In reply to “Explosion in Hama Kills 70, Prompts Call for UN Action,” by John Glaser, 04/26/12:
I continue to take Antiwar.com’s reportage on events in Syria with a grain of salt, and to recommend that others do so as well.
Yes, I understand that Antiwar.com is more along the lines of a portal/analysis hub than an “on the ground journalism” outfit, and that you must therefore rely on outside sources for facts. And I do appreciate that Antiwar.com’s writers do their best not to let themselves get dragged away from the facts by the MSM narrative.
But still …
For example, I note that more and more so recently, Antiwar.com’s reportage simply passes along attribution on casualty reports in Syria to “activists” without further identification.
As recently as a few weeks ago, these “activists” were routinely identified by the MSM (with that identification passed along by Antiwar.com) as affiliated with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which appears (per Wikipedia) to be a one-man operation, and that said man (“Rami Abdulrahman”/”Osama Ali Suleiman”) runs a clothing shop in the UK, from which he’s hardly well-positioned to count corpses in Hama or attest as to who killed the corpses he claims to count.
By way of explaining this, another narrative connects the Observatory to something called the Damascus Center for Human Rights. That organization may indeed have “activists” on the ground in Syria, but if so they’re hardly “fair witnesses.” The DCHR is funded by the US Congress through the neoconservative “National Endowment for Democracy,” whose mission is (when stripped of propaganda) to destabilize regimes with which Washington, DC finds itself at odds.
I understand the difficulties Antiwar.com’s writers face in getting “the straight poop,” and certainly don’t recommend giving the Assad regime’s claims any more weight than the claims of these unnamed “activists.” I do hope, however, that you’ll redouble your efforts to [go ] beyond the “neither account could be independently confirmed” boilerplate and make it clear that these “activists” have just as much of an agenda as the regime does, and that that agenda seems to be externally driven.
Sol McCliam
John Glaser Responds:
Thank you for acknowledging the difficulties in getting hard facts and verified accounts on the events in Syria. Thank you also for recognizing that the Assad regime’s claims have as little or even less merit than those of the “activists.”
Broadly speaking, I agree with your assessment and skepticism of what kind of organizations make up these “activists.” However, I did try to make clear in the piece that, as you say, “these activists have just as much of an agenda as the regime does.” I explained, and have many times before, that the opposition uses the regime’s violence — which they often exaggerate — to rally support for an international intervention against the government.
My colleagues and I at Antiwar.com have been unequivocal in our opposition to any US or international intervention into Syria, explaining all along the way that such intervention would harbor ulterior motives and would in all likelihood exacerbate the conflict. We feel we have an obligation to present to our readers the claims about daily violence, while pointing out — sometimes in passing, other times in depth — their unconfirmed nature.
Peace,
John Glaser
In reply to “Stupid and Mean and Brutal,” by Uri Avnery, 04/23/12:
Isn’t it strange? I remember well the horror of the films that came around to my town after the end of WWII. A short time later I read in books the repulsive treatment of the Jews in Europe during the war, and I couldn’t believe that my president and the pope who meant so much to my school friends not only knew what was happening right from the beginning but did absolutely nothing to stop it.
Now of course, Germany and most of the countries in Europe seem to have been forgiven for their behavior, and Israel, a country that above any other should understand just what the torment and oppression of a group of people who own what you want and who can be dismissed as of equal value because of a difference in their method of worship, now condones and rewards the very behavior that created the Holocaust.
The world continues (at least until December 21) and it appears that stupid, mean and brutal is a very good description of what it is, what it has been, and what it will continue to be.
Anonymous
