[This is an updated and edited excerpt from a talk I gave in Beijing in July 2012 at a program sponsored by April Media.]

Part I – The Houla Massacre

The Houla massacre occurred in Syria on May 25, 2012.

This was but a few days before Kofi Annan, who was at the time the joint Arab League-UN envoy, was scheduled to visit Syria.

Immediately after the massacre, there was a media campaign in much of the western media to blame the Syrian government for the deaths. There were 108 deaths reported which included men, women and children. A short time after the massacre, an alternative account was made available by a Russian online media group, Anna News.(1) The day following the massacre, a news team for this online site visited the area where the massacre had occurred. Their report appeared on a number of alternative news sites soon… weiter lesen