The BBC’s Dan Snow gives us a guided tour of Syrian history in ‘A History of Syria with Dan Snow’
But who is guiding Snow safely around the warzone is the question at least one Syrian is asking:
‘A History of Syria with Dan Snow (BBC Two) was an excellent opportunity to tell a complex story. But while it provided useful background information, experienced Syria-watchers were likely to be exasperated by its simplistic analysis and reliance on Syrian government sympathisers. ‘
I’m certain Dan Snow is just exercising some ‘real politik’ and doing what he has to do to make the film rather than deliberately siding with any particular faction or dictator.
The same might not be said about Hughe Sykes who seems to say that perhaps we should have left Saddam Hussein in place in what is an entirely negative piece about the situation in Iraq and which employs highly selective quotes to paint a bleak scene of desolation.
He manufactures a conclusion from an American soldier’s comment that this is a ‘Christian Army’ that the US is on a ‘crusade’…..that of course would entail ‘recovering land from the Muslims’ and presumably converting the Heathens….none of which was intended or attempted. It is the sort of careless talk that drives or excuses the radicalisation of Muslims and incites terrorism and leaps all too readily to the lips of BBC journalists intent on undermining any success in the Iraq War.
Sykes suggests that no work has really been done to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq and his example is the electricity supply which is still unreliable.
The US spent something like $52 bn in Iraq…..the electricity supply was in ever more decrepit state before the war producing 5 gigawatts of power…it now produces over 10 gigawatts….so somehow they are producing double the electricity than pre-war…..Nothing to do with the Americans presumably.
The death rate in Iraq (4.7/1000) is less than the USA’s (8.9/1000)…and less than Mexico’s (4.9/1000).
Mexico drug war deaths over five years now total 47,515
In Iraq the death rate is around 4,500/year from terrorism….half the Mexican murder rate in the drugs war.
Corruption? Today we hear that council planning officers are selling their services to guide big business around the inconveniences of planning law…..that is just a very minor example of what goes on in this country.
Iraq is certainly not anywhere near perfect or close to a stable, democratic, progressive and economically successful state. It is riven by tensions produced by having three very powerful factions jostling for power…the Sunnis, the Shia and the Kurds…plus jihadists stirring the pot. It has external parties with vested interests such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, amongst others..and of course America, all interfering and giving support to their ‘side’. It has massive infrastructure problems from the power supply, water and schooling…and jobs…and a fast growing population.
‘Although all combat brigades have been withdrawn, Iraq still remains embroiled in ethno-sectarian violence, an internal and foreign refugee crisis, generally weak infrastructure, and recurrent corruption within the public sector.‘
Read that though and you could just as easily apply it to the UK….not to such a large degree but only dissimilar because of the different scale….and no one can say we aren’t just as corrupt as any of these countries.
The Americans certainly made big mistakes but what if they hadn’t taken Saddam out?
Yes it’s OK for Sykes to run around pointing out ‘failure’ but the BBC always fails to consider what the alternative was…that of leaving Saddam in place.
Iraq has had two successful elections and has just passed its latest budget…though with great disagreements. It is ramping up oil production and investing in infrastructure and the economy…but all this takes time. Our own economy has been in the doldrums for nearly 5 years and we have one of the biggest economies in the world with comparatively great education and infrastructure….and yet we are struggling…and we were still rationing food and petrol after the end of WWII…petrol rationed until 1950 and food till 1954…..so how does the BBC expect a war zone like Iraq which suffered a decade of sanctions before the war to suddenly turn into a thriving fully functioning economy and politically stable state in a matter of a few years?
Yes Iraq is struggling…but is it possible to say the ending of the Saddam regime wasn’t worthwhile and has failed as a great humanitarian scheme?
And remember this…the US pulled its troops out of Iraq prematurely, as they will from Afghanistan, because of intense pressure generated by the Media….the Media which published stories exactly like Sykes who is paintng a relentlessly bleak picture of Iraq and portraying the war as a failure.
Killings went up as the troops withdrew and the Jihadist moved in.
As fighting increases and it looks like a nation is falling apart the Media will start asking why the troops were withdrawn and Iraq or Afghanistan were ‘abandoned’.
Panorama has already done one ‘investigation’ into the readiness of Afghan forces to combat the Taliban without Coalition backup…and pronounced them unfit for task. You can write the scripts for years to come as journalists dole out the blame without ever once looking at their own responsibility.
Of course what really messed up Afghanistan was socialism….come to think of it the Baath Party was a sociailist enterprise too….but that might be a step too far for the BBC to admit and pass on the blame to.
Dan Snow? Disregard anything that ignoramus-with-family-in-the-trade says about history. The clot is so vague on his subject that he thinks that St. Paul’s Cathedral had a dome in 1588. (Empire of the Seas, ep1: Hearts of Oak)
As ever with our diverse state broadcaster, I do hope that Mr Snow’s position was properly advertised and subject to a robust selection process before his appointment.
‘History of Syria’?
INBBC’s and Snow’s ‘History of Syria’ is pro-Islam and anti-West.
The programme relegates the long, violent and repressive conquest of the area and its people by:-
1.) Islamic invading imperialist forces from Arabia in 634, which ruled till 1516.
2.) Islamic Ottoman Empire, 1516-1920.
Instead, INBBC emphasises only the following in its pro-Islam, anti-West selective ‘history’ of Syria.
This is from INBBC’s blurb on the programme:-
“Those conflicts – from the Roman conquests to the crusades, from the French colonial invasion to the military coups of the 1960s – loom large in today’s conflict. ”
(video available foe viewing for a few days in UK.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rb2st
French colonial rule was from 1920-46. It began as joint effort with British, and with Muslim Arabs, against the Turks in World War One. (Lawrence of Arabia and all that.)
So much for INBBC ‘history’.
Mr Snow could check out references to the following sections in ‘Wikipedia’ on History of Syria:-
1.) ISLAMIC ERA. 2.) OTTOMAN ERA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria
The simple truth – that a Sunni ascendency in Iraq and Alawite one in Syria, was probably the optimum situation for these countries, is lost on our rulers and he Beeb because of their perverse and deliberate failure to understand Islam (the British deliberately set up the Sunni as rulers of Iraq because their adviser, Gertrude Bell, a least knew the score).
As religious minorities they were willing to treat other religious minorities (including Christians) well because they could trust them and would place relatively less political emphasis on religion as this would highlight the difference between them and the majority: this would mean a more secular state – something professional soldiers preferred as religious fanatics tend to obey god rather than their officers (more often than not of the ascendancy religious persuasion), among other things. To side with the majority, as Hague is doing in Syria and as the west did in Iraq is naive: Islam doesn’t do liberal democracy: it is god not the people who is sovereign. As it is the current situation should best be compared to the Iran – Iraq war of the ’80s. It is in the best interest of the west to keep it going as long as possible as a mincing machine into which every young jihadi who thinks he’s hard enough can be fed, never to be seen again – with the proviso that we safeguard the chemical and bacteriological stuff from the rebels, get the Christians somewhere safe and make sure the refugees don’t pour into Europe. With a current situation in which Al Qaeda dominate an arc of territory from north of Baghdad to the Israeli frontier, it is probably Assad we should be helping at this particular moment. None of these ideas would get put forward by the Beeb in a thousand years but they are a damned sight closer to reality than anything they put out.
I think it used to be called a “Snow job” ?