Houla horror: truth is elusive, lies are easier to spot

[cqo_000]

May 27th, 2012 by Syd Walker

Over the last 24-hours there’s been a renewed media storm over Syria – prompted by a horrific story of atrocities in the town of Houla. Very gruesome images of dead children have been offered to the media, which has lapped them up and used them again and again on our screens and in our newspapers.

The UN observers in Syria, so far, have declined to draw definite conclusions about who’s responsible for this terrible massacre. But unsurprisingly, western media has been less circumspect. There’s a deafening chorus of howls complaining ‘The World’ isn’t doing anything, while President Assad gets away with murdering his own people – again!

I’ve no doubt some of the Twitter users tweeting and re-tweeting this type of sentiment on the #Houla hashtag are genuine in their concern. Yet remarkably few people ever seem to pause and ask themselves the obvious question – why on earth would the Syrian Government want to kill Syrian children? And even if for some reason they did – why would they do so in a way more or less guaranteed to attract international condemnation and renewed calls for intervention?

In other words, ‘cui bono‘?

Who really benefits from this atrocity – and who doesn’t? Surely the insurgents and their foreign backers benefit.. and the Syrian Government most certainly does not! Given that recent bomb atrocities in Damascus have been blamed – almost universally – on extremist opponents of the Assad Government, isn’t it at least plausible they’re also behind this latest horror?

Yet just as mainstream media doesn’t want to give that line of inquiry much encouragement, major ‘human rights’ NGOs like Amnesty have also rushed to judgement. Their weekend tweeps have been hammering away, sneering at the Assad Government and spinning the incident as grounds for outside “intervention”… just like they did last year over Libya.


Read more: http://sydwalker.info/blog/2012/05/27/houla-horror-truth-is-elusive-lies-are-easier-to-spot/

[Odin2005]

1. Pro-Assad BS.

[Arctic Dave]

2. No. Just a step back and think things through article.

Unless you have a difinitive reason for the shelling?

[Justina For Justice]

3. Cui Bono? Absolutely The Right Question to Ask.

A truly independent, non-partisan investigation is needed. On its face the Syrian government would have nothing to gain by slaughtering women and children when it is already under close world and UN scrutiny. The U.S. - NATO supported rebels, on the other hand, can use these horrific deaths to demand greater military support for their side.

These days, with so many big players looking to take down the Syrian government, for a variety of reasons, it is almost impossible to find objective news about events there.

Just as the western media spread false news about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, and so justified a horrendous U.S. invasion of that country, so we must be on the alert for
misrepresentations about any area which is in the Israeli and U.S.'s gun sights, which Syria certainly is.

[Igel]

4. "Cui bono?" is great for abductive reasoning.

Of course, abductive reasoning isn't valid logic. It's nifty for forming a hypothesis, but just provides an for critical thinking and testing to be applied to.

"Cui bono?" really depends on information. What information do you have? What information does the other actor(s) have? If either is missing information, you don't have much of a shot at answering the question.

Take this "massacre," assuming it is as described. (Lots of "cui" in this.)

If you don't know what Assad's thinking, what he knows, what he has control over, you're at a loss. Does he value foreign opinion or want to crush the rebels? Did he have control over his forces? Would he admit it if he didn't? Did he think that this would terrify them into submission? Was there some military target there--an operative, some important person? Did they merely think there was a valid military target there? After all, "cui bono?" asks about what others judge to be in their own interest, when push comes to shove. All we know is that there's a claim government military folk used a variety of weapons to kill 90+ people, of which over half were adults in a population that is about half minors. Assuming Assad's guys did it, we have a lot of questions but no answers that we don't fill in based on our biases. After all, not every plan works out as planned, and not every act is actually planned.

If you don't know what the rebels are thinking, you don't know what *they* consider to be their own good. You don't know what *they* think is going to lead to the best results for them, what they'd be willing to do. Would they be willing to commit a false flag operation? Did they get word at the last minute that some operative would be attacked and failed to warn the population? Are they ultimately uninvolved in this, except to use it for PR purposes?

And so it goes. Abductive reasoning is matching the data to some hypothesis. That's all. When you're done, all you're left with is your original observations and a supposed or proposed explanation for the data. There's no claim that the explanation is the only possible one or even the most likely one. The answer to "cui bono?" is a starting point for inquiry, not the conclusion.

[David__77]

6. Both sides claim the other side is responsible.

I don't think it's very useful to proceed from the "who gains" line of thought, which can lead to conspiracist conclusions.

[David__77]

5. The Russians believe that the attacks were not performed with heavy weapons.

That doesn't mean that Syrian state forces didn't commit any attacks, of course.

Beyond all the technical talk or investigatory conclusions, whatever they may be, I think it's noteworthy that the Western media is SO much more interested in this attack rather than the many large-scale bombings on government installations and facilities that have resulted in many civilian deaths and injuries. It is old-fashioned war propaganda, and it represents a serious danger for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. This is an interventionist trap that, if successfully, would be devastating.