Left I on the News

For the Nth consecutive time, a bombing at a Syrian military intelligence facility, this one killing nine and wounding another hundred, is ritually and almost comically blamed by Al Jazeera on the Syrian government:

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the Turkish city of Antakya, along the border with Syria, said that opposition groups accuse the government of staging the blasts as a ploy to make the country's protest movement appear violent...The Syrian National Council (SNC), the country's main political opposition group, also blamed the government for the blast.

Evidence for these preposterous claims? Nil, of course. And, in the entire article, not even a hint or suggestion that it might have been the Syrian opposition who did it. You know, the ones with an actual motive to kill members of the Syrian military. Not even a pretense of "he said, she said" reporting from Al Jazeera in this case.

Even Reuters knows better than to go that far; they lead with the completely believable Syrian government claim that the opposition was responsible for the bombing, and their inclusion of the opposite claim by the Syrian National Congress seems almost pro forma rather than meant to be taken seriously, although that they include such an absurd claim at all, given the complete lack of evidence and motive, still disqualifies even them from a claim of being serious journalists.

Al Jazeera, by contrast continues its descent into zero credibility.