This video originally appeared in a propaganda upload that is stage managed to to control the debate by blocking users and deleting comments that are anti-Assad. This upload represents a rejection of this censorship mentality. I will not delete any comments nor do I have any users blocked.


Original comments
Updating a video which purports to show a massacre in Duma by 'Alawite militias', and which has been exposed as fake. It was a massacre of prisoners by a 'Free Syrian Army' brigade. The news report is in Arabic and compares the video of the men held captive by the 'Free Syrian Army' with the video of the aftermath of their executions. The footage was aired by Al Jazeera with a false report implying a government massacre. The news and footage was sent to the news channel by the executioners who knew the exact number of the executed men, and that number was reported by Al Jazeera rather than the number 6 shown in the aftermath.

My Comments

This upload illustrates the denial pillar of the Assad regime's propaganda campaign, a campaign orchestrated by Syrian Intelligence. The Assad regime conducts terrorism operations against its own civilian population in areas that are sympathetic to the opposition. It sends in regular army units to attack areas in which opposition fighters seems to be operating freely (which implies that the local civilian population is assisting them). When the armed opposition have been sufficiently driven out the army sets up a perimeter around the area to prevent any further escape. Assad's death squads known as the shabiha are then sent in. They will then torture and execute any suspected collaborators, and sometime whole families for the terror effect. They are no different in this regard than Hitler's SS.

But this creates a problem. The massacres get discovered even though the Assad forces try to destroy the evidence. It creates bad publicity and increases the calls for western intervention. So the best they can do is have their propagandist attempt to deny the events. Because the evidence is so strong, the denials are often obvious crude fabrications. In this one the description is plainly contradicted by the video. This one is even more crude and absurd. No matter, the point is to make the denial for whatever value it has, to raise doubts in the minds of the naive. And the opposition will certainly concoct fakes whenever they think they can get away with it, so everything coming out of this conflict should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

So who should you believe? To start with, find independent sources. You can also find sources whose biases you already understand and can factor into your analysis. Some of the excellent sources are the human rights groups with a track record of independence. These include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International has some excellent reporting on the systematic campaign of terrorism against the civilian population by the Assad regime, for example this report. Just enter "Syria in the search box to find many more items.