In an era marked by authorities waging battle against the windmills of disinformation (conveniently defined as somebody else’s speech), the average citizen is clamoring for access to facts. But where do facts come from, or rather, how do we citizens receive and consume them?

The obvious answer is the media. But few people in the United States trust the media these days. Surely, in a democracy “of the people, by the people and for the people,” there will be a few scoundrels who make their way into government, but we can assume that the majority merits our confidence. Well, according to a Pew survey titled, “Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024,” the current level of trust has fallen to 22%.

December 2024 offers us a vision of exacerbated tensions in various parts of the globe. At such moments, we expect our leaders to speak with some degree of honesty. Especially when the stakes are high and decisions become a matter of life or death. We accept that some things must remain secret. But the democratic principle implies an effort on the part of our governments to offer a minimum of clarity concerning the facts and their intentions.

Alas, the duty of obscurity seems to have replaced the ideal of clarity as the norm. Clever government officials have good reasons to justify their brazen stonewalling. First, national security requires concealing one’s true intentions. After all, if revealed, the enemy will profit. Then there is the fact that in any situation of conflict, we should accept the reality of the “fog of war,” a concept erroneously but persistently attributed to Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz by commentators, some of whose brains may be subjected to a permanent fog.

What are US presidents for if not guiding the nation towards an understanding of the truth? In August 2023, US President Joe Biden informed us that “Putin has already lost the war” in Ukraine. An obvious fact. The truth teller now describes the recent history of US policy towards Syria. “Over the past four years, my administration pursued a clear and principled policy toward Syria. First, we made clear from the start sanctions on Assad would remain in place unless he engaged seriously in a political process to end the civil war.”

Today’s Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Principled policy:

A course of action relentlessly pursued thanks to the capacity of some people in a position of authority to persistently ignore surrounding reality.

Contextual note

Biden uses two epithets, “clear” and “principled,” to describe his policy. The word “clear” is certainly the most overused word by any spokesperson for the White House or State Department. At briefing sessions with personalities such as the White House’s Karine Jean-Pierre and the State Department’s Matthew Miller, whenever a journalist poses embarrassing questions that highlight potential ambiguity or equivocation with regard to the “noble” principles that guide US actions, they respond with the formula, “We have been very clear about…” In one random example, the press briefing session of March 27, 2024, Max Miller crafted this litany of explanations:

• So we have been very clear about this matter.
• So we have made that quite clear to them.
• So I will say that we have a fundamental disagreement with the Israeli Government over this issue, and we have made that quite clear.
• … we will continue to be clear about what we think about these actions.
• …we have made clear that we believe that allegations of genocide are unfounded.
• …we have made clear that the United States is not going to send any troops to Ukraine.
• And I think it’s clear that these claims are categorically false. (this was a response to the claim that the US created ISIS.)
• …and we’ll make the same thing clear privately.
• …we have made clear since the outset of this administration that the promotion of democracy is one of the top priorities for the President.
• So we continue to make clear in our conversations with the Government of Bangladesh… that we wanted to see free and fair elections and we will continue to support free, full, open democracy in Bangladesh.
• So we have been very clear about this matter. We’ve been unequivocal. (This concerned the fact that “Ben-Gvir’s coalition would be annexing additional land in the Jordan Valley.”)
• So we have made that quite clear to them. We’ve been very direct and candid about it in our conversations with them. (On the same topic of land seizures.)

This obsessively repeated verbal tic brings home the point that “being clear” means quite simply: “Whatever we say must be accepted as truth.” As for the “principled policy” Biden cited, his logic consists of announcing a simple principle — that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be removed from office — and never deviating from it. Even if circumstances change, and even if hundreds of thousands of people may die or be displaced as a result of clinging to that principle.

Biden has already vowed to support the new Syrian government. Some may find this a bit strange. At this point, nobody has even a vague idea about what the new government will look like. On principle, can the US support it? What if it turns out to be a Wahhabi terrorist government, fulfilling its leader’s initial allegiance? Moreover, Syrian Head of State Abu Mohammed al-Joulani still has a $10 million bounty on his head because the US branded him a terrorist. Does Joulani’s success in overthrowing a dictator, Assad, automatically mean that democracy is on its way? Biden might profitably consult the the poem, “The Great Day” by the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats::

“Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”

Substitute “regime change” for “revolution” and Yeats has defined the principle that defines at least 50% of US foreign policy. In the meantime, Biden and his good friend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are providing “more cannon-shot.” Within a day of the announced liberation of Syria, the US and Israel conducted multiple bombing raids on the military infrastructure and other threatening elements within a country that is rife with threatening elements. Can anyone seriously doubt that the lash will go on?

Anyone struggling with the question of which “clear principles” to apply to a dramatic situation in which multiple interests both converge and diverge would do well to follow Caitlin Johnstone’s advice. “I personally don’t blame people for misunderstanding what’s been happening in Syria all these years. Some of my favorite analysts got Syria wrong in the early years of the war. It’s a complicated issue. It’s hard to sort out the true from the false, and it’s hard to sort through the moral complexities and contradictions of it all as a human being. What matters is that you stay curious and open and sincerely dedicated to learning what’s true instead of bedding down and making an identity out of your current understanding.”

Johnstone’s wisdom tallies with the advice our fictional journalist and his AI assistant are intent on following in the video above.

Historical note

As US President Barack Obama’s vice president and then as president, Joe Biden has been associated with the framing and enforcing of the principles he claims to be at the core of US policy with regard to Syria.

But what are those principles? In 2015, The Guardian revealed that the most obvious one has been to ignore any initiative aiming at peace and mutual security, especially if the initiative comes from Russia.

The Guardian was clear. “Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time. Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.”

Biden’s principles are clear. He once again demonstrated that clarity in December 2021 when he refused to consider security arrangements Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that could have avoided an invasion and a prolonged war in Ukraine, in which an estimated one million people have died. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson applied the same principle when he instructed the Ukrainians not to sign a peace treaty in April 2022.

During a 2015 television interview, Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas recounted how his British friends told him they were planning to overthrow Assad because the “Syrian regime said things that were anti-Israeli.” Another case of applying a principle, this time by British allies of the US.

These cases illustrate what has become clear as far as principles are concerned. Negotiation and diplomacy can never replace kinetic action, whatever the eventual cost. The principle of regime change for Syria has already been in place for 12 years. It has finally succeeded. Just as it had in Iraq and Libya and even in Afghanistan in 2001.

One may legitimately ask, is it more about principle or about interest?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.