 Imagine if ALL officials were interrogated by reporters like this. A fascinating exchange took place at a UN press briefing the other day between China Global Television Network's Zhu Dezhe and UN's Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary General Farhan Haq about the US military occupation of Syria. The exchange is interesting both for the wild pro-US bias shown by a US official and for the way it illustrates how much truth can be exposed when journalists do what they're supposed to do in the press gallery. Zhu, who has done on-the-ground reporting in Syria in the past, asked Haq some challenging questions about an attack on a US military base in eastern Syria last week which injured multiple American troops and killed an American contractor. In his response, Haq made the extremely incorrect claim that there are no US armed forces in Syria and refused to say whether the US military occupation of part of that country is illegal. Here's the UN's transcript of the key part of this exchange. Zhu, do you not urge everyone to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria? Haq, well of course that's a given, and obviously it's important that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria is respected. At the same time you are aware of the complexity of the situation of foreign forces, but we call for them to exercise restraint. Zhu. But do you think the presence of the US military in Syria is illegal or not? Haq, that's not an issue that we're dealing with at this stage. There's been a war. Zhu. But is that because it sounds very familiar this week? We talk a lot about the UN Charter, the international law and the relative resolutions, but it sounds to me a foreign ministry based presence in another country without invitation sounds like something else to me. Haq, I'll leave your analysis to you. That there's at this stage there's no... Zhu. What's the difference between the situation in Syria and the situation in Ukraine? Haq, there's no US armed forces inside of Ukraine, and so I don't have it's not a parallel situation to some of the like some of the others. Zhu. For sure there's no military personnel in Syria. Haq, I believe there's military activity, but in terms of a ground presence in Syria I'm not aware of that. Zhu. Okay. Five US service members were injured in that attack. If there were no US service members in Syria, how could they get injured? That's weird, right? Should I ask you about that? Now to be absolutely clear, this is a UN official. Haq has been in his current position as UN Deputy Spokesperson for almost a decade and routinely answers questions about Syria as part of his capacity in that position. It is not some obscure esoteric secret that there are US military personnel in Syria. It's in the mainstream news constantly. Just the other day the New York Times reported that America still has more than 900 troops and 100 more contractors in Syria. Haq was either ignorant of this extremely important and relevant piece of common knowledge or was dishonestly pretending to be. The most charitable interpretation of his actions at this press conference is that he sincerely did not know the US had armed forces in Syria. To put it into perspective, this is like being a UN official and routinely taking questions about Ukraine from the press but not knowing that Russia invaded Ukraine and has been fighting a war there since last year. Haq is the son of a Pakistani politician but speaks with a pristine American accent and his acrobatics in dodging around Jews US critical questions would impress even Jen Psaki. My favorite part is when he says, I'll leave your analysis to you. Because it's such a brilliant deflection that can be used on any inconvenient questions you can imagine. Sir, why are you holding a severed human head in your hands right now? Look, I'll leave your analysis to you. Jews straightforward, intellectually honest questions were all it took to get Haq to expose himself as an air-headed empire lackey, and I can't help but fantasize about how wonderful the world would be if this happened all the time. I mean, compare this oppositional interrogation with the shit show that erupted in the White House press gallery earlier this month when today news Africa's Simon Natiba interrupted some silly publicity appearance by the cast of Ted Lasso to complain that White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre had not called on him in seven months. The entire press corps immediately leapt to the defense of the White House official in the most sycophantic way imaginable, turning against their fellow journalist and paternalistically telling Etiba to shut up and mind his manners when he accused Jean-Pierre of making a mockery of the First Amendment. Reuters from immensely influential platforms like Reuters, AP, and CNN shouted down Etiba with calls to be respectful and mind your manners with one woman even shrieking, Decorum at the top of her lungs like an overwhelmed child. AP's Zeke Miller even apologized for Etiba's display, saying, I just want to express our apologies in the press corps for the folks watching at home for the display we saw earlier. Those are the sort of groveling bootlickers who insulate the press secretary of the most powerful government office on this planet. Imagine what would happen if the press were as oppositional to Jean-Pierre as Jus de Gère was to the UN's Ferrand Hock. Imagine what contradictions could be exposed, what hypocrisy illuminated, what inconvenient questions pursued until a fruitful response was arrived at. Instead, we get the world's most powerful government represented by people whose only traits are the ability to skillfully avoid providing meaningful answers, receiving slobbering rim jobs from power-worshipping cronies who want nothing more than to be their friend. This is the exact opposite of a healthy dynamic and the exact opposite of a functioning free press. It should not take a reporter from Chinese state media to ask inconvenient questions about the most powerful and destructive government on earth. Western journalists should be falling all over themselves to ask those questions because that's what the job is supposed to be. The fact that this isn't what happens shows that the free press has been replaced with propaganda and accountability has been replaced with the blind service of power.