Sunday, January 05, 2014

So who are the heroes for Western media in Syria now?

The picture gets murkier by the hour.  For a while, it was convenient for the Western media to produce the narrative that the Free Syrian Army, especially under the leadership of General Doctor Engineer, Salim Idriss, is the liberal, secular, feminist, Voltairian segment of the Syrian armed opposition.  But when Idriss fled for his life to Qatar (and then to Turkey) an alternative narrative was needed.  They can no more invoke the story of the FSA when it has become quite marginal.  So now there are new heroes:  " The rebels call themselves the Mujahedeen Army, and they resent what they see as the affiliate’s hijacking of their struggle, now nearly three years old, to depose President Bashar al-Assad. "  So the Mujahedeen Army will now be presented as the new secular, liberal, and feminist element of the Syrian armed opposition that is worthy of Western support.  Oh, and then there is the secular Islamic Front:  "Another alliance of rebels, called the Islamic Front, issued a statement denouncing what it called a series of crimes committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria."  No mention in those accounts that some of the crimes of flogging, killing, and kidnapping were committed by those same groups who--in the Western media narrative--are now presented as being appalled by the fanaticism of the ISIS.