Last year, Patrick Cockburn had revealed how both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch did not have concrete evidence to justify that Gadaffi was involved in causing war crimes and inhuman massacres in Libya.
This year, once again, Cockburn takes another polemic ideology and debates if ‘the preponderance of youtube videos, tweets, blogs and texts from Syrian opposition are actually true?’
In an interesting analysis in The Independent, he states :
‘YouTube pictures may have played a positive role in the uprisings of the Arab Spring, but the international media is largely mute about how easy it is to manipulate them. Pictured from the right angle, a small demonstration can be made to look like a gathering of tens of thousands. Shootings in one street in one town can be used to manufacture “evidence” of shooting in a dozen towns. Demonstrations need not be genuine events luckily captured on mobile phone cameras by concerned citizens; frequently the only reason for the protest is to provide material for YouTube. Television companies are not going to reject or underline the stage management of film that is free, dramatic, up to date – and which they could not match with regular correspondents and film crews even if they spent a lot of money.’
He further adds,
‘In the print press, bloggers get an equally easy ride, even though there is no proof that they know anything about what is going on. Hence the ease with which a male American student in Scotland was able to pretend to be a persecuted lesbian in Damascus. Since the Iraq war, even the most intensely partisan bloggers have been presented as sources of objective information. Tarnished though they may now be, they still have a certain cachet and credibility.’
Also, there’s another interesting incident that has currently taken place.
Bashar’s leaked interview
The hacker group Anonymous attacked the mail server of Syrian Ministry and 100s of emails have been leaked in this process. One of them reveals how Bashar actually planned before the much hyped interview with Barbara Walters. Eventually, the interview just showed him as an incompetent, hairy brained and boorish dictator, often dumb when asked questions regarding his own country.
Here goes the attached manuscript of the leaked PDF of Bashar’s Interview.
‘Its Annan, Koffi Annan’
Indeed, the situation is mushrooming with paroxysm of sarcasm and stupidity. Anyways, what is important right now is the much awaited ‘Friends of Syria’ meeting at Tunisia today morning and also what Kofi Annan does, after being requested to be the joint special envoy on Syria.
Well, it depends because he could not stop the invasion of Iraq by US inspite of being the UN Secretary General at that time. The Ghanaian native, winner of Nobel Peace prize in 2001 and acknowledged for his reforms in the Rwandan genocide, perhaps can turn tables in Syria.
shubhdachaudhary 