of bombs being dropped on Iraq’s
great cities, Bush’s ‘mission accomplished’ farce and the war which continued
for years after, one which still is ongoing; all of it feels surreally fresh.
Almost 14 years later, the lessons of Iraq
are well known: illegally invade a sovereign country which threatens no one and
expect hell, instability, blood, torture and terror as a consequence. The
lessons were not remembered by Hillary Clinton who along with David Cameron and
Nicholas Sarkozy dragged a hesitant Barack Obama into a war in Libya, a war
whose outcome is even more disastrous than the war in Iraq.
The wider public, however, have learned the
lessons. Both in Europe and in America, the general public are fed up of war.
Some are too naïve or too arrogant to openly associate themselves with those of
us who warned of the dangers a war on Iraq would unleash. But they too have
learned the lessons. It is one of the reasons Donald Trump continually states
his opposition to the war in Iraq which then Senator Hillary Clinton voted for.
This is why the mainstream media are in
fits of hysterics trying to do the bidding of their war monger masters in
attempting to convince the public to support doing to Assad what was illegally
done to Saddam and Gaddafi.Since 2003 not only have the lessons of Iraq been
instructive to erstwhile war supporters in the west, the media landscape has
also changed significantly. Television channels like RT did not exist in 2003
but now they present rational claims from not just the west but around the
world, against the calls for war.
In hindsight, the internet had not fully
blossomed by 2003, much though it felt that it had done at the time. Today many
news and analysis websites put the failing newspapers to shame. They are an
instantaneous source of valuable information.
Wikileaks did not exist in 2003, but since
its inception in 2006, it has blown the lid on the sadistic things governments
do, how they do them and the sinister motives behind them. One cannot dismiss
oppositional viewpoints as conspiratorial when one reads the documents which
speak the truth in black and white.
But most importantly yet surprisingly least
talked about, is the fact that Syrians have the internet, they have cameras,
they have websites and they are using them. In 2003, the western media
attempted to demonize the proud and highly educated Iraqi people either as
gangs of Saddamite stooges or as opposed unpatriotic invalids without minds.
Because of the poor education system in countries like America, many believed
this without ‘questioning more’.
Today, though, no matter what the
mainstream media say, the voices of the Syrian people cannot be drowned out.
Indeed, The Duran frequently publishes
pieces by Afra’a
Dagher, an actual Syrian as opposed to Samantha Power who pretends
to speak for Syrians against their wishes. There are videos on youtube,
statements in English from Syrian journalists, experts, and the legitimate
government. This are being read and circulated on social media. The mainstream
media monopoly is over.
It is often viewed as a platitude to say
that ideas and the dissemination of ideas can change the world. But the
aggregate effect of opposition media like RT, Wikileaks, online expert opinion
and analysis and the power of social media may well have saved Syria from the
fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya.