Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 8, 2011 22:59:59 GMT
Great article detailing a fact that I have been observing for quite a while about how the BBC quotes Syrian media as 'the truth' without any agenda.
Birds of a feather
Birds of a feather
The BBC swallows Assad-controlled Syria media rubbish whole. Then reports it as news
By Michael Weiss Politics Last updated: June 7th, 2011
Let’s say it’s an especially dark year of the Brezhnev era and you come across this headline in Pravda: “Kolyma labour battalion completes people’s railroad 2 years ahead of schedule.” Or perhaps: “CIA-Trotskyite agitator shoots self in head multiple times.” Would you report this as news or as state propaganda?
Perhaps Bashar al-Assad has not yet murdered and maimed enough Syrians for Western media outlets to question the authenticity of various “reports” coming out of his state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
Yet here is the BBC website yesterday:
I love that “if confirmed” caveat at the end. You have read a long way down the article to find the other caveats, which include eyewitness denials of everything SANA alleges.
The Syrian opposition is unarmed. If it weren’t, 1,600 of its members would not now be dead, with more than 10,000 others languishing in dungeons and torture chambers. The so-called shabbiha militias – roving youth gangs of Assad loyalists – have worked with mukhabarat regulars in quashing what has so far been the bloodiest and bravest Arab Spring uprising. Shabbiha thugs have conducted the sort of house-to-house raids that Muammar Gaddafi only threatened. Yet the BBC gives the benefit of the doubt to their paymaster.
If 120 of Assad’s “security forces” have been shot, then the shooters can only have been Assad’s security forces. In fact, the victims in this killing spree, if a killing spree did occur at all, were likely Syrian Army soldiers who’d tried to defect after refusing to fire on civilians. One Syrian oppositionist I spoke to, via an intermediary based in Beirut, told me: “The army isn’t to blame. They are forced to attack us by the militias and security forces. They have no access to phones, the internet, or television.” Here’s another oppositionist: “With more of the elite fleeing Syria, the Army will notice something is up and will splinter.”
Mutiny is exactly what this revolution is counting on. Mass graves of dead Syrian soldiers have been uncovered in Deraa (likewise reported by the BBC by leading first the totalitarian demurrals: “Syria denies reports of mass grave in Deraa”). Defecting soldiers have fled to Lebanon, only to be repatriated to Syria to face the inevitable consequences of insubordination.
Another possibility for SANA’s bogus exclusive is that Assad wants to cover up his own massacre in Jisr al-Shughour. In the last week, his death squads have killed more than 500 protesters in Hama, Rastan, Talbisseh, Jis Ashoughour, Deir Ezzor and elsewhere. The total fatality figure for the preceding ten weeks was 1,100, which makes the last seven days chillingly productive.
Ammar Abulhamid, the Maryland-based spokesperson for the Syrian opposition, emailed me last night: “This is not only an alarming development or an ominous sign, this is a page out of the Mladic playbook, a balkanization in action. Where is the international community in all this? Where is the Obama Administration? Where is the UNSC? Taking a long Russian bath it seems.”
Indeed, one notices that whenever the Ba’athist butcher’s bill is getting too high for even complacent world powers to ignore, Assad focuses the attention away from himself.
First there was that regime-choreographed raid of Palestinian refugees on the Golan Heights during “Nakba Day” on May 15. Once again proving that when an Arab despot’s having a bad day he chants “Viva Palestina!”, Assad had bussed these hapless refugees to the Israeli-Syrian border a day earlier; yet somehow this, too, was reported at face value as a spontaneous outpouring of anti-Zionist sentiment from a country currently under siege.
Then there was the “Naksa Day” raid last weekend, when we were asked to believe by the BBC that now was the time for Palestinians to commemorate Syria’s loss in the Six-Day War – by running over minefields.
Yet 14 Palestinians refugees have just been found dead a camp in Damascus. Why were they killed? According to Ha’aretz, “The mourners accused the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) of endangering their lives during Sunday’s protest on Israel’s border, by encouraging them to put themselves in the line of fire.” The PFLP doesn’t lift a finger without Assad’s say-so.
Finally, perhaps even Jeremy Bowen will have noticed that there’s recently been a massive Syrian military mobilisation up north, near the border with Turkey. This could be in response to opposition leaders having slipped out of Syria and into the Turkish resort town of Antalya last week to attend a 300-strong conference where a “consultative council” was elected and it was collectively decreed that the post-Assad state ought to be a “secular democracy”. Muslim Brothers and Islamists in attendance tut-tutted at that, but they were ultimately cowed.
It’s a shame, really, that Syrian Islamists aren’t directing the opposition. If they were, then you can be sure that the BBC would be taking their statements at face value, too.
By Michael Weiss Politics Last updated: June 7th, 2011
Let’s say it’s an especially dark year of the Brezhnev era and you come across this headline in Pravda: “Kolyma labour battalion completes people’s railroad 2 years ahead of schedule.” Or perhaps: “CIA-Trotskyite agitator shoots self in head multiple times.” Would you report this as news or as state propaganda?
Perhaps Bashar al-Assad has not yet murdered and maimed enough Syrians for Western media outlets to question the authenticity of various “reports” coming out of his state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
Yet here is the BBC website yesterday:
Syrian state TV is reporting the deaths of at least 120 security personnel in battles with hundreds of gunmen in the north-western town of Jisr al-Shughour.
More than 80 of the deaths were said to have happened when the security headquarters in the town was overrun.
Communications are largely cut off and there has been little information from the protesters’ side about the unrest.
If confirmed, it would be the deadliest day for the security forces since anti-government protests began in mid-March.
I love that “if confirmed” caveat at the end. You have read a long way down the article to find the other caveats, which include eyewitness denials of everything SANA alleges.
The Syrian opposition is unarmed. If it weren’t, 1,600 of its members would not now be dead, with more than 10,000 others languishing in dungeons and torture chambers. The so-called shabbiha militias – roving youth gangs of Assad loyalists – have worked with mukhabarat regulars in quashing what has so far been the bloodiest and bravest Arab Spring uprising. Shabbiha thugs have conducted the sort of house-to-house raids that Muammar Gaddafi only threatened. Yet the BBC gives the benefit of the doubt to their paymaster.
If 120 of Assad’s “security forces” have been shot, then the shooters can only have been Assad’s security forces. In fact, the victims in this killing spree, if a killing spree did occur at all, were likely Syrian Army soldiers who’d tried to defect after refusing to fire on civilians. One Syrian oppositionist I spoke to, via an intermediary based in Beirut, told me: “The army isn’t to blame. They are forced to attack us by the militias and security forces. They have no access to phones, the internet, or television.” Here’s another oppositionist: “With more of the elite fleeing Syria, the Army will notice something is up and will splinter.”
Mutiny is exactly what this revolution is counting on. Mass graves of dead Syrian soldiers have been uncovered in Deraa (likewise reported by the BBC by leading first the totalitarian demurrals: “Syria denies reports of mass grave in Deraa”). Defecting soldiers have fled to Lebanon, only to be repatriated to Syria to face the inevitable consequences of insubordination.
Another possibility for SANA’s bogus exclusive is that Assad wants to cover up his own massacre in Jisr al-Shughour. In the last week, his death squads have killed more than 500 protesters in Hama, Rastan, Talbisseh, Jis Ashoughour, Deir Ezzor and elsewhere. The total fatality figure for the preceding ten weeks was 1,100, which makes the last seven days chillingly productive.
Ammar Abulhamid, the Maryland-based spokesperson for the Syrian opposition, emailed me last night: “This is not only an alarming development or an ominous sign, this is a page out of the Mladic playbook, a balkanization in action. Where is the international community in all this? Where is the Obama Administration? Where is the UNSC? Taking a long Russian bath it seems.”
Indeed, one notices that whenever the Ba’athist butcher’s bill is getting too high for even complacent world powers to ignore, Assad focuses the attention away from himself.
First there was that regime-choreographed raid of Palestinian refugees on the Golan Heights during “Nakba Day” on May 15. Once again proving that when an Arab despot’s having a bad day he chants “Viva Palestina!”, Assad had bussed these hapless refugees to the Israeli-Syrian border a day earlier; yet somehow this, too, was reported at face value as a spontaneous outpouring of anti-Zionist sentiment from a country currently under siege.
Then there was the “Naksa Day” raid last weekend, when we were asked to believe by the BBC that now was the time for Palestinians to commemorate Syria’s loss in the Six-Day War – by running over minefields.
Yet 14 Palestinians refugees have just been found dead a camp in Damascus. Why were they killed? According to Ha’aretz, “The mourners accused the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) of endangering their lives during Sunday’s protest on Israel’s border, by encouraging them to put themselves in the line of fire.” The PFLP doesn’t lift a finger without Assad’s say-so.
Finally, perhaps even Jeremy Bowen will have noticed that there’s recently been a massive Syrian military mobilisation up north, near the border with Turkey. This could be in response to opposition leaders having slipped out of Syria and into the Turkish resort town of Antalya last week to attend a 300-strong conference where a “consultative council” was elected and it was collectively decreed that the post-Assad state ought to be a “secular democracy”. Muslim Brothers and Islamists in attendance tut-tutted at that, but they were ultimately cowed.
It’s a shame, really, that Syrian Islamists aren’t directing the opposition. If they were, then you can be sure that the BBC would be taking their statements at face value, too.
