Spot on, DD.
The entire MSM narrative about Syria is fake. In government-controlled areas women are going to university right now. They are free to veil their faces or not. All religions are free to worship and there are interviews all over the internet with Catholic priests in Aleppo who witnessed the misery and death caused by the "rebels" we supported with millions of dollars. Now that they are cleared out of Aleppo the people who were brutalized by them for years are telling their stories, of sharia courts every bit as bad as ISIS. Yet the media lapped up all the lies and misinformation that came out of Aleppo because they were "our" rebels. Now these terrorists have retreated to IdLib and are regrouping for the next terrorist wave. The MSM, having been stung once, are no longer swallowing the propaganda that the IdLib terrorists spew out every day, but they have never apologized.  
Yes, Assad is a dictator who crushes resistance, but the alternative here is much, much worse.