by
Mark Campey
Over
200 people from all over the country crammed into a makeshift venue in north
Leeds last week to hear six key speakers talk about the way the mainstream
media has become corrupt. The meeting had originally been arranged for Leeds
City Museum but after an objection by ‘Leeds Friends of Syria’ (a reactionary
anti-Assad group) Leeds City council banned the use of all public venues from
being used to host this meeting. It was clear that those in power and the mainstream
media (MSM) did not want this meeting to go ahead.
The final venue was only announced the night the meeting took
place. An Islamic centre kindly offered to host the meeting organised by Frome
Stop War, an independent anti-war group that is not part of the bi-partisan
Stop the War coalition.
Professor Piers Robinson of Sheffield
University, who opened the discussion, posed the question of what the role of
the media should be in society in terms of providing truthful and factual
information rather than propaganda. He stated that there was now manipulation,
lying and distortion of information with the aim of misdirection along with
coercion. He highlighted the Chilcott inquiry which drew attention to the way
the MSM had promoted the government’s regime change policy at the time and the
recommendations he made are being blatantly ignored. He also referred to
‘Timber Sycamore’ a CIA/Saudi operation to fund ‘rebel’ groups within Syria
with the aim of regime change.
Robert Stuart, an independent researcher,
spoke about his investigation of the Panorama
documentary ‘Saving Syria’s children’ that was first broadcast in 2013.
He uncovered irregularities in the reporting
of a supposed napalm attack by the Syrian air force which led to the discovery that
the filmed images of peoples’ injuries were entirely fake. Even the anti-Assad ‘Free
Syrian Army’ admitted as much. One of the medical staff shown in the
documentary, a Dr Ahsan, who has previously been seen with anti-Gaddafi rebels,
is a member of ‘Hand in hand with Syria’ an anti-Assad group. Ahrar al-sham, a
terrorist group affiliated to Al-Nusra and ISIS, actually drove the BBC
journalists around Syria for the making of this programme. Naturally Robert
Stuart asked the question as to whether these journalists were complicit in
some of the atrocities they no doubt witnessed whilst with this group?
Professor Tim Hayward of Edinburgh
University stated that we should expect the media to abide by the law. He
showed a clip from C4 news which showed a girl who had gone to Syria to join
the Islamic terror gangs and was encouraging others to join her. Tim was
gobsmacked when he saw blatant recruitment propaganda by terrorists being
broadcast on mainstream TV. The 2006 Language of Terrorism Act makes it illegal
to aid or promote terrorist activity.
The
‘White Helmets’, a bogus civil defence unit that is just a front for the
terrorists, is funded by US-Aid and the British government. Like many other
people Prof Hayward is dismayed and very concerned about the immorality of
false broadcasting taking place which is why many now eschew MSM in favour of
RT and the many independent media groups sprouting up which tell the truth.
Patrick Henningson is a US journalist and
broadcaster who puts out 21st Century
Wire online. He mentioned how Britain used to be perceived as the gold
standard of western democracy but questioned why this meeting had to be held in
secret if that was true. What were they afraid of?
Patrick travelled to Syria and Iraq last year
and saw first-hand the destruction wrought by the US military. He highlighted
that in US presidential elections the party that garners the most votes is
always the one that opposed wars and foreign intervention. This is what Trump
promised, but like all others before, once in office Trump carries on the same
agenda of world domination.
He talked about the way the massacre of
unarmed Palestinians by Israeli troops was called ‘clashes’ by the MSM. He also
mentioned the supposed launching of 20 missiles from Syria into the Golan
Heights. There is no evidence to support this story.
He mentioned a news report about a Dr
Nott, working at an Al-Nusra controlled hospital, who alleged that the Russians
had hacked into his social media account to get a fix on his location which
allowed them to drop a bunker buster bomb on the hospital. When Patrick visited
the liberated hospital the building had clearly been hit by gun-fire.But it was
still standing and it had not been hit by a bunker buster bomb. Just fake news
like the reports of Syrian Arab Army soldiers raping women during the
liberation of east Aleppo. That lie, circulated by Michael Weiss of CNN, was
fed to him by the ‘Levant Front’, an affiliate of the Al-Nusra gunmen.
He noted that lots of western journalists
were getting into bed with Al-Qaida and Jabat Al-Nusra and calling them
‘rebels’ when they actually are terrorists. He observed the many of the
refugees were now returning to Syria in their thousands now that large areas
had been liberated by the Syrian army and its allies, something the MSM didn’t
want to acknowledge.
Peter Ford, a former British ambassador to
Bahrain and Syria, is now a representative of the UN relief and works agency
for Palestinian refugees. He is also Director of the British Syrian Society. He
started by saying that the MSM was aiding and abetting warmongering using
weapons of mass deception. All the events that occurred in Iraq are being
copied in Syria. We have a supine media in the business of infotainment even
with so-called documentaries. What happened in Raqqa is not being reported.
The
role of MI5’s Andrew Parker is equally troubling. This unelected spymaster is
openly telling politicians who they should be making alliances with.
The Skripal affair was all a bit
suspicious given that the alleged military grade nerve agent that poisoned them only managed to cause severe
tummy troubles. But it served Parker’s anti-Russian agenda very well.
The intelligence supremo wanted to bomb Syria,
under the pretext of the alleged poison gas attack, before allowing the international
inspectors (OPCW) in.
It
was obvious to many that it didn’t make sense for Assad to use such a weapon
when the Syrian army had all but defeated the terrorists. Furthermore, the
sites that were eventually attacked by
NATO had only been inspected and cleared by the OPCW a few months previously.
What is very concerning is that the NATO missile
attack has set a precedent and the terrorists will be planning the next false flag
for Idlib when the Syrian army pushes into that area. But the Syrians and their
allies will not put up with being bombed and humiliated by NATO and its allies
for much longer.
Vanessa Beeley is an investigative
journalist and photographer who has reported from Egypt. Palestine and Syria,
including liberated east Aleppo. John Pilger sent a message to inform the
audience of his admiration for her truthful reporting of events in Syria and
her expose of the White Helmets.
Vanessa
informed us of the funding stream for this bogus group which has received
millions from US-Aid and more recently from the British government. She has
reported that the White Helmets are embedded with Al-Nusra and they only help
their gunmen and provide no assistance to ordinary civilians.
The true Syrian White Helmets were set up
in Syria back in the 1950s and that is the group most Syrians are familiar with
– not these usurpers of the name. She was in Damascus when the last NATO
missile attack took place shattering the calm that had recently been restored
following the clearing of the terrorists holed up in east Ghouta who frequently
shelled parts of the capital.
She mentioned how British support for the
White Helmets and the so called ‘rebel’ groups is actually against UK law as
they are all terrorist groups and there are severe penalties for anyone funding
terrorism in Britain.
She suggested a petition be posted on the
Frome Stop War website for people to sign to highlight this contradiction and
take into account UN General Assembly resolution 2131 (XX) that declares that
“no State shall organise, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate
subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent
overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil strife in
another State.”
The full content
of the speeches at this event can be seen online on YouTube under ‘Media on
trial 2018’ and I fully recommend comrades to view them before they too get
banned.
