陳真
發佈日期: 2016.01.18
發佈時間:
上午 3:07
我常說：""政治不會有偶然或湊巧這回事""。 所謂萬事俱備，只欠東風。在一種重要時刻，比方說即將投票，或是準備展開某種侵略計畫的前夕，總是突然就會剛剛好就是那麼巧，剛剛好就會如某些人所願地湊巧吹來一陣東風，助其大展鴻圖。
比方說，911剛發生時，誰會去懷疑911的真實性？主流媒體說什麼，我們就信什麼；就算你逐漸有點懷疑，多少還是會受其操弄，直到許多年之後，才會恍然大悟原來真相根本不是那麼一回事。
有個研究機構統計，美國在侵略伊拉克期間，主流媒體前前後後一共刻意製造並散播了九百多個謊言，可以說幾乎沒有一句話是真的。包括什麼美麗美軍女兵林奇小姐彷如藍波般的英勇行為，還有戰爭期間無日無之的各種所謂大規模毀滅武器的可疑證據已被查獲之報導，還有所謂伊拉克婦女小孩夾道歡迎美軍入侵的感人新聞，以及英勇的伊拉克人民拉倒海珊銅像的壯烈歷史一刻等等等。事後發現，全是假的，純屬瞎掰，移花接木，嫁禍，或是自導自演，自己人冒充演出等等等。
就比方說，我之前貼的那個敘利亞圍城導致饑荒的新聞，現在傳出，那些骨瘦如柴的小朋友的影像與照片來源不明，很可能是移花接木，從敘利亞的其它城市拍攝，嫁禍給敘利亞政府軍所包圍的 Madaya這個城市。以頭版新聞報導這個事件的紐約時報，對其資訊來源表示無法證實。
那麼，事實真相是什麼呢？Madaya的居民確實長期挨餓，但敘利亞政府軍並沒有阻礙人道民生物資進入城裏。例如十月中旬，國際紅十字會才剛發放一批物資進城。然而，這些援救物資卻被美軍所武裝支持的反叛軍所掠奪，然後再以數十倍數百倍的高價賣給居民圖利，導致嚴重饑荒。
敘利亞這個國家，原本好端端的，就跟利比亞、伊拉克一樣，社會穩定發展。被美國以民主為藉口而入侵後，卻搞成二戰以來最恐怖的人間煉獄，目前大約有四、五百萬的敘利亞居民遭受雙方軍隊的圍困而發生人道災難。然而，主流媒體卻配合美軍近期的軍事布局與盤算，刻意突顯敘利亞政府軍所圍困的Madaya。一來，栽贓抹黑阿塞德政權的道德形象，使之妖魔化；二來，為即將到來、更為慘烈的軍事攻擊鋪路，提供藉口。
事實上，美軍所武裝支持的所謂反叛軍，長年以來在敘利亞幹下那麼多人神共憤、泯滅人性的血腥暴行，千百倍於Madaya目前的處境，美國及西方主流媒體何曾報導？幾乎完全消音，彷彿根本沒有這些事；他們不但高度選擇性地突顯敵人的罪行，而且移花接木甚至栽贓。這樣一種手法，恰恰就是美國半個多世紀來不斷複製的常態性作法。
我平常不太看西方主流媒體，因為太不可信了。台灣媒體當然就更加低級無恥齷齪到爆了，特別是那些綠油油的人渣媒體如自由時報、蘋果日報，(由一對夫婦主持的)壹電視新聞等等等，更是臭不可聞。你想了解世界，大概也只能靠自己長年去多方接觸。
我並不是說因此我們不需要捐款給慈善機構。捐款仍然還是有助於戰亂中受苦的人，只是不應輕易上了媒體的當；主流媒體的話如果能信，大約世界上就也沒有所謂詐騙這回事了。特別是台灣這些綠油油的媒體，理應繩之以法，因為惡性程度實在太離譜太邪惡。
至於周子瑜的事，我相信隆誌與宗益的判斷及因果敘述。記得曾經在電視上看到這位姑娘，電視新聞說是台灣之光，學姐問我說她是誰，我說我不知道，但既然是台灣之光，肯定又是出國比賽或曾獲得西方人肯定之類。
後來又有兩次看到周小姐。一次是說她對著鏡頭講台語，問候大家吃飽沒，媒體因此歌頌她的愛台灣之心，說她正因為愛台灣，所以講台語。後來又有一次也是歌頌她愛台灣，好像是說她表明自己來自台灣、嗆聲中國之類。我不知道真的假的，只是看了之後覺得很反感，心裏想說一個16歲小女孩，唱歌跳舞就唱歌跳舞，為什麼那麼政治性？整天一直高調展現她的政治性？祖國又沒惹她，她是在嗆聲嗆個什麼碗糕？
但我沒去追究這些細節，畢竟我不知道她是誰，而且這類事情太多了，人渣自由時報每天幾乎就是一直在炒作這類事情。我當時心裏想，也許這小女孩根本沒有任何政治意圖，講台語或講普通話有什麼特別意義而值得台灣媒體不斷炒作嗎？一個台灣人說自己來自台灣也只是一種事實陳述，有何值得歌頌？也許問題只是出在媒體之刻意炒作與挑釁，而不是這女孩的問題。我當時心裏是這麼想的。
而且，說不定又是純屬捏造，比方說，人渣自由時報在去年聶隱娘坎城參展期間，捏造說什麼舒淇在坎城記者會上澄清自己不是中國來的，說她大喊 ""我來自台灣"" ""我來自台灣"" 之類，也是說她嗆聲中國。舒淇因此遭受大陸網友批評，但事實上根本從頭到尾就沒有這些事，完全是造謠。
我不太知道周子瑜事件的整個來龍去脈，但我當然始終都知道台灣綠油油的無恥媒體整天就是不斷在炒作、挑釁與挑撥兩岸人民的感情，不遺餘力地擴大仇恨、誤解與對立，周子瑜自然也只是無數炒作與挑撥中的一個例子而已。
但話說回來，在這樣一個依靠媒體抹黑與造謠來打仗的世界，根本不存在的事都能捏造了，更何況你還授人以把柄。那些仇視你的敵人，自然會努力在你的弱點或把柄上大作文章來攻擊你。回應這類攻擊最好的方法我看就是認錯或減少犯錯，而不是反而擴大衝突，那只是上了別人的當。難道大陸官方真的笨到不知道這些綠油油的台灣媒體多麼渴望你努力打壓台灣人？
我常深深有個感覺，那些邪惡齷齪到爆的國家或政黨或個人，個個都很厲害，很會操弄媒體，修辭能力很強，漂亮話滿天飛，而且個個非常擅於造謠抹黑扭曲與渲染，擅於營造形象，塑造輿論。於是黑的變成白的，白的變黑的，明明醜陋邪惡的撒旦，竟變成美麗善良的小天使。
但是，你看那些比較良善的一方，明明乾乾淨淨、正正直直，明明心懷善念，戮力從事，明明做的幾乎全是良善之舉，但卻被抹黑炒作成恐怖壞人，變成過街老鼠，甚至變成邪惡、反改革的代名詞。
你可以支持任何政治主張，但做為一個人，難道你真能忍受這樣一種顛倒是非善惡黑白的操弄？
陳真
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Washington invokes hunger to promote war in Syria
WSWS 16 January 2016
Bill Van Auken
The United States, France and Britain called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to press for “immediate action” to secure the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged areas of Syria. The supposedly heartfelt humanitarian concerns of the three imperialist powers that are currently bombing Syria came amid a concerted propaganda campaign over alleged starvation in the southwestern Syrian town of Madaya.
Originating with Al Jazeera, the news agency controlled by the Qatari monarchy, a key source of financial and arms support for the Al Qaeda-linked militias that have ravaged much of Syria, the invocation of Madaya as proof of the supposed inhumanity of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has been taken up by much of the world media. The New York Times published a front-page report Friday on conditions in the town, based on accounts that the newspaper said “could not be independently confirmed.”
There is no reason to doubt that conditions are desperate in Madaya, as they are in much of Syria after more than four years of a sectarian civil war fomented and provisioned by US imperialism and its regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. As many as 4.5 million Syrians are in areas that have been cut off from the rest of the country by the battle lines.
If Madaya is the focus of international attention, however, it is because it is encircled by Syrian government forces along with their allies from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The town sits at a strategic juncture near the Lebanese border and less than 25 miles from the capital, Damascus.
In the international furor being whipped up over conditions in Madaya, including through the use of photographs of starving people taken elsewhere, little attention is given to the fact that the town is largely controlled by the al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, and Ahrar al-Sham, a similar Salafist jihadi militia.
While conditions of hunger in the town are routinely attributed to the government siege, residents have reported that food supplies have been monopolized by the Al Qaeda-linked groups, which sell them at extortionate prices to finance their operations. On October 18, the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered two months’ worth of food supplies to Madaya, with the government doing nothing to impede humanitarian access to the town. That many are facing hunger is largely attributable to the looting of the aid shipment by US-backed “rebels.”
While the imperialist powers and their media accomplices are directing all eyes to Madaya, they have wholly ignored equally if not more desperate conditions in the predominantly Shia towns of Kefraya and al-Foua in the northwestern province of Idlib, which have been under attack by the US-backed “rebels” since 2011 and under a total siege since March of last year. Starved of supplies and under constant attack, the town has seen 1,700 civilian residents killed.
The indifference of the imperialist powers to hunger and suffering among populations under siege by their proxy forces demonstrates that the invocation of starvation is just one more bid to promote a war for regime change as some kind of humanitarian intervention.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the launching of the first Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. Then, as now, phony pretexts were floated by the US government and echoed and amplified by the corporate media to justify a predatory war for control of the Middle East and its strategic oil resources. In this regard, little has changed over the course of a quarter century of uninterrupted American militarism in the region.
In 1991, it should be recalled, the public was told of marauding Iraqi troops snatching Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and leaving them to die in order to ship the devices back to Iraq. A tearful volunteer nurse was brought to Capitol Hill to testify on this atrocity, which seemed to echo World War I propaganda about German soldiers using Belgian babies for bayonet practice.
Only well after the US invasion was it revealed that the “nurse” was, in fact, the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and a member of the oil sheikdom’s royal family, and that the incubator story was a propaganda hoax from start to finish.
In the years that followed, the US imposed draconian sanctions upon Iraq that led to real starvation and unchecked disease. According to some estimates, the sanctions led to the deaths of as many as 500,000 Iraqi children due to a lack of food, medicine and uncontaminated water resulting from the imperialist blockade. Confronted with this appalling death toll in a 1996 television interview, Madeleine Albright, who was then the US ambassador to the UN and soon to be secretary of state, responded, “We think the price is worth it.”
This is the same government now shedding crocodile tears over the alleged use of hunger as a weapon by the Syrian government.
Since then, the United States has annihilated over a million people in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, killed tens of thousands more in the US-NATO war to overthrow Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and orchestrated the war in Syria that has left an estimated 260,000 dead and displaced half of the country’s population. These interventions have thrown all three countries and their social infrastructures into a state of collapse.
The recklessness and brutality of the US ruling oligarchy’s militarist attempts to impose its hegemony over the Middle East and the entire planet go hand-in-hand with its destructive role within the US itself, smashing up the country’s industrial base, destroying the jobs and living standards of the working class, and funneling the bulk of the nation’s wealth to a handful of financial parasites.
Neither the escalation of the war for regime change in Syria, nor, for that matter, the toppling of Assad will extricate American capitalism from its insoluble crisis. The unending eruption of American militarism will produce only more death and destruction, intensifying the crisis both at home and abroad and bringing humanity ever closer to a global conflagration.
