Eamonn McCann: Syria kidnapping was not what it seemed

Eamonn McCann used to be a journalist and a revolutionary, now he's an apologist for Assad's genocide. The idea that the involvement of Iran and its proxy militias in Syria is the invention of right-wing plotters in the US is belied by the tens of thousands of them fighting there, as evidenced by capture and funerals, and the areas that have been taken over, particularly in Damascus, after the ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims, for their families to settle in. 

The New York Times, which has been noticeably hostile to the Free Syrian Army, may claim it is involved in these shenanigans, but all I can see from the NBC report is that a criminal gang kidnapped Mr. Engel, and he was freed after the intervention of the local leader of Ahrar al-Sham. A group that has been bombed by the Amercians, under the impression that any group with Islamic leanings must be al-Qaida, told by the same people who claimed Saddam was behind al-Qaida, the same people behind Seymour Hersh's claim that the rebels used chemical weapons on themselves to provoke a US response. Never mind that the group suggested to have been doing this are opposed to any American involvement in Syria, never mind that the Syrian government has bombed civilians with chemical weapons many times over since, and there has still been no response to the demand, not for American intervention, but for Syrians to get the means to free themselves from rape, torture and murder. 
[http://notris.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=eamonn+mccann]