IT was good to read Alan Crocket’s letter allowing us an all-too-rare glimpse behind the West’s propaganda curtain obscuring the true situation in Syria and the Middle East (Letters, February 23).

The West’s political and military hawks are the source of this propaganda and the mainstream media has played its part by becoming their mouthpiece – creating a false narrative by ignoring the real criminality at work. This is perpetrated by the US, UK and its allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, to the extent that its biased, context-light journalism of misrepresentation is acting as a drum beat to war against Syria, Iran, Lebanon and even Russia. The West’s demonisation of Russia, Putin, Assad, Iran, North Korea (anyone, in fact, who stands in the way of US world economic and military domination) has reached hysterical levels, all with the clear purpose of fabricating reasons for intervention ... meaning more death, destruction and misery. It’s utter madness and yet we are allowed to read and hear very few voices raised against it. And those that do protest are swiftly derided and smeared. And so we go on – fed a simplistic diet of West good/East bad.

My advice: be very sceptical about what you read in the mainstream media and hear on the BBC – take it with a huge pinch of salt and look elsewhere for a more balanced world view. The truth is out there. Look behind the curtain.

Frank Rodgers
Glasgow