Mutiny on Syria Dismissed by Liberal Media
The American mainstream press has both neglected and disparaged Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh recently for reporting on how, for more than two years, senior U.S. military leaders subverted President Obama's strategy to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, with some attacking Hersh for having the temerity to rely on unnamed sources. The so-called liberal media has exhibited a tendency to defend the Obama administration mantra that Assad "must go," and Hersh's account runs counter to this well-established gospel.
That the military was reluctant to implement Obama's misguided strategy in Syria should not seem inconceivable. According to Hersh, the Pentagon's recalcitrance began in the summer of 2013 when a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment concluded that ousting Assad would pave the way for jihadists to fill the power vacuum in Damascus. Despite this foreboding analysis, the CIA continued "conspiring" with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UK to arm anti-Assad forces despite the lack of a viable moderate opposition.
The Obama administration became enraged when top military leaders suggested the best course of action vis-à-vis Syria would be to partner with Russia and China to defeat the Islamic State. Hersh reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, dissented because they knew Turkey had hijacked the CIA program to arm rebels by diverting weapons to jihadist elements, including the Islamic State and Nusra Front. Albeit General Dempsey and his colleagues "kept their dissent out of bureaucratic channels, and survived in office."
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