Some 100 days ago foreign paid insurgents in Syria abducted nuns form a monastery in Maaloula in Syria. They freed the nuns only after receiving a huge ransom payment and after the Syrian government promised to let some of its prisoners go.
As the U.S. supported insurgents can do no bad U.S. media followed the fairy tales the kidnappers were telling and portrait the kidnapping as a "rescuing" them from government forces. Because that narrative, despite the ransom payment, is not allowed to change we now find some rather ridiculous twisting in the reports about the nuns' release.
Thus headline of the Australian SBS [corrected] is deceiving as Syrian rebels free kidnapped nuns – Syrian rebels have freed 13 nuns who were kidnapped last December in the town of Maalula.
People just scanning that headline will not learn that the "rebels" were those who had kidnapped the nuns. Some casual readers may even believe that the rebels freed the nuns from the Syrian government.
The New York Times Anne Barnard's fudging of the issue is even worse:
Nuns Released by Syrians After Three-Month Ordeal.
Released by "Syrians"? Are we sure that the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters who held those nuns are even from Syria? How does Anne Barnard know?
Then follows an opening paragraph with a classic obfuscating "A said, B said" without acknowledging that what A says is known to be a lie while what B said is certainly true:
Syrian insurgents released 13 nuns and three attendants who disappeared three months ago from their monastery in the ancient Christian town of Maaloula, Lebanese and Syrian officials said early Monday, ending a drama in which rebels said they were protecting the women from government shelling and Syrian officials said they were abducted in an act of intimidation against Christians.
Only nine paragraphs alter do we get a fact that makes clear that the kidnapping was indeed not for "protection":
Two rebel leaders from Yabroud, who identified themselves only as Abu al-Majd and Khaled, said that Qatar had offered to pay $4 million for the nuns’ release, but that Nusra had demanded $50 million. Abu al-Majd said the insurgents had also demanded the release of more than 100 people detained by the government, including women.
Does the NYT really believe that demanding millions and a prisoner release from a government for the release of people held by armed fighters is a sure sign of "protection" of the people held? Of course not. It is bullshit propaganda not worthy the electrons it is transported on.
