Australian ABC needs to widen sources on Syria - letter to producer

Dear Marina,

As producer of the segment this morning about the current campaign to liberate Eastern Ghouta from its terrorist besiegers, I would like to offer this alternative perspective on what is actually happening in Syria. I understand only too well that all Western governments, NGOs and UN organisations, including Amnesty International, speak with one voice, but they still present the situation in Damascus and its suburbs in completely misleading and false terms.

While these voices talk of a “humanitarian disaster”, and make many claims regarding deaths of children and attacks on “hospitals” and “Syrian civil defence”, their sources are not in any way trustworthy.

The armed groups who have occupied Damascus eastern suburbs since 2012, holding the local population under siege, are the very same groups who staged the so-called Sarin attack in Ghouta in 2013, distributing videos of kidnapped children they had themselves gassed through the sympathetic media networks supporting the Syrian insurgency.

Regardless of whether we believe this in the West, or dismiss it as propaganda from “Assad apologists” or “Kremlin Stooges”, the fact remains that the vast majority of Syrian citizens know it to be the case, along with most Russians, Iranians and Lebanese. Their media do not present videos produced by the “White Helmets” as credible evidence of crimes by the Syrian Army, but as evidence of the criminals behind the White Helmets organisation in Westminster and Washington.

And while our media and leaders just dismiss Russian opinion and expertise as invalid, and portray Russia’s role at the UN as criminal, it is only the media who actually believe this. There would not be an intelligence agency in the US/UK/French/Israeli/Saudi network who does NOT know the truth of what their countries are trying to do to Syria, which makes their crime in fomenting and sponsoring the war on Syria truly the crime of the century.

People close to Syria and Russia, including myself, have been trying to bring the truth to the attention of the media here for the last seven years, as it was apparent within weeks of the so-called uprising that it was not genuine and not supported by Syrians.

There are now many commentators and journalists presenting the truth in alternative internet sites in the West, and in public broadcasters in the ‘non-West’ such as on RT, Al Mayadeen, Press TV and Xinhua.net, and at some point the Western mainstream is going to have to come to terms with this.

But things don’t look good. Many people fear that a “World War” is imminent, because of the US and Israeli attacks on Syria, and the NATO moves in Ukraine. Given the US recent talk of using tactical nuclear strikes against conventional attacks, such a conflict will rapidly become an inferno.

We have reached a crisis point, but it will not be solved by UN meetings calling for ceasefires, or Amnesty calling out the alleged war crimes of America’s enemies. What must be called out is OUR OWN direct sponsorship of terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, including IS, to achieve our global strategic objectives.
These objectives have absolutely nothing to do with “democracy and freedom” or “responsibility to protect”, as the war on Syria so amply demonstrates. This war would have been finished in 2013 had the West’s media organisations done their job, and exposed the sponsors of the Sarin attack – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the US.
It is these countries, including all their partners – Australia, UK, France, Qatar, UAE, who hold responsibility for the half million deaths in Syria, and the swath of destruction across the region, NOT the Syrian government, nor its allies, Hezbollah, Russia and Iran and Iraq.

Veteran correspondent Robert Fisk is one journalist who has learnt the lesson that the mainstream needs to learn, and wrote this particularly accurate article about the campaign on Ghouta yesterday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ghouta-siege-syria-death-toll-civilians-armed-attack-rebel-aleppo-latest-a8221086.html

I would like to think that all at the ABC read this and think about it, as they – and probably quite innocently – shield the real criminals from the public’s view. Fisk used to regularly get interviews – with Fran Kelly amongst many others – on the ABC, perhaps until he started showing sympathy towards the Syrian army. It is urgent that his view is now shared with your audience again, along with that of many other investigative journalists and commentators who write in the alternative press, and are frequently interviewed on its programs.

I hope you can bring this to the attention of your colleagues, and senior staff.

I welcome your response.

kind regards,

David Macilwain,
Sandy Creek, Victoria, 3695