“Founded in 2005, La Nueva Televisora del Sur (teleSUR, English: The New Television Station of the South) is a multi-state funded, pan–Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia that is headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. TeleSUR has been accused of being a propaganda tool for Hugo Chavez and his successors.”
It’s not deemed to be a credible source given its direct governmental control and routine lack of transparency in its sources, if it provides any sources whatsoever.
There is also a long list of provably false reporting from this website.
I’m not saying that these kinds of actions don’t take place, just that this source is not reliable and I would guess that systemic theft from an incredibly scrutinized entity in a hostile country would be subject to a little bit more widespread reporting and corroborating evidence.
I’ve been on quite a few military installations, lived on one, worked at two, and even those permanent bases didn’t have a refinery on-site. I supremely doubt that there’s equipment on a foreign base or forward operating base.
I’m former military, I’ve deployed twice, but none of that qualifies any statement towards the US routinely exploiting countries like Syria for their natural resources.
The other poster is making the point that they did not observe any ability, at large military installations or small, to refine or store oil or unprocessed wheat.
Yeah, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for BBC to cover Western atrocities in the developing world, let alone any US outlet (or rather frame it as justified in response to retaliatory attacks to violence initiated by US intervention in the first place). The issue with over relying on sites like MBFC is that they inherently have a western bias. The US exploiting Syria for its oil isn’t even news at this point, this has been ongoing since 2011.
Can you provide any somewhat reliable evidence to support your claims about the USA stealing oil?
I’m just trying to understand the mechanics and the utility of it. The US military has exceptional logistics, a vast oil reserve, and extraordinary oil production and refining industries. This doesn’t even mention any of its allies in the region where it can base logistical support.
Not to mention what others have pointed out: that there likely aren’t very many, if any, US military installations in the world capably of refining crude oil or turning wheat into flour.
Plus the actual cost of transport and guarding that transport doesn’t seem like the profit would actually be worth the risk. It mostly seems like why would we bother, not enough reward for the risk.
Edit: OK, some back of the napkin math, if a tanker holds 11,600 gallons and a barrel of crude oil (42 gallons to a barrel) costs around $85 (current prices), then the revenue of the 69 oil transports would be around 1.6 Million dollars. This is assuming they got current prices, the army basically sent enough soldiers to protect a full convoy, and they didn’t have to drive too much of a distance to an oil refinery. After taking into account expenses, that really is a stupid low profit for such high risk (if a soldier was shot for instance it would definitely be in the news). I do not buy the story, way too much doesn’t add up from a financial perspective.
Again, the US exploiting Syria for oil has been occurring since 2011. BBC has a decent article on Syrians oil production post-US intervention. but have your pick.
Those are all news sources that say Syria has accused the USA of stealing oil, or Trump saying it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I could not find any sources (aside from the last two, of which I similarly question the validity and reliability) that corroborate the US military stealing oil directly from any Syrian entity, as the original source asserts.
So, no, it’s not “common knowledge” that this happens. It’s an assertion made by a geopolitical rival in the context of a very messy and complex conflict, and I dispute it. You have yet to provide any actual information supporting the claim, as does the Syrian government.
Saying things over and over again does not eventually make them true.
No, your right. Syrian oil production plummeting after US occupation is actually just a coincidence. We also 100 percent invaded Iraq for WMDs. You’re not going to find BBC, Reuters, or the Washington Post outright stating the disposition of US interventionism.
There’s an entire fucking civil war going on in Syria. Of course oil production is going to fall.
The invasion of Iraq is not a good comparison for the conflict in Syria. The geopolitical situation is different between 2003 and now. The USA exports significant amount of oil now. It imported it then.
Listen, the United States military has done plenty of terrible shit. It’s still happening, and it’s going to happen. But this suggestion that it’s just going out and hijacking tankers of crude oil and driving them to some random forward operating post and then refining it there or sending it to the black market somehow is just… rather far fetched.
I don’t have time to watch an hour and a half video right now.
Will you please quote the words of the source that you are offering, in addition to the context of their words?
This is such a weird assertion to make, I just don’t understand the mission of the people who are arguing with me about media literacy and downvoting my calls for critical thinking about the media they consume.
Which I have to contextualize into our argument here, and research who this speaker is, and what the actual context of her comment is.
Which is a lot of work for somebody trying to engage in a good faith, honestly. You’re making assertions, do the work to prove them and it makes your argument more convincing and effective.
If you have the proof of your claims about this media literacy tool, then make and support your arguments clearly. You’re being lazy and it makes me not want to believe you, even though I honestly have a lot of interest in consuming media ethically and critically.
Gave you a video of a US official explaining why US is occupying Syria. You refuse to educate yourself while bleating about some burden of proof. Then you claim I’m the one being dishonest. You are an utter clown.
Dave Van Zandt is a registered Non-Affiliated voter who values evidence-based reporting. Since High School (a long time ago), Dave has been interested in politics and noticed as a kid the same newspaper report in two different papers was very different in their tone. This curiosity led him to pursue a Communications Degree in college; however, like most 20-year olds he didn’t know what he wanted and changed to a Physiology major midstream. Dave has worked in the healthcare industry (Occupational Rehabilitation) since graduating from college but never lost the desire to learn more about bias and its impacts.
The combination of being fascinated by politics, a keen eye to spot bias before he even knew what it was called, and an education/career in science gave Dave the tools required for understanding Media Bias and its implications. This led to a 20-year journey where Dave would read anything and everything he could find on media bias and linguistics. He also employed the scientific method to develop a methodology to support his assessments.
If you’re going to discredit a source, please try to do the legwork of actually discrediting it. A guy with a Bachelors in Physiology and being “fascinated with politics since high school (a long time ago)” cannot be considered a reliable source, nevermind one who claims to follow the “scientific method” which he, presumably, learned while studying to become an occupational therapist or through his 20-year journey of reading political news.
If you have photos of this man, any record of interviews with him, records that support his credibility/the incorporation of his company, records of his job in occupational rehabilitation, details about his team, or anything else, please feel free to share them. Please do not confuse him with Dave E. Van Zandt (Princeton BA Sociology, Yale JD, London School of Economics PhD, ex-managing editor of the Yale Law Journal, ex-Dean of Northeastern’s School of Law, ex-President of The New School).
MBFC is a good enough source for routine information, and its system is accurate enough to give a general idea of who finances, who writes, and whether the articles are sourced according to journalistic standards. It’s a good tool to help with critical evaluation of media sources. But you’re right: it’s not flawless.
Your attack on the founder is an ad hominem attack, and I don’t think it’s relevant. Are you suggesting that people can only learn things through a university education?
Besides, it’s often cited by university sources and experts as being a decent enough indicator of reliability and bias, if not necessarily held up to standards of something like a peer review.
It’s a tool to be used in conjunction with critical thought and evaluation of the source itself, and for that I think it’s rather accurate and useful.
Thing is, even if he is good at media criticism, there’s no stakes for him. Nobody knows who he is, what he looks like, he has nothing on the line, and his credibility in his primary occupation cannot be harmed if he is wrong.
Nevermind that he lacks the credentials nor any legitimate scientific expertise, and yet claims that his Bachelor’s in Physiology was sufficiently advanced to teach him everything he needs to know about the scientific process.
The dataset is seen in academia as being accurate enough to train machine learning models for or to make aggregate claims on. Machine learning models are not the bastions of truth, nor are their datasets.
Machine learning has nothing to do with this. I am referring to academics who study journalism, communication, political science, or sociology.
And it’s doesn’t really matter who he is at this point, the product he created works well and continues to be a reliable source to interrogate media sources.
I am happy that a person is able to create such a useful product, maintain it and continue to prove reliability in the product, and maintain anonymity. I certainly would want to remain anonymous if I was creating something that actively worked to check people’s information bias.
But it’s an irrelevant discussion: who he is doesn’t really matter when evaluating the work of the site itself.
“[MBFC’s] subjective assessments leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in. Compared to Gentzkow and Shapiro, the five to 20 stories typically judged on these sites represent but a drop of mainstream news outlets’ production.” - Columbia Journalism Review
“Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific.” - PolitiFact journalists
MBFC is used when analyzing a large swathe of data because they have ratings for basically every news outlet. There, if a quarter or a third of the data is wrong, you can still generate enough signal to separate from noise.
It absolutely matters who is running a site because there’s an inherent accountability for journalism. There’s a reason you don’t see NYT articles from “Anonymous Ostrich.”
I accept your point about why it matters who runs the site. I would just argue that in this case, it’s not as relevant because the goal seems to legitimately be information transparency, which is consistently delivered across its work. Its findings are at least generally reproducible. But no it’s not scientific. I believe I’ve stated that already, however it’s a good indication of reliability of a source.
Yes, human bias creeps in, hence my point of using it alongside general media literacy and critical thinking when evaluating media.
It aggregates and analyzes a ton of sources, and gives generally accurate information about how they are funded, where they are based, and how well the cite original sources. These are all things that can be corroborated by a somewhat systematic reading of the sources themselves.
An LLM also “aggregates and analyzes a ton of sources, and gives generally accurate information about how they are funded, where they are based, and how well the cite original sources.”
We don’t allow LLM-generated summaries as news stories. Do the legwork, use these tools to start if you want to, but don’t cite them as though they are gospel.
What are you talking about? LLMs have no bearing in this conversation, you brought them up.
Are you saying that you don’t allow people to use tools to evaluate media; and share their reasons for scepticism?
The bit that I quoted from MBFC is factual information (the story’s sponsors and an assessment of reliability), which I used to begin a conversation about the source.
Which upon further discussion was, indeed, ultimately sourced to a Syrian governmental agency, which is then been repeated by various governmental sources. There has not yet been any evidence to support the allegations made by the original source, which supports MBFC assertion that the original news agency does not often provide reliable (by journalistic standards) justification for its news stories. It seems like a really weird idea for you to so vehemently oppose a resource that enables critical thinking.
The news article is an extension of at least one state agency, and there are critiques of its truthfulness. That’s the takeaway from my original comment.
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but I literally cannot fathom a good faith justification for not allowing a widely accepted tool for media literacy to be allowed here. (For clarity, I’m talking about MBFC, not any LLM stuff, which only serves to obfuscates things.)
I cannot fathom a good faith justification for allowing a resource that intentionally obfuscates the media landscape in an effort to compress the entire landscape onto a 2D plane from a person who cannot be found through any conventional means and very well may not exist. Their methodology is bunk for a number of reasons, but we’ll focus specifically on how they evaluate factuality.
As you know, op-eds typically fall under different journalistic purview than news stories. This is as true for the NYT and SCMP (newspapers of record) as it is for Breitbart. Mixing the factuality rating for op-eds and news stories is rather questionable.
The rating scheme works by sampling (how? nobody knows) a small number of stories from each paper and evaluating their factuality. This destroys the validity of the data, as different news sources cover different stories and categories of stories vary in factuality. For example, a paper which records the daily weather temperature in Toronto would be “very highly accurate” even if they release a story saying that water is dry and trees are fake once a month. Because of the limitations of sampling, their methodology leads to inherently skewed results.
The definition of propaganda used is… Unclear. This is obvious as statements made by the US government and repeated by other news agencies are not considered propaganda, despite their factual inaccuracy. For example, “40 beheaded babies” (later demonstrated to be false) and “we [the United States] have the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world” (literally, provably, false because TSMC’s Taiwan fabs are the clear and undisputed leader).
They fail to do due diligence on sourcing because of a (I assume) lack of experience. For example, in their critique of their article “Fake data - the disease afflicting China’s vaccine system,” they say that the article is poorly sourced because it lacks hyperlinks. The article in question cites: a Hong Kong microbiologist (by name), a professor at the University of Hong Kong (by name), the WHO, stories published in the China Economic Times, data from the State Drug Administration, a law case against Changsheng Biotech, and an unnamed head of a disease control center in China. This, they claim, is a use of “quotes or sources to themselves rather than providing hyperlinks.” Their evaluation of “sourcing” seems to be dependent almost entirely on the usage of hyperlinks.
They fail to consistently apply standards applied to smaller news outlets (such as Al Jazeera) to larger news outlets (such as the New York Times and CNN). Against Al Jazeera, they claim that wordplay is used that is negative towards Israel. However, as covered by The Intercept and The Guardian, the New York Times and others have just as extreme (if not more extreme) policies surrounding wordplay that is used to show Israel in a positive light. In major newspapers, for example, the words “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” are reserved almost exclusively for Israeli deaths rather than Palestinian deaths.
MBFC is not consistent with the sources of their fact checks. Against Al Jazeera, they point to “The forgotten massacre that ignited the Kashmir dispute” as not crediting the image correctly. In fact, the caption describes exactly what the image shows, which is exactly what the original source for the image (which they cite) claims.
I can go on…
Again, if it’s trivial to do the legwork and discredit a source anyway, then do that. If it’s not, then don’t outsource the work just because you don’t understand it.
We can talk about how it assesses factuality, but it’s not really relevant to my particular use of MBFC, since I quoted how the media of the OP is funded, which is incredibly relevant.
The existence of op-eds and their content is a useful indicator of where a particular media entity sits. Their editorial standards also reflect the kind of language a source routinely allowed. It’s a good indication of what the outlet is willing to publish.
What is your critique with how it states it samples? It’s a sample of a media source for a qualitative and subjective assessment. I, too would like to know more about how it samples, but I can also see the framework that it follows to assess factuality and confirm or dispute it through a quick look at the headlines and by skimming through some stories, if it seems warranted (though I admit, when it comes to sensationalized headlines and incendiary language, or an obvious government agenda I won’t necessarily do all my due diligence to assess a media source… like I did with the OP).
As for your specific concerns about factuality, you chose some random articles and engaged with them specifically but didn’t link them here, so I’m not going to do your job and go and find the thing you’re talking about.
To your last comment: it’s not always trivial to do the legwork. There is a lot of media out there, and it’s just getting more and more overwhelming. MBFC is just a tool. You have to be aware of the dangers when using a tool. Your critiques are all somewhat valid, but you’re advocating for throwing out a useful tool for media literacy because it’s not perfect.
Thing is, even if he is good at media criticism, there’s no stakes for him. Nobody knows who he is, what he looks like, he has nothing on the line, and his credibility in his primary occupation cannot be harmed if he is wrong.
This reads like an argument against open source projects in general lol
I don’t understand. Unless you have a degree in journalism or something similar you’re not allowed to be an expert on media outlets? How many professors of practice at universities don’t have a degree related to what they’re teaching?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m super put off by this notion that he had a “super keen eye“ and natural attitude for spotting “bias.” I also object to the way that people talk about bias, but that’s another discussion. The point is yeah there’s a little bit of bullshit in there, but his background does not discredit the endeavor.
Professors of Practice tend to have experience in the industry they are professors in. Their reputation is hinged on their achievements, and they don’t cite their degree as being instrumental to their credibility.
Edit: professors are also, y’know, subject to scrutiny and can’t hide behind anonymity when they get things wrong.
The site's history speaks for itself. Because or in spite of him, it's a solid way to at-a-glance assess an outlet. It is not the whole story, it's not even a great story, but it's a start that's pretty solid.
yeah, pretty much. They need to show us an example of why it’s not effective at its mission. Preferably not just pointing to the founder and saying “he doesn’t have the proper degree.“
I don’t think you quite understand what an ad hominem attack is. The fact is, the operator of MBFC has no accountability if they get anything wrong because nobody knows who or what he is. The fact is, the operator of MBFC uses his degrees and experience as justification for his “scientific” evaluation of media bias.
I’m not making any claims that the operator isn’t making themselves.
The OP is using this “source” to discredit other sources. If you’re going to disprove another source, prove that your own source is legitimate in spite of the questions regarding its credibility.
i went to the media bias fact check page for radio free asia, pushed control-f and typed “cia”. there were three hits, as part of the words “politicians”, “appreciate” and “social”.
radio free asia was literally founded by the cia as an anticommunist us propaganda mouthpiece.
well, maybe they don’t exactly use those words but they might basically say the same thing… what does mbfc’s rfa history section look like?
Founded in 1951, Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit international broadcasting agency of the United States government that broadcasts and publishes online news, information, and commentary to listeners in East Asia while “advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy.” RFA distributes content in nine Asian languages for audiences in six countries. In the past, RFA served as an anti-communist propaganda operation. Today they continue to promote USA interests with a less direct propaganda approach.
well, that’s glossing over and avoiding some important points, but at least they’re admitting it’s promoting “USA interests with a less direct propaganda approach”. lets see how they score a source they described as literal government propaganda mouthpiece:
Overall, we rate Radio Free Asia as Left-Center Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that slightly favor the left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record. (11/28/2016) (Updated D. Van Zandt 09/03/2023)
oh, the US government propaganda outfit serving “content in nine Asian languages for audiences in six countries” is left-center and highly factual! Who would have known!
the thing that makes media bias fact check a bad source is that it relies on a one dimensional left-right bias continuum and another one dimensional veracity continuum.
anyone with their head screwed on straight, no matter their personal politics or country of origin can tell without a shadow of a doubt that rfa isn’t a good source because it’s a propaganda arm of the us government. when evaluated on the metrics of leftness or rightness under the rubric of mbfc though, it shows up as “left-center” and when put to the test of authenticity by mbfc it is determined to be highly factual.
media bias fact check is a bad source. it cannot, by design, communicate the reality of a source’s bias because the way it evaluates bias is constrained by and i’d say warped into only what fits it’s highschool-in-1999-ass rubric of bias and accuracy!
If you’re going to discredit a source, please try to do the legwork of actually discrediting it.
You have not done any “legwork” to discredit MBFC. Your personal opinion is that the owner/author doesn’t have appropriate credentials/experience, but you haven’t actually demonstrated that he is not credible.
A person without credentials, without experience, and without any evidence to prove that their claimed credentials or experience are legitimate… Is a credible source?
Can you find any evidence, any at all that the person actually has the credentials that they themselves claim? This is trivial to do for pretty much any modern journalist, but I’ve been able to find zero information on him.
Nope, you are making the claim that the information presented on MBFC is not credible, it is up to you to substantiate that claim. Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Nope, my claim is that you haven’t substantiated your claim with anything more than your own personal opinion. And look at that, my claim is supported by all of your comments continuously failing to present anything more than your personal opinion. QED.
“[MBFC’s] subjective assessments leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in. Compared to Gentzkow and Shapiro, the five to 20 stories typically judged on these sites represent but a drop of mainstream news outlets’ production.” - Columbia Journalism Review
“Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific.” - PolitiFact journalists
Journalists seem to agree with me, which you’d know if you actually read “all of my comments.” This isn’t the first time I’ve posted these quotes in this thread.
You’re showing your own bias. It’s not the resource. It’s one that does an awful lot of legwork in checking bad sources of news, very often accurately.
If you ever bother looking who funds the tool it will become clear to you whose biases it promotes. It’s incredible that there are people so gullible as to genuinely believe that this is some sort of an altruistic project.
You are making the claim about its funding. Please provide your argument, rather than making oblique references to things.
I haven’t had time to watch and contextualize the long video you sent me to respond to it.
But if you have concerns about the bias of a well known and widely respected source of fact checking (not even first hand news), then please expound and cite it.
Otherwise, I have to assume you are making a bad faith argument, and cannot source your assertions, so I don’t have any need to engage with you.
I mean it’s right on their site, the fact that you can’t figure out how to find basic information on the internet says a lot about you. It’s funded in large part by ads. mediabiasfactcheck.com/funding/
There are also plenty of criticisms of the site and the methodology that are well known. For example, The Columbia Journalism Review has described MBFC reviews as subjective assessments that “leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in”
There is an obvious inherent bias given that what’s considered centre is liberal mainstream centre in the west. That’s what’s known as anchoring bias, being to the left of what’s the current mainstream in the west doesn’t make something extreme in objective sense.
Your condescending tone certainly makes you an unattractive conversation partner.
They are funded by advertising. Do you prefer your media to be opaquely funded, or you just prefer media that comes directly from certain states?
Who cares if it’s funded by advertisements? Why is that relevant? I would rather open funding by sponsors I can see than dark money or anonymous donors.
I’ve acknowledged the criticisms for the site, and have only made the argument that it’s a useful tool to use for media literacy. It’s based on US media, and approaches things based on the political circumstances of (primarily) the US and the anglosphere.
I’ve also acknowledged that human bias and inconsistencies exist, and again encouraged its use -alongside critical thinking and media literacy to help with evaluating sources. I. This particular case it simply helped to illustrate that this “news” is just Syrian propaganda that’s being repeated by other governments that have good cause to criticize the United States.
Yes, MBFC it has a bias towards western political bias, because those are the circumstances within which the room was created. That’s a drawback, and, again, something that needs to be accounted for when using the tool.
You have done a fine job at reiterating your points. But none of it is a damning assessment of MBFC. You’ve just proven that it’s not perfect. Something I agree with.
These are flaws that need to be taken into account when using it, but it doesn’t make to tool useless.
But the fact remains that it is considered a reliable enough source to have qualified support for it on various university resource lists.
Your condescending tone certainly makes you an unattractive conversation partner.
Then don’t converse with me. Simple solutions are available given that this is an entirely you problem.
Who cares if it’s funded by advertisements? Why is that relevant? I would rather open funding by sponsors I can see than dark money or anonymous donors.
Entire books have been written on how advertisement models create biases in favor of the advertisers. If you don’t understand why that’s relevant what else can I say. Also, nobody is arguing for any dark money here. That’s just a straw man you made. The argument is that the whole premise is flawed.
I’ve acknowledged the criticisms for the site, and have only made the argument that it’s a useful tool to use for media literacy. It’s based on US media, and approaches things based on the political circumstances of (primarily) the US and the anglosphere.
It’s a useful tool for reinforcing mainstream western views and promoting these biases. People use it to shut down discussion and to smear sources outside western mainstream. This is problematic in the extreme.
Yes, MBFC it has a bias towards western political bias, because those are the circumstances within which the room was created. That’s a drawback, and, again, something that needs to be accounted for when using the tool.
And that’s why it’s highly problematic in a context of the media published by US adversaries. It should not be difficult to understand why, but here we are.
These are flaws that need to be taken into account when using it, but it doesn’t make to tool useless.
Given that people keep trotting it out to promote their political biases, seems that the tool is outright harmful.
But the fact remains that it is considered a reliable enough source to have qualified support for it on various university resource lists.
I’m pretty open about my biases dude, and never pretended otherwise. The point here, is that western mainstream constitutes a bias just like anything else. All you’re complaining about here is that my biases are different from yours. There’s no such thing as unbiased content. Deal with it.
If I claimed to not have biases while calling out other biases, that would certainly be hypocrisy. Pointing out that MFBC is biased while acknowledging my own biases is not hypocrisy. Hope that helps you.
You sure weren’t open about it in that comment I responded to.
Oh, how was I not open about it? Please cite where I try to pretend to be unbiased or mislead people regarding my position. Would love to hear about it champ.
This welterweight debate bro is still waiting for his orbital teapot as well. What a bunch of silly feints. I would stop wasting my time. The post is two days old anyway.
If you’re not a liberal then what are you? A socialist? A monarchist? The Republican and Democratic parties are both liberal ones, as were the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, and Whig parties before them.
I’m a critical thinker and student of public policy and global society and political discourse?
I have a deep and lasting dislike of authoritarianism, no matter the political orientation?
I value media literacy and critical thought?
I dislike the exploitative trend of capitalism, it believe that ny ultimate purpose is to use my own privilege to try and soften the blow for humanity in whatever small way I can, thinking globally in scope while emphasizing engagement with my own immediate community?
But really, I’m just weirded out by the attack on critical thought around here, when all I did was question a questionable source. I’m also wondering why the fuck my political orientation is relevant here, and why you think you’re able to condescend to me in such a childish way.
This conversation is entirely being driven by you saying irrelevant things and using garbage sources like mediabiasfactcheck.com
Nobody is stopping you from finding sources that contradict the original posted story. Nobody is stopping you from explaining why the original posted story is wrong.
Dying on a hill about the usefulness of a glorified amazon review ass source isn’t critical thinking.
I don’t need sources to “debunk” a statement used for demonstrations. But you do need some argumentation to combat claims made by the original story. US troops have been known to engage in questionable behaviour in the past (vast understatement) and in terms of stealing oil, the US government has openly seized oil tankers from other states as well
The Suez Rajan was carrying more than 980,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil last year when it was seized and the oil confiscated in the U.S. sanctions enforcement operation.
We also know that various parts of the US security aparatus have peddled drugs and weapons around the world, both to raise money that can be used without congressional approval and to sow instability. For this point, you can find the stories yourself, it is an extensively covered topic.
Your distractions will not work against me. Prove there isn’t a teapot orbiting Mercury. I want you to demonstrate for everyone here why that doesn’t make sense.
Lmao. Liberals are hilarious. I provide you with arguments and sources that restore the discussion to the topic of the post, and instead of critiquing that, you get stuck on martian orbital teapots. This is exactly what I was talking about in my original comment. Bad faith arguers never advance the discussion in a substantial way, they only derail it with nonsense.
Ok?, they weren’t and you know that, which means your response was meant to detract from the original argument and to prevent any further constructive communication.
If I’m being honest, I don’t have time to read through all of you other, linked comment, that doesn’t at all contextualize it into this current conversation.
I will try to do that, though, and appreciate the seemingly good faith post that I didn’t see in your other comments.
Edit: you have ranted and offered links to Wikipedia. It’s clear that you don’t know how to use this particular tool, as it’s designed primarily for US media, and adheres to North American and European journalistic standards, with an inherent and sizable bias towards the United States political and media climate.
Hideous motives favouring NATO are in itself bad faith character traits, and are not caring of morality or transparent discussion. The agenda is already set and the debate is backtracked from that agenda goal favouring western devil hegemon.
So multiple posters are giving you logical fact based arguments and that’s somehow supposed to make your point more credible? You are a deeply unserious person.
MBFC shills need to be reeducated. There is an incredible overlap in Anglo nationalists and MBFC shills, considering these self appointed immoral police fact check western propaganda sources as legit.
They often state that western sources use less biased language and more often provide evidence, but always acknowledge when they are a part of a government.
Which, by the way, was the gist of my critique of the source that I highlighted in my OP. This news agency is literally funded by governments that are opposed to the US in Syria, and are quoting another Syrian government owned source.
So this article is thin on details and lacking any mention of historical or political context. The only cited sources it has are “witnesses” (unidentified). It’s pretty clearly designed to give the reader a simple impression lacking in nuance or understanding. And in fact, it is a copy of propaganda articles being pushed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as described in this article by Radio Free Asia. And here is the media bias rating for RFA.
This is a propaganda piece, and it’s a poorly written one that doesn’t even attempt to back up its claims with any other sources or explain the broader context of the conflict in Syria. The funny bit is, it’s stale propaganda from 15 months ago, though it seems to have been updated with a new picture of a single truck on a road somewhere.
Adding to the general comic value, there are lots of pictures of trucks on unidentified roads in unspecified locations, but in spite of all the finger-pointing at the “US occupation forces” there isn’t a single US soldier or vehicle pictured anywhere.
This article from SANA is the same. It cites nothing except “local sources” and it’s even shorter. It’s literally a copy of the Chinese Foreign Ministry talking points described by RFA.
RFA was created under the directorate of the CIA, and later transfered to the State Department (aka foreign policy influence). The fact that MBFC fails to mention that is huge red flag and shows their own bias.
I swear it’s MBFC’s job to not understand that. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair
It looks like most outlets carrying this story are just re-reporting this one from SANA: sana.sy/en/?p=329527
And that seems a bit light on details. And the details it does have seem slanted, like painting the US presence as an occupation, a border crossing as an illegal settlement (I can’t even find any other references to Mahmoudiya in Syria with a quick Google), and the photos just show pictures of random tanker trucks, nothing that would indicate location, direction, contents, or operator.
My sense is that the US is supporting a rebel faction in the Syrian civil war, and the ruling faction (Bashar al-Assad’s) is trying to paint them as the bad guy, for something that may or may not be legitimate, and may or may not even be happening at all. There’s not enough evidence here to draw any conclusions.
A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. In this case, that area is under the control of the SDF.
The US is supporting SDF, a primarily Kurdish group. This is no secret, they have been since 2015 against ISIL (you remember, the guys that were posting videos of beheading people on YouTube).
The Kurds have lived in this area for millennia. They have just as much right to the natural resources there as the Assad government, probably more.
Which is why the Navajo Nation controls land that would have otherwise contained the Hoover Dam, if it were not for the rights that the Navajo held to the natural resources there.
what definition of occupation does not include the deployment of the US military, which proceeded to build a dozen military bases in a territory of another country, which has continuously made filings to the UN about this occupation?
Regardless of your opinion of RFA, it’s the way this article is written that makes it propaganda. It makes a direct political attack, but it doesn’t actually substantiate any of its claims. You are expected to believe what it tells you and not ask any questions. There are no corroborating sources, no cross references, and not even names of the witnesses they claim to have.
No matter what your political point of view is, you shouldn’t believe anything presented in an article of this quality. It’s an insult to your intelligence. It’s not information, it’s just opinion.
The Syrian conflict is 13 years old. It’s ridiculous to expect every article to give you the whole context every time, especially since anything anyone will write about said context will be extremely biased. This conflict had massive misinformation campaigns from all sides.
Evaluate the information for what it is, not for whether it gives you a lecture on the history of the conflict.
SANA is primarily a TV channel, and the articles are usually a summary / transcript of the TV reports. They show videos routinely of the trucks that are very clearly carrying oil through Al-ya’rabiya, which is a border crossing from Syria to Iraq that the US controls.
If I go digging, am I going to find out that this is an anti-Kurdish hit piece trying to manufacture consent so Assad can use chemical weapons on Rojava?
There’s no way you don’t believe the US is in Syria? They do not make it a secret. I’m happy to provide you with a wealth of instances where the US admits this.
This is an article attempting to frame Kurdish settlements in Rojava, whose existence is only possible because US forces in the area stop the Turks and Assad from bombing them, as the US stealing fuel and food. The Kurds are the ones pumping this oil and growing the wheat. The US isn’t robbing Syrians at gunpoint for their wheat. It’s only considered theft because the people eating and using the fuel are ethnically undesirable.
You’re still too busy analyzing the motives or agenda of the author instead of evaluating the information. Of-fucking-course the Syrian state TV is going to have an agenda that… Surprise: agrees with state policy. This is not the revelation you think it is.
Guess what? Every source has a bias or agenda. For many it is money related. If you take any source for granted, you’d be a fool. Analyze the information for what it is.
Now, the US is indeed stealing. There have been several videos posted before, and local witnesses arresting to it. This has nothing to do with whatever you think it is framing. This is actually happening.
The US isn’t robbing Syrians at gunpoint
What the hell do you call installing your literal military and building 14 bases (more US bases per square mile of any similarly-sized region in the world), and has initiated multiple attacks on Syria since?
It’s only considered theft because the people eating and using the fuel are ethnically undesirable.
Maybe to you. To me, it is considered theft because the oil fields which were once keeping all Syrians warm, cooking, and supplying them with electric power is now being given to an occupying military while most Syrians are struggling for a drop of heating or cooking oil, many dying of the winter cold.
Investigations have found that the Assad regime has carried out the majority of the over 336 confirmed chemical weapons attacks in Syria, with 98% of the total attacks attributed to the regime.[1]
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has documented 222 chemical weapons attacks in Syria as of November 2023, with 217 of these carried out by Syrian regime forces. These attacks have killed 1,514 individuals, including 1,413 civilians.[2]
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed five separate instances of the Assad regime using chemical weapons, including the April 2018 attack in Douma that killed 43 people.[3]
Human Rights Watch has documented the Syrian government’s “widespread and systematic use of chemical weapons” since at least 2013, despite the government’s pledges to cooperate with OPCW and UN inspectors.[4]
The 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, which killed hundreds, was the deadliest use of chemical weapons since the Iran-Iraq War.[5]
In summary, the overwhelming evidence from multiple independent investigations and organizations confirms that the Assad regime in Syria has repeatedly and systematically used chemical weapons against civilians during the civil war, in clear violation of international law.
Aaron Maté, Kit Klarenberg, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and others have been reporting on this extensively for years: #douma, #white-helmets, #opcw
Human Rights Watch’s main purpose is to manufacture consent for US regime change operations.
Monthly Review: How Credible Is Human Rights Watch on Cuba? Human Rights Watch, however, is not funded by the US government. Yet it gets most of its funds from a variety of US foundations, in turn funded by many of the biggest US corporations. These wealthy, private foundations often tie their contributions to particular projects. So for example HRW’s Middle East reports often rely on and acknowledge grants from pro-Israel foundations. Other groups ask for a focus on women’s rights or HIV/AIDS issues. More than 90% of HRW’s US$100 million budget in 2009 was “restricted” in this way. In other words, HRW offers a privatized, US-based selection of rights issues catering to the wealthy.
Wheat is a commodity like any other crop, and just like any other commodity, it has value. Also it’s even more profitable when its stolen since you don’t even have to invest in production costs.
Look, this article runs every few months from the Syrian regime. To be blunt, the trucks bring in Wheat and probably arms or something else they shouldn’t. The SDF (formerly called the YPJ and YPG) runs oil refineries and sells the oil as a means of finding themselves. The US… Well, ‘Coalition’ supplies them with the refineries.
Why all these steps? Turkyie hates the YPJ/YPG but Turkyie is part of the Coalition against ISIL. The ‘SDF’ gets bombed by Turkyie but the SDF also runs the largest ISIL prison in the region. So Turkyie and Syria don’t team up against the SDF, the SDF doesn’t get full US support, and resupply trucks have to ‘sneak’.
Everyone in the region has stakes in not letting them break out. Iraq doesn’t want it, Syria doesn’t want it, the US and Coalition don’t want it but, outside of the US, no one can publicly back the SDF and save face with their regional counterparts. The US makes sure the SDF has food and funds, everyone gets to keep the ISIL and Refugee camps ‘running’ and no one has to support the SDF and lose face with their local parties.
I’d call it shades of gray but it’s more like shades of blood…
Well I guess there’s a bit of a difference. Russia was invited by LPR and DPR to help stop the ethnic cleansing. Nobody invited US into Syria last I checked.
Of course there’s a difference. Russia is addressing a severe national security concern and stopping a genocide in Ukraine. The great satan is destroying Syria to loot its resources and prevent West Asian countries from throwing off the yoke of imperialism.
Ahh, it’s only crude oil? That makes it all legitimate then /s
It’s not a grand conspiracy. It’s an occupation and illegitimate military intervention. The US has a long track record of doing it, and your people have a long history of supporting it :)
I’m not saying it’s legitimate or illegitimate and, yeah, there are US assets (likely other countries too but they ‘need’ more discretion) in Syria. Not just ‘force projection’ but troops on ground, patrolling with the SDF.
So, yeah, you’re not wrong but US assets are supporting SDF assets who are keeping detained ISIL under lock and key and, when they get uppity, hellfire missile.
But, at the end of the day, The Syrian Government could simply roll out into the country and take back the oil fields from the Kurds that everyone in the region loves to oppress and ship it out themselves. I’m against Iraqi oppression of the Kurds. I’m against Turkish oppression of the Kurds. Guess what? I’m also against Syrian oppression of the Kurds. If that makes me a US (and Coalition by proxy) shill then by all means, think me a shill. The Kurds have held their lands since the beginning of written history but you think that the Syrian Dictatorships of the last fifty years have more right to that land then go off, friend.
Yeah I am not going to excuse a US occupation with ISIS as pretext when it was the US that sponsored ISIS’ creation.
I’m completely lost about your last paragraph. It sounds like you’re assuming I have some stances that I do not. I support Kurdish autonomy and independence. Tying that into letting more people in non-US-occupied regions fight for a drop of heating or cooking oil is ridiculous. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Turkyie doesn’t like the Kurds, maybe for a good reason in their eyes. Syria doesn’t like the Kurds and again they probably think that’s a good idea too. Iraq gives them autonomy but that’s who knows what will happen if Sadr continues to expand Iranian influence.
The US has on multiple occasions used the Kurds and left them out to dry, so they’re not some blameless paragon, but they didn’t at Al Sina’a and they continue to keep food shipments moving in despite Russian aggression raising the price of wheat and Syrian shelling the White Helmets.
There’s no angels but at least the US isn’t bombing whole towns for the crime of being “rebel held”. They keep their collateral down to whomever might be standing near their targets…
Or, in the case of their Task Force 9, merely precision bomb their civilian targets.
I think we can both agree that US actions in the region have been abhorrent. Though, the Coalition at least attempts to maintain an air of legitimacy (and aid funding) and the Kurds by and large don’t have many other friends.
The US coalition’s bombings has been far more cruel than even the Syrian regime and ISIS. Just compare the size of the destruction, the number of destroyed buildings between the liberation of Raqqa vs the battle of Aleppo. Despite Aleppo being a much bigger city, and the fight being far more fierce, Raqqa had far more destruction and was raised to the ground.
I agree with you that the SDF does not have many friends, and I support them in milking as much US aid as they can. But selling off the oil when most Syrians are struggling for a drop of oil is cruel, and we should not accept this.
What kinship do the Kurds owe Aleppo when they would hand their lands over to Russia? They can sell it to the Americans or they can sell it to the Regime who bombs them, who’d rather they be bombed out to make room for their Russian Allies. Not much choice for them.
If Assad, because I don’t blame the Syrian people as a whole, recognized Kurdish autonomy they could begin to move towards unifying in the people’s best interest instead of scraping what little they can through bad deals. Instead, the Assad Government is ready to move the Kurds out of their lands to hand them over to Russian companies. The people of Syria don’t really get the oil either way - the people do struggle for US benefit but Assad is not a heroic revolutionary fighting for the people either. A free Rojava would be the first step in removing the US yoke but it would also remove the Syrian one.
When did the people of Aleppo hand over land to Russia? You do realize the SDF collaborated with Russia and even hosts a Russian military base?
Also, the Assad government, despite all its horrors and corruption, actually cooperates with the SDF on a moderate level. There is already some trade between the two, and they fought side by side on a few occasions.
So who’s growing the wheat? As I understand it, it’s an ongoing practice for over a decade. So someone is growing wheat every year only for the US military to swoop in and harvest it? Or do they ambush trucks with already harvested wheat? Article doesn’t seem to mention the hows, focusing on oil. But oil is a bit different from wheat
I’d love to know what the domestic spin is on this.
What specifics is he promising this will deliver domestically? I can’t imagine Buenos Aires is on Putin’s shortlist even without the threst of NATO, and it’s not like Americans are goung to start beating the doors down for Argentine imports.
There’s tactful good relations, and then there’s “sempai notice me”. Although, the Cosplay Crusader may well be familiar with that trope.
That’s easy, communist dictator overthrew the corporate friendly dictator so the big, rich land owners and industrialist lost their investment. So fled to Dominican Republic, most to Miami.
Their descendants represent an important Latino vote that grew up hating Castro’s regime. To the point of some of the most extreme took down a Cuban cargo plane without consequences from the US. The US sucks up to them for their votes in exchange for continued anti Castro policies.
Obama actually started reversing this but guess which orange bozo undid most of it in a single term? Not that Biden did much to try it again.
I still never understood what Cuba actually did that makes the US sanction them to this day. As far as I can tell they were a neutral country actually leaning slightly in favour of the US right up until they were suddenly branded communist (in the soviet sense) and more or less pushed into Russias arms.
They are living proof that communism works. The capitalist global hegemon can’t have people knowing there are alternatives to the exploitation it relies on to keep itself going.
Well Castro came to power via revolution in 1959, which pissed off the US, and started the push towards the Soviet Union. The nation also hosted Soviet nukes for a very brief time in 1962.
More detailed timeline found here, if you’re interested.
That was in response to the US placing similar missiles in Turkey and Italy and threatening the USSR in 1961.
I don’t see Russia putting an embargo on those two now 60 years later. Though ig that’s not a one-to-one comparison since Russia’s ruled by capitalists now.
I am not here arguing for or against sanctions. I am saying that there is a specific historical incident which is the current justification for the status quo.
This was 62 years ago, if just the crisis was the reason, it would be gone long ago, at least since 1991. No, the true reason is that thriving socialist state in a beret toss distance from USA would undermine US imperialism greatly. Remember that entire capitalism hinges on the propaganda that “socialism don’t work”, and while it demostrably do work, it’s always some far away so it can be propagandized and demonised to hell and back, so when they got one right beside them, they must sabotage it with all strenght.
It’s the threat of a good example right at the US’s borders. Even with the embargo, Cuba has free healthcare, housing, better LGBT rights, higher life expectancy, and a proper democracy unlike the US. A thriving Cuba might threaten the US capitalist class and force them to make concessions to the working-class, like the Scandanavian countries’ capitalist states had to for being near the USSR (though those have started being undone with the example overthrown).
And it’s not just sanctions, the embargo also prevents companies of other countries from trading with Cuba if they also do so with the US. Which the vast majority of them obviously have to if they want to survive competition.
There’s a really good podcast season (2) from Blowback on the history of Cuba and why things are the way they are today. But essentially, it’s what another user posted below. It’s that communism existing is a threat to capitalist rule.
Cuba repossessed land that foreigners in the US (Florida) were making money off of so they could support their own people. The dispossessed Americans turned this into a voting issue and have had the US leadership by the balls over it since. Other countries in the region who want to suck up to the US uphold the embargo on their end as well. This keeps Cuba in a constant state of extreme poverty. It’s violence.
American operates more than 49 flights per week from Miami to Havana!. Also Miami to Santiago de Cuba and Varadero 5 days a week, and Santa Clara, Camagüey, Holguín 7 days a week.
Southwest operates flights from Fort Lauderdale to Havana 21 times a week. (3/day), additionally once daily from Tampa to Havana (twice on Saturday).
Delta flies Miami to Havana twice daily
United flies Houston to Havana once daily.
Source: I hope to visit soon and researched
Of course none of these are on Cuba’s airline Cubana as I assume the US doesn’t allow it.
The Havana to Buenos Aires route is also served once weekly by Euroairlines.
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