Excerpts from Daily Mail online June 9: “The truth seeps out of Syria”
“I have been contacted by a group of Western women who live in Syria and who believe that most of what the world is being told about that country is false.”
One of Hitchens’ Western informants on the ground in Syria calls the activists “weapon-toting killers who snipe, who ambush, who fire upon the army with the sole purpose of inciting riot and mayhem.”
Hitchens reports that one of his contacts had spoken to a man who took part in a march at Hama last summer. He ‘was worried for his safety, but was given a red rose to carry and assured the whole thing would be calm and orderly, and seeing many other men from the mosque joining in with their small sons, he agreed. They walked for a very few minutes, the unarmed police watching them from the wayside, then a man next to him pulled out a gun and shot the nearest policeman dead.’
The riot which resulted from this provocation was, according to Hitchens’ informant, “reported by foreign TV stations as a police attack on peaceful marchers.
“Armed intervention is in fact well under way, uncondemned by the UN, which readily attacks the Syrian government for defending itself…”
Hitchens: “She blames Salafis, ultra-puritan Muslims influenced by Saudi teachings, who loathe and threaten Syria’s minorities of Alawites and Christians. She says many of the ‘activists’ are foreigners, a view shared by all my informants. Many of the ‘activists’ are armed.
Another writes: ‘I have seen reports of opposition rallies which showed pictures of pro-government rallies… The news being accepted as truth by BBC World News is so biased these days that I no longer believe what they say about anything any more, after more than 60 years of crediting them with the truth.’
Hitchens adds: “I urge you to read what follows, because it is important, … and because it is vital that people resist attempts to drag us into Syria, too, by feeding us one-sided atrocity propaganda… I expect to have more to say on this in weeks to come.”
HT for posting the Hitchens article to Michelle Tan at theloveculture
CounterNarratives 
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