Thursday, June 20, 2013

Syria: Logic vs. Victimology Porn


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:

Medical scandal:  Women are dying like flies !!  (again with a statistical twist, and an NPR focus)
Gentlemen are requested to be seated  (you must be over 18 to click on this)


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 … ?


*
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[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.

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?
There are innocent possible explanations for this.  But a more meta, more geopolitical, more Realpolitik calculation suggests itself as well.   Rather than let the insurgency collapse, give them just enough to keep going, without actually winning -- a strategy of “A plague on both your houses” and “Let’s you and him fight.”

[Update 13 July 2013]  He said / she said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/middleeast/russia-says-study-suggests-syria-rebels-used-sarin.html?src=rechp&_r=0

[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.


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