This is a typical propaganda piece on Syria:
1) As Nicholas Noe wrote on Facebook, the Times typically cites the same people and experts (all one side) who were wrong on Syria all along.
2) When Bashshar's forces advance, it is considered a defeat for him, and when the rebels retreat, it is also considered a win for them. So they really can never lose.
3) When Syrian rebels retreat, there is an attempt to justify their defeat even on humanitarian grounds: 'The rebels have a dilemma: go on fighting and allow people to die of starvation or from bombings, or agree to lay down their weapons so the Syrian government". Wait: so if the rebels are retreating out of concern for the plight of the rebels, why did not they leave much earlier sparking the civilians the suffering that they are now using as a pretext for their retreat? Notice in all articles about East Aleppo in Western media, there is a deliberate attempt at obfuscation by never identifying those "rebels" thereby leaving the reader with a romanticized image when in reality those are Nusrah and allies and their ilk. There are no "secular" or "democratic" forces in East Aleppo. That is a fact.
4) This is simply untrue: "“There are at least as many Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi-Iranian militia fighters as there are soldiers born in Syria". The number of Syrians fighting along the side of the regime in the battles around and inside Aleppo are far more than the non-Syrian fighters. But this has been a consistent fallacy of Western reporting on Syria all along: that there are no Syrians who support the regime. This fallacy explains a lot about the endurance of the repressive regime and the reason why all predictions by rebel cheerleaders have been consistently wrong. This is like when Western correspondents in Beirut were shocked to see thousands of Syrians in Lebanon voting for Bashshar for presidents two years ago. Do you remember that? And then they went overtime to find various bogus justifications to explain the phenomenon (in fact, many in March 14 at the time, called for the expulsion of Syrians having found out that many supported the regime).
5) Look at this passage: what on earth is "an activist" in East Aleppo? What do they activate about? What are their activities? who are you fooling with this trashy unprofessional journalism? And since you are exchanging messages with those people, 1) how can you tell if they are civilians or fighters? 2) how on earth do you obtain their contact information? is that from the published Directory of Syrian Activists through Syria? "The desperate words used by political activists, civilians and fighters interviewed on WhatsApp, a phone and messaging service, from inside places now being bombed repeatedly suggest the rebel resistance may be nearing its limit — especially in Aleppo."
PS I asked a Western correspondent in the Middle East about the absurd claim by Ambassador Ford above, and he wrote to me: "what a fucking idiot, there are about 50,000 syrians in aleppo, whether army, militias, police, security etc and i dont think there are more than 7,000 iraqis and a couple of thousand other non-syrians in syria total. but in some places the non-syrians maybe play a greater role as shock troops, special forces etc. but the aleppo city battle is mainly being fought by syrians and ford is crazy".
1) As Nicholas Noe wrote on Facebook, the Times typically cites the same people and experts (all one side) who were wrong on Syria all along.
2) When Bashshar's forces advance, it is considered a defeat for him, and when the rebels retreat, it is also considered a win for them. So they really can never lose.
3) When Syrian rebels retreat, there is an attempt to justify their defeat even on humanitarian grounds: 'The rebels have a dilemma: go on fighting and allow people to die of starvation or from bombings, or agree to lay down their weapons so the Syrian government". Wait: so if the rebels are retreating out of concern for the plight of the rebels, why did not they leave much earlier sparking the civilians the suffering that they are now using as a pretext for their retreat? Notice in all articles about East Aleppo in Western media, there is a deliberate attempt at obfuscation by never identifying those "rebels" thereby leaving the reader with a romanticized image when in reality those are Nusrah and allies and their ilk. There are no "secular" or "democratic" forces in East Aleppo. That is a fact.
4) This is simply untrue: "“There are at least as many Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi-Iranian militia fighters as there are soldiers born in Syria". The number of Syrians fighting along the side of the regime in the battles around and inside Aleppo are far more than the non-Syrian fighters. But this has been a consistent fallacy of Western reporting on Syria all along: that there are no Syrians who support the regime. This fallacy explains a lot about the endurance of the repressive regime and the reason why all predictions by rebel cheerleaders have been consistently wrong. This is like when Western correspondents in Beirut were shocked to see thousands of Syrians in Lebanon voting for Bashshar for presidents two years ago. Do you remember that? And then they went overtime to find various bogus justifications to explain the phenomenon (in fact, many in March 14 at the time, called for the expulsion of Syrians having found out that many supported the regime).
5) Look at this passage: what on earth is "an activist" in East Aleppo? What do they activate about? What are their activities? who are you fooling with this trashy unprofessional journalism? And since you are exchanging messages with those people, 1) how can you tell if they are civilians or fighters? 2) how on earth do you obtain their contact information? is that from the published Directory of Syrian Activists through Syria? "The desperate words used by political activists, civilians and fighters interviewed on WhatsApp, a phone and messaging service, from inside places now being bombed repeatedly suggest the rebel resistance may be nearing its limit — especially in Aleppo."
PS I asked a Western correspondent in the Middle East about the absurd claim by Ambassador Ford above, and he wrote to me: "what a fucking idiot, there are about 50,000 syrians in aleppo, whether army, militias, police, security etc and i dont think there are more than 7,000 iraqis and a couple of thousand other non-syrians in syria total. but in some places the non-syrians maybe play a greater role as shock troops, special forces etc. but the aleppo city battle is mainly being fought by syrians and ford is crazy".
