Syria - guess the BBC headline

As the Western media, notably its liberal arm, rally the public for another 'noble intervention', the BBC is leading with its own weapon of mass distortion: the wielding of headline warfare.

No prizes for spotting which one here is the BBC's leading line: 

'Syria crisis: Diplomacy has not worked, says William Hague' 

or

'President Assad says the claims are "politically motivated" and defy logic as the regime has forces near the area.'

It's the former, of course, announcing the case for 'military solutions', like all others in this 'speak our words of war' reportage, with the latter claim safely buried for token 'balance' deep down the page.

All serving to get the critical message across that 'something must be done', and that Cruise missiles figure 'logically', 'normally' and 'humanely' in dealing with the problem.

Imagine a run of BBC headlines announcing:

'Attack on Syria would be illegal and a war crime, according to UN and international law'  

or

'Western bombing would be disastrous and criminal, warn Stop the War and others urging political solutions'  

Instead, we see a constant barrage of headline encouragements like:  

'UK urges 'serious response' on Syria'

No 'red line' crossing of journalistic propriety here, given the routine firing of establishment missives, but always vital as a last resort weapon to provoke and excuse the case for war. 

Conveniently absent from any of these headlines or their supportive narrative is leading consideration of actual culpability and the remaining uncertainty of who has carried out such an attack.

Nor have we seen the slightest questioning of Hague's own particular claims or detailed requests for his supposed evidence. 

As Alex Thomson has noted in several tweets, Hague has "in fact supplied no evidence at all to back his claim that Assad did last week's attack."

Thomson, a now rare voice of dissent at Channel 4, also damns the lack of wider media scepticism, adding that this is the "[s]econd time Hague has made CW claims about Assad which he is quite unable to back up."

And, of course, none of this headline or supportive output is ready to announce the added human death and misery that will certainly result in Cruise missiles bombarding Syria.

Whatever the causes of this conflict, whoever may have deployed chemical weapons, whatever the tragedy of ongoing deaths, no 'intervention' is excusable, and no further weaponry will help allay the suffering or hasten a realisable peace.

The BBC and wider liberal media's complicit crime here is in normalising war-thought; as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, attuning and rationalising the public to the idea of 'necessary killing'; more 'liberal-war solutions' that can be signed-off and amplified through trusted media channels.   

Take the 'n' from 'headlines' and you have the BBC's key propaganda function in a nutshell.