Before and after the recent attacks on Syria by the US, UK, and France, a predictable spectrum emerged. At one end it was argued that the attacks would risk stepping up a conflagration leading to World War 3. The other side held that intervention wasn’t just a moral necessity, but that it might be part of finally “dealing with Assad” (as usual, a clear plan was lacking for the kind of administration that would replace him).
In typical binary fashion, the social media flame wars gravitated away from the middle of this spectrum, characterizing people as stooges for either Assad or Western imperialism. Syria is an issue where everybody can be wrong at the same time as saying how wrong everyone else is. The risk is that the humanitarian catastrophe gets crowded out during this points-scoring and that the hugely complex context gets sidelined.
New Internationalist portrayed such realities on the ground earlier this month, covering what daily life is now like Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs.
In the meantime, sections of the media aligned to billionaires and conservatism have generally done their best to prop up the idea that responsibility for the recent chemical attacks was a 100% certainty, despite having been caught out on comparable issues in the recent (Novichock) and less recent (Saddam’s WMD’) past.
A key propaganda push was to publish lots of pictures of Theresa May looking gritty and determined, in contrast to peacenik Corbyn.
Media Alert has already discussed some glaring hypocrisies in this simplistic approach. Such flagrant double standards are spelled out in greater detail in this piece from Aaron Bastani in Novara Media.
The article covers broader issues pertaining to the refugee crisis, Yemen, Turkey, Palestine, Egypt, Iran and more.
While these issues get some coverage on the insides of liberal newspapers and in longer form pieces on TV they’re swamped by the deluge of war propaganda that generally drives mainline narratives.
Stephen Durrant
