How War Reporting in Syria Makes a Large Conflict Inevitable -- Russ Baker

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Clearly, proper media coverage would focus on the history of Syria, the proximal cause of the uprising, the legitimacy or lack thereof of the authorities, the agendas of the various rebel factions. We need to know why, if that country has long been ruled by a minority, only now are we seeing serious anti-government agitation. In short, we need geopolitical context. And we need to ask why some advocates of open revolution are characterized as victims, as in this case, while other rebels elsewhere—in, say, France or Saudi Arabia—are characterized as terrorists?

Besides, while aspirations to greater freedom are right and proper, not all the people trying to overthrow odious regimes are necessarily pure-minded freedom fighters. And the result after the fall is often not what was promised.

As important is that we look at our own system objectively. In the United States, for example, we pay homage to democracy every four years, but isn’t our political system, like that of these Middle Eastern countries, increasingly dominated by a fairly small number of very rich people? The average American  has very little understanding of what is really going on, or why—either in their own country or in their name in distant lands—and tends to respond to propaganda, much of it funded by this same small circle of interests.

But if enough Americans really got the picture, concluded the system was rigged, and began taking to the streets, we know that the authorities would, just like the Syrians, the Saudis, and so on, clamp down with force. Oh, wait: that’s already happened, all over the country, in myriad ways. We could start, for example, with the aggressive response to various Occupy encampments.

As for why the West is suddenly so passionate about human rights in this particular country, while almost totally ignoring the issue in other places, like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, some possible explanations immediately come to mind.  [CONTINUE READING AT ORIGINAL]