but if you have about half a brain and put it to work a bit and A and B together, it is obvious that the things in situations like Syria (not to mention others) are rather not like they are presented to be, by a longshot.
I think what’s quite disturbing about (mainly western) media reporting on Syria is the lack of knowledge that this is predominantly a sectarian civil war, with Assad’s Alawite clan vs. the Sunnis. The Alawites are a Shia offshoot with strong links to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, not to mention strategic allies of Russia and China- they are unlikely to roll-over so easily, hence the general lack of a coherent approach from the West and the UN.
It’s all very well to demonise Assad as a “mad man”, but remember his clan has overseen a stable and secular state in a very troubled region for many decades. The alternative may well be an islamist sunni pariah (the French fostered an Alawite power base since the 1920s precisely to keep an islamic sunni insurgency at bay), this would also be the last thing the Israelis would want- but this is not reported at all.
Tomorrow we find out if Morsi, a democratically elected islamist becomes president of Egypt (incidentally the ‘Muslim brotherhood’ are spiritual inspirers of Al-Qaeda) or will a military dictatorship, having already unilaterally amended the constitution and executive powers, stage a coup d’état.
How strange that the western press has gone all quiet on the ‘Arab Spring’. I won’t even start on how things are falling apart in Libya, but I think you get the gist of what I mean.
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