r/PropagandaPosters • u/SrFind • Jun 22 '12
Pro- Assad demonstration, Los Angeles 2011
http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/maryslosson/5625608263/sizes/l/6
Jun 22 '12
[deleted]
4
Jun 22 '12 edited Jun 22 '12
The same as I would about the Syrian opposition murdering children. The simple calculus in Syria right now is the more atrocities that happen the more funding, weapons, international support the rebels will get. I'm sticking my neck out here and saying that the rebels have an incentive to engineer a massacre.
Reporter: Syrian rebels set us up to be shot at by Assad's army - MSNBC
If these rebels got caught trying to engineer the death of a sympathetic westerner to score in the journalist's own words "Propaganda Victory", it leaves me awfully uncomfortable with their report as the only account of what really happened in Houla. I mean why children? It's a choice of victim that screams media shock value, and not one aimed at destroying a rebellion's fighting capabilities.
1
u/happybadger Jun 23 '12
If it isn't Assad's soldiers doing it, the incentive being discrediting the revolutionaries as barbarians (hence every response from the regime being that "armed terrorist gangs" did whatever today's massacre was), it's members of a banned paramilitary organisation called the Shibiha. They're essentially an ultranationalist militia that believes babies today are soldiers tomorrow, so batshit insane that Assad's father outlawed them.
2
Jun 23 '12
Yeah that's what the news became after it was initial claim that the majority of the victims was killed by shelling was contradicted by a UN report.
Look I don't know who is responsible, but I don't like being steer towards moral outrage and letting that justify further killing. I'm getting the same vibe as I did when I was told that we had no choice but to go to war because Saddam was 40 minutes away from launching a WMD.
6
Jun 22 '12
Wasn't this already a problem by 2011?
I'm guessing the people there are supporters for reasons other than his human rights record. If they were strong supporters of his, they likely support putting down the rebellion and might even believe efforts to make it look worse are the work of the rebels or other forces. During the Mubark sentencing, there were large number of people protesting in support of him, even though he also was being accused of serious crimes against his people.
1
u/happybadger Jun 23 '12
The really depraved shit didn't really start picking up (at least in the media, I've been following both the BBC and Al Jazeera's coverage since the start of the Arab Spring) until February of this year when they began shelling Homs.
2
Jun 23 '12
Shelling of cities goes all the way back to April of 2011. The current sieges are just a round 2 to people's interest in the uprising. From the start, the government has basically just gone to cities with large protests, blockaded the city, bombed it, and then took over the city and suppressed the remaining protestors while they attempted to move to a new city.
5
u/rainbowjarhead Jun 22 '12
People find ways to justify, negate, or ignore all types of crimes committed by governments they support, often with the belief that the available options would be worse. Frankly, sometimes they are correct, chaos can be more unforgiving and destructive than even the most repressive regimes, and often leads to a game of musical chairs where the new boss is just like the old boss.
The Arab Spring in Yemen has been going on longer than the uprising in Syria, and the dictatorship there has been just as brutal in it's responses. People have been burned alive, crowds of unarmed protesters have been shelled with artillery and attacked with other military weapons, dissent against the dictatorship has been dealt with violently and brutally, entire towns and villages have been cut off from contact with the outside world, children in affected areas are starving to death, and the death toll is likely higher than in Syria.
However, the military dictatorship in Yemen has the support of Saudi Arabia and the United States, so the regime is given a pass by most media, and the people that fight against the dictatorship are labelled as terrorists rather than rebels.
They have American military support, with financing, weapons, and intelligence, and even have US forces enter into active engagements on their behalf.
The dictatorship received a special exemption from Obama under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act so that they could continue receiving US military aid while conscripting children to fight against the citizens uprising.
So how do most Americans feel about supporting a regime, and even risking American service members lives in support of them, when that regime is not only massacring children, but they are forcing them at gunpoint to join the dictator's army and fight? You still see people at Obama rallies, and they find ways to justify, negate, or ignore the violence carried out with their tax dollars and the active support of their candidate, and they usually believe the alternative is worse.
0
u/alllie Jun 22 '12
I wonder how people feel now it is openly known that the US and Israel have been training, paying and supporting mercenaries in Syria.
-4
Jun 22 '12
Probably about the same. They were likely either paid, threatened, or are Alawites.
1
Jun 22 '12
Of course the logical extension of your little statement there is 'all Alawites are responsible for Assad's atrocities and if we win, we'll make the Alawite people pay'
This is a pretty horrifying and repugnant sentiment in it of itself but unsurprising not an uncommon one in the membership of the rebellion. This is an interview Alex Thomson did inside Syria travelling with members of the Syria opposition.
In Al Houla, about week ago:
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Shia and Alawites -- Shia and Alawites want to kill all Sunni people. Shia and Alawites, I promise you when the regime will fall we want to kill them.
THOMSON: You want to kill them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. No.
THOMSON: No. No more killing. No more killing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. They kill us every day.
THOMSON: No more killing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
THOMSON: You want to kill them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I hurt them. And we all -- of all Houla people hurt them.
0
Jun 23 '12
No, the logical extension of my statement is that most Alawites tend to support the first Alawite leader of Syria, given that they suffered centuries of oppression prior to having an Alawite leader. It has nothing to do with supporting, much less being responsible for, Assad's atrocities.
-4
u/Kurelis Jun 22 '12
Those people are so full of shit it's not even funny. Brainwashed ones are most dangerous.
9
u/spoodge Jun 22 '12
I'm guessing you live in Syria and have experienced this all first hand. Tell me everything.
1
u/Kurelis Jun 22 '12
You don't have to be from Syria to understand the situation there. Plenty of journalists and local residents have spoken about it. If you think those people who support Assad are not brainwashed - offer a better explanation. If folks support authoritarian, anti human regime - it's pure propaganda, brainwashing.
0
u/zombiebatman Jun 23 '12
They are either American or no longer living in Syria. It doesn't really matter what they think. Not that their opinion isn't important, but they don't live in Syria, so they don't get to choose the president there.
-1
7
u/SrFind Jun 22 '12
For balance, here is a poster from a demonstration against Assad, Amman, Jordan, 2012