Why Some Wars Get More Attention Than Others(nytimes.com) |
Why Some Wars Get More Attention Than Others(nytimes.com) |
> Conflicts gain sustained American attention only when they provide a compelling story line that appeals to both the public and political actors, and for reasons beyond the human toll
Honestly I do not get the NYT. They will push for wars and then turn around and claim to be bamboozled or such. Perhaps there are too many journalist there who think they can just make it happen if they write about it enough
- The Joker, The Dark Knight
Wars in some backwater country we've never heard of, or in somewhere that we've always thought of as 'one of those bad places that have wars'? That's not news, that's all in the script. Wars in somewhere we care about? Wars in our own back yard? They get attention because they're not in the script.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_(2015%E2%80%9...
There are three major sides in the war:
- Houthi, basically Shia Muslims
- Hadi, supported by Saudi Arabia (Sunnis) and the US
- al-Qaeda, ISIS etc.
"The Houthis have long been accused of being proxies for Iran, since they both follow Shia Islam. (Although the Iranians are Twelve-Imam Shias and the Houthis are Five-Imam Shias.) The United States and Saudi Arabia have alleged that the Houthis receive weapons and training from Iran.[87] The Houthis and Iranian government have denied any affiliation.[88]"
Detailed map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Yemeni_Civil_War_deta...
"A coalition led by Saudi Arabia[6] launched military operations by using airstrikes to restore the former Yemeni government and the United States provided intelligence and logistical support for the campaign.[4] According to the UN, from March 2015 to August 2016, over 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen, including 3,799 civilians.[58]"
Houthis have long been accused of being
proxies for Iran
Iran is probably the world's largest terror exporter (Pakistan might be worse?) and militarily expansionist. I think they even (internally) argue for their goal of controlling the muslim holy places, etc.
So Iran actively destabilizes Middle East countries. The only good thing with this is that it gave Israel and the Arab countries a common enemy.
Why Some Wars (Like Syria’s) Get More Attention Than Others (Like Yemen’s)
Damage in a house after a Saudi-led airstrike last month in Yemen, whose war has not gotten much attention. MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI / REUTERS OCTOBER 1, 2016 The Interpreter By AMANDA TAUB It is a truth universally acknowledged by every war correspondent, humanitarian aid worker and Western diplomat: Some wars, like Syria’s, receive tremendous public attention, which can translate into pressure for resolution. But many others, like Yemen’s still raging but much ignored conflict, do not.
Some of the reasons are obvious; the scale of Syria’s war is catastrophic and much worse than Yemen’s. But attention is about more than numbers. The conflict in eastern Congo, for instance, killed millions of people and displaced millions more, but received little global attention.
Every country in the world has its own version of that dynamic, but it is uniquely significant in the United States.
The United States is the world’s sole remaining superpower, but Americans often seem so inward-looking as to be almost provincial. Foreigners often express wonder that American television news, for instance, spends fewer minutes covering the rest of the world than the rest of the world’s news shows spend covering America.
A result is that American attention seems both vitally important and frustratingly elusive.
But when the world asks why America has forgotten Yemen and other conflicts like it, that has the situation backward. The truth is that inattention is the default, not the exception.
Conflicts gain sustained American attention only when they provide a compelling story line that appeals to both the public and political actors, and for reasons beyond the human toll. That often requires some combination of immediate relevance to American interests, resonance with American political debates or cultural issues, and, perhaps most of all, an emotionally engaging frame of clearly identifiable good guys and bad guys.
Most wars — including those in South Sudan, Sri Lanka and, yes, Yemen — do not, and so go ignored. Syria is a rare exception, and for reasons beyond its severity.
The war is now putting United States’ interests at risk, including the lives of its citizens, giving Americans a direct stake in it. The Islamic State has murdered American hostages and committed terrorist attacks in the West.
And the war offers a compelling tale of innocent victims and dastardly villains. The Islamic State is a terrorist organization with a penchant for crucifixions and beheadings. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his patrons in Iran are hostile to the United States and responsible for terrible atrocities. And now Russia, which is at best America’s frenemy, is fighting on their side as well.
The Obama administration’s refusal to bomb Syria in 2013, and subsequently to intervene more fully, has also made this a domestic political dispute, giving politicians on both sides an incentive to dig in. This provided an appealing focal point for election-year political debates over Mr. Obama’s foreign policy and for how to assign blame for the Middle East’s collapse. Those debates have sharpened and sustained domestic attention on Syria, giving both the public and politicians reason to emphasize the war’s importance.
But it is rare for so many stars to align.
Yemen’s death toll is lower than Syria’s, and although Al Qaeda does operate there, Yemen’s conflict has not had the kind of impact on American and European interests that Syria’s has. There is no obvious good-versus-evil story to tell there: The country is being torn apart by a variety of warring factions on the ground and pummeled from the air by Saudi Arabia, an American ally. There is no camera-ready villain for Americans to root against.
A woman and child after an airstrike in Syria on Friday. AMER ALMOHIBANY / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES The war’s narrative is less appealing to American political interests. Yemen’s Houthi rebels pose little direct threat that American politicians might rally against. On the other side of the conflict are Saudi airstrikes that are killing civilians and targeting hospitals and aid workers, at times with United States support.
No American politician has much incentive to call attention to this war, which would require either criticizing the United States and an American ally, or else playing up the threat from an obscure Yemeni rebel group. It is little wonder that, when several senators recently tried to push a bill to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia over its conduct in Yemen, they found only a few sponsors and the motion was tabled in a 71-to-27 vote."
In a democracy, we're all morally culpable for what our government is doing. In this case, the idea that our government is using our tax dollars to arm an ally that is intentionally targeting hospitals and aid workers, is extremely concerning. As the holocaust has shown, pleading ignorance is no defense against such crimes against humanity. I can only wonder what future generations will think about us when they look back on our apathy and implicit acceptance of such abominable behavior.
Look at a map. https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=RfCSdfNZ0LFPrHSm0ublXdzh...
Yemen is a choke point.
Syria is in an extremely strategically important position both in terms of territory and it is an ally to Iran.
Iraq and Afghanistan are on each side of Iran.
Egypt was blocking the Libya invasion. That was a cyber-intelligence coup, not a 'democratic revolution'.
All of these are part of an extended military campaign that goes back decades. Or centuries. Or thousands of years, depending on how you count it.
It is amazing that people don't see the connection between ISIS -- a supposedly Muslim enemy that (currently) somehow all of our enemies conveniently fall under the umbrella of, and the other ones that came before it -- Al Qaeda.. all the way back to the Crusades.
Anyway, I am going to take an image of this comment. If it is deleted or flagged or something, that is how you know that Hacker News is also part of the propaganda party.
http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/10/syria-bombing-us-backs-isis...
It's backward, but for a completely different reason. When has USA "attention" ever helped a war situation? "The world" should be careful what they wish for.
Depends on what side you are on. Abstractly, I would say WWII was a fairly widespread net benefit, though a strong case could be made for the Korean war and several other more recent conflicts. Though, considering this stuff was before I was born that's tricky.
My conversations with Russian agents in Ukraine shows that they are using ISIL and anti-Christian propaganda to control Muslims. I cannot tell in details, of course, because of war with Russia.
Because, as you say, "the issues" "did not come from outside?"
Syria, CNN Dec. 2006:
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1571751,00...
"The Bush Administration has been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad."
The cable of the US ambassador in Syria, December 2006 via Wikileaks:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html
cryoshon quoted CIA director William Casey recently:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12597168
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
"said by CIA Director William Casey at an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan with his new cabinet secretaries"
Assad's family and Alawite minority were ruling Syria and Sunni majority was oppressed. It was just question of time when something happens.
It is a proxy war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars
with at least 7 million refugees now.
Saudi Arabia might export an extremist [...]
but they don't advocate terror
Iran is probably the world's largest [...]
militarily expansionist.
Iran is probably the world's largest terror exporter
>> Iran is probably the world's largest [...]
>> militarily expansionist.
So just because someone is politically/religiously extreme they are violent?
>> Iran has invaded which countries in the last 2000 years
2 minutes with Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty#Recovery_of_te...
"The Ottoman Turks and Safavids fought over the fertile plains of Iraq for more than 150 years"
(But I understand -- it was _really_ Iranian to start with. Iran's empires have been the only non-expansionist ones in human history. :-) )
>> Iranian terror.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
(Edit: Wikipedia for terror is simpler than referencing e.g. the South American stuff, because then you will quote the Iranian priests' declarations of innocence. IIRC, once the Iranian leadership even denied supplying Hamas with weapons at the same time Hamas went out and thanked them. Bad coordination. :-) )
2 minutes with Wikipedia:
In a sense it's true; the folks who wanted to violently revolt against the UK government were, in fact, UK citizens. Similarly, the folks who want to topple the house of Saud and impose their own government on Saudi Arabia are mostly Saudi citizens.
But I think it's a stretch to call that relationship "creator" and "sponsor". The UK government, as an organization, is staunchly opposed to the IRA. And similarly for the Saudi government.
At the moment ISIS does promote regime change in Saudi Arabia, so the regime there really don't like them related to that, but the former history is very different.
They also don't complain to ISIS' application of Sharia (punishments, like decapitations and outlawing homosexuals and atheists) as they are anyway prescribed by the same Sharia understanding, in big part common to Saudis and ISIS. They also don't condemn fighting against Shias, as both consider them "unbelievers" who are to be fought and killed.
Assad is also Alawite, also the enemy of both ISIS and Saudis.
Edit: I see you again try to "prove by" (for me false) "analogy with IRA" in your following reply. Please just stay on topic to ISIS. You can't prove anything, at least to me, by avoiding to discuss the relevant facts of the relevant topic.
How can this sentence even be written? The content of that extremist and hateful religion includes jihad, a duty of believers, which is an armed struggle against unbelievers, until the whole world is Muslim and governed by Sharia "a body of moral and religious law derived from religious prophecy, as opposed to human legislation."
Activity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrassas_in_Pakistan
1947 there were only 189 madrassas in Pakistan but "over 40,000" by 2008. Mostly financed by Saudis:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses...
"Q: So they were basically recruiting schools? A: They were recruiting, organizing schools which also use Islamic ideology as a way of creating a very efficient guerilla army" "We're dealing with the sort of unintended consequences of that"
I answered that -- it is not in the Saudi interest to rock the boat.
It is fully possible SA is cooperating with the Pakistan government regarding terror against India. But the Saudi government don't want to destabilize the economy of their big customers in the west, at least for now.
[Edit: SA is a brutal dictatorship which spreads religious hatred for internal political reasons, quite like Iran really. I argue that it isn't in their self interest to make the Western world angry. Both as customers and because they want support against Iran. I might of course be wrong, juntas often buy their own hype.]
If you are unfamiliar with the reducto ad absurdum argument, you can familiarize yourself with it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
At the moment ISIS does promote regime change in Saudi Arabia, so the regime there really don't like them related to that, but the former history is very different.
Yes, and similarly if the IRA jailed rapists and allowed Christianity in territory they controlled, I doubt the UK would object much to that.
The fact that two European groups have cultural similarities doesn't mean that one sponsors the other. The same is true for two middle eastern groups.
Fundamentally, I bring up the IRA because I'm trying to explain by analogy to something more familiar. You seem to be viewing all middle eastern organizations as being somehow monolithic and identical simply because they are more similar to each other than they are to the west. But that's simply a fallacy.
So....
Are you claiming that the content of Wikipedia is a USA conspiracy or a Jewish one? Or both?
(Edit: I really have seen people make those conspiracy claims, it is not totally a joke. They also didn't have any references, unlike wikipedia.)
It is also well documented that all sides in the middle eastern conflicts invest heavily in propaganda. Here is but one example: The U.S. military payed over $540 millions to the British public relation firm Bell Pottinger [2] to create 'al-Qaeda' videos [2]. $540M buys you a lot of willing propagandeers. Are you being paid, or are you working for free?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Pottinger
[2] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/01/pentagon-pa...
You can literally argue that the Earth is flat like that, using a reference to My Little Pony.
Your position needs that all the news are a conspiracy -- e.g. that the Gulf countries are lying about being threatened by Iran and just wasting tens of billions of dollars in weapon buys for no reason.
Extraordinary claims needs extraordinary support, you don't even have a coherent conspiracy theory -- just claims that anything that contradicts the Iranian priests could maybe be a plant.
Enough.
Some Wikipedia articles are more trustworthy than others. I certainly trust the Wikipedia articles I have written. The Bell Pottinger article was presumably launched by Bell Pottinger itself, so it's probably the most positive spin on Bell Pottinger. The Iranian article was probably launched by a PR agency paid to make Iran look bad.
That's the reality of mass media: essentially all articles of consequence are paid for by somebody. Yes, that makes it difficult to see what the truth is. Such is life. One still needs to try.
And now tell me why the Bahraini security forces are a trustworthy source of information.
For that to be true, you claim there is a conspiracy that control all the news and Wikipedia. (And e.g. that the Gulf countries pay tens of billions of dollars for defense -- just to make Iran look aggressive!)
I assume that the terror stamping of Quds force is part of the conspiracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Force
All this without any references. Of course.
[Edit: All the dictatorships on the planet insist that all the bad news about torture, oppression and terror are just a conspiracy by USA and western media. These are done for no other reason than that we hate the juntas for being good people.
As a Westerner, I don't understand how I have time to sleep; all of us must be working 80+ hours a week on all these conspiracies! :-) ]
This is of course not true, but the various forms of propaganda are actually organized and financed, just an example of some very recent title presented here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12622216
And there are other possibilities of distorting the truth, this one caught:
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/video-wh-censors-reference-islamis...
If you wonder why it is deleted, it's because White House decided that it won't allow any material originating from them to contain such terms, but when editing got the media attention avoided to admit they do this. What's the origin of that? I wish I have something better, the only public source I can find is Obama's 2009 speech:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-presiden...
Obama: "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
It was of course never the part of his responsibilities, as the US is not there to service any specific religion.
And for the second "point" -- political correctness is part of a giant conspiracy theory for lying about all the Iranian terror support?!
:-)
The claim of "Iran funding terrorism" is in fact due to its recent (as in decades) support of Sunni Hammas, which is the most direct threat to Israel, and which started as a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot financed also by the Saudis.
Fascinatingly, Islamic Hammas was also once seen by Israel as the "potentially better" than less religious PLO and Israel even indirectly supported it, almost like the "moderate" Islamic rebels are still supported by the US.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847
Time and again it turns out that every "Islamic" group will eventually turn against the West. Those that support them don't understand the basic tenets of the religion behind.
Uh, not only Hamas. There are lots of other cases.
You even commented on where I gave this link to the terror stamped Quds force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Force
I posted this link previously too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
And so on.
(I have no clue about Islam in itself, but there were peaceful and modern Muslims in Yugoslavia. That is at least one modern example. It might also be noted that the upper classes in Iran seem to be about as West oriented as the Scots or the Irish.)
I agree with that, I'm surely not the one who's considering Iran harmless. But I consider Saudis not less dangerous. It's just that the Saudis confront less directly with Israel and are "official" allies of the US.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/18/what-we-know-about-saudi...
Regarding the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, I guess you refer to the Muslims currently in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then these "peaceful and modern Muslims" were by necessity "peaceful" during the peaceful periods there as they were a minority since 1878 when Austria got the control over Bosnia. Even in B&H they were under 50% until the last polls. So a lot of them simply grew up secular and didn't care about the Islam books, it's not that the Islam books were different. It seems that the leader of Muslims in the last war was actually advocating for the Islamic state ans Sharia there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Declaration
And his government gave the passport to Osama bin Laden too, and brought the Islamic fighters just like in Afghanistan or Syria.
But yes, SA is a brutal dictatorship that for political reasons have to be more religious and fanatic than everyone else. Sounds quite like Iran, really.
For the rest, I am no real expert. I would note the similarities with the Shia/Sunni problems and the European religious wars of the 17th century. Then you would answer that those wars were in a more violent and barbaric time. And then we would both sigh, depressed for the state of the Middle East.