“Yes, Aleppo Was Liberated”

The warped American media gave a completely distorted picture of the Aleppo situation and battle. Yellow journalism and fake news prevailed. By digging deep into internet searches and finding alternative sources, one could have formed a more accurate picture. One could also have applied more general knowledge and intelligence to have seen that important American media accounts were fake.

The Libertarian Institute has published a good article by William Van Wagenen titled “Yes, Aleppo Was Liberated” that gives a better picture of Aleppo.

Major press media distort narratives in two ways. They fail to report and properly interpret significant statements and information that have been made public, sometimes by government. They do report distorted statements and harp on them, building up phony stories.

Government officials sometimes make statements that contain mixtures of facts and falsities as fodder for the press. For example, on October 16, 2016 Secretary of State John Kerry said

“Now, some people ask what happens to Aleppo if it were to fall. Well, the Russians should understand, and Assad needs to understand, that that does not end the war. This war cannot end without a political solution. So even if Aleppo were to fall, even if they have utterly destroyed it, which they are doing, that will not change the fundamental equation in this war because other countries will continue to support opposition, and they will continue to create more terrorists, and Syria will be the victim in the end as well as the region.”

He falsely characterized liberation of Aleppo as the fall of Aleppo, which the press picked up. A more accurate understanding was available at the time. He accurately if vaguely noted the fact that “other countries” were supporting “terrorists”, but the press didn’t play this up. He misleadingly failed to note that the U.S. supported the efforts of those countries and their puppet terrorists; and the press didn’t bother to go into that aspect. His forecast that Syria “will be the victim” or that it will lose or continue to be undermined by these terrorists has proven wrong on the battlefield, although terrorism by the more usual means of truck bombs and suicides continues.

It is a good thing that within less than a year an article like Wagenen’s comes out, but it doesn’t have the impact that press accounts have at the time in influencing public opinion and allowing the U.S. government to participate in wars on its own terms.

The basic obstacle is that accurate information (truth) is far from being a free good. It’s costly to produce, and who is going to pay for it? Advertisers will pay, but they’ll also pay for false stories that attract readers. Readers in the final analysis determine what kinds of sources they will read. They have no strong interest in reading truths about foreign policy because their influence on it is largely nonexistent. The government owns foreign policy, not them, which gives it a strong incentive to mislead the public. Politics by its nature often creates an incentive for government officials to hide the truth of what they are doing. This system of bad incentives guarantees that government has to fail to work toward good ends.

Share

7:44 am on July 8, 2017