The Passion and Sincerity of David Aaronovitch

22 Feb

On Thursday 21st February 2013, the journalist David Aaronovitch wrote an opinion piece in The Times entitled “Now we know why it was right to invade Iraq; Ten years after the war began, the country is more secure and democratic. The alternative was Syria on steroids”.

Outraged by the blatant dishonesty of this piece, I contacted Aaronovitch on Twitter and said that I would never understand the thought process and motivation of him and others like him who seek to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Aaronovitch responded to my comment by asking whether it had ever occurred to me that “those you disagree with are as passionate and sincere as you are?” I replied that it had, but argued that I failed to see how his stance vis-à-vis Iraq was at all sincere, and if somehow it was that he must be fatally deluded. Aaronovitch replied “I think the same about you. But I don’t doubt your sincerity.”

Such a polite and seemingly reasonable response disguises Aaronovitch’s shameful distortion of the facts to suit his argument and allows him to portray those that criticise him (such as myself) as passionate and sincere but misguided – and ultimately wrong – whilst presenting himself as level-headed and rational. Not feeling able to express in 140 characters (the limit of a Twitter message) just how awful and disingenuous his argument is, I decided to write something longer.

Aaronovtich’s article is relatively short, but it is so littered with misleading assertions and illogical arguments that it is hard to know where to begin to deconstruct it. Perhaps a good place to start is where Aaronovitch argues that the notion that Tony Blair lied about the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq is one of what he calls the ‘public mythologies’ that now surround the war[1]. This claim is particularly galling if one refers back to an article entitled “Those weapons had better be there”[2] that Aaronovitch himself wrote in April 2003. In the article, Aaronovitch states “If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.” Yet, fast forward a decade and with no trace of irony or embarrassment (let alone, remorse or shame) Aaronovitch now argues that the war was ‘right’ and claims that the assertion that Tony Blair lied is a ‘myth’. Unless, the general consensus on this matter is incorrect and Aaronovitch was somehow provided with evidence that WMDs were in fact found in Iraq, I would be keen to see what self-righteous fallacies he would construct in order to justify this change of heart and explain why he still believes anything that he is told by our government or the US (and why anyone else should).

According to Aaronovitch, since there “has been no such finding by any relevant court”, describing the invasion of Iraq as ‘illegal’ is another one of the ‘myths’ associated with the war by the public. Whether through ignorance or intentional obfuscation, this claim ignores the findings of a Dutch inquiry in The Hague that in 2010 concluded that the war had “no basis in international law”[3]. Aaronovitch’s use of the word ‘relevant’ in this context of course enables him to dismiss any court decision that goes against his argument as ‘irrelevant’, but the Dutch inquiry is far from alone in its assertion that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. In 2010, Sir Michael Wood, the most senior legal adviser at the UK Foreign Office at the time of the invasion stated that he believed “the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law”[4]. Earlier, in 2004, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the UN, stated that the invasion was an illegal act that contravened the charter of the UN[5] and Hans Blix, the UN’s former Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, has also argued that the invasion was illegal (in 2010)[6]. Of course, Aaronovitch could rightly point out that Annan and Blix are not judicial figures, yet their opinions remain important and should not be so easily dismissed. For obvious political reasons, the likelihood of the war ever being declared illegal by a court Aaronovitch would consider ‘relevant’ is extremely low. However, to argue that this makes the labelling of the war illegal a ‘myth’ is naive at best.

Presumably it was Aaronovitch’s sincerity and passion that enabled him to state that by “the most trustworthy estimates, 180,000 Iraqis” died in the war. Making this claim, Aaronovitch completely ignores a well-known study carried out in early 2006 by John Hopkins University and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad (in co-operation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)[7]. This study, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet, found that approximately 600,000 people were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 – more than three times the figure Aaronovitch states. Apparently, some of the most respected academic institutions in the world and a globally recognised medical journal are not sufficiently ‘trustworthy’ for Aaronovitch to listen to. Even if we take Aaronovitch’s figure of 180,000 individuals, this is an enormous, almost unimaginable loss of life. Also, Aaronovitch does not sufficiently take in to account the greater numbers of Iraqis who were injured and forced to flee their homes, as well as the incalculable material, cultural, historical, and psychological damage inflicted upon Iraq and its population. Given the devastation that the invasion and subsequent occupation caused, it is disgraceful that Aaronovitch has the audacity to state in his piece – in the context of Western interventions – that “Iraq, I think, exhausted us”, as if the invaders are somehow the victims.

His argument that the country is now more democratic and secure is also highly problematic. In recent years, numerous experts on Iraq have commented upon the growing authoritarian character of the post-Saddam Iraqi government[8], a government that has been described as “a new oligarchy that maintains itself by a mixture of violence and co-optation”[9]. In particular, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Al Maliki, has been accused of corruption and criticised for rampant human rights abuses committed by internal security services controlled by him[10]. For example, Human Rights Watch has documented the wide-spread use of illegal secret prisons by his security services[11]. Al Maliki is certainly not yet comparable to Saddam Hussein but he is undoubtedly showing increasing dictatorial tendencies[12]. Indeed, in December 2012, a wave of popular protests swept across the country calling for his downfall[13]. As a Guardian editorial observed in September 2012, “Nouri al-Maliki’s has some way to go before he matches Saddam Hussein’s terror – but the charge sheet is growing”[14]. Aaronovitch conveniently obscures this complicated reality in his argument. A decade on from the trauma of the invasion, at best, Iraq is now a dysfunctional, messy and unstable democracy and it is not at all clear how the country will develop from this point.

On a security level, it is undeniable that Iraq has become more stable over the past few years. Iraqis are no longer being killed in the numbers that they were during the initial US onslaught and the subsequent insurgency and civil war period. However, as the frequent deadly bomb attacks[15] clearly demonstrate, it would be highly misleading to imply that the country as a whole is now secure[16]. Aaronovitch does acknowledge the fact that Iraq’s death rate remains extremely high in comparison to other countries but then attempts to distract from this by observing that the rate in Venezuela – “a country of comparable size and ironically much loved by some of those who so hate Mr Blair” is much worse. This incongruous comparison is merely an attempt to obscure the reality that thousands of Iraqis are still being killed every year and perhaps to make a cheap dig at supporters of Chavez in Venezuela.

The manner in which Aaronovitch draws parallels between Iraq and Syria is simplistic, and in a discussion of the rights or wrongs of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is irrelevant. Like many other journalists now reporting on and analysing events in Syria, Aaronovitch is clearly not an expert on its history and politics. In this context, he is merely using the tragedy unfolding in the country in a cynical way in order to make a point and support his own flawed argument.

As if deep down Aaronovitch knows the spurious nature and weakness of his argument, he bizarrely states that “when historians judge the Iraq war they also have to deal with the counter-factual. What would have happened if the 2003 invasion had never taken place? Would that have been better or worse? And by how much?” Here, Aaronovitch appears to be single-handedly trying to re-invent the role of the historian. In his view, not only should historians analyse and interpret actual historical events, but they must also speculate on unknowns and quantify by ‘how much’ things would have been ‘better’ or ‘worse’ if historical events had not occurred. This is absurd reasoning that no serious historian would engage in – first and foremost, historians must judge the war for the impact that it had in reality not by speculating on guessed outcomes of scenarios that do not exist. Even if they were to, I am certain that genuine Iraq experts would not come to the conclusions Aaronovitch desires. One such expert, Professor Charles Tripp of SOAS, recently wrote a piece entitled ‘Three costly lessons from the invasion’[17] that looks back at the invasion and the decade that followed it. Tripp’s powerful and balanced article is everything that Aaronvitch’s is not. I highly recommend it to anyone who is desirous to read sober, informed and rational analysis of the war and its impact. In fact, I highly recommend it to David Aaronovitch, he might learn something.

Louis Allday  21/02/2013

[16] The KRG region is significantly more secure than the rest of Iraq and is somewhat of a separate case.

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Four More Years…….

10 Nov

Barack Obama’s recent re-election to the US presidency has been greeted by many with joy, enthusiasm and relief.  Social networking sites have been awash with smiling images of him[1], numerous jokes at Mitt Romney’s expense and delighted exclamations of “four more years!”  Seeing these expressions of happiness – many of them written by non-Americans – left me contemplating exactly what it is that supporters of Obama, both US citizens and foreigners alike, are celebrating?

No doubt, almost any realistic candidate would have been preferable to Mitt Romney and for many people in the US and around the world – by virtue of his racial background alone – Obama remains an inspiration. But beyond his race, charm and convincing ‘nice-guy’ persona, the truth is that during his first term in office Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that he is a ruthless, duplicitous and cynical politician in both domestic and foreign affairs.

Domestically, Obama has supported a frightening and sustained assault on the civil liberties of US citizens. In December 2011, he signed Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act, a terrifying piece of legislation that permits the US military to detain American citizens, strip them of any legal rights or due process and indefinitely hold them without charge in US military facilities. A number of prominent figures including Noam Chomsky spoke out against the move and encouragingly, in September 2012, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest blocked the legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality[2]. However, the Obama administration immediately appealed the decision and is now fighting to push through its approval.

Disturbingly for US citizens, Obama’s backing of legislation such as this appears to be the norm rather than the exception. Obama also supported the FISA Amendment Act which essentially allows the US government to electronically eavesdrop on the telephone calls and emails of American citizens without probable cause and without any court warrant being issued[3]. According to one former Justice Department official, the FISA Amendment Act gives the government “nearly carte blanche spying powers” against its own citizens[4].

In 2008, prior to his election as President, Obama hailed whistleblowing as “acts of courage and patriotism”, which “should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration”[5]. However, once in office Obama has waged what Glen Greenwald has described as “the most aggressive and vindictive assault on whistle-blowers of any president in American history”[6]. In fact, Obama has attempted to imprison whistle-blowers on ‘espionage’ charges on more occasions than all of the other presidents in US history combined – a fact which the Obama administration itself proudly declared on his official website[7]. One such whistle-blower is John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who publicly admitted to the agency’s use of waterboarding, declared that the practice constituted torture and spoke out against its use. In October 2012, Kiriakou was sentenced to two years in prison for his actions[8].

On the international front, Obama has been a driving force behind an exponential increase in the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia[9]. Obama actively participates in the drafting of so-called ‘kill lists’ of ‘terrorist’ enemies of the US who are targeted in the drone attacks and personally approves every one that is launched[10]. These lists have included US citizens (such as Anwar Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both killed in a US strike in Yemen in September 2011).

According to a New York Times investigation, Obama utilises a shocking method for calculating the number of civilians killed by US attacks that counts all military-age males in a ‘strike-zone’ as combatants, and thus legitimate targets, unless “there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent”[11]. Even a former senior US intelligence official has described this despicable method of calculation as “guilt by association” and stated that it has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties[12].

In September 2012, the NYU School of Law and Stanford University Law School released a report entitled “Living under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan”[13]. The report notes that although in the US, the “dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling ‘targeted killing’ of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts”, this narrative is simply “false”. The report makes four important points that entirely deconstruct the official US government portrayal of drone strikes and their impact.

The notion – propagated by the Obama administration – that drone attacks lead to “no” or “single-digit” civilian casualties[14] is entirely spurious. According to an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism that is quoted in the NYU/Stanford report, from June 2004 through mid-September 2012[15], available data indicates that US drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.

However, the direct murder of civilians is not the only impact of the strikes, the constant threat of drone attacks from the air has had a devastating impact on the communities living below them – the report states “their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities” and notes that the “US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims”. As the director of human rights organisation Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith, has stated: “drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians. An entire region is being terrorized by the constant threat of death from the skies. Their way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that involves gathering in groups. Yet there is no end in sight, and nowhere the ordinary men, women and children of North West Pakistan can go to feel safe”[16].

Crucially, from a US perspective, the report also questions the efficiency of the strikes in making the US more secure. It states that “publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best. The number of “high-level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low—estimated at just 2%”. Furthermore, evidence suggests that “US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks”; as the New York Times has reported, drones appear to have replaced Guantánamo Bay as the recruiting tool of choice for anti-US groups[17]. The report also notes that their use has seriously worsened US-Pakistani relations and led 74 per cent of Pakistanis to consider the US an ‘enemy’[18].

The NYU/Stanford report also observes that the strikes seriously undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and that the US government has failed to ensure even “basic transparency and accountability in its targeted killing policies”.

To sum up, not only is the Obama administration’s use of drone attacks seemingly ineffective, possibly illegal under international law and actively increasing resentment towards the US, the devastation caused in the targeted communities can barely be overstated. What could be more terrifying than living under the constant fear of remote-controlled robots in the sky that at the touch of a button – by an operator thousands of miles away – can obliterate your home and murder you and your entire family. A nightmarish situation that sounds like the plot of a dystopian science-fiction blockbuster to our ears, is in fact a daily reality for tens of thousands of Pakistanis who – often through no fault of their own – have been identified as enemies of the US.

At the White House Correspondents Association Dinner in 2010, Obama, ‘nice guy’ that he is, thought it appropriate to make a cheap joke on the topic by telling pop group the Jonas Brothers – who were in attendance – “Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don’t get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming”[19]. To make such a joke knowing full well the widespread death, carnage and devastation that his decisions cause is perhaps revealing of Obama’s character.

Obama’s aggressive moves against civil liberties in the US and frequent use of drone strikes are just two examples of his behaviour that reveal not only his true nature, but that of the US political establishment as a whole.

Ultimately, Obama was merely the lesser of two evils in the recent election – nothing more.

Four more years………….

Louis Allday 10/11/2012

[1] One image, of Obama and his wife Michelle hugging, reportedly became the most tweeted and most liked (on Facebook) image ever – http://gizmodo.com/5959053/exclusive-the-story-behind-the-internets-most-popular-photo

[7] http://www.barackobama.com/truth-team/entry/fact-check-president-obama-has-aggressively-pursued-and-addressed-national

[9] For example, up to September 2012, Obama had authorised 283 strikes in Pakistan, six times more than the number during President George W. Bush’s eight years in office – http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/05/opinion/bergen-obama-drone/index.html

[14] See Obama Administration Counterterrorism Strategy (C-Span television broadcast June 29, 2011),

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/AdministrationCo

[15] Of course, Obama’s term in office began in 2008 and so he holds no responsibility for any actions taken prior to that date.

[16] http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes/index.html

[17] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all

[18] http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2012/06/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Project-Pakistan-Report-FINAL-Wednesday-June-27-2012.pdf

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The ‘Impartial’ BBC

19 May

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is an umbrella organisation that co-ordinates fund-raising efforts for 14 UK aid agencies including the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid[1].

In January 2009, as it had done several times before, the DEC asked for the BBC’s permission to broadcast an emergency fund-raising film in aid of the victims of a major humanitarian disaster. The film focused on the plight of injured and malnourished children whose homes had recently been destroyed and hence were in urgent need of medicine, food and shelter. The BBC had previously agreed to show DEC films of a similar nature, but on this occasion it refused to air the film, as did Sky News. In a statement, the BBC explained that it had refused to do so in order “to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story” and because of “question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation”[2]. The head of Sky News, John Ryley, said that broadcasting the film would be “incompatible” with its objective role, saying “our commitment as journalists is to cover all sides of that story with uncompromising objectivity”[3]. Despite many complaints, the BBC upheld its decision and did not broadcast the film.

Why would the BBC and Sky News make such a decision? Why would the BBC argue that showing a short, non-political film on behalf of some of the most respected aid organisations in the world would – in the words of BBC Director General Mark Thompson – give the impression of “backing one side” over the other? Viewed objectively, the BBC’s stance is perplexing. That is, until the decision is contextualised and it is revealed whom the fund raising was in aid of and who was responsible for causing the humanitarian crisis. The DEC film was produced during the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip in December 2008/January 2009. An attack that killed around 1,400 Palestinians[4], injured several thousand others, destroyed thousands of homes and devastated Gaza’s already shattered infrastructure. One of a small number of foreign volunteers in Gaza at the time, Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, described the Israeli attack as an “all out war against the civilian population of Gaza” and estimated that half of all its casualties were women and children[5].

Presumably well aware of the pro-Israel nature of the media and seeking to pre-empt any accusations of bias on its behalf, the DEC film began by stating that “today, this is not about the rights and wrongs of the conflict, these people simply need your help” and throughout its three minute duration did not make a single reference to Israel. The film, which can be found here (unlike the BBC, I suggest that you watch it and form your own opinions) is powerfully emotive and reveals the human suffering inflicted by the Israeli onslaught. It also makes clear the terrifying scale of the damage caused in Gaza. However, it apportions no blame and makes no political comment. In this context, the BBC’s explanation for its veto – that broadcasting the video would have compromised its ‘impartiality’ – is indefensible. Sky News’ refusal, although equally as shameful, does not warrant the same attention as the BBC’s as Sky News is not a public-funded body and for obvious reasons, it does not enjoy the reputation for “impartiality” that the BBC does.

In an interview defending the BBC’s decision, Mark Thompson repeatedly stressed the ‘complex’ and ‘contentious’ nature of the conflict in Gaza, concealing the very simple fact that one of the most powerful militaries in the world was then engaged in what has been described as “the mass slaughter of defenceless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee”[6]. This notion of ‘complexity’ is frequently utilised when Israel’s systematic attacks on the Palestinians are discussed in the media. I have previously written here about the subtle ways that the media (notably the BBC) justifies Israel’s behaviour through the semantic choices of its reporting. But as its decision to veto the broadcast of the DEC video in 2009 clearly demonstrates, the BBC is sometimes more blatant in its bias and unfortunately the DEC incident is not unique.

In December 2010, a UK rapper named Mic Righteous appeared live on BBC Radio1Xtra and performed a freestyle in which he rapped “I can scream Free Palestine!”. When the freestyle was later selected to form part of a ‘Best Of’ compilation in April 2011, BBC production staff censored out the word ‘Palestine’ with a broken glass sound effect, the same effect used to censor out expletives and violent or offensive words. Responding to the many complaints that followed, the BBC stated “Mic Righteous was expressing a political viewpoint which, if it had been aired in isolation, would have compromised impartiality”. Amena Saleem, of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign quoted in The News Statesman said: “In its correspondence with us, the BBC said the word Palestine isn’t offensive, but ‘implying that it is not free is the contentious issue’, and this is why the edit was made”[7]. Yet, the Israeli occupation is not an opinion, it is a fact and is recognised as such by every relevant global organisation including the UN. The UN Security Council classifies Israel as the “occupying force” in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet the BBC in its supposed attempt to be ‘impartial’, refuses to acknowledge the reality that Israel occupies Palestinian land.

Some argue that the BBC’s decisions are pusillanimous in nature more than ideological – motivated by a fear of possible repercussions. Indeed, BBC journalists have spoken of “waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis”, of the BBC’s Jerusalem bureau having been “leant on by the Americans”, of being “guilty of self-censorship” and of “urgently needing an external arbiter”[8]. Either way, the outcome is the same. In the name of so-called ‘impartiality’ the word Palestine itself is censored like an offensive expletive and aid charities are unable to raise funds to ease the suffering of innocent Palestinian children.

In June 2008, the comedian Frankie Boyle made two jokes on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Political Animal’. The jokes were as follows:

“I’m quite interested in the Middle East, I’m actually studying that Israeli army martial arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.

“I’ve got an analogy which explains the whole thing quite well: if you imagine that Palestine is a cake – well, that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.”

After the broadcast, a viewer wrote to the BBC complaining that Boyle’s jokes were ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘disgusting’[9]. The BBC editorial complaints unit wrote back in December 2008 upholding the complaint, saying the use of the word Jew was “inappropriate and offensive”[10]. Not satisfied, the viewer pursued his complaint further and it was then escalated to the editorial standards committee of the BBC Trust (the BBC’s governing body). The committee upheld the ruling concerning the use of the word ‘Jew’, called the incident a ‘serious breach’ and issued a press release in which it stated that it “wished to apologise to the complainant on behalf of the BBC for any offence the remark may have caused him and other listeners to the programme”[11].

Following this, Boyle wrote an open letter that, regardless of how you feel about him (personally, I am not a fan) and whether or not you found the jokes in question amusing, is worth drawing attention to. In it, Boyle argued that the BBC was “vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying”, criticised it for its “cowardly rebuke” and drew attention to its refusal to broadcast the DEC humanitarian appeal in 2009. His points are valid – honest discussion of Israel on the BBC is entirely absent. Boyle also wrote, “The situation in Palestine seems to be, in essence, apartheid”, a comparison about which I have previously written about.

The BBC’s biased and misleading coverage of Palestine/Israel has been analysed in great detail by Greg Philo and Mark Berry at the Glasgow University Media Group in their books ‘Bad News from Israel’ and ‘More Bad News from Israel’ (both of which I recommend). The latter revealing the terrifying fact that two-thirds of the British public are unsure whether Israel is occupying the Palestinians’ land or vice versa. These books clearly demonstrate the role that the BBC’s coverage plays in obscuring both the historical context of the conflict and the ongoing reality of Israel’s occupation and aggression against the Palestinian people. This role has been underlined in recent weeks as the BBC – despite protests – barely reported that over 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, many of them detained without charge, had gone on hunger strike en masse[12].

As Boyle concluded at the time:

“I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire.

The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken.

Israel is out of bounds[13]”

Remember that the next time you hear someone extol the virtues of the ‘impartial’ BBC.

[1] The full list is as follows: Action Aid, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision –
http://www.dec.org.uk/

[5]
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090119.htm
 Note – It is estimated 352 children were killed by Israel’s attacks between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009. 
http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?CategoryId=1&DocId=917

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A Dark Day

20 Apr

Imagine that you are on a boat. You and the many others around you have been forced to flee your homes. People that look like you are being attacked and imprisoned, if you do not leave, you will be in serious danger.

The sea is rough and you feel nauseous. The boat is severely over-crowded, 72 people in total are crammed on board. It was not designed for this many people, nowhere near so many. There is no space to move, it is uncomfortable, claustrophobic and hot. When you boarded, most of your provisions and those of the other passengers were thrown away, the space was needed for more people. There is no food or water on board and your mouth is already very dry.

Not long after the journey has begun, the captain announces that there is a problem, the boat is losing fuel – fast. You are scared but do not panic as your friend overhears a man say that the boat has a satellite phone which can be used to call for help.

Later, it is announced that a man has been called using the phone and that he has passed the details of the boat to the coast guard. You smile to yourself at this news, confident that it is now simply a matter of time until help arrives. ‘It will be ok, people will come to help, they know where we are now, they will come’.

A few hours after the call, you hear a strange noise, a helicopter is approaching. You thank God. People are smiling, relieved. You and your friend hug one another and laugh. But after hovering briefly overhead, the helicopter flies away. People fall silent. You close your eyes. ‘It’s OK, they will come back’.

Sometime later the helicopter returns. Once again, it hovers above the boat, a man inside throws down some bottles of water, his face is obscured but you see he is wearing a military uniform – he gestures to stay where you are. A woman shouts ‘they will send a boat for us soon, don’t worry!’

Many hours pass and no help arrives. Some people begin to cry. The group decides to save some of the water for the two babies on board, the situation is desperate. The captain announces that he thinks the boat has enough fuel left to make it to its planned destination. Exhausted, you close your eyes. Slipping in and out of sleep, you lose all track of time.

You open your eyes, the boat is completely out of fuel, the engine is off and it is drifting with the current. Most of those on board are silent, several pray to themselves quietly, some moan in despair, others do not move at all. The sea is rough and you are frightened – home feels far, far away. Your mouth is painfully dry, you have been thirsty before, but never like this. You urinate into an empty bottle and drink it. Others begin to do the same. You close your eyes.

You hear crying, a man has died, his wife lies beside him sobbing and whispering his name. You do nothing, there is nothing that can be done. Your eyes burn and your stomach aches, you have not eaten for days.

You wake up, you do not know how long you were asleep, you did not dream, there was no escape. On the horizon, a ship appears, no, not a ship, an aircraft carrier! Murmurs begin to spread around the boat and murmurs turn to yells. The craft is getting closer. ‘This is it! They’ll save us now, they can see us!’ People on board the carrier look through binoculars and take pictures, then two helicopters take off from its deck and fly low over the boat – people scream out for help and the babies are held in the air.

The boat begins to drift away from the craft, it slowly fades into the distance. You close your eyes. You feel weak, weaker than ever before. You want to cry but no tears form. Your friend looks very ill. No help has come. ‘But they saw us!’ You close your eyes. ‘They will come back, they have to – they saw us’.

You remember that you have some toothpaste in your bag and begin to suck it from the tube, it is hard to swallow and tastes horrible. You offer some to your friend but he does not respond. You shout his name, he does not respond, you shout again – no response. You close your eyes.

You hear a scream, another man has died. He smiled and said hello when he boarded. You try to stand – you want to help – but your legs buckle. You cannot move. The screams become more frequent, you lose count of days, nights, deaths…

Sweat, urine, faeces, the smell on board is overpowering. Your skin is burnt and cracked from the sun, there is no shade, only filth and despair.

A man lifts a baby from the arms of its dead mother – the woman’s body curled protectively around it, her hand still gently cradling the back of its small head. ‘Is the baby that man’s daughter?’ He does not cry, nor does the baby. You close your eyes.

Later, a different man lays the baby down carefully next to its mother – it is not moving. You close your eyes. ‘No-one is coming, they saw us, but no one is coming’

‘How many bodies have been thrown overboard?’ You helped when you could, but now you have no strength left. You close your eyes and wait for the nightmare to end.

A loud thud wakes you – you look over the side of the boat and see sand. You close your eyes.

Men appear, they have guns, they take you and 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 – 9 others off the boat. You are taken somewhere dark, hot, dirty. ‘Where am I? Hell?’ No, it is a prison cell. ‘What is happening?’ You close your eyes. A man is dragged away – he is not moving. There are only 8 others now. 63 are gone, 63.

‘But they saw us! Why didn’t they come? Why?’

You close your eyes.

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In March 2011, a small boat that was dangerously overloaded with 72 passengers[1] departed from the Libyan capital, Tripoli heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa. The passengers were all migrant workers fleeing the violence in Libya in which sub-Saharan Africans had begun to be indiscriminately targeted as ‘mercenaries’ allied to the Gaddafi regime.

Not long into its journey, the boat began to start losing fuel. The boat was equipped with a satellite phone and using this it made contact with Father Moses Zerai, an Eritrean priest in Rome who runs a refugee rights organisation called Habeshia. Zerai contacted the Italian Coast Guard which after obtaining the GPS location of the boat from a satellite provider informed the Maltese Coast Guard and NATO’s Naples Maritime HQ of its predicament. A distress signal was then sent out to all ships in the area. Shortly after, a military helicopter appeared above the boat and flew away without assisting. Later, it returned and lowered down some basic supplies (water and biscuits) and gestured for the passengers to await further help. It is not clear which country sent this helicopter but what is clear is that no rescue boat subsequently appeared. Realising that no help was coming, the captain of the ship decided to continue on to Lampedusa. This proved to be a fatal mistake as the boat quickly ran out of fuel and began to drift aimlessly. The smugglers that arranged the journey had removed the passengers’ provisions and without water, they soon began to die of thirst.

Some days later, with many already dead, the boat drifted next to an aircraft carrier. According to survivors, two helicopters took off from the carrier and flew low over the boat while people on board viewed it through binoculars and others took pictures. The migrants stood on deck holding two starving babies in the air and crying out for help – none came. Dain Haile Gerbre, a survivor who was later granted asylum in Italy said, “At first the ship was very far. Maybe 700 metres. They then circled around us, three times, until they came very close, 10 metres. We were watching them, and they were watching us. We are showing them the dead bodies. We drank water from the sea to show them we are thirsty. The people on boat took pictures, nothing else”[2].

14 days after it disembarked, the boat washed up on a Libyan beach, and 61 of those on board had died – two more died shortly afterwards, one of them in a Libyan prison where the survivors were taken. Abu Kurke, a passenger who survived by drinking his own urine and eating two tubes of toothpaste, explained “We saved one bottle of water from the helicopter for the two babies, and kept feeding them even after their parents had passed. But after two days, the babies passed too, because they were so small”[3].

At the time, the area where the boat became lost was a military zone controlled by NATO forces. The NATO intervention in Libya had just begun, a ‘humanitarian intervention’ intended to save lives we were told by our politicians and the media. Yet NATO failed to react to the distress calls of the boat, even though there were military vessels under its control in the area when the call was first sent out and during the subsequent calls that were repeated every four hours for ten days[4]. Sadly, it appears that the lives of innocent people fleeing conflict, a conflict that NATO itself played a significant role in creating, were not considered important enough to be saved. Those Africans that died on board were just another 63 desperate and voiceless souls condemned to die torturous deaths because of the indifference and racism of others. This tragedy was wholly avoidable – according to one NATO official, a rescue would have been “a piece of cake”[5]. It was entirely foreseeable that NATO’s intervention in Libya and the subsequent escalation in the conflict would lead to large numbers of refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean. Yet NATO prepared no contingency plan to deal with the impending humanitarian catastrophe which it was complicit in creating.

When the Costa Concordia ferry sank off the coast of Tuscany in January 2012, the story was covered extensively and dominated headlines and news broadcast for days on end. TV stations provided minute-by-minute updates, analysed in detail what may have caused the accident and made extensive use of video and images of the ferry and maps of its route. A news producer of a major news channel explained to me how he and his team worked hard to contact passengers on board the ferry, as well as their families around the world. The channel was also in regular contact with the ferry’s owners for regular updates and new information. Since the event, recovery efforts, the exact number of casualties, the misconduct of the ferry’s captain and its exact itinerary have all been reported in detail by the media[6].

Around thirty people are confirmed to have died in the Costa Concordia accident[7] and undoubtedly it was an event which deserved the efforts and attention of the media. But the number of fatalities on board the migrants’ boat was significantly higher and in terms of human suffering its story was as worthy of the media’s focus, if not more so. However, with the notable exception of The Guardian (the work of Jack Shenker in particular), this harrowing incident received little coverage in the media. The concerted effort made to inform audiences and readers of the fate of those on board the Costa Concordia was simply not made. Hence, many of you reading this probably knew nothing of this tragic event until just now. Indeed, you may not know that at least 1,500 African refugees fleeing Libya died in similar incidents in 2011[8]. It is clear, to much of the media, that unlike the lives of wealthy Europeans aboard a luxury cruise liner, the lives of African refugees do not matter – they are insignificant, unworthy of extended coverage. As a reporter of a major UK newspaper explained to me, they are individuals that the political and media class simply do not care about.

In March 2012, The Council of Europe[9] published a report that summarised its investigation into the events[10]. The report’s author, Dutch politician, Tineke Strik – described the tragedy as “a dark day for Europe” and said “We can talk as much as we want about human rights and the importance of complying with international obligations, but if at the same time we just leave people to die – perhaps because we don’t know their identity or because they come from Africa – it exposes how meaningless those words are”[11].

Strik’s words are sadly accurate. This awful incident reveals the racism at the heart of the media and exposes the absurdity of the argument that the NATO intervention in Libya was motivated by a desire to save the lives of innocent civilians. The Africans on board that small boat were the wrong civilians for NATO, there was no political or economic gain to be made by rescuing them, so instead they were left, left alone to die slowly in nightmarish conditions that no human being ever deserves to endure. The next time a politician talks of the ‘successful humanitarian intervention’ in Libya, remember the appalling story of those that died on board that nameless boat and the countless others that have shared a similar fate.

Louis Allday 20/04/2012 (Author of both sections above)

[1] The passengers were Ethiopian, Nigerian, Eritrean, Ghanaian and Sudanese. The boat was a rubber boat measuring approximately 10m in length. See: http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/rapport_expert_independant.pdf

[9] A Pan-European Human Rights Organisation based in Strasbourg, France. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/4816408.stm

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“Duty Calls”

31 Mar

On Thursday March 29th 2012, The Guardian published a half-page photo entitled “Duty calls, No-frills flights for US troops”[1]. The picture, an interior shot of a US military transport plane showed row after row of grinning American troops and was captioned “US soldiers relax on a plane bound for Afghanistan from a transit base outside Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek”. No further reporting or analysis accompanied the image.

The troops in the photo are laughing cheerfully. It is the sort of image you could imagine the US military might use in recruitment material to demonstrate the ‘camaraderie’ and ‘adventure’ of army life; it is not what you expect to see in a supposedly left-wing newspaper.

The image, in combination with its heading, depicts the US troops as simply doing their ‘duty’ and even appears to sympathise with them for being forced to tolerate a ‘no-frills flight’. Its broader context – that the troops shown in the image are being flown from a US military air base in Kyrgyzstan (one of hundreds of US military bases around the world that enforce its global hegemony) to reinforce the US/NATO military occupation of Afghanistan – is not discussed.

Since 2001, during the course of their ‘duty’ US troops and their allies in NATO have committed countless outrages and human rights abuses against the Afghan population. 2012 alone has seen leaked video footage of US marines urinating on dead Afghans[2], US troops burning Qur’ans[3] and most recently, the slaughter of 16 civilians, nine of them children, by a US solider[4]. In 2011, a NATO air strike massacred nine Afghan boys, an event which I wrote about at the time[5]. Between 2010 and early 2011, raids by US Special Forces are estimated to have killed 1,500 civilians[6].  In 2010, details emerged that a group of US soldiers, a so-called ‘kill team’, had murdered at least four Afghan civilians for ‘sport’, collected their body parts as ‘trophies’ and photographed one another mocking the victims’ dead bodies[7]. These horrendous events are merely examples, the list could go on ad nauseam, but the salient point is obvious – the US military has repeatedly humiliated, attacked and murdered Afghans in an unremitting series of events dating back to the invasion of 2001, in which thousands of civilians were killed by a massive aerial bombardment.

To imagine The Guardian publishing such a sympathetic and humanising image of troops from other militaries that are guilty of similar human rights violations is entirely inconceivable.

“Duty calls, No-frills flights for Syrian troops – Syrian soldiers relax on a plane bound for Homs from a transit base outside Syria’s capital, Damascus” – Never.

“Duty calls, No-frills flights for Sudanese troops – Sudanese soldiers relax on a plane bound for Darfur from a transit base outside Sudan’s capital, Khartoum” – Impossible.

And so on…

This begs the question, why does The Guardian treat the US military, an organisation with a long (and ongoing) record of human rights abuses, any differently?

The sad truth is that only those who are identified as on ‘our’ side are ever tacitly supported in this way. Even The Guardian, a newspaper that many people read in order to get an ‘alternative’ or ‘progressive’ point of view, often perpetuates spurious notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ that facilitate the immoral foreign policy objectives of the US and the UK. It is essential to realise that The Guardian does not offer a truly independent perspective on events, and although it remains preferable to its mainstream competitors, it is just as much a part of the corporate media as any other major British newspaper.

Let us not forget that The Observer (The Guardian’s sister paper that is published on Sundays) supported the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq[8] in 2003 and despite the disastrous effects of the subsequent war, The Guardian itself urged readers to re-elect Tony Blair in a 2005 editorial[9] – such is the sad state of the UK’s ostensibly ‘left wing’ media.

Louis Allday 31/03/2012

Note – After seeing the image discussed in this post I emailed the editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger and asked why the image was published and whether, in the light of the US military’s serious human rights violations, it was appropriate to do so. If I receive a response I shall share it here.

Update 02/04/2012 – The full set of pictures can be found here –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2121412/Room-Stunning-pictures-U-S-troops-crammed-military-plane-fly-Afghanistan.html
 “Joking: The men pull funny faces as they await their deployment in Afghanistan where dozens of Americans are killed each month”.

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The 2012 Olympics – Selective Outrage

24 Mar

On March 20th 2012, the Saudi-owned and London-based newspaper, Al Hayat reported that Crown Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia had approved the inclusion of women in the Saudi Olympic team for the first time ever[1].  This announcement followed months of international pressure on Saudi Arabia to allow the entry of female participants into the London 2012 games and to end its policy of ‘gender apartheid’.

In recent months, the Saudi authorities’ previous refusal to allow the country’s female athletes to compete has been strongly criticised in numerous articles and opinion pieces[2]. In February 2012, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report[3] that stated “the Saudi government is systematically discriminating against women in sports and physical education, and has never sent a female athlete to the Olympics, with no penalty from the international Olympic authorities”. The report called for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to put pressure on the Saudi National Olympic Committee to enact a number of reforms and to make it clear that “ending the effective ban on women’s sport is a prerequisite for continued Saudi participation in international sporting events, including the London 2012 Olympic Games”. Several British MPs including the former Culture Secretary and Olympics Minister, Tessa Jowell endorsed the HRW report. Now a member of the Olympic Board, Jowell argued that the Saudis’ attitude to women in sport was “clearly breaking the spirit of the Olympic Charter’s pledge to equality“[4].

If the reports in Al Hayat are confirmed, then it appears that this pressure will have been worthwhile and may mean that some female Saudi athletes are able to realise their dreams and compete at the Olympic games. Unfortunately, the measure will do little to change the day-to-day oppression of women that the Saudi government enforces, nevertheless, it is a positive step in itself and should be welcomed.

Many of those that have written on this topic have noted that during the apartheid era, South Africa was banned entirely from participating in the Olympic games and that this ban was part of the broader international effort to isolate South Africa that eventually contributed to the fall of apartheid. Accordingly, it has been asked why Saudi Arabia has not been subject to the same punishment. The question has been raised whether gender apartheid is somehow more acceptable than an apartheid system based on race?

While reading these articles, although in agreement that discrimination on the basis of gender is equally as abhorrent as racial discrimination, I was struck by the manner in which the discussion was being framed.  Contrary to what most appear to believe, a political system based on racial segregation was not unique to South Africa and sadly, it did not disappear from the world when Nelson Mandela became President of the new post-apartheid, South Africa in 1994.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid movement and is highly revered in the West. Tutu has been awarded numerous honours including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

In 2011, Tutu wrote the following: “I, for one, never tire of speaking out against these injustices, because they remind me only too well of what we in South Africa experienced under the racist system of apartheid. I have witnessed firsthand the racially segregated roads and housing in the Occupied Palestinian territories. I have seen the humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children at the checkpoints and roadblocks. I have met Palestinians who were evicted and replaced by Jewish Israeli settlers; Palestinians whose homes were destroyed even as new, Jewish-only homes were illegally built on confiscated Palestinian land”[5].

Tutu’s words – unsurprisingly not widely reported in the Western media – are characteristic of a stance[6] that he has held for over two decades, since 1989 when he first visited Palestine and witnessed Israel’s vicious suppression of the first intifada and the grim reality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land[7] – an occupation that is ongoing and has not relented in its brutality.  At that time – when the apartheid regime was still in power in South Africa – Tutu is reported to have said “If I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa“[8].

Predictably, Tutu has been the subject of strong criticism by pro-Israel figures in the US and within Israel, and he has been labelled both ‘anti-Semitic’ and an ‘Israel hater’[9]. However, Tutu is not the only South African figure to have drawn direct parallels between black South Africans’ experience of apartheid and the experience of the Palestinians.

In 2008, a delegation of South African human rights activists that included MPs, journalists and attorneys visited Palestine, among them was Mondli Makhanya, the then editor-in-chief of The Sunday Times (South Africa) newspaper. Makhanya’s impressions of the trip are worth quoting at length – “When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid. The apartheid regime viewed the blacks as inferior; I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all. How can a human brain engineer this total separation, the separate roads, the checkpoints? What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible – and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible. We also knew that it would end one day; here there is no end in sight. The end of the tunnel is blacker than black”[10].

A Human Rights Watch report published in 2010 and entitled “Separate and Unequal – Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” clearly outlines the day-to-day reality of the Israeli occupation as reflected by Makhanya. The report states that there is “no legal justification for Israel’s differential treatment of Palestinians, which breaches Israel’s obligations under international law, violating the prohibition against discrimination as well as a host of associated rights, including the right to freedom of movement, the right to a home, and the right to health”[11].

It is obvious that through its continued oppression of the Palestinian people on the basis of their race, Israel is  - in the words of Tessa Jowell – “breaking the spirit of the Olympic Charter’s pledge to equality“. Israel does so in a way that is far more extreme than the Saudi government’s deplorable treatment of women – Saudi women are denied a number of basic rights and subject to severe restrictions in their daily lives but they are not subject to arbitrary arrests, beatings, house demolitions and other daily humiliations solely on the basis of their gender. Yet there is no chance of Jowell questioning Israel’s participation in the Olympic games. And those of us that are conscious of Israel’s ongoing crimes are forced to contemplate why there is no diplomatic pressure on Israel from the IOC? Why is there no outrage in the media similar to that which Saudi Arabia has deservedly faced and why are there no public calls for Israel to change its policies or be banned from future participation in all international sporting events?

If the IOC were to ban Israel from participating in the Olympic games until it ends its occupation of Palestinian land, dismantles all illegal settlements, lifts the siege of Gaza and enters into negotiations ready to make concessions and with a genuine desire for peace, then a precedent would be set. A ban would send a strong message to the leadership (and people) of Israel that the status quo is not only morally deplorable but also completely unsustainable. Sadly, as it is, Israel will participate in the 2012 Olympics virtually unopposed and in 2013 it will even host the Under-21 European Football Championships.

Louis Allday, 24/03/2012

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Syria & The Dangers of Misguided Activism

21 Mar

Until today I have avoided writing about Syria. I have lived in Damascus, have close friends there and feel a very strong emotional attachment to Syria and its people. This, combined with the complexity of the situation, has made me reluctant to comment on the topic in the public domain. However, I came across something this morning that has compelled me to write.

I am fully opposed to the Assad government, which is a corrupt, unelected regime that has ruled Syria in the interests of a small elite for decades. The Assad regime is guilty of gross human rights violations and not only in its horrendous actions of the past 12 months – it had demonstrated its ruthlessness towards its own people long before that. However, the situation inside Syria is complex, significantly more so than most of the mainstream media’s coverage of the topic would imply.

What we are witnessing in Syria is no longer simply a case of unarmed protesters being violently suppressed by government security forces and it has not been for some time. I am extremely concerned by the rhetoric and actions of some elements of the armed opposition that appear to have adopted the sectarian narrative propagated by the government and as reported by Human Rights Watch have begun to commit human rights abuses of their own[i]. I am also angered by the cynical way in which external forces such as Saudi Arabia are exploiting the situation for their own ends. It is farcical that Saudi Arabia, an oppressive absolute monarchy is calling for democracy in Syria. While feigning concern for the welfare of Syria’s civilians, Saudi Arabia’s own security forces are shooting Shia citizens protesting in the country’s eastern province and Saudi troops remain in Bahrain, sent there in 2011 to put down a popular protest movement. Saudi Arabia’s stance is indicative of the role that key international and regional players have adopted concerning Syria. The US, Russia, China, Qatar, UK, France, Iran and Israel are all acting for their own strategic interests and are not motivated by any genuine concern for the ongoing suffering of the Syrian people.

On Saturday March 17th, a protest was held in London under the name “Defend Syria’s Freedom, Global March for Syria” and it is this event that provoked me to write this post. When I first read the name of the protest my suspicions were aroused and after I looked into it further my worst fears were confirmed. The protest had nothing to do with protecting the rights of the majority of the Syrian people and everything to do with supporting the Assad regime and attacking the uprising against it. The speakers at the protest included Ammar Waqaf, a regime apologist who advocates ‘reform’ led by the regime and a young freelance journalist named Lizzie Phelan.

Until today, I was not aware of Phelan but what I saw of her – in footage of the protest – quickly infuriated me. In her speech, Phelan extolled the “bravery” of the Syrian military, gushingly quoted the words of former president Hafez Al Assad (father of the current president, Bashar Al Assad) and repeated the long-standing Assad regime myth that it has protected the Syrian people against Zionism and Imperialism for decades[ii]. This narrative is contradicted by the work of numerous Syrian experts, foremost among them, Dr Alan George of Oxford University, who has stated that “the system created by the Syrian Ba’athists – and especially Hafiz al-Asad – is cruel, capricious and venal. It has turned the country into a vast prison, and it has manifestly failed to deliver either acceptable standards of living or a credible military defence against Israel“[iii].

Phelan is passionate, and her heart may well be in the right place but she has a superficial understanding and limited knowledge of Syria and its history. Phelan appears to genuinely believe that she is supporting the Syrian people against Colonialism and Imperialism  – a Zionist conspiracy – but in reality, she is acting as a mouthpiece for a brutal regime that has no fixed aims or ideologies beyond those that ensure its own survival. The Assad family have been a curse on the Syrian people for over four decades and Phelan’s passionate defence of them is shameful in the extreme.

In March 2012, Phelan visited Syria and was interviewed on Syrian state TV. In the interview, she argued that the Syrian military is not killing peaceful protestors on a mass scale, and described the claims that there is no democracy or respect for human rights in Syria as “fabrications” and in many cases “complete and outright lies”[iv].  Phelan’s words left me shocked. To argue that there is respect for human rights in Syria is completely absurd given the numerous human rights violations committed by the security forces extensively recorded by Human Rights Watch[v]. As far as I can tell, Phelan does not speak Arabic and she has never lived in Syria, yet somehow after spending a few days in Damascus – presumably under the direct supervision of the security services – she had the audacity to comment as if she were an expert. Such arrogance is breathtaking.

Prior to covering Syria, Phelan visited and reported from Libya. Her stance on Libya followed the same pattern, while rightly arguing that much of the media reporting was massively biased and supported NATO’s self-serving military intervention in the country, Phelan allowed herself to become a useful mouth piece for the Gaddafi regime. In an interview with The New York Times she stated “factually speaking Libya was a paradise for human rights and Muammar Gaddafi was due to receive a human rights award prior to the NATO onslaught”[vi] and after Gaddafi’s killing she spoke of his “martyrdom”[vii].

Phelan appears to operate in a world of black and white, good and bad, a simplistic narrative of imperialism and resistance that allows her to support the ‘right’ side and feel good about doing so. However, with regard to Syria, as in life, there are rarely simple answers. Like Phelan, I am opposed to any western intervention in Syria, I am also opposed to the growing influence of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and worried about aspects of the armed opposition and the increasing sectarian nature of their rhetoric. I am also in full agreement that much of the media’s coverage of the conflict has been distorted. Yet I do not make the dreadful mistake of aligning myself with the Asad regime simply because it is also able to make these same observations.  The same applies to Libya – Phelan is correct – the NATO intervention had nothing to do with concern for the lives of Libyan civilians, the media did play a crucial role in “selling” the conflict and the behaviour of some rebel groups during and after the conflict has been horrendous. But again, this does not make Gaddafi a ‘martyr’ or negate the crimes and brutality of his regime over the past four decades.

I am often saddened by the political and moral apathy of much of my generation. However, Phelan has revealed the danger that a passionate but misguided activist poses to the very causes that they ostensibly support. In this case, apathy would most definitely be preferable to the misleading, simplistic and ultimately destructive activism of Lizzie Phelan.

Louis Allday, 21/03/2012

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