The West’s Syria policy has been shaped by media missionaries

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

"Cockburn eschews the bombastic judgments of his colleague Robert Fisk. Instead he uses references, analogies and elisions to mark the distribution of good and evil.
Superlatives are reserved exclusively for the opposition. They are depicted as “head choppers”, reminiscent of the Nazis. Their crimes are vividly described. To the extent that the regime’s misdeeds receive attention, they are described in general terms, often as preludes to another account of rebel barbarity.
Yet it is accounts such as these that are shaping opinion – and even policy. Syrians, who are already trapped between the regime and ISIL, have also to endure the slings and arrows of hack missionaries with ideological axes to grind."