Uh-huh. Sure. And where have I heard all this kind of hoo-hah before? The great western media propaganda machine rolls on.

Its latest target: regime change in Syria, and another takeover by western corporates of a country they don't yet fully control. We're being played like violins by our corporate-controlled media, whose purpose is to create overall impressions and manufacture consent.

Here's Eric Margolis' latest column...a breath of balance and reason that is all too rarely heard in our compliant media:

THE DANGEROUS MESS IN SYRIA GROWS MURKIER

Syria's murky, multi-level conflict continues to grow worse. So does public confusion here in the west as the US, British and some European media keep depicting Syria's civil war as a simple passion play pitting the evil Asad regime in Damascus against mostly unarmed democratic protestors.

We saw this same one-dimensional, deceptive reporting recently in Libya that was designed to support foreign intervention. It's as incomplete today about Syria as it was in Libya which, by the way, is turning into a dangerous mess.

My assessment based on reliable primary sources in Washington, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon:

Support for the Asad family's Ba'ath regime, now in power for 41 years, is clearly slipping. But important sections of the armed forces, the 17 intelligence and security agencies, the powerful Alawai minority, most Syrian Christians, tribal elements and much of the commercial middle and upper class still back the Asad's. In spite of intense western efforts to overthrow him, Bashar Asad, a mild-mannered former eye specialist, is still hanging on.

The US, Britain, France, and some conservative Arab allies have funded and armed the Syrian rebellion from its start a year ago. In fact, the US has been funding anti-Asad groups since the mid 1990's. Arms and munitions are said to be flowing to Syria's rebels through Jordan and Lebanon. Extreme rightwing groups in Lebanon, funded by western and Arab powers and Israel, are playing a key role in infiltrating gunmen and arms into northern Syria.

The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood has once again risen against the Alawi-dominated regime in Damascus. In 1982, this writer was outside the Syrian city of Hama when government forces crushed a Brotherhood uprising, killing an estimated 10,000 people and razing part of the city with heavy artillery.

Enter the jihadis. Recently, small numbers of al-Qaida veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have entered Syria and are using car bombs to try to destabilize the government. Current al-Qaida leader, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, has called for all-out war against the Asad regime.

Interestingly, the US, France and Britain now find themselves in bed with the very jihadist forces they profess to abhor – but, of course, whom they used in Afghanistan in the 1980's and, lately, in Libya.

Add to this dangerous mix growing numbers of local militias in Syria who are battling one another and committing many of the atrocities against civilians, recalling Iraq and Lebanon's bloody civil wars.

Washington's key objective in Syria is to overthrow the Asad regime in order to injure its closest ally, Iran. There is so much anti-Iranian hysteria now in the US, that any blow against the Islamic republic is seen as good. Former US fears of a chaotic, post-Asad Syria are now forgotten in the rush to undermine Iran, by destabilizing Syria. Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain, are baying for war against Syria as President Barack Obama tries to hold back the war hawks.

Israel, whose influence in Washington in this election year is unprecedented, is stoking war fever against Syria and Iran. Israel is delighted that the crises with both nations have eclipsed the issue of Palestine and of Syria's Golan Heights, which were illegally annexed by Israel in 1981. Golan supplies one third of Israel's total water. Israel's objective is to see Syria splintered into feuding cantons like today's Iraq.

France's right wing, led by President Nicholas Sarkozy's UMP party, has long desired to re-establish France's former colonial influence in Lebanon and Syria. The Asad regime in Syria has been a thorn in France's side for four decades, particularly so in Lebanon, which Syria still insists is a historical part of Syria. France hopes to duplicate in Syria its success in stirring up and profiting from the uprising in Libya.

Russia has been defending the Asad regime and is determined not to be outfoxed in Syria by a false "humanitarian" intervention as it was in Libya. China is similarly cautious. But both are slowly lessening their former staunch support of Damascus as seen by last week's UN Security Council call for a new peace plan in Syria.

A cease fire is urgently needed. Syria must stop using heavy weapons in urban areas. But outside powers must also stop supporting violent armed groups that Damascus calls "terrorists." There are no clean hands in Syria.

copyright Eric S. Margolis 2012

*****


And that, folks, covers all the bases. It tells you what most of our corporate media is not telling you. Western governments don't give a tinker's damn about civilian casualties in Syria. They couldn't care less if women and children and innocents die. Nor could they care less about establishing a democracy there. They are just as bad as Mr Asad, if not worse...and they are far more dangerous to the world than Mr Asad. What they have in mind is overthrowing another independent government that they don't yet dominate (one of the few left), taking over whatever resources they can in Syria, destroying it as an effective political power, and exploiting the place for all it's worth, and thus positioning themselves better to hurt Iran. They have been illegally and secretly arming and fomenting a civil war in Syria, just as they did previously in Lybia. Mr Asad is just a PR excuse for war...a "face" to hate, as Khadafi was before him, and as Saddam was before him. If the West succeeds in overthrowing Asad, the end result will be that the Syrian people and the Syrian nation will be EVEN worse off in a short while than they were under the Asad regime. MUCH worse off, in fact. Their nation will be fragmented and to all intents, destroyed. Their public institutions will be gutted and sold off to western corporates at bargain basement prices. The hundreds of thousands of people once employed in their public institutions will mostly lose their jobs. Foreign contractors will come in to profit off "reconstruction". This happens everywhere that the Western powers go when they bring down a noncompliant Third World government that wouldn't do things their way.

Just like what happened to Iraq since 2003. Just like what's happening in Lybia now.

You're being played like violins by your corporate news media, using standard emotional reaction techniques that have been employed again and again in your media. They will keep getting you all excited about the Syrian civilian casualties and victims that their corporate bosses and your politicians couldn't care less about. This struggle is NOT about helping ANY Syrian civilians. And it won't help any Syrian civilians. It will hurt them. Just like in Iraq. Just like in Lybia.

Same old game. Different playing field. We're living within great imperial powers folks, and they lie to us every single day about what they are really doing. And they kill people in the Third World. For more money, resources, and power. Asad is nothing more than a superficial excuse. If it wasn't him, it would be some other handy "face" for you to focus on. He is being used as a marketing tool, just as Khadafi and Saddam were. And you fall for it, don't you?

Nope, I'm not gonna argue with you about it.

That would just eat up my time uselessly and achieve absolutely nothing. I'm just telling you about it ONCE, and that's it. Carry on fantasizing about the latest great "humanitarian" crusade of the New World Order.