Associated Press, are you lying about Syria's government or just sloppy?

From the AP wire report yesterday, picked up by The New York Times and other media outlets (Assad Says US Troops Welcome in Syria to Fight 'Terrorism'):

However, Assad's government has labelled all armed opposition to his rule — including the U.S.-backed rebels — as "terrorists."

This is a well-worn accusation, trotted out by all mainstream Western media outlets as a standard insertion in virtually every report on Syria's government. But the accusation is a lie or at best sloppy reporting.          

From FARS, 25 January 2017: Jafari: Syrian Government, Opposition Groups Agree to Join Forces against Terror

Just to let AP know, Bashar Jafari is Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations. 

By now Syria's government has given amnesty to what must be countless opposition groups that took up arms against the government. And the government has described many of these groups not as terrorists but as opposition or in similar language.

However, groups that deploy terrorist tactics against the government and the country's civilians are indeed termed terrorists by the Syrian government. This is for a reason I am afraid the U.S. government and America's media establishment have found increasingly hard to confront, let alone acknowledge.

But every government of a sovereign nation is entitled to treat foreign fighters attacking its civilian nationals, and trying to overthrow it, as terrorists. And entitled to designate every foreign government waging overt and proxy war against it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

That means the United States of America should be classified as a state sponsor of terrorism for its actions in Syria.

For this reason I find myself in rare disagreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. I do not think he should have  welcomed American troops into Syria under any circumstances because the invitation clouds U.S. actions in Syria up to this point.

This said, I understand why he extended the invitation. The least that the American news media should now do in response is stop passing along untruths about Assad's government and Syria. 

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