For many years, I subscribed to NPR. For certain reasons, I no longer
do; but I still sometimes listen
to their news broadcasts.
And a staple of their reporting over recent months has been tragical
stories from refugee camps, recounting the woeful tales of the women and
children. The locations vary
-- neighboring Sudan, or Somalia, or Iraq, or wherever, the details doubtless
soon vanishing like mist from the listeners’ minds -- but always with one theme
that, with repeated repetition, is reinforced rather than overwritten: that the victims are women (and
children; but more prominently
women, since it is they, rather than the children, who get interviewed).
And one day it occurred to me: Where are all the men, who are seldom if ever
mentioned. Off playing golf,
or dining off room-service in some five-star hotel? -- Given where folks have been fleeing from, more likely
slain, or imprisoned and tortured.
But their fate, whatever it might be, does not excite the interest of NPR.
[Update Saturday, 15 June 2013, 12:07 p.m. EST]
Disclaimer: There
are indeed atrocities, particularly in that part of the world, which specifically
target women; the
following being just the latest, which just now broke into the news:
Gunmen have attacked a hospital in
the western Pakistani city of Quetta, hours after an explosion on a bus killed
at least 11 female university students.
Actually, it turns out that even this superficially
straightforward story has
layers. Hearing this story the way it was reported on NPR
(it was the top item, just moments
ago), listeners will naturally assume that this was an attack upon women
students as such, in objection to female higher education; such attacks have indeed been the
practice of the Afghan Taliban (or at least reported to be so). But the article goes on:
An extremist Sunni militant group,
Laskar-e-Jhangvi, told the BBC it carried out both attacks. A man calling himself spokesman
for the group said they were a revenge for an earlier raid by security forces
against the group in which a woman and children were killed.
So who knows what the real story is. In any case, our point in this
post has nothing to do with the
details of this tragedy or that, but with the way the media packages and spins the
news, typically to specs that will serve the desired pre-existing narrative.
~
Today’s big story has been the report that just came out,
estimating the cumulative number of dead in Syria’s civil war as 93 thousand -- “most of them,” NPR
assures us, “civilians”, and many of them children; including "more than" so&so-many children under
the age of whatever; including cute winsome towsel-haired dollie-clutching girlchildren.
These headlines were repeated throughout the day; until, this evening, happening to flip
the radio on towards the end of an hour’s broadcast, where some stories go into
more detail, I heard the following. The dead in that conflict are … 80% male. To repeat: eighty percent male.
The anchorwoman, not pausing for the bat of a mascara’d
eyelash to digest this statement, which undermines the thrust (or rather spin)
of their whole story as packaged for American p.c. consumption, rushed on to
query the gal reporterperson about the percentages of children among the victims. This elicited a bit of hemming and
hawing, at which point I shut the receiver off in disgust.
Their slant is thus arithmetically impossible. The warriors are almost a hundred
percent male; the civilians,
therefore, fewer than fifty percent male (how much less -- call it X -- depends
on the percentage of warfighters in the population). If one hundred percent of the deaths were civilian, the
percentage of male deaths would therefore be X -- less than half. Plug in whatever numbers you like, you can’t get a
majority of civilian deaths with 80 percent of the actual victims being
male.
~
The impulse to post this was purely logical, just one
instance of the importance of statistical literacy for policy decisions. (American Scientist has run some
excellent articles on this theme, e.g. as regards the assessment of school
performance.) But there is indeed
an invidious gender dimension to this story, all too characteristic of the way
the world has turned in the past several decades. For more, click here:
Yet though what caught our eye was an arithmetical fallacy,
the principle noxious effect of the NPR propaganda concerns neither statistical
literacy nor the gender wars, but international politics. For the point of the story was to
add to the chorus calling for US arming the anti-Assad forces, or “rebels” as
they are (to American tastes) comfortably known. (Contrast “insurgents”, which means the same thing but has
quite different connotations.)
The point was reinforced by a companion story, revealing that Washington
has now concurred with France and Britain that Syria has used chemical weapons
-- an action which the President had rather imprudently called a “red line”, so
the obvious question now is, Whatcha gonna do about it?
For some time now, the noisy John McCain, his appetite for
war against Muslim governments
still not slaked by Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, has been calling for
just that. Well and good; but it is essential, before blundering in to yet another
morass, to the sounds of drums and trumpets, to cast a cool eye on the facts,
so far as these are known.
Nota bene: I bear no brief either for or against
President Assad; and even if I
did, this would not motivate my comments here, since -- for very good reasons -- no-one cares about my political
opinions (indeed, being vastly fallible contingencies relating to this
transient world here below, they scarcely interest even me). Accordingly, as
per the WDJ Guidebook, I shall emphasize logical and statistical
considerations, independent of party fervor.
And so to work.
(1) A logical
point.
The following allegation has garnered a fairish concensus:
(a)
Chemical weapons have been used in Syria
There are some forensic problems here, but for present purposes we can set those aside. Note only that (a) is not logically
equivalent to the following proposition, which is however, the one that pops
into every American’s mind when he hears (a):
(b)
Chemical weapons have been used by the Syrian government
Nor, if true, does (b) logically entail (c):
(c) Chemical weapons have not been used by
the Syrian opposition.
Yet, absent the truth of (c), calls for intervention based
purely upon the alleged transgression of that “red line” rest upon sand.
Some investigators have in fact concluded to the falsity of
(c); but that is an empirical
question best left to the experts.
(And you internauts can find the reports more expertly than I.) I here make merely a logico-rhetorical
point, concerning implicit assumptions.
(2) A statistical point.
What percentage of those 93,000 deaths do you suppose are due to chemical
weapons? Again, let us ignore the
forensic difficulties (tests not being performed on the actual battlefield
immediately subsequent to the alleged use, but on samples provided by one side
or the other, which can be doctored), and just consider the numbers. The maximum figure so far alleged, out
of those 93 thousand, is …
… (check your own assumptions before scrolling down)
…
… …
somewhere upwards of a hundred.
Why then is sarin a red line, whereas indiscriminate
bombardment of population centers is, say, pinkish?
(3) The next
point is neither logical nor statistical;
yet still apolitical and basic.
In addition to all the numbers being tossed around, there is
a qualitative side to all this.
For, although empirically the conflict pits pro-government forces
against anti-government forces (and even that is a simplification, since much “pro”-government
sentiment is really anti-antigovernment), the texture, the flavor, cannot be
captured by such a dichotomy. And
it is by no means simply that of Tyranny versus Democracy. De facto, the war is increasingly
confessional -- sectarian.
And what might these sects and confessions be? Well, on one side, we have Shiites and
Christians (and perhaps Kurds); on
the other Sunnis. So, simply on that basis, which would Americans
wish to support? Which side would
John McCain presumably support?
[Think I’ll pause here. Check your own assumptions, and later scroll to the exciting
conclusion.]
[Clock ticks;
time passes accordingly …]
[…]
* * *
~ Commercial break ~
Relief for
beleaguered Nook lovers!
We now return you to
your regularly scheduled essay.
* * *
Okay, the answer you’ve all been waiting for: The
government faction is largely Shiite
and Christian. So McCain is calling for support for the side that,
should they win, are most likely to start slitting the throats of
Christians. (Witness Iraq, Egypt, and Boko Haram.)
Yet again nota bene:
I am not here myself
indulging in any sort of victimology porn -- I make no assumptions that a dead
Christian is any more a tragedy than a dead Sunni or Shiite or whatever you
wish. The point is simply
that, in ululating for intervention, most of John McCain’s partisans do not
know what they are about.
Additionally, quite apart from the sectarian affiliations of
either side, consider that the rebel forces have been significantly swelled by
non-Syrian Salafi/takfiri carpetbaggers, largely organized by al-Qaeda in Iraq: these currently constitute the ginger
group. However, recently the
government side has been augmented by Hizbollah carpetbaggers from Lebanon, who
have already proved their military might, man-for-man. So from that aspect, it’s kind of a
wash.
(4) A
logico-statistical point:
Given the caveats that have been raised about whether both sides may have used chemical
weapons, an analogous question logically presents itself as regards that
blood-curdling figure of 93,000 killed.
The way this story is spun leads unreflective members of the
audience to assume that most or all of that total were killed by government forces. To take just one story at random (this one from the
Washington Post):
Nearly 93,000 people have been
confirmed killed in the conflict in Syria, the United Nations said Thursday, as
it warned that more bloodshed could be imminent in the northern city of Aleppo,
where government troops have massed.
Note the artful juxtaposition of two independent facts,
suggesting a causal connection.
But then -- What have the rebels been up to, those we
propose further to arm? Apparently
just distributing chewing-gum to children, and tossing flowers at government
troops.
Again, I’m not arguing for one side or the other; merely pointing out that this obvious
question is typically not even posed.
(5) Another
logico-statistical point.
Let us bracket all the caveats above, and assume that, from
an American perspective, a rebel victory in Syria is a consummation devoutly to
be wished. What follows from this?
Well, before you answer, “Barge in with both barrels
blazing!”, consider than there are thousands if not millions of situations
around the world in which we might fervently desire outcome X over outcome
Y. Yet we do not always and everywhere violently intervene, in part because (again
bracketing the disasters that often follow good intentions, and the basic
validity of meddling in other nations’ affairs) our resources are limited. To justify the cost of intervening
in venue Z (again assuming that we have a perfect right to do anything we
please in the world, whenever it strikes our fancy), one criterion is
essential: a reasonable likelihood
of success.
Now, the likely eventual success of the Syrian rebels (or
rather, the anti-government forces in Syria, consisting of both Syrians and of
foreign soldiers-of-fortune) has
long been paraded in the media as a given: like the elusive Higgs boson, it is always just around the
corner, and yet (like the procrastinating Monsieur Godot) never quite arriving. Now, the London Review of Books
this week has an interesting article by Patrick Cockburn on just this issue,
which I commend to your attention,
pointing out an essential asymmetry in the YouTube wars. Draw your own conclusions; the matter, being empirical, is no part
of our brief here. Our only point
is that such considerations matter.
(6) One final
observation, before I retire to my couch, for a night of blameless repose and dreamless sleep -- and here we must
stray far from our proper province of purely logical commentary, and wade into
the swamps of subjectivity and geopolitical Fingerspitzengefühl:
Out of all the woes of this world, why would John “Bomb bomb
bomb, bomb bomb Iran” McCain
choose to focus on this one?
(I am here channeling Humphrey Bogart’s similar question in “Casablanca”. For more on the slippery “bomb-bomb” faction, click here:
Anyone who has been following events over the last couple of
decades -- or indeed, over the last hundred years -- has leave to doubt that
the prime motivation here is the politically colorblind mission of promoting
and spreading “Democracy”. And
even if you believe that such was indeed the motivation from Wilson down to
Dubya, the actual results of our recent nation-building adventures in
Afghanistan and Iraq should give
anyone pause, to say nothing of other venues of the Arab Spring.
Nay more -- democracy-transplants aside, it is not even
apodictic that all these motions and maneuverings on the part of the
interventionists primarily concern
Syria. Recall the neocon
watchword back in 2003: “Everyone wants to go to Baghad; real
men want to go to Tehran.”
Refresh your memory with the equation: Assad … Iran… Hizbollah … Shiites … And consider (and here we definitely
stray from anything simply logical or in any way uncontested) in whose
interest our Mideast foreign policy has been conducted for many years … from
the USS Liberty through Iran-Contra down to the bogus case against Iraq (long
prepared by tools like William Safire) … and consider, coolly from the
standpoint of Realpolitik, in whose primary interest it lies to combat Assad, and Iran, and
Hizbollah … ?
*
Falls Sie im Doktor-Justiz-Sammelsurium
weiterblättern
möchten,
Bitte hier
klicken:
[Flash update, 15 June 2013] It turns out this whole “red line” thing was just smoke ‘n’
mirrors, a tour de passe-passe in the
Société du spectacle:
So funny.
-- In
particular, we now are pleased to gallantly retract our earlier
characterization of President Obama’s earlier “red line” remarks as “incautious”:
instead, they were cannily
calculated.
While seemingly
painting the Administration into a box (see our essay on
pre-commitment),
in actual fact it was a box they had already decided to occupy:
Rook to Knight’s Five!
(I thought of putting a link to this post in the Comments
section of that WaPo article, but that bull(shitt)y pulpit of vox populi is
already so bloated with idiotic repetitious fact-free Obama-bashing unrelated
to the facts of the Syrian situation, and barely even nodding towards the
ten-second hand-puppet popular version of events (since the conclusion to be
reached is present in advance:
that Muslim Kenyan socialist in the Black House is the pits), that it
would be worse than pointless.
Anyone relishing that loose-stool stream of inexpert invective, would
scarce find himself at home in our own austere and ivied halls.)
~
~ Celebrity Endorsement
~
“I -- Vladimir
Putin. I say, is all booolsheet.
You want read good
truthy “pravda” stuff,
you read this instead:”
Murphy and the Magic Pawnshop
~
The New York Times puts a slightly different spin on the story,
All this must, like the Watergate hearings, (lest we lose our reason) simply be
enjoyed as public theatre. And
here, from that article, the culturally au-courant telling detail:
His ambivalence about the decision
seemed evident even in the way it was announced. Mr. Obama left it to a deputy
national security adviser, Benjamin J. Rhodes, to declare Thursday evening that
the president’s “red line” on chemical weapons had been crossed and that
support to the opposition would be increased. At the time, Mr. Obama was addressing
a gay pride event in the East Room.
O tempora, O fagedabouddit.
~
~ ~ Посмертный
Одобрение
"Если бы я был жив сегодня, и в настроении для тайны,
это то, что я хотел бы читать: "
Я не делаю случае развода
Мерфи на горе.
(Я Иосиф Сталин, и я одобрил это сообщение.)
~ ~
[Update 20 June 2013]
Despite months of laboratory
testing and scrutiny by top U.S. scientists, the Obama administration’s case
for arming Syria’s rebels rests on unverifiable claims that the Syrian
government used chemical weapons against its own people, according to diplomats
and experts.
[Update 21 June 2013]
Yet another indication that the “red line” was political theatre:
CIA operatives and U.S. special
operations troops have been secretly training Syrian rebels with anti-tank and
anti-aircraft weapons since late last year. The covert U.S. training at bases
in Jordan and Turkey began months before President Obama approved plans to
begin directly arming the opposition.
And a sobering thought:
In the first months of the conflict, it seemed to be going
well for the rebels, particularly given some high-level defections from the
Assad regime -- if the rats were deserting, the ship must be sinking, it
seemed. Yet lately the tide
seems to have turned. So,
why would we go in now?
[Update November 2015]
Canada: Rescue the women, leave the men to die.
"Canada's exclusion of single male refugees may
exacerbate Syrian conflict"
Die neue kanadische Regierung will bis zum Ende des Jahres
25.000 syrische Flüchtlinge aufnehmen, junge Männer dabei aber ausschließen.
Guardian vom 24.11.2015
[Update New Year's Day, 2016] Authoritative casualty figures have just been released. The number of Syrian war dead during 2015 tops 55,000, including 30,000 women and over 40,000 children.
The number of victims of color had not been determined at press time.
