Tag Archives: Syria

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Victims Vs. Martyrs

Here’s how one word reflects a completely different propaganda angle (emphasis mine):

Every journalist who dies in violence in Lebanon is called a martyr. [...] But Al-Manar, the television station of the Hezbollah [...] did not speak of Shabaan as a “martyr” but as a “victim” of a battle between Syrian troops and “terrorists”. As one of Shabaan’s employers said yesterday, he was wiped off the news agenda of Hezbollah as a victim of “crossfire”, the old explanation of Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israelis.

The death of Ali Shaaban, NewTV Cameraman and the son of Tahseen Khayat’s driver could mark a turning point in a Shiaa backlash against Hezbollah’s support of the Syrian regime..

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Gulf Countries Throw Money at the Syrian Problem. Will it Work?

I’m intrigued by one of the outcomes of the “friends of Syria” conference:

Rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria will be paid salaries, the opposition Syrian National Council has announced. Money will also be given to soldiers who defect from the government’s army, the SNC added, after a “Friends of the Syrian people” summit in Turkey.

First I thought the wealthy gulf nations are trying to incentivize more people to fight the Syrian regime. But that didn’t make a lot of sense because these people are risking their lives daily to fight, and a few extra dollars won’t significantly transform their motivation. But then I read this:

“The SNC will take charge of the payment of fixed salaries of all officers, soldiers, and others who are members of the Free Syrian Army,” SNC President Burhan Ghalioun told the conference.

Aha! If you remember, the SNC is having a crisis of legitimacy with the Syrians fighting on the ground. If they become the party that is paying them Salaries, it will immediately be clear who the boss is. It’s the golden rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules. In that respect, the plan can be seen as an effort by the opponents of the Assad regime to unify the opposition behind the SNC.

I’m still skeptical of the effectiveness of this plan, if only for the logistical nightmare this will create. How can you tell if someone is fighting the regime? Will the SNC issue identification cards to FSA members? How can you prevent the massive amount of potential fraud this can create? Fraud that can easily be orchestrated by a cash-strapped regime.

This could turn out to be a brilliant plan, but throwing money at an intractable problem is not always a panacea.

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Waking Up to the Realities in Syria

If you’re locked in a Lebanese news bubble where, depending on your position, the Syrian opposition either doesn’t exist or is just short of storming Assad’s Bastille, you’ll be excused to have missed the parallel universe in which a realistic discussion is taking place on the balance of power, compromise and altogether unsavory diplomatic sausage-making that uses sentences like “the hard realities on the ground”.

In Syria, the expectations were demoted from the Tunisian scenario to the Egyptian scenario, and then to the Libyan scenario. Now, it seems that even a Yemeni scenario could be out of reach. We could be left with a choice between the Zimbabwe scenario (a power sharing deal in which Assad keeps the lion’s share of power) or a civil war where the opposition is less peaceful and more islamised.

The situation is very fluid. There could be a sudden denouement or things could drag on forever. Some are optimistic in the long run, and some are downright gloomy. But one thing is for sure: Clarity itself is lost, and the Lebanese media and politicians would do well to adapt.

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Al Jazeera Gets Hold of “Secret Syria Files”

Aljazeera describes the confidential Syria documents it obtained:

The files provide an insight into President Bashar al-Assad’s strategy to suppress anti-government protests, including the lengths the government went to for protecting its strongholds. The documents, running into hundreds of pages, point to a government desperate to keep control of the capital Damascus and include clear orders to stop protesters from getting into the city.

There’s an entire story in that article about an opposition “mole” in a sensitive security post who sent the documents to Aljazeera. But feel free, like me, not to buy that story and instead think of a big-time espionage operation that involves a lot of cash transfer and a nation whose name I will not mention, but who will host the World Cup in 2022.

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Serious Gunfire in Damascus

I don’t think this is the endgame in Syria yet, but I’m not surprised at all that it’s happening. If I were a Syrian resistant fighter in the wake of the Baba Amr onslaught, I would ask myself the question: Where’s the best place to fight the regime without risking a deadly city siege and incessant rocket bombardment? The only natural answer at this point is Damascus.

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❊ Using Sex to Sell the Syrian Revolution ?

Apparently, President Assad has been exchanging flirtatious emails with a mysterious woman who sent him a semi-naked picture of herself (picture). This could very well be true. It could indeed be what was actually happening, and not some clumsy smear effort to divide and conquer’s Assad’s picture-perfect family and his united front with his wife. But could this be part of a larger trend?

Is it just me or have you also noticed that the media is talking a lot about rape in Syria lately? This increased sexualization of the coverage of the revolution could be the result of the dictator in Damascus issuing high commands to his soldiers to rape in the name of patriotism, but could it also be the result of something else?

What if the propaganda barrons (on both sides) have realized that people have a limited capacity for watching explosions and dead children on prime time TV? Could it be that Arab Idol is becoming a better proposition for evening family entertainment than watching wailing mothers explaining how half their families starved to death and the other half was killed in an explosion?

What if the sexing up of the coverage was a desperate, last-ditch effort to recapture the attention of people who are shutting Syria out of their minds?

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How One Syrian Slipped Videos Past The Airport’s Custom Officers

The Toronto Star:

A few hours before leaving his home in Syria to begin a new life in Canada, Mostafa picked up a kitchen knife and began cutting into his left arm near the elbow. [...] Without telling anyone his plan, Mostafa transferred the videos from his iPhone to a Nokia micro memory card that was smaller than his finger nail. He slipped the memory card under the skin of his arm, covered it with a large bandage, and drove with his parents to the airport in Damascus.

Watch the videos here..

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The Anatomy of Syrian Revolution YouTube Videos

Qifa Nabki noticed what resembles a common format in those revolution Youtube Videos:

They’re typically shot on a camera phone by a young Syrian male who begins by announcing the date and place of the video. We see scenes of bullet-scarred buildings, maybe a dead body. Sometimes, the videos are filmed during a battle scene: little puffs of concrete dust drift gently to the ground from a building or mosque that is allegedly under attack by machine-gun wielding troops or rebels. The violence is usually telegraphed: its perpetrators are invisible snipers or artillery commanders, improvised explosive devices and insurgents. We see the effects, hardly ever the crimes themselves.

As Elias noticed, the door is wide open for cynicism. To me what I find most baffling is the complete lack of good quality videos (with some notable exceptions). I understand why many videos are produced using mobile phones, but you can also get really good quality videos using some point-and-shoot cameras that are on sale everywhere, cheap and as easy to hide as phones. Even bandwidth is not an excuse because many Syrians are crossing to neighboring Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan. Is it possible that not a single good quality amateur video has slipped out?

Sometimes I feel that TV stations are intentionally lowering the quality of the videos to make them more “authentic” and “dramatic”.