When thinking about global politics, those of us who live in the West must understand the factors that bias our perception of events worldwide. In the US, the perspectives of foreign peoples, parties, and governments which ultimately advance Western geopolitical agendas are amplified, validated, and served to Western audiences as those with whom they should sympathize. The perspectives of those that stand in the way of Western objectives, on the other hand, are ridiculed and given improper context. In 2003, for example, the Iraqi government desperately insisted that Bush’s accusations that it owned Weapons of Mass Destruction were outright lies. Nonetheless, polls showed that up to 90% of Americans believed it. The US invasion, which resulted in up to 1 million deaths, enjoyed massive popular support at the time it began and was built on this false pretense.
In Syria, the narrative that has been spoonfed to Western audiences is that an archetypal madman dictator is fighting his downtrodden and freedom-aspiring people. This simplified good versus evil dichotomy ignores complicating information: 1) that the current rebels are hardly intent on establishing a pluralistic democracy, 2) that extremist groups dominate rebel leadership, and 3) that there is no indication that most Syrians support the rebels. Naturally, Western governments present themselves as supportive of the rebels out of humanitarian concern for an oppressed population, rather than because they represent a collective expansionist empire seeking to eliminate a state which is an obstacle to their monopoly on global power. Continue reading
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