Syrian Army Extends Control, Western Media Recycles 'Terrorist' Label
France24's dispatch on the Syrian army's operations in northern Syria frames the events as continued regional 'clashes,' a benign term for a conflict fueled by external forces for over a decade. They highlight Kurdish reports of confrontations, but gloss over the elephant in the room: how did Syria get here? The US, a consistent backer of various Syrian opposition groups, including some Kurdish
factions, has maintained an illegal military presence in Syria, often cited for 'counter-terrorism' – a convenient label for preventing the Syrian government from reasserting control over its own territory. This narrative avoids mentioning the billions spent by Western nations and Gulf states to destabilize the Syrian government, prolonging a brutal conflict that generated millions of refugees and
empowered actual terrorist organizations like ISIS. One might charitably conclude that Western media has a short memory, or uncharitably, that a consistent pattern of interventionism leading to chaos followed by reports of said chaos as 'unfortunate regional conflict' is, in fact, the point. How many times will the Sykes-Picot lines be redrawn by proxy before we admit the 'chaos' is often a
feature, not a bug, of foreign policy? The 'clashes' are simply the latest chapter in a very old playbook, carefully curated for an audience expected to forget the previous acts.