Lately I have noticed a disturbing trend among the “liberal” crowd – increasing support for the notion that “we” need to “do something” about the violence in Syria. These are people who might consider themselves anti-war, or at least anti-war-of-aggression, but after being spoon-fed heaping doses of Syria propaganda by the Mass Media they are convinced that somewhere out there an evil dictator needs to be stopped, preferably by a Coalition of the Willing wrapped up in a UN resolution.
I’ve seen this viagra kind of Liberal Sleepwalk before. When you are drugged out on lies and misinformation suddenly the world takes on a very black-and-white view where we are the “good guys” destined to protect the poor and innocent from the evil machinations of the “bad guys”, usually a “regime” of some sorts. You can tell someone is the bad guy when a news article refers to them as a “regime” instead of a “government”. The same people who abhor the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan exhibited this same sleep walk in the build up to those wars, hungrily chowing down on lies about weapons of mass destruction, global terror conspiracies and dreams of democracy.
They were the same people that applauded a UN resolution on Libya that amounted to nothing more than a free-pass for NATO to bomb and destroy a mostly defenseless country so that a small band of Western-Armed rebels could seize control of the country through a violent insurrection.
The main problem with this liberal mindset is an inability to understand that the news they ingest is laced with a biased agenda and in many cases, based on lies. They don’t grasp that organizations like NPR and CNN have a vested interest in turning the public against the government of Syria, of sympathizing with another small band of western-armed violent rebels. They’ve been caught up in the Western Propaganda machine.
It is times like these when critical thinking becomes so important. NPR might tell you where and how the Syrian army is fighting insurgents, but it won’t tell you why. It won’t spend much time investigating where these rebels are getting their weapons, what crimes or acts of violence they may be committing, or who may be secretly supporting and directing them in the background.
They certainly don’t want you to know that the CIA is using taxpayer money to hire mercenaries working with Israel and Qatar to arm the “rebels” and foment unrest. This kind of useful information might shed light on why there is so much violence happening in Syria, and the government’s interest to stop
the insurgents quickly before NATO or the UN has a chance to justify a horrific bombing campaign across the entire country in the name of “protecting” the Syrian people.
I also don’t believe they care about the people of Syria, or they would think twice before proscribing Western intervention to solve their problems. The Guardian UK has a very black-and-white image too of what “saftey” and “protection” entails for the citizens of Syria. It looks a lot like this. For people who love peace so much Liberals sure are eager to inflict the worst and most brutal forms of violence on whomever NPR sets their targets on.