Leaks expose massive Western propaganda op in Syria proxy war

Pushback with Aaron Mate

Pushback with Aaron Maté

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4.7 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2020

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

A trove of leaked UK government documents exposes a massive propaganda network used to shape the media narrative during the Syrian proxy war. Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets, ran a cadre of journalists, and whitewashed the jihadist militants armed, trained and supported by the US, UK, Turkey and Gulf monarchies. "Every very single aspect of the [Syrian] opposition was micromanaged by these western government contractors,” says The Grayzone’s Ben Norton. "It's probably the largest propaganda war that's ever been waged in history." Guest: Ben Norton, Assistant Editor of The Grayzone. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/23/syria-leaks-uk-contractors-opposition-media/ Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to pushback. I'm Aaron Mate.
0:05.6	For nearly a decade, the U.S. and its allies, including the U.K., Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia,
0:14.1	waged a catastrophic proxy war inside of Syria.
0:19.0	The war was devastating and very expensive. Take it from someone who was there,
0:25.2	Joe Biden speaking in 2014. Our biggest problem is our allies. Our allies in the region were our
0:32.9	largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends and I have a great relationship with Erdogan,
0:38.5	which I just spent a lot of time with, the Saudis, the Emirates, et cetera. What were they doing?
0:45.4	They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shi-Shia war.
0:53.1	What did they do?
1:00.6	They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad,
1:05.8	except that the people who were being supplied were al- Nusera and Al-Qaeda and the extremist
1:13.5	elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. Now, you think I'm exaggerating.
1:20.8	Take a look. Now, Joe Biden was forced to apologize, not because of anything that he said
1:26.1	was false, but because he offended Turkey
1:29.0	and Saudi Arabia. What he didn't mention, though, is the critical U.S. role. According to the
1:35.2	Times, the CIA's program in Syria was, quote, one of the costliest covert action programs,
1:41.4	unquote, in CIA history. According to the Washington Post, it had a, quote, budget approaching $1 billion per year.
1:50.3	Now we have new details on another aspect of the war's cost, the propaganda effort.
1:56.6	And that comes in new leaks that have been reported on by my colleague at the gray zone, Ben Norton,
2:02.4	in an article called Leaked Docs Expose Massive Syria Propaganda Operation,
2:08.0	waged by Western government contractors and media.
2:11.5	Ben Norton, welcome to pushback.
	...

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