{"id":7372,"date":"2015-04-17T06:19:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T11:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7372"},"modified":"2015-04-17T06:19:53","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T11:19:53","slug":"nbcs-conduct-in-engel-kidnapping-story-is-more-troubling-than-the-brian-williams-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7372","title":{"rendered":"NBC\u2019S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2015\/04\/16\/nbcs-conduct-richard-engel-kidnapping-serious-brian-williams-scandal\/\" target=\"_blank\">NBC\u2019S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Throughout 2012,\u00a0numerous American factions were\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/02\/06\/push-for-us-intervention-in-syria-grows\/\">pushing for U.S. intervention<\/a>\u00a0in Syria to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad, who throughout the War on Terror had\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2012\/feb\/19\/syria-us-ally-human-rights\">helped the U.S. in all sorts of ways<\/a>, including torturing people for them.\u00a0But by then,\u00a0Assad was viewed mostly as an ally of Iran, and deposing him would weaken\u00a0Tehran, the overarching regional strategy of the U.S. and its allies. The prevailing narrative was\u00a0thus created that those fighting against Assad\u00a0were \u201cmoderate\u201d and even pro-Western groups, with the leading one\u00a0dubbed \u201cthe Free Syrian Army.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whether to intervene in Syria in alliance with or on behalf of the \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d was a major debate in the West\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2012\/dec\/23\/syria-crisis-russian-military-presence\">through the end of that year.<\/a>\u00a0Then-Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2012\/02\/06\/kerry-we-have-many-options-to-help-the-syrian-people-fight-back\/\">openly discussing<\/a>\u00a0ways for the U.S. to aid the rebels to bring about regime change. Sen. Joe Lieberman was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/02\/06\/push-for-us-intervention-in-syria-grows\/\">saying<\/a>: \u201cI hope the international community and the U.S. will provide assistance to the Syrian Free Army in the various ways we can.\u201d Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while ruling out direct military intervention, said: \u201c[W]e have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people\u2019s right to have a better future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A U.N. resolution calling for Assad to step down was supported by NATO states but\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2012\/feb\/04\/assad-obama-resign-un-resolution\">vetoed by China and Russia<\/a>, who were concerned that it would be depicted as a \u201cregime change\u201d endorsement to justify Western military intervention. By the following year, John Kerry, by then Obama\u2019s secretary of state,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/world\/2013\/09\/01\/secretary-state-john-kerry-says-waiting-congress-makes-syria-response-more-powerful-cites-new-evidence-chemical-attack\/SyP8gYztPZV37EOzfNx9vJ\/singlepage.html\">was arguing<\/a>\u00a0that direct U.S. military action\u00a0in Syria against Assad \u2014 a full-scale bombing campaign \u2014 was a moral and strategic imperative.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBC\u2019S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL Throughout 2012,\u00a0numerous American factions were\u00a0pushing for U.S. intervention\u00a0in Syria to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad, who throughout the War on Terror had\u00a0helped the U.S. in all sorts of ways, including torturing people for them.\u00a0But by then,\u00a0Assad was viewed mostly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35,169,496,512,1426,553,3209,655,694,776,965],"class_list":["post-7372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-assad","tag-corporate-media","tag-mainstream-media","tag-media","tag-misinformation","tag-nato","tag-nbc","tag-propaganda","tag-russia","tag-syria","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7373,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7372\/revisions\/7373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}