Brandon TurbevilleActivist Post
July 15, 2016
If anyone was wondering just what caused such an abysmal set of public relations performances by State Department spokesman Mark Toner over the last few months regarding the nature of the “opposition” in Syria and the difference between “moderate” terrorists and “extremist” terrorists, the answer is simple – Toner was given an impossible task which, even under the smallest amount of criticism and questioning, was destined to fall apart.
Indeed, the idea that Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam were somehow “moderate” in any way or separate from ISIS and al-Nusra is and always has been a complete farce. Toner’s display was thus a result of trying to promote a lie that is easily disproven. In the State Department’s defense, convincing Americans of an easily disproven lie has been a relatively easy task throughout the past few decades. This time, however, the alternative press has let the cat out of the bag and even a relatively small conglomeration of unrelated alt news organizations has dismantled a patently absurd falsehood promoted by the U.S. government.
But if this lie was hanging by a thread when Toner was sweating bullets and dancing about like a frightened clown, Skull and Bones John Kerry has officially snapped it. Despite his constant assertion that Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham are completely different from al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, and ISIS (even if there is some harmless “commingling”), Kerry has now admitted that these groups are one and the same.
