Jim Naureckas of an organization called Fairness &
Accuracy In Reporting, which cares about fairness, and accuracy, in reporting,
is curiously convinced that when activists on the ground in Syria say that “None
of the areas targeted” by Russia’s bombing campaign “were controlled by IS,”
that they are in fact lying. To prove this, Naureckas cites an article from the
French wire service AFP, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR),
an organization FAIR’s own writers concede they would not normally cite as an authoritative source on Syria, indicating that Islamic
State militants “shot dead seven men in Rastan.”
 |
| Months earlier in a place not bombed by Russia. |
Aha! The title of the post makes much of this: “No ISISWhere Russia Is Bombing – Except Last Week, When ISIS Was Killing Gay MenThere?" Except, again: There were activists, on the ground, with no
apparent incentive to lie, stating quite clearly: “None of the areas targeted” –
including “Zafaraneh, Rastan, Talbiseh, Makarmia and Ghanto” – were controlled
by IS.
"We have been exposed to a wide range of weapons over
the last five years, but what happened today was absolutely the most violent
and ferocious, and the most comprehensive in the northern Homs
countryside," a doctor in the town of Rastan told Reuters. Eleven people
died, he said, including three children and their dad, when their home was
demolished by a Russian ordinance. “It was as if the house never was.”
FAIR doesn’t get around to mentioning such casualties,
concerned as it is with proving that the Russians government was telling the
truth when it asserted that those it bombed were members of ISIS. It even uses
a photo of ISIS executing men accused of homosexuality from another source it
would never normally cite, The Daily Mail,
to suggest again that the activists are liars – though the photo is from months
before, in another city that is not Rastan.
I choose to believe the activists and the doctor who tried
to save the lives of those killed as a result of imperialist air power. I choose
to believe the article cited by FAIR’s own writer that notes that the “dominant
factions in Talbiseh and the nearby town of al-Rastan are tied to the Free
Syrian Army,” not the Islamic State. But if FAIR wants to go with SOHR? Sure,
let’s go with them. Per Reuters: “While Russia says its raids on Wednesday
targeted the Islamic State group, locals in the opposition-held area say the
jihadist group has no presence in the region - echoing the assessment of a U.S.
official and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.”
Perhaps, in the name of fairness, and accuracy, Naurecakas
should amend the post with a devastating correction, as he did one of the last
times he wrote about Syria and claimed a regime chemical weapons attack was a false
flag. Perhaps, I would suggest, he stop writing about Syria altogether.
