
Why Some Wars Get More Attention Than Others - laksjd
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/world/why-some-wars-like-syrias-get-more-attention-than-others-like-yemens.html
======
TeMPOraL
Because of you, NY Times, because of you and your friends. You're literally
the creators of attention to stuff, so please explain to us, why you chose to
cover one war, and ignore another?

~~~
grkvlt
Isn't this pretty much _exactly_ what the author is trying to talk about and
explain? Note this quote:

> Conflicts gain sustained American attention only when they provide a
> compelling story line that appeals to both the public and political actors,
> and for reasons beyond the human toll

------
taneq
> You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to
> plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that,
> like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown
> up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that
> one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

\- The Joker, _The Dark Knight_

Wars in some backwater country we've never heard of, or in somewhere that
we've always thought of as 'one of those bad places that have wars'? That's
not news, that's all in the script. Wars in somewhere we care about? Wars in
our own back yard? They get attention because they're _not in the script_.

------
sremani
Saudi Arabia, Qatar et al. are able to hire high roller lobbyists and spread
"wealth" to power brokers in DC. That much attention is given Syria with lot
of propaganda on Twitter by PR agencies hired by Saudi et al. These same
groups are also spreading "wealth" to suppress news about Yemen.

------
acqq
Wikipedia on Yemeni war:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_(2015%E2%80%9...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_\(2015%E2%80%93present\))

There are three major sides in the war:

\- Houthi, basically Shia Muslims

\- Hadi, supported by Saudi Arabia (Sunnis) and the US

\- al-Qaeda, ISIS etc.

"The Houthis have long been accused of being proxies for Iran, since they both
follow Shia Islam. (Although the Iranians are Twelve-Imam Shias and the
Houthis are Five-Imam Shias.) The United States and Saudi Arabia have alleged
that the Houthis receive weapons and training from Iran.[87] The Houthis and
Iranian government have denied any affiliation.[88]"

Detailed map:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Yemeni_Civil_War_deta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Yemeni_Civil_War_detailed_map)

"A coalition led by Saudi Arabia[6] launched military operations by using
airstrikes to restore the former Yemeni government and the United States
provided intelligence and logistical support for the campaign.[4] According to
the UN, from March 2015 to August 2016, over 10,000 people have been killed in
Yemen, _including 3,799 civilians._ [58]"

~~~
ilaksh
So its like Syria. Its not a civil war at all. Its part of the larger regional
conflict between the US and its allies and its enemies such as Iran and
Russia.

~~~
nabla9
It's a civil war just like Syria is civil war.

The larger regional conflict is attached to the regional conflict. The issues
Houthis or Syrian Sunni majority had before the war did not come from outside.

~~~
acqq
"a civil war just like Syria is civil war"

Because, as you say, "the issues" "did not come from outside?"

Syria, CNN Dec. 2006:

[http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1571751,00...](http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1571751,00.html)

"The Bush Administration has been quietly nurturing individuals and parties
opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of
President Bashar Assad."

The cable of the US ambassador in Syria, December 2006 via Wikileaks:

[https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html)

cryoshon quoted CIA director William Casey recently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12597168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12597168)

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the
American public believes is false."

"said by CIA Director William Casey at an early February 1981 meeting of the
newly elected President Reagan with his new cabinet secretaries"

~~~
nabla9
Outside forces have been messing with them, but the issues that created the
civil war were not created by outside forces.

Assad's family and Alawite minority were ruling Syria and Sunni majority was
oppressed. It was just question of time when something happens.

~~~
acqq
Without the weapons and the logistic support provided from the outside, it
wouldn't even be a war at all.

It is a proxy war

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars)

with at least 7 million refugees now.

------
NumberCruncher
No wars "get attention". The media, who makes money by manipulating the
masses, puts them on screen and on paper. So the people talk about them. So
they get attention. NYTimes should ask himself and its competitors, how they
pick the wars they report about.

------
kimshibal
I think it's because American's media. They like viewership. Some stupid war
gets coverage than other.

------
whack
_" Search SUBSCRIBELOG INWorld

Why Some Wars (Like Syria’s) Get More Attention Than Others (Like Yemen’s)

Damage in a house after a Saudi-led airstrike last month in Yemen, whose war
has not gotten much attention. MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI / REUTERS OCTOBER 1, 2016
The Interpreter By AMANDA TAUB It is a truth universally acknowledged by every
war correspondent, humanitarian aid worker and Western diplomat: Some wars,
like Syria’s, receive tremendous public attention, which can translate into
pressure for resolution. But many others, like Yemen’s still raging but much
ignored conflict, do not.

Some of the reasons are obvious; the scale of Syria’s war is catastrophic and
much worse than Yemen’s. But attention is about more than numbers. The
conflict in eastern Congo, for instance, killed millions of people and
displaced millions more, but received little global attention.

Every country in the world has its own version of that dynamic, but it is
uniquely significant in the United States.

The United States is the world’s sole remaining superpower, but Americans
often seem so inward-looking as to be almost provincial. Foreigners often
express wonder that American television news, for instance, spends fewer
minutes covering the rest of the world than the rest of the world’s news shows
spend covering America.

A result is that American attention seems both vitally important and
frustratingly elusive.

But when the world asks why America has forgotten Yemen and other conflicts
like it, that has the situation backward. The truth is that inattention is the
default, not the exception.

Conflicts gain sustained American attention only when they provide a
compelling story line that appeals to both the public and political actors,
and for reasons beyond the human toll. That often requires some combination of
immediate relevance to American interests, resonance with American political
debates or cultural issues, and, perhaps most of all, an emotionally engaging
frame of clearly identifiable good guys and bad guys.

Most wars — including those in South Sudan, Sri Lanka and, yes, Yemen — do
not, and so go ignored. Syria is a rare exception, and for reasons beyond its
severity.

The war is now putting United States’ interests at risk, including the lives
of its citizens, giving Americans a direct stake in it. The Islamic State has
murdered American hostages and committed terrorist attacks in the West.

And the war offers a compelling tale of innocent victims and dastardly
villains. The Islamic State is a terrorist organization with a penchant for
crucifixions and beheadings. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his
patrons in Iran are hostile to the United States and responsible for terrible
atrocities. And now Russia, which is at best America’s frenemy, is fighting on
their side as well.

The Obama administration’s refusal to bomb Syria in 2013, and subsequently to
intervene more fully, has also made this a domestic political dispute, giving
politicians on both sides an incentive to dig in. This provided an appealing
focal point for election-year political debates over Mr. Obama’s foreign
policy and for how to assign blame for the Middle East’s collapse. Those
debates have sharpened and sustained domestic attention on Syria, giving both
the public and politicians reason to emphasize the war’s importance.

But it is rare for so many stars to align.

Yemen’s death toll is lower than Syria’s, and although Al Qaeda does operate
there, Yemen’s conflict has not had the kind of impact on American and
European interests that Syria’s has. There is no obvious good-versus-evil
story to tell there: The country is being torn apart by a variety of warring
factions on the ground and pummeled from the air by Saudi Arabia, an American
ally. There is no camera-ready villain for Americans to root against.

A woman and child after an airstrike in Syria on Friday. AMER ALMOHIBANY /
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES The war’s narrative is less appealing to
American political interests. Yemen’s Houthi rebels pose little direct threat
that American politicians might rally against. On the other side of the
conflict are Saudi airstrikes that are killing civilians and targeting
hospitals and aid workers, at times with United States support.

No American politician has much incentive to call attention to this war, which
would require either criticizing the United States and an American ally, or
else playing up the threat from an obscure Yemeni rebel group. It is little
wonder that, when several senators recently tried to push a bill to block arms
sales to Saudi Arabia over its conduct in Yemen, they found only a few
sponsors and the motion was tabled in a 71-to-27 vote."_

In a democracy, we're all morally culpable for what our government is doing.
In this case, the idea that our government is using our tax dollars to arm an
ally that is intentionally targeting hospitals and aid workers, is extremely
concerning. As the holocaust has shown, pleading ignorance is no defense
against such crimes against humanity. I can only wonder what future
generations will think about us when they look back on our apathy and implicit
acceptance of such abominable behavior.

~~~
jessaustin
_But when the world asks why America has forgotten Yemen and other conflicts
like it, that has the situation backward. The truth is that inattention is the
default, not the exception._

It's backward, but for a completely different reason. When has USA "attention"
ever helped a war situation? "The world" should be careful what they wish for.

~~~
Retric
\- When has USA "attention" ever helped a war situation?

Depends on what side you are on. Abstractly, I would say WWII was a fairly
widespread net benefit, though a strong case could be made for the Korean war
and several other more recent conflicts. Though, considering this stuff was
before I was born that's tricky.

~~~
jessaustin
You're right, various situations from the 1950s and before might well qualify.
The distance of decades makes it difficult to judge.

------
ilaksh
They are obviously not isolated wars, and the reasons they give are
transparently fake.

Look at a map.
[https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=RfCSdfNZ0LFPrHSm0ublXdzh...](https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=RfCSdfNZ0LFPrHSm0ublXdzhdrDFhtmHhN1u-gM,pL0mV_uZko0XFcCb-
ZKTC0GGq1s49s2Dg0jpXtX33gfxo1392UgbDiqDvjvkBECr3UUUfJLxgayP51JHoJwLJm5rbmHg818-iwduLHcCsZP7Bo20fZiWabGmkjGbXyH2vwSJLZCuLJCagSq5g57Cl48CokT1bou4CMPobmokWX7px0tJhFB3biDzNbg2piiChLlW4QO3g6YY5Q)

Yemen is a choke point.

Syria is in an extremely strategically important position both in terms of
territory and it is an ally to Iran.

Iraq and Afghanistan are on each side of Iran.

Egypt was blocking the Libya invasion. That was a cyber-intelligence coup, not
a 'democratic revolution'.

All of these are part of an extended military campaign that goes back decades.
Or centuries. Or thousands of years, depending on how you count it.

It is amazing that people don't see the connection between ISIS -- a
supposedly Muslim enemy that (currently) somehow all of our enemies
conveniently fall under the umbrella of, and the other ones that came before
it -- Al Qaeda.. all the way back to the Crusades.

Anyway, I am going to take an image of this comment. If it is deleted or
flagged or something, that is how you know that Hacker News is also part of
the propaganda party.

~~~
lisivka
ISIS is created by Russia to raise prices of oil and natural gas.

~~~
pabloski
Then why the US is helping them killing syrian soldiers and bombing bridges?

[http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/10/syria-bombing-us-backs-
isis...](http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/10/syria-bombing-us-backs-isis-
again.html)

~~~
lisivka
Why you think that stopping Russians will help ISIL?

My conversations with Russian agents in Ukraine shows that they are using ISIL
and anti-Christian propaganda to control Muslims. I cannot tell in details, of
course, because of war with Russia.

