Sunday 24 September 2017

Putting ISIL Bogeyman in Context


These important (and most overlooked) statistics about the Syrian Civil War put the death and mayhem caused by ISIL, the media bogeyman into context:



'Antiquities sales' and showcase deliberate destruction of a few old statues and ruins are not the most important topic here.

7 comments:

Paul D., Paderborn, Germany said...

According to those statistics not a single civilian was killed by the Western sanctions against Syria. That is good news! After all, sanctions like those killed 500.000 Iraqis in the 1990s.

Or maybe those deaths just don't "count" for an NGO that is based in a Nato country and is absolutely, completely and firmly "neutral", "non-government", "independent" and relies on extremely reliable sources from Al-Quaida territory.

I am also certain that ...

- a number like "192793" is absolutely correct and not just a cheap attempt to create the impression of great accuracy where there can be none.

- absolutely no dead Al-Quaida fighters were posthumously relabeled as "innocent civilians" by their comrades and relatives reporting to certain NGOs which are "neutral", "independent" and based in countries providing weapons and economic measures to Syrian rebels.

- the Russians killed more civilians than ISIL and are therefore by implication worse. At last we have some proper "context" on ISIL which is "neutral" and "independent"!

- the funding of the "neutral" NGO is extremely transparent as are its website and methods. After all, their logo looks legitimate.

Paul Barford said...

Have you your own, variant, figures and commentary on them, or are you just trolling? I also suggest you read the small print under the columns. By how much would these figures have to be 'out' to make the situation any more palatable?

Paul D., Paderborn, Germany said...

Unlike certain NGOs which are "neutral" (towards ISIL and Al Quaida?) I do not have a professional looking logo and website to support the claim to a network of "independent" informers doing "documentation" all over Syria.

I guess we will just have to believe by default that 9 out of 10 dead civilians were killed by the government and that ISIL and Al Quaida fought a comparatively clean war for years. After all, there is a "neutral" graph to "document" it. Sure the data may have originated from areas under terrorist control. But it is still "independent" because a website says so.

Nevertheless it seems strange that since 2015, the start of the Russian intervention and the revival of the Syrian state, refugees have been returning to government held cities. It seems odd, because according to a graph that is "neutral", the Syrian state and the Russians are the biggest killers of the innocent. Talk of walking into the lion's den...
(http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2017/6/595612454/unhcr-seeing-significant-returns-internally-displaced-amid-syrias-continuing.html)


p.s. I don't care about the "small print" because if they were honest they would have made it the "big print".

Paul Barford said...

Well, as I said if you read the captions, you'd have a better idea what the graphic is representing. Hama (2012), Homs (2014), Aleppo (2016/17) and Damascus are now largely or wholly in government hands, the fighting there against rebels has stopped, which is why (as the report you quote says) people are going back to their homes. Wouldn't you?

Paul D., Paderborn, Germany said...

The graphic represents above all one thing: A cheap attempt to paint the Syrian and Russian governments as the really guilty parties and to whitewash ISIL, Al Quaida and their helpers.

To that effect numbers based on hear-say from so called rebels are turned into a nice graph and floated about on the internet by what masquerades as a "neutral", "independent" NGO.

Numbers like 192.793 are given to imply a very rigorous "documentation" of case by case on the ground. But nothing of the sort is plausible.

And to be on the safe side they add "According to SNHR documentation" in the small print so they have a backdoor when challenged.

The whole thing is so obviously ridiculous I am surprised you are defending it.

I would, by the way, not return to cities in the hands of a government I "knew" had killed 192.793 innocent people. I would stay away.

Paul Barford said...

You are repeating yourself yet again. The height of one of the columns represents who has the airfields and munitions.

Paul Barford said...

Mr Paderborn - LOOK AT WHAT THIS GRAPHIC IS ABOUT before attempting your tedious repetitive off-topic sarcasm. Comment rejected.

 
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