And Don't Forget to Demonize Cuba

Fair-and-balanced Fox News reported on Wednesday that "Cuban military operatives reportedly have been spotted in Syria, where sources believe they are advising President Bashar al-Assad's soldiers and may be preparing to man Russian-made tanks to aid Damascus in fighting rebel forces backed by the U.S." Fox's claim of an imaginary enemy alliance relies on two sources: the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies and an anonymous U.S. official.

The source at the Miami Institute indicated that "An Arab military officer at the Damascus airport reportedly witnessed two Russian planes arrive there with Cuban military personnel on board. When the officer questioned the Cubans, they told him they were there to assist Assad because they are experts at operating Russian tanks."

  Matt Peppe

Because there's a shortage of Russians who are experts at operating Russian tanks?

It is unclear what nationality the "Arab" officer was. Perhaps, said Arab determined the people aboard the Russian plane were Cubans because he saw them smoking cigars and drinking mojitos.

[...]

The supposed U.S. official - who Fox grants anonymity to without giving a reason why - related "evidence" from "intelligence reports" that Cuban troops "may" have trained in Russia and "may have" come to Syria in Russian planes.

Good enough for your average Fox News watcher.

By Friday, the story had gained enough traction that it was raised at a White House briefing. In a response that should have been enough to put the story to rest, the White House Press Secretary said "we've seen no evidence to indicate that those reports are true."

But a few hours later, the Daily Beast had definitively declared in a headline that: "Cuba Is Intervening in Syria to Help Russia. It's Not the First Time Havana's Assisted Moscow."

Progressive concern troll James Bloodworth turned Fox's rumors into fact and wrote that "Not for the first time Cuban forces are doing Russia's dirty work, this time in Syria... Obama has been holding his hand out in a gesture of goodwill to America's adversaries only for them to blow him a raspberry back in his face - while standing atop a pile of Syrian corpses."

[...]

The Cuban Embassy in Damascus reportedly "laughed" at the report of Cuban troops in Syria, and told Sputnik News: "It's pure lunacy. It is as if they were claiming that Russia had sent its troops to Madagascar to protect lemurs."

Despite claims of Cuban troops in Syria contradicting Cuba's stated policy and historical modus operandi, and the fact that now four days have passed without a single piece of corroborating evidence to the laughable Fox News report, the imaginary Cuban troops in Syria are likely to morph into more outrageous fantasies of media who have shown themselves primarily interested in fabricating tales of intrigue about America's evil enemies rather than reporting actual verifiable facts.

When you get hold of a good piece of propaganda, you don't just let it die.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.