{"id":15354,"date":"2020-11-25T16:31:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T21:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=15354"},"modified":"2020-11-25T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T21:31:39","slug":"counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/25\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterpunch: How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How many Syrians did you vote to kill on Election Day? Biden&#39;s nominees for Secretary of State &amp; National Security Advisor favored killing far more Syrians during Obama&#39;s presidency.<br \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GJ30NRuI3j\">https:\/\/t.co\/GJ30NRuI3j<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; James Bovard (@JimBovard) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBovard\/status\/1331621355784196100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 25, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"post_date\" title=\"2020-11-25\">Counterpunch, November 25, 2020<\/span><\/p>\n<h1 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2020\/11\/25\/how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill?<\/a><\/h1>\n<p><span class=\"post_author_intro\">by<\/span> <span class=\"post_author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/author\/james-bovard\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"socialtwo\">\n<div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_default_style left-social\" data-a2a-icon-color=\"unset\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/#facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"a2a_label\">Facebook<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/#twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"a2a_label\">Twitter<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"a2a_button_reddit\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/#reddit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"a2a_label\">Reddit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"socialtwo\">\n<div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_default_style left-social\" data-a2a-icon-color=\"unset\"><a class=\"a2a_button_email\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/#email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"a2a_label\">Email<\/span><\/a> <a class=\"print-icon\" title=\"Print This Post\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2020\/11\/25\/how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\/print\/\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2017\/09\/atoa-print-icon.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_130374\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-130374 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-23-at-8.16.17-AM-680x473.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"473\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-130374\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-130374\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Syrian war protest at the White House in 2013. Photo: James Bovard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>How many Syrians did you vote to kill on Election Day? Thanks to our perverse political system, the answer will be revealed over the next four years if the Biden administration drags the U.S. back into the Syrian Civil War. But there are steps that Trump can take in his final months in office to deter such follies.<\/p>\n<p>Syria was not an issue in the presidential campaign and there were no foreign policy questions in the two presidential debates. That won\u2019t stop the Biden team from claiming a mandate to spread truth and justice via bombs and bribes any place on the globe.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden campaign promised to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Luka_Duvnjak\/status\/1325510919288483850\">\u201cincrease pressure\u201d on Syrian presiden<\/a>t Bashar Assad \u2013 presumably by providing more arms and money to his violent opponents. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris declared that the U.S. government \u201cwill once again stand with civil society and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastmonitor.com\/20201103-kamala-harris-us-will-reverse-trump-era-policy-restore-relation-with-palestine\/\">pro-democracy partners in Syria<\/a> and help advance a political settlement where the Syrian people have a voice.\u201d Northeastern University professor Max Abrahms observed, \u201cEvery foreign policy \u2018expert\u2019 being floated for Biden\u2019s cabinet supported toppling the governments in Iraq, Libya and Syria, helping <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaxAbrahms\/status\/1326477255586050048\">Al Qaeda and jihadist friends<\/a>, ravaging the countries, uprooting millions of refugees from their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Biden\u2019s nominee for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, championed more aggressive U.S. interventions in Syria when he served as an Obama administration deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser. A <em>Guardian<\/em> profile on Monday stated that Blinken had opposed the Obama administration\u2019s \u201cdecision <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2020\/nov\/23\/antony-blinken-joe-biden-secretary-of-state-appointee-is-sharp-break-with-trump-era\">not to intervene<\/a> in any significant way in Syria.\u201d This bizarre rewriting of history is a bad omen for the candor of the incoming administration.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" data-twitter-extracted-i1606327147332800566=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">After Jake Sullivan chirped to his boss about Al Qaeda being &#8220;on our side in Syria,&#8221; he advocated for more covert arms shipments to the Syrian insurgency the jihadist group was leading. Expect more wise moves like this in the months and years to come. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eHhR4Pt5jZ\">https:\/\/t.co\/eHhR4Pt5jZ<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hi1HWD88v8\">pic.twitter.com\/hi1HWD88v8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaxBlumenthal\/status\/1331069790195245056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 24, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Syria policy has long exemplified the depravity of Washington politicians and policymakers and the venality of much of the American media. The same \u201cHitler storyline\u201d that American politicians invoked to justify ravaging Serbia, Iraq, and Libya was applied to Assad by <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2013\/09\/01\/john-kerry-says-assad-is-the-new-hitler\/\">Secretary of State John Kerry<\/a> in 2013. Once a foreign leader is irrevocably tagged with the scarlet H, the U.S. government is automatically entitled to take any action against his nation that would purportedly undermine his regime. Every side in the Syrian civil war committed atrocities but the Obama administration acted as if there was only one bad guy.<\/p>\n<p>Trump attempted to extract the U.S. from the Syria conflict but his sporadic, often unfocused efforts were largely thwarted by the permanent bureaucracy in the Pentagon, State Department, and other agencies. Since the Biden administration will likely drag us back into the Syrian quagmire, recapping how America got into this mess is worthwhile.<\/p>\n<p>President Obama promised <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/onpolitics\/2015\/10\/30\/16-times-obama-said-there-would-no-boots-ground-syria\/74869884\/\">16 times<\/a> that he would never put U.S. \u201cboots on the ground\u201d in the four-sided Syrian civil war. He quietly abandoned that pledge and, starting in 2014, launched more than 5,000 airstrikes that dropped more than 15,000 bombs in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>Lying and killing are often two sides of the same political coin. The U.S. government provided cash and a massive amount of military weaponry to terrorist groups seeking to topple the Assad regime. The fig leaf for the policy was that the U.S. government was merely arming \u201cmoderate\u201d rebels \u2013 which apparently meant groups that opposed Assad but which refrained from making grisly videos of beheadings. U.S. policy in Syria became so bollixed that Pentagon-backed Syrian <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world\/middleeast\/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html\">rebels openly battled CIA-backed<\/a> rebels. The U.S. government spent billions aiding and training Syrian forces who either quickly collapsed on the battlefield or teamed up with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or al-Qaeda-linked forces.<\/p>\n<p>Federal law prohibiting providing material support to terrorist groups was not permitted to impede Obama\u2019s Syrian crusade. Evan McMullin, a 2016 presidential candidate, admitted on Twitter: \u201cMy role in the CIA was to go out &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EvanMcMullin\/status\/765322182054383616\">convince Al Qaeda<\/a> operatives to instead work with us.\u201d Most of the media outlets that shamelessly regurgitated the Bush administration\u2019s false claims linking Iraq to Al Qaeda to justify a 2003 invasion ignored how the Obama administration began aiding and abetting terrorist groups.<em> The Intercept\u2019s <\/em>Mehdi Hasan lamented last year that those who warned that U.S. government \u201cproviding money and weapons to such rebels would backfire\u2026 were <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/10\/26\/syrian-rebels-turkey-kurds-accountability\/\">smeared as genocide apologists<\/a>, Assad stooges, Iran supporters.\u201d A Turkish think tank analyzed the violent groups committing atrocities in Syria after the start of the Turkish invasion in 2019: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moonofalabama.org\/2019\/10\/new-york-times-fakes-the-record-of-arming-the-syrian-rebels.html\">Out of the 28 factions<\/a>, 21 were previously supported by the United States, three of them via the Pentagon\u2019s program to combat [ISIS]. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>American policy in Syria has been incorrigible in part because most of the media has covered the conflict like a fairy tale that sometimes showcased our national goodness. Trump\u2019s finest hour, according to the American media, occurred when he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2017\/06\/26\/donald-trump-reckless-syria-folly-james-bovard-column\/426924001\/\">launched missile strikes<\/a> on the Syrian government in April 2017 after allegations that Assad\u2019s forces had used chemical weapons. MSNBC host Brian Williams gushed over the video footage of the attacks: \u201cI am <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/the-media-loved-trumps-show-of-military-might-are-we-really-doing-this-again\/2017\/04\/07\/01348256-1ba2-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.htmlhttps:\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/the-media-loved-trumps-show-of-military-might-are-we-really-doing-this-again\/2017\/04\/07\/01348256-1ba2-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html\">guided by the beauty<\/a> of our weapons.\u201d <em>Washington Post <\/em>media columnist Margaret Sullivan groused that \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/the-media-loved-trumps-show-of-military-might-are-we-really-doing-this-again\/2017\/04\/07\/01348256-1ba2-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html\">praise flowed like<\/a> wedding champagne \u2014 especially on cable news.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That wasn\u2019t the only time that top-tier media celebrated carnage. Later in 2017, <em>Washington Post<\/em> columnist David Ignatius proudly cited an estimate from a \u201cknowledgeable official\u201d that \u201cCIA-backed fighters may have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/what-the-demise-of-the-cias-anti-assad-program-means\/2017\/07\/20\/f6467240-6d87-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html\">killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers a<\/a>nd their allies over the past four years.\u201d Ignatius did not reveal if his inside source also provided an estimate of how many Syrian women and children had been slaughtered by CIA-backed terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>The following year, Trump launched another round of missile attacks against the Syrian government based on less evidence than required for a jaywalking ticket in New York City. Top officials with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons leaked information showing that the charges against the Syria <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/world\/opcw-leaks-syria\/\">government were false<\/a> but the U.S. media and American politicians mostly ignored their evidence, as Aaron Mate reported in Nation. In September, Trump announced on \u201cFox &amp; Friends\u201d that he had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/09\/15\/trump-assassinate-syria-assad-415093\">wanted to assassinate Assad<\/a> but then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would not go along with the killing.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s Syrian policy continued veering wildly. In late 2018, the Washington Post reported that \u201cU.S. troops will now stay in Syria indefinitely, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/washingtonpost\/status\/1073651261961064449?lang=en\">controlling a third of<\/a> the country and facing peril on many fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Capitol Hill has been worse than useless on Syria. When Trump announced plans to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, the House of Representatives condemned his move by a 354 to 60 vote. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, blathered, \u201cAt President Trump\u2019s hands, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/116th-congress\/house-resolution\/625\/text\">American leadership<\/a> has been laid low.\u201d Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who was elected after lying to voters by claiming he fought in the Vietnam War, said he felt \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/article\/uk-syria-security-turkey-usa\/horror-and-shame-u-s-senators-kurdish-leader-call-for-turkey-sanctions-idUKKBN1X100N\">horror and shame<\/a>\u201d over Trump\u2019s action. Congress showed more outrage about a troop pullback than it had shown about the loss of all the American soldiers\u2019 lives in pointless conflicts over the past 18 years. While hundreds of members of Congress urged Trump to keep the U.S. military in Syria to fight \u201cextremist\u201d elements, the media ignored the peril of extremist warmongers on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign policy \u201cexperts\u201d are Washington\u2019s most respected con artists. It will be no surprise if Biden appointees repeat the same \u201ctoo clever by half\u201d routine of the Obama years, bankrolling terrorists to torment a nation ruled by someone who Washington disapproves.<\/p>\n<p>If the Biden administration commences bombing Syria to topple Assad, Americans would be naive to expect to learn the facts from cable news or their morning newspapers. Syrian children who die in U.S. airstrikes will be as invisible as Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop in the vast majority of American media coverage. The media will also continue to ignore the slaughter of Syrian Christians, one of the largest and least recognized victims of the civil war.<\/p>\n<p>The best hope to prevent a new round of mistakes, lies, and atrocities is an epic disclosure of prior U.S. mistakes, lies, and crimes in Syria. There is an old saying that sunshine is the best disinfectant. For U.S. policy in Syria, what is needed is an acid burn that permanently sullies the reputations of any government official involved in creating, perpetuating, or covering up debacles. Any U.S. Government official involved in arming the \u201cmoderate\u201d rebels deserves to be ridiculed in perpetuity.<\/p>\n<p>The vast majority of records on U.S. intervention in Syria are likely classified as military or national security secrets. But the president is authorized to disclose as he chooses. Perhaps what is needed is a Wikileaks-style massive dump of documents with only the names of innocent Syrians redacted. Almost 20 years ago, Washingtonians were riveted by the last minute pardons that Bill Clinton uncorked until almost the final moment of his presidency. Trump could do the same thing with deluges of disclosures on Syria and other quagmires until the moment that Biden leaves his basement for swearing-in.<\/p>\n<p>If blanket revelations are not possible, then selective disclosures with high entertainment value would include the cozy ties between federal agencies and journalists and think tanks who won official favor by shamelessly recycling official lies.<\/p>\n<p>Revealing the strings that foreign governments pulled to propel or perpetuate U.S. intervention could vaccinate Americans against similar ploys in the future. The Israeli <a href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/.premium-israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake-1.6894850\">government admitted last year<\/a> (after years of denials) that it had long provided military aid to radical Muslim Syrian groups fighting Assad. With the Obama administration\u2019s approval, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/01\/24\/world\/middleeast\/us-relies-heavily-on-saudi-money-to-support-syrian-rebels.html\">Saudis poured massive<\/a> amounts of arms and money into the hands of terrorist groups fighting the Assad regime. Both the Israeli and Saudi military aid made the Syrian assignment more perilous for American troops. Other governments helped sow chaos and carnage in Syria while the Obama administration pretended that the main or sole problem was Assad.<\/p>\n<p>Sweeping disclosures could also enable Trump to settle scores with appointees who subverted his policies. Trump appointed a Never-Trumper letter signer, Jim Jeffrey, as his special envoy for Syria. Last week, Jeffrey explained how he and others thwarted Trump\u2019s efforts to dis-engage in Syria: \u201cWe were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/threats\/2020\/11\/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record\/170012\/\">always playing shell games<\/a> to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.\u201d The actual number was far higher than the 200 Trump thought would be left in the country. The charade on troop deployments was a \u201csuccess story\u201d for Jeffrey, <em>Defense One<\/em> noted, because it \u201cended with U.S. troops still operating in Syria, denying Russian and Syrian territorial gains.\u201d But denying \u201cSyrian territorial gains\u201d to Syrians was not the policy Trump touted. <em>Washington Post<\/em> reporter Liz Sly savored the charade: \u201cUS officials have been lying to Trump \u2013 and the American people \u2013 about the true number of US troops in Syria in order <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LizSly\/status\/1327137565288378370\">to deter him from withdrawing<\/a> them, according to the outgoing Syria envoy. Trump thinks it\u2019s 200.\u201d Sly added two laughing emojis after that line. (No word on whether the <em>Post<\/em> will add laughing emojis to its \u201cDemocracy Dies in Darkness\u201d motto.)<\/p>\n<p>Opening the files on Syria would provide the ammo for activism by vast numbers of Americans who vehemently oppose new wars. In August 2013, Obama was on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2013\/09\/05\/obama-soviet-union-roosevelt-syria-nsa-column\/2758831\/\">verge of bombing the Assad regime<\/a> after allegations it had used chemical weapons. A vast outcry against intervention, including a <a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/31\/great-antiwar-protest-white-house-obama-speech\/\">dramatic protest outside the White House<\/a> while Obama was making a Saturday speech on his Syrian plans, temporarily deterred further U.S. escalation (beheading videos were the Aladdin\u2019s Lamp for interventionists). [[edit note: attached is a photo I took at the 2013 protest]] There is far more evidence of the folly of U.S. intervening in Syria now than there was in 2013 and probably more folks today ready to raise hell.<\/p>\n<p>America can no longer afford to cloak its foreign carnage in shrouds of good intentions. There is no transcendent national interest that justifies pointlessly killing more Arabs in Syria or elsewhere. Americans need to be ready to scoff if the Biden administration portrays keeping U.S. boots on foreign necks as a triumph of idealism.<\/p>\n<p><em>+An earlier version of this article appeared in The American Conservative<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/toles-cartoon-on-syria-bs-tt140924.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7578\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/toles-cartoon-on-syria-bs-tt140924.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"644\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many Syrians did you vote to kill on Election Day? Biden&#39;s nominees for Secretary of State &amp; National Security Advisor favored killing far more Syrians during Obama&#39;s presidency. https:\/\/t.co\/GJ30NRuI3j &mdash; James Bovard (@JimBovard) November 25, 2020 Counterpunch, November 25, 2020 How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill? by James Bovard Facebook Twitter Reddit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,1476,27,262,708],"class_list":["post-15354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biden","tag-carnage","tag-lying","tag-syria","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Counterpunch: How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill? - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/25\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Counterpunch: How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill? - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How many Syrians did you vote to kill on Election Day? Biden&#039;s nominees for Secretary of State &amp; National Security Advisor favored killing far more Syrians during Obama&#039;s presidency. https:\/\/t.co\/GJ30NRuI3j &mdash; James Bovard (@JimBovard) November 25, 2020 Counterpunch, November 25, 2020 How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill? by James Bovard Facebook Twitter Reddit [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/25\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-25T21:31:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/DSC_1030-e1605666352871.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"798\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"Counterpunch: How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill?\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-25T21:31:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2119,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/DSC_1030-e1605666352871.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Biden\",\"carnage\",\"Lying\",\"syria\",\"Trump\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/25\\\/counterpunch-how-many-syrians-did-you-vote-to-kill\\\/\",\"name\":\"Counterpunch: How Many Syrians Did You Vote to Kill? 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