Breaking : Blog Post Whines "World Unfair"
Herein lie my thoughts on Syria 'n related shizzle. Specifically the recent uprising, how it compares with Libya, and, of course, how the media have portrayed things.
So the Syrian uprising apparently started on 26th January 2011, generally with the same ideological roots as the rather wider spread 'Arab Spring'. In Syria specifically, the protestors were irate about the Ba'ath Party being in power for 40 odd years. The Libyan civil war/uprising seems to have been a pretty similar story in terms of causes, and it apparently began on the 17th February 2011. As the worst of the violence appears to be over, there are tentative claims emerging regarding the death toll. One AP/Guardian article claims 'at least' 30,000 in the worst six months.
In both cases, those do-gooders the UN Security Council were discussing the possibility of military interventions, and in both Libya & Syria, those UN Council members representing Western countries (the US & the EU) generally favoured at least some form of intervention. Russia & China supported military intervention in Libya, but have vetoed even an official condemnation of Syria. The Arab League and the 'GCC states' (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, states around there basically) have condemned Syria and Libya. I'll get onto Israel in a sec.
That is the official line of the big wigs then, as far as I can tell. Actual actions and steps taken by individual states occasionally appears to produce exactly the opposite effect to their official stance. Strange.
Anyway, less of the decision makers, onto a quick profile of the two main baddies under the spotlight. Libya: Colonel Gaddafi. Syria: President Assad. Both countries are pretty rich in oil, and both countries are or were net exporters to most of the members of the UN Security Council. Libya holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa; their oil production, for example, was 4.8 million barrels erry day in 2006. Syria, by comparison, is small fry. Peak oil production was hit in 1995, at 600,000 barrels per day. In 2005, it was reported to be at 450,000.
We like our oil. I'm sure you can guess where my brain is leading me already, but I'll spit it out anyway. Libya, when having a long, bloody, drawn out civil war, is probably not exporting as much oil as We want. I'll even go conspiracy nuts and wildly speculate that some oil hungry customers gave Gaddafi a call and told him something along the lines of 'sort out this bloody mess before the media get ahold of it.'
Anyway, back to wild speculation at least based on facts. Syria, when having a longer and potentially bloodier civil war, aint hurting billionaires abilities to play the buy-and-sell game, and so isn't costing someone their profits.
Without running off to count articles, and play havoc with statistics, I'm going to make yet another unsupported claim. This one is that we all heard about Libya and the rebels and Gaddafi a whole lot more than we did about Syria and the rebels and Assad. It was just generally in the news quite a lot; Libya more so than Egypt, more so than Syria. I'll posit a few ideas as to why this was the case, if you'll forgive me.
a) Audiences were getting pretty apathetic once they'd seen the 50th report detailing bullet ridden hospitals and the struggles of freedom fighters. The media (yeah, all of them) judged public opinion wouldn't support another series of articles on another country, and so moved on to the next flavour of the month.
b) Governments were interested in pushing a transition in Libya, one way or another. So politicians, spokespeople & PR chaps were made available for comment; gave away juicy quotes, accidentally leaked reports, made inflammatory remarks. They provided data and quotes relating to the situation in Libya, and journalists working 18 hour days took the easy option out, and wrote the story about Libya.
c) The Libyans were better able to contact and draw sympathy from journalists & the media than the Syrians. Whether by communication blackouts for the Syrians, or the Libyans just being better at Twitter.
I imagine the true reasons for media discrepancies in reporting is a whole lot more complicated, and takes in way more factors.
Final point, one impressively biased study entitled 'the Israeli position towards the Syrian Intifada' concludes that Israel would prefer for the status quo to continue, for the Syrian regime not to be peacefully overthrown, and for Syria to continue to exist in a state 'of sectarian conflict that would continue as long as possible, rather than a Syrian transformation from situation of struggle to one of freedom and democracy.'
And hey, Israel does have some pretty powerful friends on the world stage.
Herein lie my thoughts on Syria 'n related shizzle. Specifically the recent uprising, how it compares with Libya, and, of course, how the media have portrayed things.
So the Syrian uprising apparently started on 26th January 2011, generally with the same ideological roots as the rather wider spread 'Arab Spring'. In Syria specifically, the protestors were irate about the Ba'ath Party being in power for 40 odd years. The Libyan civil war/uprising seems to have been a pretty similar story in terms of causes, and it apparently began on the 17th February 2011. As the worst of the violence appears to be over, there are tentative claims emerging regarding the death toll. One AP/Guardian article claims 'at least' 30,000 in the worst six months.
In both cases, those do-gooders the UN Security Council were discussing the possibility of military interventions, and in both Libya & Syria, those UN Council members representing Western countries (the US & the EU) generally favoured at least some form of intervention. Russia & China supported military intervention in Libya, but have vetoed even an official condemnation of Syria. The Arab League and the 'GCC states' (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, states around there basically) have condemned Syria and Libya. I'll get onto Israel in a sec.
That is the official line of the big wigs then, as far as I can tell. Actual actions and steps taken by individual states occasionally appears to produce exactly the opposite effect to their official stance. Strange.
Anyway, less of the decision makers, onto a quick profile of the two main baddies under the spotlight. Libya: Colonel Gaddafi. Syria: President Assad. Both countries are pretty rich in oil, and both countries are or were net exporters to most of the members of the UN Security Council. Libya holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa; their oil production, for example, was 4.8 million barrels erry day in 2006. Syria, by comparison, is small fry. Peak oil production was hit in 1995, at 600,000 barrels per day. In 2005, it was reported to be at 450,000.
We like our oil. I'm sure you can guess where my brain is leading me already, but I'll spit it out anyway. Libya, when having a long, bloody, drawn out civil war, is probably not exporting as much oil as We want. I'll even go conspiracy nuts and wildly speculate that some oil hungry customers gave Gaddafi a call and told him something along the lines of 'sort out this bloody mess before the media get ahold of it.'
Anyway, back to wild speculation at least based on facts. Syria, when having a longer and potentially bloodier civil war, aint hurting billionaires abilities to play the buy-and-sell game, and so isn't costing someone their profits.
Without running off to count articles, and play havoc with statistics, I'm going to make yet another unsupported claim. This one is that we all heard about Libya and the rebels and Gaddafi a whole lot more than we did about Syria and the rebels and Assad. It was just generally in the news quite a lot; Libya more so than Egypt, more so than Syria. I'll posit a few ideas as to why this was the case, if you'll forgive me.
a) Audiences were getting pretty apathetic once they'd seen the 50th report detailing bullet ridden hospitals and the struggles of freedom fighters. The media (yeah, all of them) judged public opinion wouldn't support another series of articles on another country, and so moved on to the next flavour of the month.
b) Governments were interested in pushing a transition in Libya, one way or another. So politicians, spokespeople & PR chaps were made available for comment; gave away juicy quotes, accidentally leaked reports, made inflammatory remarks. They provided data and quotes relating to the situation in Libya, and journalists working 18 hour days took the easy option out, and wrote the story about Libya.
c) The Libyans were better able to contact and draw sympathy from journalists & the media than the Syrians. Whether by communication blackouts for the Syrians, or the Libyans just being better at Twitter.
I imagine the true reasons for media discrepancies in reporting is a whole lot more complicated, and takes in way more factors.
Final point, one impressively biased study entitled 'the Israeli position towards the Syrian Intifada' concludes that Israel would prefer for the status quo to continue, for the Syrian regime not to be peacefully overthrown, and for Syria to continue to exist in a state 'of sectarian conflict that would continue as long as possible, rather than a Syrian transformation from situation of struggle to one of freedom and democracy.'
And hey, Israel does have some pretty powerful friends on the world stage.
Incomplete list of Sources:
If you want to know where I got a specific fact, please ask & I'll point it out!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9835879
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/us-syria-idUSTRE80S08620120201
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Libya#Oil_sector
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria#Economy
http://english.dohainstitute.org/Home/Details/5ea4b31b-155d-4a9f-8f4d-a5b428135cd5/284e36f8-7bd1-4d84-89a6-a1e9ee1b835a#aa7
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