If you rely mainly on MSM for your information, you have been. I would suggest learning more about it at

[cse.google.com]

[thegrayzone.com]

[mintpressnews.com]

And especially looking up the work of Vanessa Beeley who has extensively worked in the Middle East.

[mintpressnews.com]

@William_Mary Cool thanks. I watch Lee Camp and Jimmy Dore and RT so I know much more than the typical American but I'm more concentrated on domestic politics. There's too much insanity going on in the world to keep track of it all.

@William_Mary How did the war start in the first place and how involved was the American government in creating the chaos?

@RoboGraham I would suggest concentrating on Beeley's work then through her Patreon page maybe. She has done a lot of work through participating in UN council meetings on Syria that might lead you to more domestic style issues. I had a council meeting a while back she was involved in, along with a Syrian representative, that went into many aspects of the nature citizens dealt with during the times the terrorist groups were taking over the country. However I lost it in a crash and been having a hard time finding it to pass on. But you might find it there. I don't do the Patreon thing myself. But most information in that documentary and council meeting can be slowly exposed in the many articles of hers at the mint press news site.

@RoboGraham basically the US created a civilian war by manipulating social tensions. As ISIS was being forced out of Iraq into Syria, the US began funding and weaponizing various sects of Al-Qaeda groups to create a social disturbance under a facade of a civil war. When all was summed up something like 28 terrorist sect groups were or had been funded by a combination of the CIA and US military. Add on the White Helmets and a fake mash unit also funded by an English billionaire. At some points even fighting each other, total chaos.
Essentially forcing the civilians into a war by over running local governments. This while ISIS was able to move into what became their caliphate. Long story short. These groups were then used to fight ISIS when the Syrian government with the help of Russia began pushing them out of the cities they destroyed with the help of western coalition bombing. Eventually many of those in these groups realigned with other groups and or ISIS. The articles I sent you can fill in the pieces.

Here's one from the late Robert Parry to get an idea towards my comments. Follow the links within to fill in some of the pieces.

[consortiumnews.com]

@William_Mary That's pretty much what I was suspecting had happened. It's difficult to find reliable sources on this subject so thanks for the information.

I was having a disagreement with a member on this site. He was claiming that the assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani wasn't an assassination at all because he was just another terrorist. Of course he's not but labeling him as a terrorist gives the USA some perceived legitimacy in his murder.

The point I was trying to make was that there are American fighters over there who are engaged in the same brutal activities which earned Soleimani the title of terrorist in this guys mind so I made the point that if he wants to call Soleimani a terrorist, he must accept that we have our own terrorists over there doing the same stuff. I was trying to find more information about what we were up to and which of these insurgency groups we were supporting in order to give him some specific examples but the research went no where.

@William_Mary This guy seems to be intelligent and somewhat reasonable but he is a right winger so he is hostile to anything that challenges the narrative that America is #1 and all that.

I pointed out to him that we are the dishonorable aggressors here. We broke the treaty, we hit them with crippling sanctions and froze their assets, we conducted a coup which toppled their democratically elected government, we invaded their immediate neighbors and surrounded their country with military bases, we assassinated their general... This information goes in one ear and out the other for people with the patriot blinders on.

@RoboGraham right, I know the feeling all to well. All you can do is state you argument and hope for the best sometimes. With some people no matter how much information you provide will you be able to turn cognitive dissonance. They will latch onto those very few ideologies they've been conditioned to believe in never stepping abroad to anything that contradicts. Accusations with little to no information without opposing views become pure facts. They become unable to ask the right questions or recognize when someone else does so with legitimacy. Articles that provide valuable learning details via links within an opposing view take to much time for them reach an informative basis to form what could be a redevelopment of their current opinion. In which at this point they are probably more the type who only learns from catchy eye candy headlines and a forward paragraph or 2 that's meant to condition one. Then the MSM via radio and TV fill in the rest of the agenda with perception management. Because those reporters and journalist will not upset the agenda either. Never giving the brain the opportunity to raise valuable questions.

Pick you fights well. I learned that the hard way. I've wasted much time debating those who only are able to repeat establishment rhetoric nonstop never getting anywhere. They can never provide an opinion with substantial information only repeating the rhetoric they hear in the MSM. And they attack when you do with the rhetoric they've been conditioned from which they hear from MSM and often social media.

This is why tribal politics continue to survive. They only recognize when the other party does unethical practices, but can't recognize when their party is committing the same unethical acts. Often then it becomes an argument of degree in compliance of justification. Which from the Reagan era to Trump, at least, what we see today is the enactment of crimes and unethical procedures becoming ordinary.