The Victims-And-Aggressor Meme

This was first published on http://www.medialens.org  March 21, 2012

Journalists are supposed to tell the truth without fear or favor. In reality, as even the editor of the Independent acknowledges, MPs and reporters are ‘a giant club’.

Together, politics and media combine to provide an astonishingly consistent form of reality management controlling public perception of conflicts in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Alastair Crooke, founder and director of Conflicts Forum, notes how the public is force-fed a simplistic victims-and-aggressor meme, which demands only the toppling of the aggressor.

The bias is spectacular, outrageous, but universal, and so appears simply to mirror reality. Ahmad Barqawi, a Jordanian freelance columnist and writer based in Amman, said it well:

I remember during the “Libyan Revolution”, the tally of casualties resulting from Gaddafi’s crackdown on protesters was being reported by the mainstream media with such a dramatic fervor that it hardly left the public with a moment to at least second-guess the ensuing avalanche of unverifiable information and erratic inflow of “eye witnesses’ accounts”.

Yet the minute NATO forces militarily intervened and started bombing the country into smithereens, the ceremonial practice of body count on our TV screens suddenly stopped; instead, reporting of Libyan casualties (of whom there were thousands thanks only to the now infamous UNSC resolution 1973) turned into a seemingly endless cycle of technical, daily updates of areas captured by NATO-backed rebel forces, then lost back to Gaddafi’s military, and again recaptured by the rebels in their creeping territorial advances towards Tripoli…

How is it that the media’s concern for human rights did not extend to the victims of NATO bombing campaigns in the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Sirte? How come the international community’s drive to protect the lives of Libyan civilians in Benghazi lost steam the minute NATO stepped in and actually increased the number of casualties ten-fold?

It is a remarkable phenomenon -- global media attention flitting instantaneously, like a flock of starlings, from one focus desired by state power to another focus also desired by state power.

But the bias goes far beyond even this example. The media’s basic stance in reporting events in Libya and Syria has been one of intense moral outrage. The level of political-media condemnation is such that media consumers are often persuaded to view rational, informed dissent as apologetics for mass murder. Crooke writes:

Those with the temerity to get in the way of “this narrative” by arguing that external intervention would be disastrous, are roundly condemned as complicit in President Assad's crimes against humanity. They are confronted by the unanswerable riposte of dead babies -- literally.

Monopolising The First Draft Of History

Just as the West has a near-monopoly on high-tech violence, so the Western media has a near-monopoly in creating the ‘first rough draft of history’. Consider this headline in The Times last month: Moral Blindness; Russia and China acted for self-serving motives in vetoing the Security Council's condemnation of the bloodshed in Syria. (Leading article, The Times, February 6, 2012)

Times readers were assured that the violence -- which, by curious coincidence, was said to have peaked just as the UN vote was taking place -- was enormous: Without warning, cause or compassion, the Syrian Army opened fire on the centre of Homs in the night, killing at least 200 people and leaving hundreds more maimed and wounded.

As we discussed at the time, this was the ‘first rough draft of history’ across the media. A second, sharply contradictory draft is already emerging, but only at the media margins. Jonathan Steele, formerly chief foreign correspondent at the Guardian, recently wrote of Russia and China in the London Review of Books:

The Western media have largely caricatured them as defenders of the regime thanks to their vetoes of the UN Security Council resolution on Syria. But in the days before the vote on 4 February diplomats in New York had been working with two separate drafts, trying to find a compromise text. Far from siding with Assad, the Russian draft differed little from the Moroccan one the West supported. It condemned the authorities’ “disproportionate use of force”. It called for an immediate ceasefire. The two substantive differences were that the Russian draft said the political process should start "without preconditions" while the Western-backed draft supported the Arab League’s call for Assad to transfer power to his vice-president before a dialogue could begin. In the event of non-compliance, the Western draft threatened “further measures”. The Russians had no such clause. For reasons that are still not clear, the West decided to ambush the Russians and Chinese and put the Moroccan draft to a sudden vote just before Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was due to visit Assad to conduct negotiations. The West knew that in its regime-changing form the Russians and Chinese would have no choice but to veto the resolution. If the Russians had been less diplomatic, they might have put their own draft to a sudden vote. We might then today be shouting at the West for vetoing a solution.

As for the Times and other media’s endlessly repeated, but unverified, claims of 200 dead in Homs, Steele cites a source who said he “started having doubts about the media coverage when Al-Jazeera claimed two hundred people died on the day the UN Security Council resolution was debated. My friend in Homs said it was more like sixty.”

The influential risk analysis group, Stratfor, reports that “most of the opposition's more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue.” Emails from Stratfor published by WikiLeaks argued that Syrian government massacres against civilians were unlikely because the “regime has calibrated its crackdowns to avoid just such a scenario. Regime forces have been careful to avoid the high casualty numbers that could lead to an intervention based on humanitarian grounds.”

Reuters recently profiled the key source for much mainstream reporting of casualties, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in an article titled: Syrian shop-keeper wages lonely war from English city. The report notes of the lone warrior, Rami Abdulrahman: Thousands of miles away from home, in a small rented house in Coventry, Abdulrahman runs Syria's most prominent activist group which has become central to the way the uprising is being reported -- and understood -- in the world.

When Human Rights Watch recently reported kidnappings, the use of torture, and executions by armed Syrian opposition members, the activist and filmmaker Gabriele Zamparini asked: “So, why weren't we informed of this by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights? What are they observing?” (Email to Media Lens, March 20, 2012) Two more questions the media will doubtless not be asking.

It is not outrageous that Abdulrahman should be saying whatever he likes about the conflict. It is outrageous that the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times are presenting him as a primary source for hard evidence.

As discussed, media outrage has typically been communicated at a high pitch of damning condemnation. And yet casualties in Libya under Gaddafi and in Syria now are likely far below those caused by Nato’s war in Libya. They are certainly minor events compared to the searing holocaust inflicted by the West on Iraq over more than two decades at the cost of more than 2 million lives. Nevertheless, while moral outrage is turned on like a tap in response to the crimes of official enemies, ‘our’ crimes -- horrors for which we are morally accountable as democratic citizens -- elicit only murmurs of mild concern. Once again, in an instant, the media flock alters direction in a way that just happens to favor state interests.

The groundwork persuading us to accept this bias is being laid on a daily basis. As Western demands for Syrian regime change reached a peak in early March, a Guardian photo spread was titled: Dictators’ Wives -- Their husbands have run some of the most brutal regimes of the Arab world, but present and former first ladies presented a different image to the world.

The first six of these photos, fully half of the dozen on display, focused on Asma al-Assad, wife of the Syrian official enemy du jour. If Guardian readers didn’t know that Assad was being portrayed by the US-UK governments as the latest Hitler, Saddam, Milosevic and Gaddafi, they could have guessed from this piece. Notably absent from the remaining pictures were the dictators wives of surviving Western allies in countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen.

A week earlier, the Guardian had published: The Arab world's first ladies of oppression. Again, the photo beneath the title featured Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma. An Independent article asked: So, what do you think of your husband's brutal crackdown, Mrs Assad?

Of course politicians, and arguably their spouses, should be subjected to serious challenge. But can we imagine anything comparable being directed at the wives of other men running two of ‘the most brutal regimes’ in the world -- Barack Obama and David Cameron?

By contrast, the Guardian ‘Picture of the day’ on January 25, included this comment: The first lady shines in sapphire at the state of the union address, surrounded by a sea of dark suits.

The piece added: Michelle Obama doesn't do trends. Instead she wears clothes that convey a message but never overpower her.

A Guardian review of last week’s meeting between Obama and Cameron in Washington, observed: Catwalk season might be over, but Washington has gallantly rushed in to fill the vacuum. This week, DC is playing host to a fascinating geopolitical fashion show featuring an all-star cast and headlined by Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron.

Try imagining a British journalist asking: So, what do you think of your husband's brutal drone campaign, Mrs Obama?

We Are Not Investigative Reporters

A foundation stone of structural journalistic bias is the assumption that it is the role of ‘balanced’ journalism to defend democracy by uncritically reporting the thoughts and deeds of elected leaders. In the aftermath of the Iraq war, then ITN political editor (now BBC political editor), Nick Robinson, wrote: It was my job to report what those in power were doing or thinking... That is all someone in my sort of job can do. We are not investigative reporters. (Robinson: Remember the last time you shouted like that? I asked the spin doctor. The Times, July 16, 2004)

By contrast, challenging what those in power are doing or thinking is said to be the task of less high-profile news journalists. In reality, they also often merely echo officialdom.

Thus, two of the Guardian’s senior news reporters, Patrick Wintour and Julian Borger, recently reported David Cameron’s claim that Iran is planning an inter-continental nuclear weapon that would threaten the West. Wintour and Borger failed to offer a single fact or source to challenge this preposterous claim that so closely resembled the lies that preceded the war on Iraq in 2002-2003 (after complaints, the Guardian amended the article).

Or consider that Reuters reported: U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said on Thursday she was devastated by the destruction she saw in Baba Amr district of the Syrian city of Homs and she wants to know what happened to residents there as result of an assault by government forces.

"I was devastated by what I saw in Baba Amr yesterday," Amos told Reuters TV after leaving a meeting with ministers in Damascus. "The devastation there is significant, that part of Homs is completely destroyed and I am concerned to know what has happened to the people who live in that part of the city."

Reuters did not mention that Valerie Amos is the same Baroness Amos who was made a life peer by Tony Blair in 1997, and made a cabinet minister by him in 2003, replacing Clare Short after she resigned over the Iraq war. Amos said in May 2003:

“It is absurd to suggest that we invented, exaggerated or distorted evidence for our own ends. There have been successive United Nations Security Council resolutions about Iraq's WMD. We have evidence that Iraq used its WMD against its own people. These are the facts.” (Paul Waugh: Rumsfeld changes tack by insisting that WMD will be found. Independent, May 31, 2003)

Amos insisted that the Government's dossier on WMD in Iraq had been ‘thorough and accurate’. She commented: “On the 45-minute claim, it is absolutely clear from reading the Hutton report that the Government did not dramatize the evidence.” (Catherine Macleod, '"War president" Bush changes tack on WMD,' Herald, February 9, 2004)

In truth, it is left to a tiny handful of ‘crusading’ journalists buried in the ‘quality’ press to offer a heavily compromised challenge to power.

Additionally, the fact that big media corporations are owned by wealthy individuals, or even larger corporations owned and run by wealthy people, means that high-profile journalists tend to be selected on the unspoken assumption that they will support elite versions of the world. Unsurprisingly, then, we find that the leading political correspondents of major broadcast and print media tend to be highly sympathetic to the official view. The investigative journalist I.F. Stone wrote:

The reporter assigned to specific beats like the State Department of the Pentagon for a wire service of a big daily newspaper soon finds himself a captive. State and Pentagon have large press relations forces whose job it is to herd the press and shape the news. There are many ways to punish a reporter who gets out of line; if a big story breaks at 3 a.m, the press office may neglect to notify him while his rivals get the story. There are as many ways to flatter and take a reporter into camp – private-off-the-record dinners with high officials, entertainment at the service clubs.

The BBC’s Nick Robinson commented recently: David Cameron will become the first world leader to be welcomed aboard Airforce One by President Obama so that both men can travel to the crucial swing state of Ohio. The pin up of the global left and the leader of the British right will add the latest image to the photo album of the Special Relationship.

He added: Last week President Obama had the opportunity to look Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu in the eye and judge how close he is to launching a war. David Cameron will want to know what he saw.

This mythologizing of leaders as virtual Hollywood heroes -- and the depiction of policy as emerging from powerful individuals rather than powerful groups -- urges the public to defer to leaders portrayed as far more than mere representatives of the people.

The undiscussed, system-supportive foundation of professional journalism adds a guaranteed second promotional layer reinforcing officialdom’s version of the world. Politicians can simply report the threat of a terrible impending massacre in Libya and the press will report them saying it -- over and over again.

Compromised international organizations like the United Nations and even some well-intentioned but naive human rights groups, can also be depended on to reinforce the official view. The UN, for example, is not, as presented, a divinely independent body free from the taint of realpolitik. It is subject to superpower control achieved through manipulation, threat, punishment and reward. If the UN reinforces the official view, the media can cite this as ‘independent’ confirmation of what the United States and Britain are claiming. Right-wing think-tanks and less high-profile “journalists of attachment” -- some of them out and out state stooges -- also add their shrieks to the swelling chorus insisting: Something must be done!

Perceiving an apparently rock solid consensus across the political, media and NGO spectra, the best compassionate instincts of many media consumers will prompt them to accept calls for 'humanitarian intervention' to obstruct the crimes of official enemies.

The danger is clear, then -- the ‘victims-and-aggressor meme’ can become insulated against facts, against even discussion of the facts, by a kind of press-button, structural propaganda.

How to prepare a lynching

The Guardian, a newspaper which in former times tried to appear as “liberal,” whatever that means, published supposedly authentic private emails of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, which were intercepted by hackers.

The Guardian admits, that it had been impossible to verify whether all the messages are genuine, but nevertheless writes, that the emails paint a damning picture and that it were especially the small details, which were so damning: “...the desperate search for a Harry Potter DVD, the concern over getting hold of a new chocolate fondue set, or swapping details with friends of crystal-encrusted designer shoes costing nearly 4,000 pounds.” (What is omitted here is the fact, that Asma al-Assad later wrote: “I actually LOVE them!!! they’re really cool. But I don’t think they’re going 2 b useful any time soon unfortunately...”)

Asma’s thoughts reportedly also had turned to a 2,650 pound vase she wanted and she asked a friend in London to look if this vase would be available at Harrods.

The family of Qatar’s emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, together with the USA the main adversary of Syria, will not need to ask such questions, Qatar owns Harrods. Not only that, the emirate has shares in  LVMH, Le Tanneur & Cie, and other luxury good companies. It makes sense to own such companies, because the emir has not only one, but three wife’s, and if they go on a shopping spree, it could become costly. 

Asma al-Assad will not break the bank because shopping will become more and more difficult for President al-Assad’s family. Western countries have imposed stringent sanctions which prohibit senior members of the Syrian government to acquire any goods. London’s daily Telegraph quoted a senior lawyer as saying Asma al-Assad could face jail time, if she is found to have purchased items from British luxury department’s store Harrods.

This text is not condoning luxury spending and politicians, who live a humble and modest life in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi (are there any?) are undoubtedly more sympathetic and prudent, and especially more suitable as role models.

But the Al-Assad’s lifestyle, if they indeed have bought luxury items, would still not be in any way comparable with the luxury that the Saudi princes and their peers from the adjacent Gulf monarchies enjoy. Many of them are billionaires, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal for instance is worth 20 billion US$.

Western media will not write about the spending of the Gulf aristocracy, because they are the good guys, they are paying the FSA (Free Syrian Army) militias and are shipping the weapons to Turkey and Jordan. They are working for the liberation of Syria from the socialist Baathists and are upholding the banner of democracy and freedom.

The Al-Assad’s are not billionaires, that is for sure! They don’t own a super yacht or their private island, they don’t own palaces and estates. But as the British tabloid Daily Mail wrote: “it is the small details that are so damning.”

Like looking for a Harry Potter DVD.

The frenzy about this private emails in some places even becomes comical, for instance, when Dr. Bashir al-Assad because of his preference for Apple products is called an “Apple fanboy”. What a relieve for all the Windows and Linux user, who day in and day out have to cope with an inferior and troublesome operating system, seeing themselves suddenly in the moral high ground with the warm and fuzzy feeling that they at least use the political correct system and not the suspect OSX (Lion or Snow Leopard or whatever). Wasn’t Steve Jobs a Buddhist and vegetarian after all?

On a side note: Working conditions at Foxconn and an “Apple myth” that has turned into a celebration of consumer culture and modern day vanity are troubling enough, while in the bigger context of things the al-Assad’s use of Apple products is completely irrelevant.

The remarkable Asma al-Assad

Asma al-Assad is the British-born first lady of Syria. She is the daughter of a Harley Street cardiologist, her mother is a diplomat. Asna is a Sunni Muslim and her father hails from Homs. After studying computer science and French literature at King’s College, London, she was working as a banker at JP Morgan in the 90s when she started secretly dating Bashar al-Assad. She moved to Syria and married him in 2000 after he assumed the Syrian Presidency. They have three children.

Asma is one of the few extraordinary women who have achieved something until now unheard of in modern Arab history: She emerged from the shadows and became a public figure beside her husband. She is credited with supporting progressive positions on women's rights and education, and liberalizing the Syrian economy.

A Vogue profile described here “as a lissome 36-year-old who ran a “wildly democratic” household -- her three young kids could outvote their parents (including the president) on what furnishings to buy and where in the house to put them. The Syrian first lady came across as very much the young professional -- and as the young mother trying to find a sane balance among all the demands on her time and energy.”

Asma has continued to stand by her husband throughout the turmoil in her country and the increasing Western pressure on the Syrian government. According to one of the leaked emails which was sent in late December she wrote to her husband: “If we are strong together, we will overcome this together ... I love you....”

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In this propaganda war, getting dirtier, more hateful, and more over the top every day and reaching now a point where the term mud slinging is not a sufficient description anymore, intercepting private emails and spiking them with some juicy details is only one of the many tools to slam and defame the Syrian Presidential family.

New web sides and blogs and Facebook groups and Twitter accounts, mocking, parodying, caricaturing the al-Assad’s, pop up every day. It seems that a few thousand bloggers and web designers are busy flooding the internet with anti Assad propaganda.

I don’t include web addresses here, because these sides come and go, I only was intrigued by http://www.asmaalassad.com/ with the text:

asma al assad - the first lady of syria

Purchased by Israeli domain company

domain10@walla.co.il

The impersonations and the mockeries are sometimes ludicrous, sometimes even funny, but unfortunately this media campaign of defamation and slander against the al-Assad family is nothing to joke about, this is not anymore only a character assassination, this is the preparation for a big showdown, a showdown like in a Hollywood movie, scripted to end with the dramatic and at the same time festive and jubilant spectacle of a lynching.

In one article Asma al-Assad was compared with Marie Antoinette (let them eat cake) and that makes very clear where this media campaign of denunciation and demonization goes.

Marie Antoinette was the wife of French King Louis XVI, and she was like her husband guillotined in 1793. There is no record of the words “let them eat cake” ever having been uttered by her and historians mostly agree that her trial was unfair and the accusations against her (including lesbianism, incest with her son, and orgiastic excesses) were humiliating and unfounded.

One has not to reach so far into the past to find prominent examples of carefully prepared murders and lynchings. There are many political leaders in recent years who were depicted as villains and deeply amoral and evil characters, who’s terrible end was welcomed as a relief and collective positive achievement by everybody who had bought into the victors propaganda.

A short and selective modern history of disposed political leaders:

In 1961, Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, was deposed in a coup, orchestrated by the CIA and Belgian agents. He was beaten, tortured, and finally executed by a firing squad.

In September 1973, Chiles President Dr. Salvador Allende (a medical doctor like Dr. Bashar al-Assad) died when General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a CIA sponsored coup.

In Romania, public unrest over food shortages started in early December 1989 and soon swelled into a mass protest. President Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in a coup d’etat by military and communist party officials and on Christmas Day he and his wife Elena were executed by a firing squad. Their hasty and particularly gruesome execution fueled popular views that they were silenced to conceal the misdeeds of others.

Afghanistan’s President Dr. Mohammad Najibullah (a medical doctor like Dr. Bashar al-Assad) was brutally killed when the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. He was first castrated and then dragged to death behind a truck in the streets. His blood-soaked body was hanged from a traffic light post.

The fact, that he tried to modernize Afghans society and especially improve women’s plight, did not save him. The fact, that he held local elections in 1987 and introduced a law, permitting the formation of other political parties, did not save him. The announcement that he was prepared to share power with representatives of opposition groups in the event of a coalition government did not save him.

After the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 and disposed the socialist Baath regime, Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003 and hanged three years later

After a seven month long bombing campaign by NATO Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed in October 2011. Evidence suggests that he was tortured and sodomized before shot to death.

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Asma al-Assad and her husband Dr. Bashar al-Assad better should fight like lions and make the most intelligent and wise decisions to avoid a similar fate!

Hollywood in Homs and Idlib?

Sharmine Narwani

Last October I was asked to write an article on the direction of the crisis in Syria – a month later, I had still not made it beyond an introductory paragraph. Syria was confusing. The public discourse about events in the country appeared to be more hyperbole than fact. But even behind the scene, sources strained to provide informed analyses, and it was fairly evident that a lot of guesswork was being employed.

By December, it occurred to me that a big part of the problem was the external-based opposition and their disproportionately loud voices. If you were actually in the business of digging for “verified” information on Syria last year, you would have also quickly copped on to the fact that this wing of the Syrian opposition lies -- and lies big.

This discovery coincided with a new report by US intelligence analyst Stratfor that claimed: “most of the opposition’s more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue, thereby revealing more about the opposition’s weaknesses than the level of instability inside the Syrian regime.”

I had another niggling feeling that just wouldn’t quit: given the amount of regime-initiated violence and widespread popular dissent being reported in the mainstream media, why was the Syrian death toll so low after 10 months of alleged brutality?

Because, if the regime was not engaging in the kind of reckless slaughter suggested by activists, it would appear that they were, in fact, exercising considerable restraint.

Stratfor said that too. The risk analysis group argues that allegations of massacres against civilians were unlikely because the “regime has calibrated its crackdowns to avoid just such a scenario. Regime forces,” Stratfor argues, “have been careful to avoid the high casualty numbers that could lead to an intervention based on humanitarian grounds.”

For me, the events in Homs in February confirmed rather than contradicted this view. The general media narrative was very certain: there was a wide-scale civilian massacre in Baba Amr caused by relentless, indiscriminate shelling by government forces that pounded the neighborhood for weeks.

The videos pouring out of the besieged city were incriminating in the extreme. Black smoke plumes from shelling choked the city, piled up bodies spoke of brutal slaughter; the sound of mass wailing was only interrupted by explosions, gunfire and cries of “Allahu Akbar.”

But when it was over, we learned a few things. Contrary to reports during the “siege,” there were only a few thousand civilians in Baba Amr at the time -- all others had already evacuated the area. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and its local partner, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), had been administering assistance at nine separate points in Homs for the duration. They would not enter the neighborhoods of Baba Amr and Insha’at because of continuing violence on “both sides.”

The armed opposition fighters holed up in Homs during that month were, therefore, unlikely to be there in a purely “protective” capacity. As American journalist Nir Rosen points out, what happened in Homs on February 3 was a government response to direct and repeated “provocation.”

“Yesterday opposition fighters defeated the regime checkpoint at the Qahira roundabout and they seized a tank or armored personnel carrier. This followed similar successes against the Bab Dreib checkpoint and the Bustan al Diwan checkpoint. In response to this last provocation yesterday the regime started shelling with mortars from the Qalaa on the high ground and the State Security headquarters in Ghota.”

This account contrasts starkly with the oft-repeated notion that armed opposition groups act primarily to protect “peaceful demonstrators” and civilians.

Homs also marks the point in the Syrian crisis when I noticed a quiet cynicism developing in the professional media about sources and information from Syria. Cracks are bound to appear in a story this widely broadcast, especially when there is little actual verifiable information in this highly competitive industry.

Cue the now infamous video by Syrian activist Danny Abdul Dayem – dubbed by the Washington Post as “the voice of Homs” -- where he dazzles CNN’s Anderson Cooper with little more than bad 1950s-style sound effects, blurry scenes of fires and a breathless rendition of “facts.” Of all the media-fraud videos Syrian TV broadcast two weeks ago, none were as compelling as Danny’s -- his credibility stock plummeting almost as fast as his meteoric rise to media “darling.”

It reminds me of August 2011 news reports of warships shelling the coastal city of Latakia. Three separate sources -- two opposition figures from the city and an independent western journalist -- later insisted there were no signs of shelling. It was also the first time I learned from Syrians that you can burn rubber tires on rooftops to simulate the after-effects of exploded shells.

Question: Why would activists have to resort to stage-crafting scenes and sound effects of violence if the regime was already “pounding Homs” to bits?

What have we actually seen in Homs? Explosions. Fires. Dead bodies. Injured civilians. Men with weapons. The government has openly admitted to shelling, so we know that is a fact. But how much shelling, and is it indiscriminate? Observers afterward have said Baba Amr resembles a destroyed ghost town. How much of this was done by the regime? And how much was done by the opposition?

Turkish publication “Today’s Zaman” reported on Sunday: “Last week, a Pentagon report stated that IED usage by the opposition has more than doubled since December.” How are these IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices, basically remote detonated landmines) being employed? As roadside bombs, targeting security forces, inside towns and cities?

On Sunday I was included in a private messaging thread with seven Syrians who I have communicated with over the course of some months. Most are known to me either directly or with one degree of separation. This was not a usual thread on Syria -- the initiating participant, who I will call Ziad, was informing the others privately about what was taking place in Idlib as government forces moved into the area.

Ziad’s family is from Idlib, and although I wasn’t a participant in the conversation, it appears that he had spent much of the weekend making phone calls to family members who were reporting the following. I have changed the names of participants to protect their identities. Two things strike me about this chat -- the first is the information that armed groups are rigging the town with IEDs before the army arrives, either to target security forces or to create material damage to buildings. The second is that there is a malaise among the message participants about this information. As in, so what? Who is going to believe this? Who is going to do anything about this?

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Ziad:

Today the Army went into the city of Idleb (the city itself not the province).

There was no random shelling, they were slowly moving into neighborhoods, starting from the east and southern.

The militants had seeded IEDs across the city, one of them was under my uncles balcony, who now lost half his home, his living room got bigger and has a panoramic view.

They had set up machine gun nests on a few mosques and communication towers.

Around 200 militants were gathered near my grandmother’s house and took refuge in the building right next to them. The neighborhood is a Christian neighborhood (cant confirm or deny it’s a coincidence).

The battle lasted all day, my family is safe but both my grandmother’s house and my uncle’s house got damaged. The first by the IED and the second by exchange of fire, largely done by the militants and the army was returning fire.

The army was moving in slowly and checked Idleb neighborhood by neighborhood. They searched most houses but there were no mass random arrests. Mainly they asked adult men out before searching and they were released after. I assume at this point they have a list of who to arrest so there was no surprise there.

The rumors of electricity and water cuts are not true. The entire country is suffering from electricity cuts, so Idleb will not be an exception. There is no cell phone coverage but landlines are working, though there is heavy pressure and you have to attempt several times for the call to go through Ziad:

The plan will probably be pushing them into what is called “the northern quarter” an area already emptied from civilians and largely a militant stronghold. Once they corner them in the northern area the army will take them out decisively. Most people expect this to end within the next two days.

Outside the city there was a clash on the Turkish border with militants attempting to come from Turkey to Idleb to reinforce the militants.

Ziad:

Just to make it clear the Army did not finish sweeping the entire city

Joumana:

I don’t know what to say Ziad. Should I be happy or sad? I feel sorry for the people caught in the middle, but this has to be done! So is the city clean?

Ziad:

No it’s not clean. Operation started yesterday from 5 AM till around 6. The same thing today but today the army went in deeper. They are doing it progressively and trying to avoid the most damages.

Most damages are caused by the IEDs (some up to 50 kgs of explosives) and random firing by militants (using PKT/PKC and DUSHKA/DShk machine guns), with the army returning fire when attacked, but no excessive use of force i.e no artillery barrages as reported by Al Jazeera and other channels)

Ziad:

Also, contrary to what is being reported, the town of Benech was not shelled today and was not even attacked.

Oh and since the morning the army was asking people to go down to the shelters and take refuge using speakers across the city.

I just heard on Al Jazeera that the army dragged over 20 civilians and executed them in “Dabbit neighborhood,” that is not true because I have family there too and that did not happen.

Hanan:

Ziad, they are using the propaganda of the 80′s. Want to lead people’s brains to the Hama massacre. To make it look believable

Joumana:

The MB (Muslim Brotherhood) are insisting on getting their revenge. Linking the events to what happened in Hama. Many people will believe.

Ziad:

Just to give you a perspective on the scale of irresponsibility and damage by the militants. Just under my uncles house there were 4 IEDs, one of them exploded damaging a BMP (and the building) as the army was approaching and the army stopped there and pulled back to reassemble for another try. In that single spot there were over 60 kg of explosives. A large one was planted in a 2×2 hole. Right now the army reached their neighborhood and is still there.

These militants don’t even live there and are just making those neighborhoods their front using civilians as shields. Once they are pushed back into the open fields the army will mow them down like grass.

I’m optimistic this will be over in the coming two days.

Jouwana:

But Ziad, why isn’t there anyone reporting this to the media?

Mohammad:

if they report it no one (outside Syria) will believe it …

Ziad:

I think by now we can all agree the pro Syrian media has limited clout and the anti Syria media just doesn’t do any fact checking and research and is resorting to sectarian tone and hysteria.

The government I think it focusing its energy and resources on finishing the security element of the crisis while juggling the economy and foreign diplomacy. They realize they cannot win the media war and might as well focus on what they are good at and what is more important. Syria never was “popular” and it certainly won’t be done during this crisis.

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Ziad is not a reporter, he relies entirely on his family’s accounts and estimates in Idlib, and his claims cannot be verified at this point. But these are important testimonies -- the anecdotal evidence that provides the basis for further investigation. We used to hear many more of these accounts from all sides in the first few months of the Syrian crisis, before the pressure of the dominant narratives intimidated even the best bloggers into toeing a hyper-cautious line.

Conjecture and hysteria aside, there is plenty of indication that the Syrian government is pursuing a policy of eliminating armed groups in a slow, measured sweep of the country, particularly focusing on towns and neighborhoods where they have allowed these elements to swell in recent months.

There are many who would find this offensive enough to continue raging against the Syrian regime -- it is unnecessary to concoct daily stories of civilian slaughters to keep Syria in the headlines.

There is also increasing evidence that armed opposition groups are targeting civilians, security forces and property with violence in ever greater numbers. Is there absolute evidence of this? Not yet. Is there absolute evidence for the allegations against the regime? Not yet. I doubt that there has been a recent conflict with this much finger-pointing, and this little established fact.

Today, reporting from inside Idlib, Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught described the bombing as “earth-shaking and relentless.” Bombing caused by whom?

“Hollywood” in Syria? Oh yes. Scene-setting the likes of which we have not yet seen outside of celluloid fiction. Delivering lines to a rapt audience that seems incapable of questioning the plot. Some of what transpires in Syria in the future will depend on this: Do people want to go behind the velvet curtain and see the strings -- or are they content to be simply led by the entertainment.

This report was posted by Sharmine Narwani on her blog The Sandbox – Al-Akhbar and she added the following comment later in response to another comment:

This is not a civil war. The ICRC says that quite specifically, and explains that the legal qualification for the situation in Syria is “other situation of violence.” I do not equate the two sides. One is the armed forces of a sovereign state, and in my view, the other consists of groupings of armed militias with various degrees of experience, no national command, few common aspirations, who are not yet representative of a significant Syrian population — a population that, so far at least, appears to reject the militarization of this conflict.

If these armed groups had just acted in a defensive capacity to protect civilian populations — which is what they claim (so it is clear that they DO understand the importance of that distinction) — then that is fully defensible. But they have proactively targeted pro-regime populations of both security forces and civilians, making them a very justifiable military target in any court of law. There are never any good guys in politics, but there is “rule of law,” and it is interesting how eager we are to shrug that off in a moment of opportunism. I do not at all reject the right of a civilian population to take up arms against a government, but if they are not a representative group from the wider population, then they may be reduced to pursuing the kind of “tactical” warfare we are now seeing that harms the general population and centers of power, i.e. crippling infrastructure (pipelines, electrical/water plants, bridges, etc) and bombing civilian centers to force momentum.

I am not sure that the actions of these groups do not entirely provide justification for the Syrian army to go in and sweep them out of the area, providing they take rigorous precaution to avoid civilian casualties. And I make the point in the article that there is evidence that the regime is being careful in these operations. How? By pointing out that opposition activists are going to some length to SIMULATE regime damage to property and civilian life.

Do keep in mind that a lot of what I write is in reaction to the widespread “sanitization” of certain distasteful elements of the opposition. If the general media cared to make those informative distinctions — and were just as willing to highlight the peaceful, non-interventionist domestic opposition figures and parties — I would have no reason to do so.

Also worth reading is the blog post from Sharmine Narwani about the Huffington Post censoring her articles

http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/sandbox/syria-censorship-aol-huffington-post

News from Doha

The emirate Qatar, a British protectorate till 1971, is an absolute monarchy ruled by the Al Thani family. In 1995, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani became Emir when he seized power from his father in a coup d'état. Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is a graduate of Britain’s Sandhurst military academy and was until the takeover defense minister.

Most of the influential and important positions in Qatar are held by the members of the Al Thani family. Qatar has close military ties with the USA and hosts the US Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.

Qatar is the richest country of the world due to huge oil and natural gas deposits (it is the worlds largest exporter of natural gas) and has attracted an estimated 100 billion US$ in investment, with about 70 billion coming from the USA.

With a population of only 260,000 people, the workforce is boosted by 1.7 million guest workers, mainly from other Arab nations, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. Qatar does not have minimum wage standards and does not permit labour-unions. The authorities can cancel guest workers’ residency permits at any time, prevent workers from changing employers, and even deny permission to leave the country. Immigrant workers are regulated by a so called “sponsorship system.” which denies them basic human rights and amounts to modern-day slavery.

Qatari law is based on Sharia law and allows punishments like flogging and stoning (including the death penalty).

The emirate is a major backer of the Muslim Brotherhood and has long been hosting prominent clerics from other countries. For example Sheik Ali Salabi, a radical Libyan preacher who spent years in exile in Doha during Gaddafi’s reign, and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was forced to leave Egypt and has been living in Qatar since the 1960s, issuing fatwas (religious decrees) and writing philosophical works, many of which contain extremist notions (for instance support of Sharia-based governance and of terror acts like car bombings and suicide attacks).

Yusuf al-Qaradaw is also given ample airtime on Qatar’s news network Al Jazeera and he has in recent years become a television preacher with a weekly show and a following of tens of millions.

Qatar uses its wealth to support radical Islamist groups (Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists, Wahhabists) not only in Arab countries but also in Europe. Qatar funds many mosques in France and Italy, including a mega-mosque in Salemi, Sicily. Another mega-mosque is being built with Qatari funds in Cork, Ireland. The majority of these mosques are controlled by Muslim Brotherhood affiliates.

The emirate is the principal foreign supporter of Tunisia’s Islamist al-Nahda party, which won the parliamentary elections in October 2011.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Salafists used generous funding by Qatar to win overwhelming victories in Egypt’s elections. The Salafist Ansar El-Sonna association alone received 30 million US$ from Qatar.

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Qatar’s investments in East Asia, Europe, and the USA in infrastructure projects, real estate, financial institutions, and even soccer clubs have turned the emirate into a key political player. 

Qatar’s royal family is stepping up its investment in the euro zone’s troubled banking sector with plans to buy private banking businesses from Franco-Belgium financial group Dexia and its Belgian rival KBC.

The emirate owns two percent of French energy giant Total, 1.1 percent of luxury goods group LVMH, 10 percent of French media company Lagardere and 5.6 percent of construction giant Vinci. In May last year, Qatar Luxury Group bought a controlling stake in French handbag maker Le Tanneur & Cie.

In 2010 Qatar bought the famous London department store Harrods for 2.3 billion US$ and recently became the sole shareholder of the soccer team Paris Saint-Germain, which is one of the worlds richest clubs, valued at 100 million Euros.

Qatar’s wealth is not only used for economic investments and peaceful political changes through the ballot box.

War investments

The emirate from early on took part in the war against Libya by supporting various militias with weapons (modern anti-tank missiles, assault rifles, telecom equipment) worth 400 million US$ and also with military trainers/advisors. Giant Qatari military transporters regularly unloaded tons of weaponry at Djerba airport in Tunisia, not far from the Libyan border and half of the emirates 12 Mirage 2000-5 jet fighters joined the NATO bombing campaign. The Qatari government recently acknowledged that it also had sent hundreds of troops to Libya.

After NATO’s victory, the newly installed NTC (National Transitional Council) soon discovered that Qatar is continuing to arm and fund Islamist militia groups and Mohammed Abdel Rahman Shalgam, Libya’s new envoy to the United Nations denounced Qatar’s actions at a conference in Tangiers last November: "They (Qatar) give money to some parties, the Islamist parties. They give money and weapons and they try to meddle in issues that do not concern them and we reject that.”

In February Qatar’s Ghanim Al-Ghanim Corporation together with rich Libyan businessmen established the company ”LIC country" with a capital of 100 million US$. Qatar Telecom and other Qatari companies are exploring investment options and Qatar wants to sell its Mirage jets to the new Libyan army, because it intends to exchange them for new Dassault Rafale jets.

The emirate’s involvement in the Palestinian conflict is also noteworthy. It recently has become a mediator between Fatah and Hamas and in February the Emir of Qatar called for an international investigation of all Israeli activity in Jerusalem since 1967 designed to “erase its Muslim and Arab sites.”

Qatar’s public activism on Palestinian issues doesn’t hurt Israel too much (or rather not at all) and has the goal to diminish Palestinian support for Syria. Key Palestinian policy makers from Hamas are allegedly paid by Qatar to criticize Bashar al-Assad and to call for his resignation and Hamas has moved out of Syria and is dispersing its leadership to Qatar and Egypt.

The Arab League has a rotating presidency, exercised in turns by each of the 22 member states. In 2011, Qatar convinced the Palestinian Authority to cede its Presidency in exchange for a donation of  400 million US$. This is the reason that Qatar at the moment still holds the presidency of the Arab League.

When the Arab League monitors in Syria issued a report that mostly exonerated the government, put the blame for the violence on insurgent groups, and stated that Syrian security forces never opened fire on peaceful protest demonstrations, Qatar disputed these findings, buried the report, and demanded the resignation of Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dhabi, the monitoring missions head.

Mohammed al-Dhabi refused, even after the Emir told him by phone that every man has a price and that it was up to him to fix his own and fill in the amount on a blank check sent by Qatar.

In the end the emirate made a grant available to Sudan (one of the poorest countries in the world) in exchange for General al-Dhabi’s withdrawal. After securing investments of two billion US$ the Sudanese President recalled Mohammed al-Dhabi back to Khartoum.

The Arab League report was later disclosed by a whistleblower and it makes indeed interesting reading, yet it was never cited in the Western media.

It is no surprise that the report was so completely ignored by the corporate-media world, because the Arab League monitors unalterably concluded that the Syrian government was in no way lethally repressing protestors and credited armed gangs of insurgents with the arsons and bombings against civilian trucks and buses, schools and other communal buildings, trains carrying diesel oil, police buses, bridges, and pipelines.

http://globalresearch.ca/Report_of_Arab_League_Observer_Mission.pdf

Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in November pushed the Arab League to suspend Syria and since then repeatedly called for military intervention.

Also in November the Syrian National Council sent a delegation to meet with Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Qatar and the SNC got via Libyan militias 100 million US$.

Over 10,000 men from Libya and other Arab countries are reportedly being trained in a closed-off zone in Jordan, ready to infiltrate Syria. The fighters are paid around 1,000 US$ a month, the operation is funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

According to the Arab news agency Al-Manar, the armed insurgent groups are coordinated from a military coordination office in Qatar, staffed by foreign agents. The office is said to have been established under US/GCC sponsorship and includes also CIA, MI6, and Mossad operatives.

Qatar has also made deals with Israeli and American companies to arm the insurgents and to acquire redundant weapons from Eastern Europe, which were shelved when the armed forces of former members of the Warsaw Treaty joined NATO and re-equipped troops with Western-made systems.

Qatari special operations units were assisting rebel forces in Homs by providing body armor, laptops, satellite phones, and by managing rebel communications.

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The news network Al Jazeera has become a unique and effective tool for the Qatari Emir. Al-Jazeera gives the conflicts within the Arab world a great deal of exposure, and this in itself provides the ruling dynasty with a certain level of immunity against criticism about its autocratic rule.

Al Jazeera is owned by the Emirate of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and is based in Qatar’s capital Doha. The broadcaster, being first and foremost a commercial franchise, thrived on reporting bloody scenes from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Al Jazeeras offices in Kabul and Bagdad were subsequently bombed by US jets and cameraman Sami al-Hajj spent six years in Guantanamo Bay before he was cleared of all charges in 2008, giving the broadcaster much “Arab street credential.”

The reports about the “Arab Spring” uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt increased the networks popularity further and widened its appeal far beyond the Arab world. Regular critical background reports and insider analysis captured an audience which was wary of the uniformed and sanitized (self censored) reporting by Western media.

In 2004 Al Jazeera’s mainly Arabic speaking audience was estimated at 70 million.

The English channel started in 2006 and soon the network extended its reach into 250 million homes in more than 100 countries, yet cable and satellite companies in the USA refused its requests to be carried. 

But after the Web site’s live stream and a YouTube live stream attracted millions of viewers and after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton characterized Al Jazeera as "real news" that was winning against US media outlets, the enterprise made also big inroads in the USA.

It is estimated that Al-Jazeera now reaches some 36 million people every day.

The business plan is not difficult to understand: Dominate the Arab region and then, with English language broadcasts extend the brand throughout the world. The English language broadcasts provide both translation plus interpretation of authentic Arabic news coverage as well as news from other places that could be interesting for an international audience.

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Various commentators over the years were pointing out, that there is something weird about Al-Jazeera -- that it isn’t what it seems, that its provenance, no less than its mission, is suspect.

This ranges from Israelis who think it is the ultimate pan-Arab cabal to Arabs convinced it has been funded by the CIA and Mossad or the Carlyle Group (an infamous US venture capital company). US networks publicly pondered if Al Jazeera didn’t have some special undisclosed relationship with the US government.

Non of this can be completely ruled out buy regardless of the plausibility and validity of any of the theories Al Jazeera appears to be in essence a business plus a propaganda tool in the same way as all the other TV channels are. It is television American style and accordingly its most important function (if it is to flourish) is to turn rebellious Arabs into eager consumers.

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Al-Jazeera director Wadah Khanfar resigned in September and was replaced with Sheikh Ahmad bin Jasem al-Thani, a member of the ruling family. Ahmad bin Jasem al-Thani in not a journalist, he has worked abroad and at home on petroleum engineering projects and is a former executive of Qatargas, he also sits on the board of Qatar’s University’s College of Engineering. 

Wadah Khanfar was regarded a successful director though he was not beyond question. He had links to the Muslim Brotherhood and diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks indicated that he negotiated with US officials about pending Iraq coverage and that he changed reports at US official’s request. It is also widely believed that Ahmad Mansur was taken out of the Iraq assignment because the USA insisted on it.

Since September a steady stream of changes have been made, most notably shifts in the Arabic news channel’s management team and a push to hire more Qatari citizens. The reorganization focuses on putting all of the network’s core division under 9 Executive Directors, and a General Legal Counsel. The general manager Mahmoud Bouneb and 30 members of senior staff at the Al Jazeera Children’s Channel have been dismissed.

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Al Jazeeras new coverage is more and more in line with the geopolitical ambitions and the cultural ideals of the al-Thani family.

When the Shia-majority opposition took to the streets in Bahrain, Al Jazeera remained silent. With Qatar keeping to the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council consensus, Bahrain weathered the storm and with Saudi Arabia’s help put down its opposition. Emir Sheikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa didn’t have to worry about disturbing coverage of the bloody crackdown.

In contrast to this disinterest in Bahraini affairs Al Jazeera covered the Libyan war excessively. After the Libyan government was removed and Muammar Gaddafi killed, coverage of Libya ended and Al Jezeera since then focusses on Syria.

The reports from Syria paint a bleak picture of a bloodthirsty regime on a killing spree against helpless civilians, indiscriminately butchering thousands of innocent people, including women and children.

Somebody disgruntled with the diktat of channel management that the Syrian revolution (at least the SNC version of it) “must be televised” leaked raw footage about Homs and interviews -- staged for maximum anti-regime effect -- to Syria’s state television.

As’ad AbuKhalil, proprietor of the Angry Arab news blog, is no friend of Bashar al-Assad. He had this to say about recent programs on Syrian state TV:

“It seems that the Syrian regime had agents among the rebels; or it seems that the Syrian regime obtained a trove of video footage from Baba Amr. They have been airing them non-stop. They are quite damning. They show the correspondent or witness before he is on the air: and the demeanor is drastically different from the demeanor on the air and they even show contrived sounds of explosions timed for broadcast time…”

“This is really scandalous. It shows the footage prior to Al Jazeera reports: they show fake bandages applied on a child and then a person is ordered to carry a camera in his hand to make it look like a mobile footage. It shows a child being fed what to say on Al Jazeera.”

A few days ago the entire staff of Al Jazeera received an email instructing them to change their computer and email passwords. The network’s server had been intercepted by Syrian hackers, and some of its secrets were released to the media.

The major discovery made public was an email exchange between anchorwoman Rula Ibrahim and Beirut-based reporter Ali Hashem. The emails seemed to indicate widespread disaffection within the channel, especially over its coverage of Syria.

Rula Ibrahim protested that she had been utterly humiliated. “They wiped the floor with me because I embarrassed Zuheir Salem, spokesperson for Syria’s Muslim Brothers. As a result, I was prevented from doing any Syrian interviews, and threatened with transfer to the night shift on the pretext that I was making the channel imbalanced.”

Correspondent Ali Hashem in Beirut resigned after the leaked emails revealed his frustrations over the news channel's coverage of Syria. The Beirut bureau’s managing director Hassan Shaaban and producer Mousa Ahmad went with him.

This are not the first high profile resignations. 

The head of the Beirut Bureau Ghassan Ben Jeddo, who worked for Al-Jazeera since 1997 after a successful career at BBC, has resigned already in April 2011.

Nour Odeh, The Ramallah correspondent for Al-Jazeera International, resigned in Jannuary 2011.

In June 2010 five Al-Jazeera anchorwomen quitted after being accused of not dressing modestly enough.

Other journalist who don’t work for Al Jazeera anymore are Afshin Rattansi, Don Debar, and former Al Jazeera English-language blogger Ted Rall.

Beside documenting the growing discontent and disillusionment of Al Jazeera’s journalists the intercepted emails revealed also the stunning fact, that Ahmad Ibrahim, who is in charge of the channel’s Syria coverage, is the brother of Anas al-Abdeh, a leading member of the opposition Syrian National Council.

The Bloody Road to Damascus

By James Petras, published March 09 2012 on petras.lahaine.org

Introduction

There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad of Syria is a violent, power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition.

The outrage expressed by politicians in the West and Gulf State and in the mass media, about the ‘killing of peaceful Syrian citizens protesting injustice’ is cynically designed to cover up the documented reports of violent seizure of neighborhoods, villages and towns by armed bands, brandishing machine guns and planting road-side bombs.

The assault on Syria is backed by foreign funds, arms and training. Due to a lack of domestic support, however, to be successful, direct foreign military intervention will be necessary. For this reason a huge propaganda and diplomatic campaign has been mounted to demonize the legitimate Syrian government. The goal is to impose a puppet regime and strengthen Western imperial control in the Middle East. In the short run, this will further isolate Iran in preparation for a military attack by Israel and the US and, in the long run, it eliminates another independent secular regime friendly to China and Russia.

In order to mobilize world support behind this Western, Israeli and Gulf State-funded power grab, several propaganda ploys have been used to justify another blatant violation of a country’s sovereignty after their successful destruction of the secular governments of Iraq and Libya.

The Larger Context: Serial Aggression

The current Western campaign against the independent Assad regime in Syria is part of a series of attacks against pro-democracy movements and independent regimes from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. The imperial-militarist response to the Egyptian democracy movement that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship was to back the military junta’s seizure of power and murderous campaign to jail, torture and assassinate over 10,000 pro-democracy protestors.

Faced with similar mass democratic movements in the Arab world, the Western-backed Gulf autocratic dictators crushed their respective uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The assaults extended to the secular government in Libya where NATO powers launched a massive air and sea bombardment in support of armed bands of mercenaries thereby destroying Libya’s economy and civil society. The unleashing of armed gangster-mercenaries led to the savaging of urban life in Libya and devastation in the countryside. The NATO powers eliminated the secular regime of Colonel Gaddafi and along with having him murdered and mutilated by its mercenaries. NATO oversaw the wounding, imprisonment, torture, and elimination of tens of thousands of civilian Gaddafi supporters and government workers. NATO backed the puppet regime as it embarked on a bloody pogrom against Libyan citizens of sub-Saharan African ancestry as well a sub-Sahara African immigrant workers -- groups who had benefited from Gaddafi’s generous social programs. The imperial policy of ruin and rule in Libya serves as “the model” for Syria: Creating the conditions for a mass uprising led by Muslim fundamentalists, funded and trained by Western and Gulf-State mercenaries.

The Bloody Road From Damascus to Teheran

According to the State Department “The road to Teheran passes through Damascus”: The strategic goal of NATO is to destroy Iran’s principal ally in the Middle East; for the Gulf absolutist monarchies the purpose is to replace a secular republic with a vassal theocratic dictatorship; for the Turkish government the purpose is to foster a regime amenable to the dictates of Ankara’s version of Islamic capitalism; for Al Qaeda and allied Salafi and Wahabi fundamentalists a theocratic Sunni regime, cleansed of secular Syrians, Alevis, and Christians, will serve as a trampoline for projecting power in the Islamic world; and for Israel a blood-drenched divided Syria will further ensure its regional hegemony. It was not without prophetic foresight that the uber-Zionist US Senator Joseph Lieberman demanded days after the “Al Queda” attack of September 11, 2001: “First we must go after Iran, Iraq and Syria” before considering the actual authors of the deed.

The armed anti-Syrian forces reflect a variety of conflicting political perspectives united only by their common hatred of the independent secular, nationalist regime which has governed the complex, multi-ethnic Syrian society for decades. The war against Syria is the principle launching pad for a further resurgence of Western militarism extending from North Africa to the Persian Gulf, buttressed by a systematic propaganda campaign proclaiming NATO’s democratic, humanitarian and ‘civilizing’ mission on behalf of the Syrian people.

The Road to Damascus is Paved with Lies

An objective analysis of the political and social composition of the principle armed combatants in Syria refutes any claim that the uprising is in pursuit of democracy for the people of that country. Authoritarian fundamentalist fighters form the backbone of the uprising. The Gulf States financing these brutal thugs are themselves absolutist monarchies. The West, after having foisted a brutal gangster regime on the people of Libya, can make no claim of “humanitarian intervention”.

The armed groups infiltrate towns and use population centers as shields from which they launch their attacks on government forces. In the process they force thousands of citizens from their homes, stores and offices which they use as military outposts. The destruction of the neighborhood of Baba Amr in Homs is a classic case of armed gangs using civilians as shields and as propaganda fodder in demonizing the government.

These armed mercenaries have no national credibility with the mass of Syrian people. One of their main propaganda mills is located in the heart of London, the so-called “Syrian Human Rights Observatory” where it coordinates closely with British intelligence turning out lurid atrocity stories to whip up sentiment in favor of a NATO intervention. The kings and emirs of the Gulf States bankroll these fighters. Turkey provides military bases and controls the cross-border flow of arms and the movement of the leaders of the so-called “Free Syrian Army”. The US, France and England provide the arms, training and diplomatic cover. Foreign jihadist-fundamentalists, including Al Qaeda fighters from Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, have entered the conflict. This is no “civil war”. This is an international conflict pitting an unholy triple alliance of NATO imperialists, Gulf State despots and Muslim fundamentalists against an independent secular nationalist regime. The foreign origin of the weapons, propaganda machinery and mercenary fighters reveals the sinister imperial, ‘multi-national’ character of the conflict. Ultimately the violent uprising against the Syrian state represents a systematic imperialist campaign to overthrow an ally of Iran, Russia and China, even at the cost of destroying Syria’s economy and civil society, fragmenting the country and unleashing enduring sectarian wars of extermination against the Alewite and Christian minorities, as well as secular government supporters.

The killings and mass flight of refugees is not the result of gratuitous violence committed by a blood thirsty Syrian state. The Western backed militias have seized neighborhoods by force of arms, destroyed oil pipelines, sabotaged transportation and bombed government buildings. In the course of their attacks they have disrupted basic services critical to the Syrian people including education, access to medical care, security, water, electricity and transportation. As such, they bear most of the responsibility for this “humanitarian disaster” (which their imperial allies and UN officials blame on Syrian security and armed forces). The Syrian security forces are fighting to preserve the national independence of a secular state, while the armed opposition commits violence on behalf of their foreign pay-masters -- in Washington, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Ankara and London.

Conclusions

The Assad regime’s referendum last month drew millions of Syrian voters in defiance of Western imperialist threats and terrorist calls for a boycott. This clearly indicated that a majority of Syrians prefer a peaceful, negotiated settlement and reject mercenary violence. The Western-backed Syrian National Council and the Turkish and Gulf States-armed “Free Syrian Army” flatly rejected Russian and Chinese calls for an open dialogue and negotiations which the Assad regime has accepted. NATO and Gulf State dictatorships are pushing their proxies to pursue violent “regime change,” a policy which already has caused the death of thousands of Syrians. US and European economic sanctions are designed to wreck the Syrian economy, in the expectation that acute deprivation will drive an impoverished population into the arms of their violent proxies. In a repeat of the Libya scenario, NATO proposes to “liberate” the Syrian people by destroying their economy, civil society and secular state.

A Western military victory in Syria will merely feed the rising frenzy of militarism. It will encourage the West, Riyadh and Israel to provoke a new civil war in Lebanon. After demolishing Syria, the Washington-EU-Riyadh-Tel Aviv axes will move on to a far bloodier confrontation with Iran.

The horrific destruction of Iraq, followed by Libya’s post-war collapse provides a terrifying template of what is in store for the people of Syria: A precipitous collapse of their living standards, the fragmentation of their country, ethnic cleansing, rule by sectarian and fundamentalist gangs, and total insecurity of life and property.

Just as the “left” and “progressives” declared the brutal savaging of Libya to be the “revolutionary struggle of insurgent democrats” and then walked away, washing their hands of the bloody aftermath of ethnic violence against black Libyans, they repeat the same calls for military intervention against Syria. The same liberals, progressives, socialists and Marxists who are calling on the West to intervene in Syria’s “humanitarian crises” from their cafes and offices in Manhattan and Paris, will lose all interest in the bloody orgy of their victorious mercenaries after Damascus, Aleppo and other Syrian cities have been bombed by NATO into submission.

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. His latest published work is The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counter Attack, (Clarity Press, March 2011).

He is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, TempsModerne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet.

This spring will not be silent

The adjective “silent” can have positive and negative significations. The noun “silence” can mean quietness, peaceful silence, sacred silence, it can also mean secrecy, menacing silence, deadly silence. The adverb “silently” can describe a peaceful scene like: “The owl silently lifted off and flew away,” or a terrifying situation: “The poisonous dust settled slowly and silently, covering everything.”

The presented examples hopefully made clear, that “silence” can be ambiguous, and the headline of this blog post is ambiguous. I will come back this later.

It is mild and sunny here and the first green leaves and sprouts are coming out. We are at the verge of spring and when I walked with the cat family through the forest this morning I felt enchanted and at ease. The cats and I and probably all other creatures in the forest are faithfully looking forward to this most wonderful time of the year that is called spring.

Everybody loves spring -- at least everybody whom I know.

The walk today took longer than normal because my little friends looked around and sniffed at the bushes and the new sprouts and they were joyfully rolling on the soft forest floor. I didn't mind waiting, I just looked for a spot where the morning sun was shining through the trees and then I stood quietly, warmed by the sun. 

While I was watching my cat friends as they were strolling around, exploring the underbrush, and occasionally playing hide and catch, suddenly a cascade of thoughts went through my mind. But as I was not in the mood to consider complicated philosophical arguments I let the thoughts just ebb away after figuring out the main points and storing them for later evaluation.

One point of this flow of associations that I had just let run dry was the striking contrast and the disparity of this peaceful scene with the steady stream of disheartening news that is pouring into my email inbox day in and day out.

For instance:

Heavily armed poachers have just slaughtered 480 elephants in Cameruns Bouba Ndjida National Park, thereby significantly increasing the possibility that one of the world's most intelligent and social animals will become extinct in the not too far away future.

Drug-resistant bacteria (MDR), which developed on factory meat farms because of routine prophylactic use of antibiotics, not only kill more and more humans but also marine mammals like seals and sea otters.

The acidification of oceans (- 0.1 pH units in the last century) kills coral reefs and threatens all marine life in the long term.

According to a new review by BirdLife International, seabird populations have declined rapidly in the last decades and several species are close to extinction. Overfishing by commercial fisheries is the main reason, but pollution and plastic garbage (north pacific trash vortex) are contributing factors.

The forest that my cat friends and I chose to roam doesn’t show signs of ecological destruction. The birds are singing like always, though is seems to me that there has been a slight decline of the bird population in recent years. I’m not sure if this decline is for real, it could also be that my rather pessimistic outlook into our ecological future makes me believe that. But as I read everywhere, that bird populations throughout the world continue to decline, why should this place be an exception?

I haven’t heard a cuckoo call for a long time, thats for sure.

Today the birds are celebrating the warm sun and they are twiddling ecstatically. Sometimes they get excited (or maybe annoyed, who knows) and there is a crescendo of twiddling till it reaches a climax and suddenly drops back to the usual volume. I don’t mind, when my feathered fellow animals twiddle at the top of their little lungs, even at the loudest level they are not as loud as a starting car or a tractor.

The birds are only loud in comparison with the majestic silence of the forest.

In the day time the silence is occasionally disturbed by loud noise from surrounding areas, tractors on the fields, trucks or motorcycles on the roads, hammering or machinery on the farms. Depending on the topography and the vegetation, some areas can be very quiet, one could say pleasantly quiet, yet just 20 meters away suddenly there is the slight hum of constant traffic noise from an adjacent road. Walking another 20 meters in the same direction brings you to a point where it is completely quiet again.

In the night there is normally no far away traffic noise and also no hammering and no noise from farm machines and tractors. There is also no bird chatter, though there are always mysterious sounds from the nocturnal animals of the forest. I’m not frightened by the mysterious sounds, I’ve heard them a thousand times before and though I cannot classify them and I don’t know which animals make them I know that these sounds don’t signal a threat. The animals of the forest are my dear friends, I like and respect all of them and they know it!

The animals of the forest will not hurt me and therefore the mysterious sounds of the night don’t indicate a looming danger. I have heard these sounds so many times, they are familiar to me, they even soothe me and enchant me.

It can happen during our walks in the night that suddenly there is a faint hum and I was curious for some time about its origin till I realized that the hum comes from airplanes flying high above in the sky. When the sky is clear I can even see the position lights of the planes blinking. The position lights of the aircrafts are roughly the same brightness than the stars and one only can distinguish them because they move.

In a clear deep night one sees a million of stars and looking at the sky is a deeply moving experience.

Standing still and just listening to the animals of the forest and to the whispering of the leaves will tell you many things about life. Even the casual visitor can gain some insight though the experience will be limited and tainted by the multitude of pictures and sounds from the outside world (the civilized and technology driven world) which constantly will flash through his or her mind.

If the visitor is carrying a cell phone or an iPad with him or her the hours in the forest will be just wasted time. Not only that, it will also be a sacrilege, a desecration, because nobody should pollute the few remaining islands of pristine nature with vain and frivolous technology.

To learn the most precious secrets of life one has to spend a long time in the forest. Just a few years will probably not be long enough even in the most fortunate circumstances. Will ten or twenty years be long enough?

I don’t know yet.

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Forests are very robust ecological systems. Hundreds of species compete with each other and balance each other. In winter the moss is taking advantage of the coldness and darkness and is covering and protecting the ground, in spring the grass is overgrowing the moss and is providing shadow from the sun which otherwise would kill the moss. Each species has its little niche and if an unfortunate climatic constellation or a fierce predator diminishes a species there are many others which instantly will fill the vacant position.

The forest floor (on which my feline friends are joyfully rolling) is one of the most distinctive features and the richest component of this ecological system, it serves as a bridge between the above ground living vegetation and the soil and is a crucial component in nutrient transfers through the biogeochemical cycle. The floor consists of leaves, needles, branches, and bark, all in various stages of decomposition. Though the floor is mainly composed of nonliving organic material, it is also inhabited by a wide variety of fauna and flora. There are many decomposers and predators present, mostly invertebrates, fungi, algae, bacteria, and archaea.

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Forests showed me, why ecological diversity is important and forests made me also aware, how sick -- one could even say, perverse -- our present agricultural practices are. Industrial agriculture is based on monoculture which first has to be achieved by the poisoning of all undesired species and then has to be constantly defended against invading pests with fast amounts of additional poison.

This place here where my cat friends and I spend to much of our time is a mixture of boreal coniferous forest and temperate deciduous forest. It is not a monoculture and there are no pesticides used. The owner of the forest regularly checks the trees for bark beetle infections and the infected trees are cut down. He told me that a few years ago there was a dangerous infestation with leaf pine wasps and he seriously thought about buying pesticides but after two years the leaf pine wasp population suddenly collapsed and since then never recovered. 

Nature obviously applied her own biological pest control. 

Woodpeckers are prominent here, their rattling sound is an integral part of the local soundscape. They not only look nice and funny, they also are the most useful helpers and defenders of the trees.

This place is not a monoculture, though there are patches dominated by spruce trees, a species which was popular in the first half of the last century because they are most profitable. Spruce trees are not popular anymore because it came out that they are vulnerable to pests (especially bark beetles and leaf pine wasps) and can be easily uprooted by storms because of their shallow horizontal root system. 

Spruce monocultures also degrade the soul.

The younger parts of this forest are mixed and broad-leafed trees like ash, birch, elm, maple, blend with conifers which can be fir, pine, or spruce. The owner of the forest told me that the new trees which develop naturally from spread seedlings are mostly pine. Two-thirds of this forest have grown naturally, only one-third was planted. The owner is a very nice old man who bought the land 60 years ago from his inheritance and since then lives from cutting a few dozens trees every year and selling the wood to sawmills. His son is studying media technologies but seems not to object taking over from his father. He will be a highly qualified lumber worker.

Working in the forest being surrounded by trees is probably healthier and more fulfilling than sitting in an office surrounded by computers (a debatable assumption of course -- people could have divided opinions about that).

Not everybody cherishes pristine nature.

When I moved to this place and started exploring the surrounding woods I met quite often fellow wanderers but my encounters with other people became more and more rare over the years. Every now and then I see the owner or his son and as we are always chatting a little bit we also talked about this point and they confirmed my impression that nobody except us three seems to be interested in the forest.

They also told me that in former times young people occasionally had parties in the wood and left the place littered with beer cans, liquor bottles, and cigarette butts. Fortunately there are no parties anymore.

Illegal waste dumping is also not a big problem as it stands now. Some guys (or gals) still throw their garbage into the wood as they pass the surrounding roads but they are too lazy even to make a few steps away from their cars so the problem is confined to a few roadsides along the outer edges of the forest.

It seems, that people have no time left for walks in the wood. They apparently are all busy with their Facebook and Twitter accounts. In January, the 800 million Facebook users spent an average of 406 minutes on the Facebook site. Recent surveys indicate that in the USA children from age 8 to 18 devote nearly 8 hours a day to entertainment media (including computer and video games).

According to InMobi, on a global basis the average mobile + web user consumes 7.2 hours of media every day, with mobile devices taking 27 percent share of this time (117 minutes), ahead of TV (98 minutes), but behind computers (140 minutes).

According to Nielsen in 2011 video game use increased 7 percent and in January this year 56 percent of US households owned at least one current-generation gaming console. Mobile, handheld and tablet gaming continued to grow as well.

Another Nielsen report showed that American children aged 13 to 17 received and sent an average of 3,417 text messages a month. This breaks down to seven texts “every waking hour,” or roughly one every 8 1/2 minutes. Mobile phones in general, and texting in particular, have taken over the minds of  young people, heavy texting has even been linked to a growing problem of sleep deprivation.

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We have to cope with more and more distractions, an increasingly hectic life, and a relentless bombardment with information. We have to interact constantly and react immediately, we have to make instant decisions with no time left for weighting the pros and cons.

Bertrand Russell wrote a marvelous essay on the subject, titled “In Praise of Idleness.” Russell’s point was that when we are idle, the brain, if properly trained, is following its own path. Only when we spend time in reflection (in idleness) we are able to think thoughts of our own.

In todays technology driven world we are forced to respond instantly rather than reflect, and as young people increasingly fill their free hours with texting, gaming, social networking, and other similarly fast-paced, attention-absorbing activities, the opportunities for sustained reflective thought disappear.

This is not a time where the silence of a forest is cherished, this not a time of quiet contemplation, this is not a time for far reaching and yet well considered dreams and visions, and accordingly the public debates are characterized by standardized sound bits. There is no social and political dialog, there is no exchange of ideas, there is no dialectic discussion, there is only the attempt to drown opposing voices by the sheer power of mainstream media propaganda.

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I opened this text with examples demonstrating the ambiguity of the adjective “silent.” Silence can be frightening, it can symbolize death and destruction, it can forbode a looming disaster. Silence can also mean the end of deafening noise or the end of turmoil and pandemonium, in this case silence will be a relief, silence will be comforting and soothing.

The positive aspects of “silence” are probably better represented by the word “quietness,” and the headline “This spring will not be silent, but hopefully will be quiet” would have fitted better and would have been more descriptive.

I choose the short version nevertheless.

This spring will for sure not be silent, because there will be the roar of cars and trucks, the humming of airplanes, the clanging and thudding of machinery, the noise of building and renovating, the chatter of radios, cell phones, computers, and TVs in cars, houses, shopping malls, and all other places reached by human civilization. This spring will for sure not be silent, because there will be pop music blaring from billions of loudspeakers.

People will not experience perturbing, frightening, eery silence.

I remember a total eclipse in August 1999 (btw the last total eclipse of the century). I lived in another village then, but also in a house at the edge of a forest, where bird chatter was a constant background sound, so familiar that I didn’t even realize that it was there. A few seconds before the solar eclipse took place the singing and twiddling suddenly stopped and it became completely quiet.

The total eclipse itself was not that impressive, it simply became dark like on a rainy, cloudy day and after a few moments the sun appeared again. The total eclipse was not impressive but the uncommon total silence was something I will never forget. The birds stopped singing because they were frightened to death. The humans had stopped all activities because they watched the eclipse.

I choose the title “This spring will not be silent” in reference to Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”, which was published in 1962 and is regarded as one of the starting points of the environmental movement. The book documented the devastating effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds, and its title was meant to evoke a spring season in which no bird songs could be heard, because the birds had all perished as a result of pesticide use.

Spring will not be silent in my forest refuge. Spring will maybe quiet and the air will hopefully only be filled by the voices of the inhabitants of the forest.

But spring will also not be silent in even the most polluted places. Tractors, bulldozers, trucks, and industrial machines will fill the air with their noise and should there ever be an uncommon and uncomfortable lull, people will turn on their iPhones, IPods, IPads or whatever gadget is at hand.

Constant traffic noise will also significantly reduce the danger of silence, and should traffic noise ever fall below acceptable levels and be deemed insufficient, drivers will crank up their car stereos, thereby banishing silence in the whole neighborhood.

The younger generations don’t seem to miss the majestic silence of the forests. The majority of young people ostensibly don’t fear that nature becomes silent and they also don’t mind the constant noise from machines and loudspeakers. They grew up with this noise, they are used to it, they certainly would miss it. They probably would be desperate if the machines would stop and the loudspeakers would fall silent.

I read that rain forests and coral reefs, the most efficient and productive ecosystems, will be gone soon. Forests like the one where my feline friends and I roam are threatened too, but they are expected to last a bit longer. Hopefully they will last long enough that the cats and I can enjoy them till our end.

The majority of young people in all likelihood will not miss the rain forests and the coral reefs. They would miss video games and TV shows, they would miss Facebook and Twitter, but they will not miss nature. Young people would miss the twiddling of their smart phones, they will not miss the twiddling of birds, they most likely will not even realize it, when the birds finally stop singing.

Every time before I start writing a blog post, I inculcate myself and tell myself: don’t be pretentious, don’t be presumptuous, don’t be patronizing, don’t be smug, don’t be arrogant and assuming! Every generation has its own way, how can I assume, that my way of life is better than theirs?

I don’t mind if people spend their life in front of a screen or are busy all day fiddling with their iPhones and iPads. I leave them alone if they leave me alone too. Yet laissez faire goes only that far and tolerance has its limits when the actions of my fellow humans endanger my life. Todays consumer oriented lifestyle evidently causes the depletion of resources and the destruction of nature -- and this is not a trivial matter!

It is not a trivial matter, because the destruction of nature could have certain negative implications, like for instance: MRSA epidemics, until now confined to hospitals, prisons, and military barracks, could become more widespread, cancer could increase, allergies, asthma, and other pollution caused illnesses could increase. 

But people would still have an average life expectancy of 40 to 50 years, more that in the middle ages and all historic times before. Who am I to tell the following generations how to life their lives? Do I have any right to shame them and to accuse them of ignorance?

I don’t shame them, I only tell the kids what they can expect -- that is the reason why I write this blog. I don’t think that one could call this patronizing or label it as overbearing, lofty, smug. 

I will for sure also use all other available means to preserve my world (the environment that I’m familiar with) as good as I can until I die. I will try to hold off the destruction and warn about the consequences.

I will die without guilt and worries.

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Remotely related information tidbits:

There has been a staggering increase in gas prices in the last month in my idyllic and until now peaceful home country here in the middle of Europe. Prices were high before, up to three times higher than in the USA. But now prices go through the roof and people are desperate. If gas would be that expensive in the USA, there would be open rebellion, with millions of SUV drivers descending on Washington and whole police departments as well as military units defecting to the rebels.

People are hurting, thats for sure, but they don't drive less. Last year personal transport increased one percent, truck traffic nearly four percent! I always hoped that high fuel prices would significantly reduce traffic to the benefit of nature but the equation higher prices = less driving doesn't work. I think this is called "price inelasticity of demand".

People rather let their children starve than reduce driving.

That is exaggerated of course. Nobody is starving here, in one of the most affluent countries of the world with an unemployment rate of only 4 percent (the lowest in whole Europe) and a still functioning social security system, comprehensive public health care, and comparatively secure public pension funds.

There are no homeless people, there is no poverty, and crime rates are the lowest in Europe (probably also the lowest in the world). But citizens of younger age are nevertheless grumbling and are flocking to right wing parties, gangs of young unemployed men are rioting and vandalizing public and private property (though this is not yet a widespread phenomenon).

It seems that a comfortable and carefree life, functioning social services, and an easy access to education do not necessarily guarantee happiness.

It seems that even the most abundant amenities of modern life, the high-tech gadgets, game consoles, smart phones, tablets, the DVD movies and TV shows, are not able to completely satisfy, pacify, or at least soothe and sedate people.

What could be wrong and/or who could be missing something?

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As I wrote already in the first part of this blog post, there is a striking contrast and a disparity of my personal life with the steady stream of disheartening news that is pouring into my email inbox day in and day out.

My personal situation has steadily improved in the last years, I’m happier, healthier, more content than I ever was. I have more savings than I ever had and I could afford to buy many things that I dreamt of in former times. My past dreams though will remain unfulfilled, because I have stopped spending and I intend to keep it that way.

This gap between my fortunate and privileged personal situation and the dismal state of the world, as it is reported in the news could be “cognitive dissonance,” or “cognitive disequilibrium,” reflecting a subconscious urge to dwell and indulge in doomsday scenarios.

To rule that out, I double check, triple check, cross check all news, I apply common sense and logic, I use a variety of sources. I wrote about this already in an earlier blog post and cited there some observations that I could make with my own eyes.

For instance: 

A gang of young men every now and then are vandalizing private and public property even in this peaceful area.

The 17 year old son of a neighbor makes no attempt to learn a profession or to look for a job. He watches TV and listens to loud music all night long, he sleeps in daytime (fortunately I don’t hear the music but the immediate neighbors are bothered and frequently call the police).

Two little boys, 13 and 14 years old, did set a school ablaze, causing severe damage.

A husband severely beat up his wife, causing her to flee the house with two children on her arms, blood running from her face.

Several relatives, colleagues, and acquaintances suffered and died from cancer.

Comparing all infos and taking local/regional differences into account I come to the conclusion that there is no contradiction between my personal observations and the world news.

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Life is suffering (the Four Noble Truth), it was always that way. Life is a struggle, as it was always a struggle.The world is not perfect and never will be perfect. The Garden of Eden is a religious myth and paradise on earth will never be achieved.

Why not live this imperfect and bothersome life as good as we can, why not enjoy it and make the best out of it? Why not help each other to enjoy life and make the best out of it? Why not end this text on a hopeful note?

The future may not be as bleak as it looks right now. Many things can happen, there are many possibilities -- some more likely than others.

Just a few examples:

The financial system in Europe could crash, bringing down the plutocracies in many Western countries and giving the opportunity for a fresh start. (very likely)

The plan to destabilize and destroy Syria could be thwarted, dealing a sever blow to US-strategies. (too hard to tell)

The oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries may indeed be grossly overstated and the end of the fossil fuel based economy could be near. Fuel prices are already rising but fuel could soon simply not be available anymore. (likely)

A global movement, driven and represented by a paradigm shift and including a network which is connecting million of tiny cells with between eight to sixteen activists could gradually transform societies around the world and establish a sustainable economic system. (too hard to tell)

Human fertility could decline due to EMF exposure (cell phones, wifi), and due to the contamination of food and water with xenoestrogens, octylphenol, and other organic chemicals (PBDEs, POPs). (likely)

Diesel fuel bugs (fungi and bacteria that live from fossil fuels) could spread and the bugs could mutate and become more aggressive. They could contaminate the whole system, leading to the destruction of machines, infrastructure, and refineries. (remotely possible)

New emerging microorganisms could randomly ignite explosive materials, causing the explosion of weapons and ammunition depots and the self destruction of tanks, drones, rockets, jet fighters, war ships. Soldiers, militiamen, terrorists, hunters, criminals all over the world would subsequently throw away their guns and their ammunition which could go off at any time. (not likely but possible)

People could come to their senses. (remotely possible)

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My furry friends astonished me again. Sumo, the 14 year old lady is now hardly missing a walk in the wood. She always was frightened and avoided close contact with the other cats, but suddenly she is self confident and doesn’t mind walking side by side with her fellow felines.

How comes? I don’t know for sure but I have a suspicion: Ma Xi, a feral cat who joined our family recently, is for sure friendlier and more agreeable since he was neutered but he has not yet completely shed his habit of bullying other cats. Two weeks ago he suddenly had a deep scratch on his nose. At the same time Sumo left her old lonely place in the sitting room, she resides now in my bed room together with some other cats (don’t ask further questions, this is after all a private matter).

Well, it seems that Ma Xi was taught a lesson and Sumo suddenly discovered, that she is a strong and valiant cat -- her six kilogram weight makes a difference for sure. Sumo is a heavy cat but she is loosing weight now because she not only participates in our walks but also spends more and more time in the forest together with the other cats.

Who said that old cats can’t learn new tricks? Maybe old dogs can’t learn new trick, but cats are different!

My dear Lizzy became a house cat after some ten years in the wild, Ma Xi after approximately four years. Sumo left her old family for a new home after twelve years and now with fourteen drastically changed her lifestyle. I never expected that cats could have such a potential for change!

Could humans have a similar, until now undiscovered potential for change?