The Syrian Civil War and the Media Propaganda Offensive
Infantile Disorder | 11.02.2012 20:02 | Analysis | Other Press | Repression | World
The 'Free Syrian Army' - the so-called 'rebel' group armed and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - is involved in a violent insurgency against the Syrian government. That is not just my opinion, it is the view of the Arab League observer mission sent into the country to gather evidence against the ruling Assad regime. But when reports didn't fit the political agenda, the League pulled the plug on the mission, and the Syrian government was subtlely blamed.
Of course, you don't hear anything of the mission's report on BBC or other corporate news sources. Instead, Assad is portrayed as leading an indiscriminate slaughter in the 'rebel' stronghold of Homs. Today, BBC reported that "15 people had died as tanks and artillery continued to bombard the city of Homs". It didn't mention how many were on each side, or even that there are sides. The implication was that the Syrian government had done all the killing.
And maybe they had. After all, Assad is a brutal dictator, and he does carry out atrocities against the Syrian people. But then we are now almost a year into an armed insurgency, so how do we expect him to react? How would David Cameron react if 'rebels' armed by Norway and Denmark were holding Glasgow? In its willingness to cheerlead for NATO 'intervention' - i.e. a western-led bloodbath - the oh-so-conservative media finds itself supporting insurrection.
Ten days ago, I described how:
"The past couple of months have seen a sustained effort to create a pretext for attacking Syria. The Syrian government - like the Libyan Gaddafi regime before it - is currently undertaking a brutal crackdown on the "rebel" movement which emerged from last year's 'Arab spring'. Of course, the same could be said of the Bahraini government for example, but Bahrain is an American ally. So the Obama administration is using its Arab League proxies - each of which receives large foreign aid and military assistance from US imperialism - to give the coming military intervention a regional popularist colouring."
Since then, Russia and China have vetoed a UN resolution on Syria, which they feared could provide a figleaf for NATO aggression, much as the equivalent did with Libya last March. In response, the US, UK and French governments denounced Russia and China in the strongest terms, with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague describing the veto as the UN's "hour of shame", and rhetorically asked "How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN Security Council to act?" Unsurprisingly, no-one asked Hague how many times the US and UK have vetoed UN resolutions on Israeli aggression in Palestine and elsewhere. The answer is nearly fifty.
The NATO aggressors are waiting to make their next political move, but plans for a war on Syria are already well advanced. At the beginning of the week, the Pentagon announced they were beginning an "internal review" of military options, although Ambassador Susan Rice told CNN the focus was on exhausting all other means of change first. This pretence is crucial for the US, because it is relying on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for armed support, and does not want to inflame opposition in client states unneccessarily.
Meanwhile, an unnamed State Department official told the Daily Telegraph that "the international community may be forced to 'militarise' the crisis in Syria" and that "the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy." In turn, the Telegraph surmised that "Any plan to supply aid or set up a buffer zone would involve a military dimension to protect aid convoys or vulnerable civilians."
But according to Israeli intelligence website Debka-File, both British and Qatari special forces are already "operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus… Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation—in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people."
In this context, the BBC and other bleeding heart western journalists embedded with the 'Free Syrian Army' are therefore providing a vital propaganda role in their deception. They are preparing the public consciousness for yet another 'humanitarian' war. As with Libya last year, it is necessary for communists to reject the false choice between the Syrian regime and the so-called 'rebels'. Instead, we must argue for the interests of the Syrian - and indeed the international - working class.
And maybe they had. After all, Assad is a brutal dictator, and he does carry out atrocities against the Syrian people. But then we are now almost a year into an armed insurgency, so how do we expect him to react? How would David Cameron react if 'rebels' armed by Norway and Denmark were holding Glasgow? In its willingness to cheerlead for NATO 'intervention' - i.e. a western-led bloodbath - the oh-so-conservative media finds itself supporting insurrection.
Ten days ago, I described how:
"The past couple of months have seen a sustained effort to create a pretext for attacking Syria. The Syrian government - like the Libyan Gaddafi regime before it - is currently undertaking a brutal crackdown on the "rebel" movement which emerged from last year's 'Arab spring'. Of course, the same could be said of the Bahraini government for example, but Bahrain is an American ally. So the Obama administration is using its Arab League proxies - each of which receives large foreign aid and military assistance from US imperialism - to give the coming military intervention a regional popularist colouring."
Since then, Russia and China have vetoed a UN resolution on Syria, which they feared could provide a figleaf for NATO aggression, much as the equivalent did with Libya last March. In response, the US, UK and French governments denounced Russia and China in the strongest terms, with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague describing the veto as the UN's "hour of shame", and rhetorically asked "How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN Security Council to act?" Unsurprisingly, no-one asked Hague how many times the US and UK have vetoed UN resolutions on Israeli aggression in Palestine and elsewhere. The answer is nearly fifty.
The NATO aggressors are waiting to make their next political move, but plans for a war on Syria are already well advanced. At the beginning of the week, the Pentagon announced they were beginning an "internal review" of military options, although Ambassador Susan Rice told CNN the focus was on exhausting all other means of change first. This pretence is crucial for the US, because it is relying on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for armed support, and does not want to inflame opposition in client states unneccessarily.
Meanwhile, an unnamed State Department official told the Daily Telegraph that "the international community may be forced to 'militarise' the crisis in Syria" and that "the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy." In turn, the Telegraph surmised that "Any plan to supply aid or set up a buffer zone would involve a military dimension to protect aid convoys or vulnerable civilians."
But according to Israeli intelligence website Debka-File, both British and Qatari special forces are already "operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus… Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation—in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people."
In this context, the BBC and other bleeding heart western journalists embedded with the 'Free Syrian Army' are therefore providing a vital propaganda role in their deception. They are preparing the public consciousness for yet another 'humanitarian' war. As with Libya last year, it is necessary for communists to reject the false choice between the Syrian regime and the so-called 'rebels'. Instead, we must argue for the interests of the Syrian - and indeed the international - working class.
Infantile Disorder
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The Syrian Civil War and the Chinese-Russian propaganda machine
12.02.2012 21:14
The moment the same unrest started affecting new western allie Gaddafi , and the West started building up pressure on Ghaddafi to hand over power peacefully,Russian and Chinese propaganda was taken over by some fractions of left intellectuals. A campaign started to blackmail the civil unrest as a CIA manipulated unrest, as a major Western conspiracy to topple a long time enemy. A shameless falsification of recent history, whith as method that one was bringing up cold-war propaganda, and the Western-Libyan diplomatic war of the years eighties and nineties (Lockerbee-drama ,...), whereas Libya and Libyas Ghadaffi since 9-11 was systimatically rehabilitated and a trustworthy allie in the world wide war against Al Qaida, and the European war on refugees trying to find refuge on their territory.
The same method is now being applied on the Syrian civil unrest. In a shameless way, cold-war propaganda in best Putin's style is used to blackmail the Syrian revolution. Like in the Libyan revolution, doubt is casted on the casualties, and presented as commited by the freedomfighters themselves. In a truely unbelievable manner today's possibilities from dictatorships to manipulate information are downplayed. You just have to remeber the Tahir place uprising, and the way we did not get any figures on casualties 'till after Mubarak was ousted, that we saw the true scale of carnage that was committed by Egyptian insecurity forces.
Our enemies are all the regimes who abuse human rights, be it regimes supported by Russia or China (dictatorships and human-rights abusers themselves), or regimes supported by the West. When the West is willing to give support to improve human-rights conditions, we welcome them, the same we would welcome when Russia and China would help improve human rights situations. We don't close our eyes for possible crimes committed by the freedomfighters themselves. But we don't loose the proportions out of sight, like Russian and Chinese propaganda like to do !
It can never be a communist's choice to support dictatorships. Marxism and anarchism have nothing to do with human rights abuses.
The Arab revolution is far from finished. In all the newly freed territories (Tunisia, Eqypt, Libya) the newly achieved liberties are under threat from within as from without (can Saudi-Arabia, Israël, etc... live with a democratic neighbour ?)
Let's support the Arab revolution, from Bahrein to Syria, instead of fighting it.
Beno Klee
deluded liberals
13.02.2012 15:37
me
Bollocks
13.02.2012 20:43
Gaddafi apologists always trot this out and inevitably focus and what was undertaken in the first ten years of his rule, while simultaneously ignoring all the subsequent years when he just accumulated wealth for himself and his family. Many of the claims about the 'benign' dictatorship of Gaddafi can and have been disputed:
Not being the UK, USA or Israel does not automaticaly make you a regime worth emulating. Libya, Iran, Syria, all of these states had/or have major human rights issues, which you seem quite happy to gloss over, because they are 'anti-imperialist'. I have seen numerous postings on this site saying that Syria and/or Libya waging war on their own people is somehow justifiable because of the 'rebels are nothing more than criminals/CIA stooges' - this tends to indicate that state violence is perfectly acceptable as long as it is undertaken by a regime you approve of - so the methods are fine in themselves are they? Are they measures you would be happy to mete out to 'enemies of the state' then? - a rather odd position for a so called progressive to take in my view.
Frankly, the notion (not necessarily perpetuated by you - no offence) that all of these human rights abuses are imaginary constructs of an all powerful western media is also laughable/staggeringly reductionist. Perhaps such proponents would care to outline a slightly more sophisticted and detailed explanation of how every aspect of western media reporting is controlled by a capitalist cabal than this crude nonsense - even a cursory glance at great Marxist intellectuals like Antonio Gramsci would indicate that the old base/superstructure metaphor is somewhat more complex in practice than is implied in such posts. Moreover, such claims are often coupled with quoting sources such as 'Press TV' or the poorly researched conspiracy shite of 'infowars' as somehow being 'more reliable' - I assume because they too are 'anti-imperialist'.
And no, I do not endorse war or even western intervention against any of these states - I am in favour of self determination no matter how difficult it maybe to watch from the outside. However, that does not mean that I feel any need to defend these shitty regimes. Once again, we have the so caled radical who, deep down, has a pretty low opinion of ordinary people -ie. accept that Syria is oppressive and you are nothing more than a sheep being whipped up in order to endorse yet another war. Perhaps people, even us apparently stupid people in the UK, have a bit more capacity for thought than you seem to give credit for. Perhaps it is rather you that feels the need to adopt a rather simple black or white version of reality.
No war, but no apologists please
@the previous poster
13.02.2012 22:58
Gaddafi's green revolution took Libya from being the poorest country in all of Africa, to the country with the highest living standards in 41 years. This is not the lies of Gaddafi apologists but cold hard statistical facts. In the last ten years of the Jamariyah there were less deaths in police custody that in the UK in 2011 alone. See here another report from the UN on the human rights situation in Libya pre the counter revolution:
What the above poster fails to address is the question of what, if any, are the positive outcomes of the NATO sponsored rebellion and subsequent blitzkrieg of Libya. (NATO sponsored and orchestrated. The western media now openly gloats over western intervention from the outset -
The link that you posted, from the website of the NATO sponsored rebels no doubt, attempts to debunk some 'myths' surrounding the Jamariyiah, by listing the heinous crimes of the Gaddafi regime, for example:
"Late 70’s – The introduction of the law Albayt le Sakinehee – The Home Belongs to its Dwellers. As this law was passed overnight, thousands of homeowners instantly lost their homes, as tenants (those renting the homes) claimed ownership on account of being the ‘dwellers’. The law applied to homes, farms, shops, etc."
Horror of horrors! Houses being taken away from landlords and given to those who actual live there. Sounds suspiciously like giving 'land to the tiller' to me. Dirty fucking socialists, hey..
The question on Libya and now on Syria is not for us to support regime change or foreign intervention (read: NATO sponsored murder and massacres), but how to stop the governments of the countries that we live in from continuing their fascistic assault on the people of the 3rd world. I cannot effect the outcome of civil war in Libya, or Syria, or Iran. But what I can do is, by any means at my disposable, stop my country from planning, financing and carrying out war against other countries. Something that is lost on the antiwar movement in this country
It is not about being apologists for any regime or the other, but understanding what the bigger picture is. Britain, US, Israel etc. have not suddenly become champions of human rights. They have a long term political and military objective to destroy any independent nations that stand in their way.
There's got to be something wrong when your calling for the same things as Cameron, Hague and Clinton.....
me too