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Indybay Feature

“Assad’s secret e-mails”: The Guardian and The Independent's anti-Syria propaganda shifts

by Cem Ertür
Although suffering from a plummeting credibility, The Guardian and The Independent are still escalating their sustained propaganda campaign against Syria.
The Guardian, 15 March 2012
The Guardian, 15 March 2012






The Independent, 16 March 2012
The Independent, 16 March 2012






The Independent, 7 March 2012
The Independent, 7 March 2012






The Independent, 27 February 2012
The Independent, 27 February 2012






The Guardian, 24 February 2012
The Guardian, 24 February 2012






The Guardian, 8 February 2012
The Guardian,  8 February 2012






Independent on Sunday, 5 February 2012

Independent on Sunday, 5 February 2012


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“Assad’s secret e-mails”:
The Guardian and The Independent's anti-Syria propaganda shifts into higher gear



[propaganda alert]

compiled by Cem Ertür

16 March 2012





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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/14/assad-emails-lift-lid-inner-circle



excerpt from:  Exclusive: secret emails lift lid on life of Assad's inner circle
  • Syrian leader advised by Iran during uprising
  • President privately mocked promised reforms
  • Wife spent thousands on internet shopping
by Robert Booth, Mona Mahmood and Luke Harding, The Guardian, 15 March 2012




Bashar al-Assad took advice from Iran on how to handle the uprising against his rule, according to a cache of what appear to be several thousand emails received and sent by the Syrian leader and his wife.

The Syrian leader was also briefed in detail about the presence of western journalists in the Baba Amr district of Homs and urged to "tighten the security grip" on the opposition-held city in November.

The revelations are contained in more than 3,000 documents that activists say are emails downloaded from private accounts belonging to Assad and his wife Asma.

The messages, which have been obtained by the Guardian, are said to have been intercepted by members of the opposition Supreme Council of the Revolution group between June and early February.

The documents, which emerge on the first anniversary of the rebellion that has seen more than 8,000 Syrians killed, paint a portrait of a first family remarkably insulated from the mounting crisis and continuing to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.

They appear to show the president's wife spending thousands of dollars over the internet for designer goods while he swaps entertaining internet links on his iPad and downloads music from iTunes.

As the world watched in horror at the brutal suppression of protests across the country and many Syrians faced food shortages and other hardships, Mrs Assad spent more than £10,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris and instructed an aide to order a fondue set from Amazon.



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related articles:



Junk journalism: The “Assad” e-mails

Guardian skewers own credibility with hamfisted Wikileaks knock-off aimed at Syria

by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer, 15 March 2012

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/03/junk-journalism-assad-e-mails.html




Amnesty International's ultimatum to Russia

US State Department-run Amnesty International demands Russia allow US & NATO to commence the ruination and plundering of Syria

by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer, 15 March 2012

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/03/amnesty-internationals-ultimatum-to.html





Media lies and fabrications fully revealed: Al Jazeera’s identity crisis

by Ibrahim al-Amin, Global Research, 14 March 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29763





“The most damning video on Syria” is a fake

by Marinella Correggia, Global Research, 14 March 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29776





War propaganda: Staged media reporting from Syria: Fabricating the news


by Patrick Henningsen, Global Research, 12 March 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29725





Syria: The Western deception over regime change unravels. NATO prepares for all out war

by Finian Cunningham, Global Research, 8 March 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29660





“Journalist” Paul Conroy is MI6 operative

Voltaire Network, 7 March 2012

http://www.voltairenet.org/Journalist-Paul-Conroy-is-MI6




Syria: Game over for Western propaganda

Syrian activists caught lying, Syrian rebels caught committing atrocities

by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer, 6 March 2012

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/03/syria-game-over-for-western-propaganda.html




Lies, damn lies, and major media scoundrel journalism

by Stephen Lendman, SteveLendmanBlog, 4 March 2012

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2012/03/lies-damn-lies-and-major-media.html





The journalist-combatants of Baba Amr

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 4 March 2012

http://www.voltairenet.org/The-journalist-combatants-of-Baba




Intervention, reloaded: Empire Studios’ Syrian sequel

Myths about Bosnia and Kosovo bolster arguments for murder elsewhere

by Nebojsa Malic, Global Research, 27 February 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29521




Angelina Jolie conscripted to sell genocidal ‘humanitarian intervention’ war doctrine

by Martin Iqbal, Empire Strikes Black, 24 February 2012

http://empirestrikesblack.com/2012/02/angelina-jolie-conscripted-to-sell-genocidal-humanitarian-intervention-war-doctrine/





Syria and the media: “Activists say…”

by William Bowles, williambowles.info, 17 February 2012

http://williambowles.info/2012/02/17/syria-and-the-media-activists-say-by-william-bowles/




“Human rights” warriors for empire

by Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report, 15 February 2012

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/%E2%80%9Chuman-rights%E2%80%9D-warriors-empire




Syria regime change PR in high gear: More ‘newborn baby slaughter’ propaganda

by Patrick Henningsen, Infowars, 9 February 2012

http://www.infowars.com/regime-change-pr-hits-high-gear-syrias-newborn-baby-slaughter-propaganda/





Syria. Text of leaked Arab League mission report

Report reveals media lies regarding Syria

commentary by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 1 February 2012

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29025


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propaganda alerts:



The Guardian: UK weighs up military strikes against Somalia rebels

by Cem Ertür, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, 28 February 2012

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/02/28/18708307.php





Turkish daily: Turkey’s plan to finish off Assad

by Cem Ertür, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, 11 February 2012

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/02/11/18707124.php




The Guardian: Britain prepares to take part in US strikes against Iran


by Cem Ertür, San Fransisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, 2 November 2011

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/02/18696864.php




“End of a tyrant”: The Independent and The Guardian jubilant over the assassination of Libya’s deposed President Gaddafi

by Cem Ertür, 911Blogger, 21 October 2011

http://911blogger.com/news/2011-10-21/end-tyrant-independent-and-guardian-jubilant-over-assassination-libya-s-deposed-president-gaddafi




Robert Fisk’s anti-Syria propaganda

by Cem Ertür, 911Blogger, 29 April 2011

http://911blogger.com/news/2011-04-29/robert-fisk-s-anti-syria-propaganda


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Michelle Obama, the fashion style icon wife of US President Obama, is to have travel sanctions imposed on her by member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, including Russia, China and SCO associate state Iran.

Mrs Obama’s annual six-figure budget for designer clothes and accessories is seen as an affront to moral decency at a time when her husband is overseeing foreign wars of aggression, mass murder in several territories using aerial drones, and ordering the assassination of individuals such as nuclear scientists in Iran.

The equally fashionista-conscious wives of British and French premiers, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, are also reportedly lined up for sanctions in several Middle East and Central Asian countries owing to these leaders supporting the illegal and murderous US-led NATO bombing campaign on Libya.

By now, the reader will have spotted the above “report” to be a spoof.

However, when it comes to the real world, the European Union is applying such unprecedented measures against the wife of Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad.

“EU slaps Sanctions on Assad’s Wife,” read several newspaper headlines after Europe’s foreign ministers banned British born Asma Assad from traveling to EU states, and ordered the freezing of her personal assets.

Describing the 36-year-old Syrian First Lady as stylish, glamorous, even sexy, the combined lurid portrayal was aimed at presenting Mrs Assad as an insensitive bimbo in the face of her country’s ongoing violence and misery.

The Washington Post called her Syria’s Marie Antoinette, alleging that “while bloodshed continues, she shops for crystal-encrusted shoes”.

Despite the defamatory wording in the mainstream media written as if it were factual, it turns out that the hype about Mrs Assad, is based on “a trove” of emails obtained by the British Guardian newspaper allegedly from the private correspondence of the Assad family. Even the Guardian puts in a disclaimer about the veracity of the emails, which it says were supplied by “Syrian oppositionists”. There is more than a fair chance that the emails are bogus and forged by intelligence groups well-versed in the black arts of slander, such as MI6.

Suspicions are raised even further when such banal, personal matters such as a woman’s alleged internet shopping habits become the subject of foreign ministerial diplomacy.

British-born Mrs Assad is reputed to have splurged more than €40,000 on household and fashion items. Following the EU sanctions, which came into effect at the weekend, British foreign minister William Hague said: “It’s a sign of the determination of all the nations of the European Union and of the European Union as a whole to intensify the pressure, the diplomatic and economic stranglehold on this regime.”

Meanwhile, France’s foreign affairs minister Alain Juppé commented: “We had a certain number of indications — I am sure it has not escaped you — how the wife of president Assad uses her money. It is perhaps this that pushed us to toughen the sanctions.” Juppé’s concern with financial probity is particularly rich given that he was convicted in 2004 by a French court of “abusing public funds” and sentenced to an 18-month suspended jail term.

When one newspaper’s highlighting of a dodgy dossier of emails is regurgitated by all and sundry in the mainstream media, including so-called quality titles, and when that dodgy dossier forms the basis for EU ministerial sanctions, then there is the unmistakable whiff of a psy-ops job.

This is all the more so perceptible given that the Western governments and the slavish mainstream media have spent the most part of a year grossly distorting the reality of violence and conflict in Syria, with a view to destabilizing the alliance between Damascus and Tehran. President Bashar Al-Assad has been relentlessly accused of “butchering” his own people, despite growing evidence that his government’s forces are more accurately acting to protect the civilian population from terrorist groups armed and directed by the US, Britain, France, Israel, Turkey and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Gulf monarchies.

The Western campaign of demonizing the government of Syria has now been extended somewhat ludicrously to portraying Mrs Assad as a “callous shopaholic” who must be banned from the High Streets of all decent, law-abiding civilizations.

The irony is that the derisory cynical move by the European Union should actually be applied against known war criminals. There is ample evidence to convict past and present American and European leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity regarding military aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and ongoing towards Iran.

On the basis of legal and criminal facts, sanctions against Michelle Obama, Samantha Cameron and Carla Bruni make far greater sense.
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