American Dream » Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:32 am wrote:Ad hominem will get you nowhere...
Apparently. Carry on.
Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Harvey » Mon Dec 19, 2016 8:36 pm
American Dream » Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:32 am wrote:Ad hominem will get you nowhere...
by MacCruiskeen » Mon Dec 19, 2016 8:39 pm
American Dream » Mon Dec 19, 2016 7:32 pm wrote:Ad hominem will get you nowhere...
by American Dream » Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:26 am
THE DISPOSSESSED
Leila Al Shami
UN envoy to Syria put the number of people remaining in eastern Aleppo at 50,000
Evacuation. It sounds like a humanitarian operation. The word conceals its brutality. Haunting drone footage shows a seemingly endless convoy of ambulances and green buses snaking their way through a destroyed and desolate wasteland. Those who leave their homes, the city of their childhoods, may never return. This is the Syrian Nakba. It’s a trauma both individual and collective. And its impact will be felt by generations to come.
Shocked and shaken, men, women and children emerge from green buses. The injured and the elderly. They tell stories of horror, of humans left behind, trapped under the rubble, with no one to help them. They are thin and gaunt, and reports emerge of rebel groups hoarding food, criminally withholding it from besieged and hungry residents. Yet still they chose to go to Idlib and the western Aleppo countryside, under rebel control and constantly targeted by airstrikes and barrel bombs, rather than return to Assad controlled territory to be silenced and humiliated once more.
Inside eastern Aleppo, on the bombed-out walls, Syrians graffitied their final messages to be read by a victorious incoming occupation army. ‘Our destroyed buildings are a witness to our perseverance and your criminality,’ said one. Another read, ‘Under every destroyed building are families buried with their dreams by Bashar and his allies.’ And simply, ‘We will return’.
The international community’s response to Assad’s crimes is forced population transfer. Again, it sounds very clinical, this word which was described at the Nuremberg Trails as being both a war crime and a crime against humanity. It doesn’t capture the horror and heartache, the dislocation as families are severed from their lives. In Aleppo people overthrew a tyrant for a dream. They struggled to build a society free from the grip of the state. Now all their gardens have turned into graveyards.
This is Assad, Russia and Iran’s ‘peace plan’ for Syria. The systematic cleansing of all communities that oppose the regime. In recent months there have been forced population transfers around the capital and in Homs; in Zabadani, Darayya, Al Tal, Moadamiya and Al Waer. Assad’s ‘surrender or starve’ policy placed these communities under siege, implemented by Russian airpower and Iranian-back militias. Under relentless bombardment, and in desperate need of food and medical supplies, they were forced to capitulate. In some cases, as they were ‘evacuated’, a new generation of settlers, foreign Assadist loyalists, were moved into their looted homes.
Six years ago Syrians rose up because they wanted democracy. They rose up because they wanted a say in their country which, for half a century, had been run by a family dictatorship and a mafia clique. It was a revolution which contained all the beauty and hope of the world in its dances, chants and songs. No one stood with them. They were abandoned. They were slandered, shot, tortured, bombed, gassed and starved. And now they are exiled from their homes, against their will.
Maybe some will wash up on the shores of your home town, and you will call them ‘refugees’. Meanwhile the tyrant still sits on his throne. This bearer of death and destruction.
by American Dream » Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:22 pm
You will never see this picture from West Aleppo today in US media. It undermines Western media propaganda
I am not saying this is the reality of Syria. But it is part of the reality of Syria. There are many realities of Syria and the reality that appears in Western media is purely propaganda driven.Syrian rebels versus insurgents
I was reading an article either in the Washington Post or the New York Times about the situation in Aleppo and Fu`a and Kafrayya. So the article mentioned something about the Syrian rebels in East Aleppo and when it came to the section about the burning of the busses and the murder of the bus driver, it referred to the culprits as "insurgents" (someone should look the article up for me, as I have to go now). So they create a fake distinction between Syrian rebels and Syrian insurgents just to not detract from the romanticized image that they have constructed about their moderate Jihadi Syrian rebels.Always remember that there are many sides among the Syrian people
These are Syrians in West Aleppo who have been subjected to indiscriminate bombardment by your romantic Syrian rebels in East Aleppo. They are celebrating today.
by Nordic » Tue Dec 20, 2016 4:09 pm
by American Dream » Tue Dec 20, 2016 8:08 pm
The amulet on David Icke’s sweater
Filed under: Fascism,immigration,Syria — louisproyect @ 6:39 pm
Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism. Such is the physiology of National Socialism.
Leon Trotsky, “What is National Socialism”, (June, 1933)
This month there were meetings in San Francisco and Oakland featuring “journalist” Eva Bartlett and Veterans for Peace leader Gerry Condon about their trip to government-controlled parts of Aleppo with a “brief intro” by Jeff Mackler of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). UNAC had joined ANSWER and the International Action Center (IAC) in co-sponsoring this Baathist love-fest.
Mackler is also the leader of Socialist Action, a tiny Trotskyist sect that aspires to reconstruct James P. Cannon’s Socialist Workers Party. He is also one of the people who convinced me to join the SWP’s youth group in 1967. Like Workers World Party (WWP) that runs the IAC and the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) that runs ANSWER, Mackler’s group operates on a Manichean understanding of world politics. Divided between the “evil” West and the “good” anti-imperialist realm, there is little room for contradiction. In 1938 Leon Trotsky wrote an article “Learn to Think” that addressed the Jeff Macklers of his day. This sums it up:In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases however they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign – this would make every sectarian a master strategist; no, the revolutionary party must each time orient itself independently in the internal as well as the external situation, arriving at those decisions which correspond best to the interests of the proletariat. This rule applies just as much to the war period as to the period of peace.
I wonder what Mackler would have said in his introductory remarks about Eva Bartlett, who along with Vanessa Beeley and Rick Sterling serve on the steering committee of the misnamed Syria Solidarity Movement and constitute the openly Assadist wing of the left. While most on the left view Assad as a lesser evil to the “jihadists”, Bartlett and her cohorts are a virtual fan club.
As should be obvious at this point in history, people like Bartlett—nominally on the left—share their pro-Assad agenda with open supporters of fascism such as David Duke and Aleksander Dugin, the Russian ideologist who has close ties to the Kremlin.
I have been aware of Bartlett’s rancid propagandizing for some time now but was curious to follow up on a lead that showed up on my FB timeline about Bartlett having the gall to make appearances on the David Icke show. Who and what was David Icke?
I suppose that he might be described as Britain’s Alex Jones but that would only be scratching the surface. He has a website titled “David Icke: exposing the Dreamworld” that would naturally pose the question about what exactly the “dreamworld” is. In 2010 Icke wrote a book titled “Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More” that according to Wikipedia advances the proposition that “the Earth and collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, a spacecraft and inter-dimensional portal controlled by the reptilians.”
These reptilians spawned something called the Babylonian Brotherhood, practically interchangeable with the Illuminati, that were a mixture of ET’s and humans, sort of like the creatures who used to bedevil Mulder and Scully on the X-Files except that Icke believed that they were real. In an interview with The Scotsman in January 30, 2006 titled “The Royal Family are bloodsucking alien lizards”, he made it clear that he wasn’t referring to Queen Elizabeth and company in metaphorical terms:
Mr Icke, 53, claims the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are shape-shifters who drink human blood to look like us.
And the father-of-three says a race of half-human, half-alien creatures has infiltrated all the world’s key power positions.
He claims the US president, George W Bush, and his father, the former president, George Bush, are both giant lizards who change into humans.
Mr Icke, a professional speaker who has published 16 books, believes that the alien hybrids were behind the “murders” of Princess Diana and John F Kennedy, as well as the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
He claims the only reason that the public cannot see this is because we are obsessed by popular culture, such as EastEnders and Coronation Street, and Page Three girls.
On his website, Icke has an interview with one William Mills Tompkins who is described as “one of the most important witnesses to come forward revealing details about the Secret Space Program and human interactions with ETs. He details the German alliances with Reptilians and Dracos, the infiltration of NASA by these beings as well as the positive contribution by the Nordics to our secret space program over decades since at least the 1920s and perhaps earlier.”
Around a decade ago I was contacted by someone from either RT.com or Iran’s Press TV (can’t remember which) about making an appearance. I said no thanks and left it at that. As shitty as my reputation was on the left, I still held myself above Russian and Iranian propaganda outlets. I can sort of understand why Bartlett would be making frequent appearances there but why David Icke?
If Icke was just some wacko writing books that sounded like the plot of a science fiction novel written under the combined influence of LSD and rheumatic fever, you might think that the connection with Bartlett did not have that much political significance. But as it turns out, Icke is as tuned in to the Baathist fascist death cult as he is in to Reptilians from outer space. His website is studded with crossposted articles from Assad’s propaganda machine, including the usual “false flag” material that pervades this netherworld like shit stains in the crotch of one’s underwear.
Bartlett’s appearances on Icke’s website originate on something called “The Richie Allen Show”, an Infowars-like radio streaming show that has featured David Duke in a debate with the host about racial identity. I am not sure how much of a debate that could have been given the nativist cesspool Icke has constructed.
In 1994, Icke came out with a book titled “The Robots’ Rebellion” that endorsed the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, an anti-Semitic book that inspired pogroms in Czarist Russia. More recently, he has joined with the European nativist movements such as UKIP and France’s National Front in viewing immigration as a threat to white European identity. He appeared on Infowars in 2014 to share his hostility toward refugees from war and poverty with Jones, who has provided a platform for Donald Trump on occasion.
In 1991, Icke was in the habit of wearing turquois clothing because it was the color of “purity”. At the time he saw himself as a latter-day Jesus Christ and was fond of making predictions about the end of the world that failed to materialize.
by American Dream » Thu Dec 22, 2016 1:08 pm
The Impossible Revolution: A Syrian Dissident on How a Fight Against a Dictator Became a Proxy War
We speak to Syrian dissident and former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh, who lives in exile in Turkey. His wife, Samira Khalil, disappeared three years ago along with the prominent human rights attorney Razan Zaitouneh. Yassin al-Haj Saleh’s forthcoming book is titled "The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy."
by Grizzly » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:19 pm
.How The Military Excluded The White House From International Syria Negotiations
by Grizzly » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:22 pm
Grizzly » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:19 pm wrote:From "fake news", website moonofalabama.org.How The Military Excluded The White House From International Syria Negotiations
Goddamnit, this is Treason. Blantant and out right Treason." Now watch this drive..."
by Searcher08 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 7:21 pm
American Dream » Wed Dec 21, 2016 12:08 am wrote:https://louisproyect.org/2016/12/20/the-amulet-on-david-ickes-sweater/The amulet on David Icke’s sweater
Filed under: Fascism,immigration,Syria — louisproyect @ 6:39 pm
Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism. Such is the physiology of National Socialism.
Leon Trotsky, “What is National Socialism”, (June, 1933)
This month there were meetings in San Francisco and Oakland featuring “journalist” Eva Bartlett and Veterans for Peace leader Gerry Condon about their trip to government-controlled parts of Aleppo with a “brief intro” by Jeff Mackler of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). UNAC had joined ANSWER and the International Action Center (IAC) in co-sponsoring this Baathist love-fest.
Mackler is also the leader of Socialist Action, a tiny Trotskyist sect that aspires to reconstruct James P. Cannon’s Socialist Workers Party. He is also one of the people who convinced me to join the SWP’s youth group in 1967. Like Workers World Party (WWP) that runs the IAC and the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) that runs ANSWER, Mackler’s group operates on a Manichean understanding of world politics. Divided between the “evil” West and the “good” anti-imperialist realm, there is little room for contradiction. In 1938 Leon Trotsky wrote an article “Learn to Think” that addressed the Jeff Macklers of his day. This sums it up:In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases however they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign – this would make every sectarian a master strategist; no, the revolutionary party must each time orient itself independently in the internal as well as the external situation, arriving at those decisions which correspond best to the interests of the proletariat. This rule applies just as much to the war period as to the period of peace.
I wonder what Mackler would have said in his introductory remarks about Eva Bartlett, who along with Vanessa Beeley and Rick Sterling serve on the steering committee of the misnamed Syria Solidarity Movement and constitute the openly Assadist wing of the left. While most on the left view Assad as a lesser evil to the “jihadists”, Bartlett and her cohorts are a virtual fan club.
As should be obvious at this point in history, people like Bartlett—nominally on the left—share their pro-Assad agenda with open supporters of fascism such as David Duke and Aleksander Dugin, the Russian ideologist who has close ties to the Kremlin.
I have been aware of Bartlett’s rancid propagandizing for some time now but was curious to follow up on a lead that showed up on my FB timeline about Bartlett having the gall to make appearances on the David Icke show. Who and what was David Icke?
I suppose that he might be described as Britain’s Alex Jones but that would only be scratching the surface. He has a website titled “David Icke: exposing the Dreamworld” that would naturally pose the question about what exactly the “dreamworld” is. In 2010 Icke wrote a book titled “Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More” that according to Wikipedia advances the proposition that “the Earth and collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, a spacecraft and inter-dimensional portal controlled by the reptilians.”
These reptilians spawned something called the Babylonian Brotherhood, practically interchangeable with the Illuminati, that were a mixture of ET’s and humans, sort of like the creatures who used to bedevil Mulder and Scully on the X-Files except that Icke believed that they were real. In an interview with The Scotsman in January 30, 2006 titled “The Royal Family are bloodsucking alien lizards”, he made it clear that he wasn’t referring to Queen Elizabeth and company in metaphorical terms:
Mr Icke, 53, claims the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are shape-shifters who drink human blood to look like us.
And the father-of-three says a race of half-human, half-alien creatures has infiltrated all the world’s key power positions.
He claims the US president, George W Bush, and his father, the former president, George Bush, are both giant lizards who change into humans.
Mr Icke, a professional speaker who has published 16 books, believes that the alien hybrids were behind the “murders” of Princess Diana and John F Kennedy, as well as the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
He claims the only reason that the public cannot see this is because we are obsessed by popular culture, such as EastEnders and Coronation Street, and Page Three girls.
On his website, Icke has an interview with one William Mills Tompkins who is described as “one of the most important witnesses to come forward revealing details about the Secret Space Program and human interactions with ETs. He details the German alliances with Reptilians and Dracos, the infiltration of NASA by these beings as well as the positive contribution by the Nordics to our secret space program over decades since at least the 1920s and perhaps earlier.”
Around a decade ago I was contacted by someone from either RT.com or Iran’s Press TV (can’t remember which) about making an appearance. I said no thanks and left it at that. As shitty as my reputation was on the left, I still held myself above Russian and Iranian propaganda outlets. I can sort of understand why Bartlett would be making frequent appearances there but why David Icke?
If Icke was just some wacko writing books that sounded like the plot of a science fiction novel written under the combined influence of LSD and rheumatic fever, you might think that the connection with Bartlett did not have that much political significance. But as it turns out, Icke is as tuned in to the Baathist fascist death cult as he is in to Reptilians from outer space. His website is studded with crossposted articles from Assad’s propaganda machine, including the usual “false flag” material that pervades this netherworld like shit stains in the crotch of one’s underwear.
Bartlett’s appearances on Icke’s website originate on something called “The Richie Allen Show”, an Infowars-like radio streaming show that has featured David Duke in a debate with the host about racial identity. I am not sure how much of a debate that could have been given the nativist cesspool Icke has constructed.
In 1994, Icke came out with a book titled “The Robots’ Rebellion” that endorsed the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, an anti-Semitic book that inspired pogroms in Czarist Russia. More recently, he has joined with the European nativist movements such as UKIP and France’s National Front in viewing immigration as a threat to white European identity. He appeared on Infowars in 2014 to share his hostility toward refugees from war and poverty with Jones, who has provided a platform for Donald Trump on occasion.
In 1991, Icke was in the habit of wearing turquois clothing because it was the color of “purity”. At the time he saw himself as a latter-day Jesus Christ and was fond of making predictions about the end of the world that failed to materialize.
Continues at: https://louisproyect.org/2016/12/20/the ... s-sweater/
by American Dream » Thu Dec 22, 2016 7:46 pm
Both Russia and US are lying and both don't count the civilians that they kill
"Russian military: 71,000 strikes in 1 year, 35,000 terrorists killed.
US military: 16,806 strikes in 2 years, 50,000 terrorists killed".
Posted by As'ad AbuKhalil
by American Dream » Thu Dec 22, 2016 8:45 pm
AMY GOODMAN: Yassin, I wanted to ask you about your own history. You mentioned being a dissident in Syria. You were arrested and imprisoned under Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad. Can you talk about where you fit into the resistance today? And also talk about the terrible loss of your wife, who was kidnapped several years ago along with the prominent Syrian lawyer and human rights activist Razan Zaitouneh.
YASSIN AL-HAJ SALEH: What I want to say is that our struggle hasn’t begun five or six years ago. It is going for two generations now. We were young—I was less than 20 when I was arrested, and stayed in prison for 16 years. And my colleagues were in hundreds and in thousands. And as I have just said, 16—I’m sorry—tens of thousands were killed and tortured and humiliated.
So, it was—I found myself naturally part of this second wave of struggle for democracy, for freedom and for justice in my country. And I lived in hiding in Damascus for two years, from the beginning of the revolution, and I participated in many activities and tried to be part of this unique and great uprising of—great struggle of Syrians for change, for real change.
Samira, my wife, herself was a former political prisoner. She stayed in—she was arrested for four years and tortured. And we worked together, Samira, Razan and I, in Douma in 2013. I left them to Raqqa. I’m a native of the city of Raqqa, which is controlled now by Daesh, and lived there, again in hiding, for a while. It was impossible that Samira accompany me in my hard and dangerous trip.
And she stayed, and then Samira and Razan were joined by Wael, who is Razan’s husband, and Nazem Hamadi, who’s a poet and human rights activist. And they were abducted by Jaysh al-Islam, a Salafi military formation, in Douma in December 2013. We have some concrete information about the culprits, but we don’t have, I’m sorry to say, any trustworthy information about the fate of the four for the last three years and 13 days.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And before we conclude, Yassin, could you say something about what you think the U.S. should be doing now, as far as what’s going on in Syria?
YASSIN AL-HAJ SALEH: First of all, maybe they should stop giving priority to the war on terror, on our struggle for justice and for freedom. This big narrative now in the world, that of the war of terror, is good for elites. It is good for people like Bashar al-Assad, like Putin, like Netanyahu, like Khamenei. It is very bad for people, not only in our country, even in the West. War on terror is, in that way, war on democracy. And it cannot be a real basis for struggle, for freedom and for justice. So this is the first thing.
Second thing may be—actually, my hopes are very limited when it comes to the U.S. role in Syria or in the Middle East. But I hope they realize at last that there should be another method apart from crisis management: real negotiations and politics that—a policy that is not isolated from issues of justice and freedom and democracy, because the longer we adopt this method in Syria, in Palestine, in the Middle East, things will go far worse. And I don’t know any example of success of the war on terror. It only breeds more terror and more—more blood, more violence and more dictatorships, like the Assad regimes and the likes, in our region.
AMY GOODMAN: And as we wrap up, in 30 seconds, you’ve said you’ve been shocked by the left’s response to Syria. Can you explain?
YASSIN AL-HAJ SALEH: Sorry? I’m sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, you’ve said you’ve been shocked by the left’s response to Syria. Can you explain?
YASSIN AL-HAJ SALEH: I always thought that our cause is clear: We’ve been struggling for democracy for two generations. We paid heavy price for it. And I thought people will—they’ll side with our struggle, they’ll understand us, and they will never find excuses for a very brutal regime like Bashar al-Assad.
by American Dream » Thu Dec 22, 2016 8:58 pm
Jadaliyya Co-Editor Bassam Haddad on the Left, Imperialism, and Syria at KPFA
BH: I mean, there is no question that the United States' intervention in the region has been disastrous for the past sixty years at various levels. Not just politically in terms of supporting authoritarian regimes and apartheid in Israel. But also in terms of economically swaying development in a direction that actually has been a complete disservice and a complete failure, and brought destitution for the majority of people in the region. Of course with the complicity of the local business elite and the local dictators—especially in the Arab world. However, what we are witnessing today in Syria is not necessarily something that we could just dump on the United States. It is very important for people on the left, in my view, to strike a balance in terms of responsibility so as not to assume that we have no agency in the region: that leaders do not have agency; that people do not have agency; that most of the things that are happening are simply a function of external meddling. If we do not assume responsibility, specifically in this case of the dictatorship in Syria from 1963 or 1970, however you want to calculate it, to 2010 or 2011, we will not be able to recognize why is it that so many people in Syria were so desperate to reach out and get help, even from the most horrendous actors, which admittedly they were, who helped the rebels or helped the opposition for their own reasons, not for the sake of Syrians. We will not be able to understand that dynamic which ended up producing an uprising that was dependent, that was not democratic, and that was not inclusive, and that ended up becoming more sectarian, ended up becoming more radicalized, weaponized and, in many people’s view, went in the wrong direction which led to these kind of failures we are witnessing.
This outcome has been brought about by both the brutality of the regime in suppressing the uprising early on, very early on, before al-Nusra was created and before many of the things we are seeing today took place; and also as a result of external meddling by those Arab regimes, specifically in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Turkey. And, of course, the United States is always playing a role despite everyone talking about Obama and the administration not doing very much in Syria and so on. It is true they have not gone head to head with Russia, they have not gone head to head after the chemical attack in 2013. But the United States is in many ways indirectly or directly, underwriting almost everything we have been witnessing, perhaps until recently when it appeared that the battle on the ground is a losing battle on the side of the rebels, many of whom actually are not popular at all according to most Syrian people because of their exclusivity or exclusionary ideology.
…
RB: [Audio on link above]
MJ: Bassam Haddad we want to allow you to get in on that, and of course I guess part of it, couple things there to address but I think one of them is the complexities of this, of who the rebels actually are.
[STARTS AT 24:20 -- ON TRUMP AND SYRIA]
BH: Yes. Well, first, let me just say that there is a bit of obfuscation in using the word imperialism, you know, lightly, and throwing it around and then accusing Russia of imperialism. It is not that Russia is imperial or not imperial. We can analytically address these issues as my colleague here did. But it does not really matter. It is true that the US is a certain sort of an imperial power that is unparalleled in human history. But the issue today, especially when you look at the actual practice, whatever the nomenclature, the Russian military in Syria is basically bombing cities and killing of civilians in the name of fighting terrorists. It sounds very much like what the United States is doing. Now the fact that the other side, or the rebels, include reprehensible actors like Jabhat al-Nusra--actors that are not necessarily on good terms with the sentiments of the uprising, the Syrian uprising, or the sentiments of many within the Syrian uprising--is a different issue. Because, ultimately, what is being considered here, the fight, is producing so much "collateral damage"--the favorite word of the neocons is now being used by those who oppose US imperialism--that is very tragically problematic.
So while acknowledging that in the larger picture there are foes or enemies of the left, or enemies of the people, not just people in the region but enemies of the people in their own countries like here in the United States, it does not absolve us or absolve any of the people or dictators or institutions or the regime, or friends of the regime, the allies of the regime, of the horrendous wrongdoing: the killing, the persecution, that has been, you know, on display. Not just now, but also in the past forty years, which brought Syrians to this stage.
People forget that there is a history in Syria before 2011, which brought us here. The fact that things got muddled, and the uprising got entangled with problematic actors, to say the least, and then with actors who do not differ in many ways from the regime’s politics, is a development that we can also critique.
But we cannot just muddle everything and assume that these two sides have a certain equivalency that we refuse in other cases where the matter is about power asymmetry. The powerful parties in the Syrian conflict are the regime, its allies, and the Russians at this point, and they have been wreaking havoc. The responses are also reprehensible in many cases, and that is something to condemn without any excuses. The "pro-revolution" people are not happy when we condemn these kinds of responses. But that is their problem. They have to deal with it. So long as we understand that in the big picture we are not talking about any kind of equivalency that A is bad and B is bad and therefore it is complex. No it is not that complex, it is not that simple. This is CNN talk; we have to be serious. In the future when the US commits these atrocities or when Israel continues to commit atrocities in the Palestinian territories, with Palestinians especially in Gaza, we cannot go back to this pre-Syria mode, and talk about lack of equivalency, and talk about the viciousness of the powerful party in destroying life. Because we won’t be able to do this on principle given what so many of us on the left have actually problematically described within the Syrian situation. We have to stick to principle. Otherwise, why do we call ourselves leftists?
CB: We have a few minutes left, and I feel like since November eighth we have been asking people to look into a crystal ball, but I think it is really relevant here. Given Trump’s coziness with Russia, how in the new administration, how do you think Bassam, that that is going to impact U.S. intervention in Syria?
[STARTS AT 28:35 -- ON THE INCOMING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION]
BH: As far as the new administration, I mean, there has been, you know, an article every three seconds written about Trump. And most of these articles are internally consistent with themselves. But they are not necessarily consistent with what might be taking place. Because of two things. First of all, we do not know exactly how the new administration will be moving starting on January 20th. Not that we have no idea, but we really do not know exactly what the balance of power or the groups within that administration, all problematic to be sure. But we do not know in what problematic direction they are going to proceed. So that's number one. But more importantly, news, or not news but developments, on the ground in Syria and elsewhere will also trump, to use a bad word right now. They will trump even the plans of these new interlocutors and decision makers in a manner that is also unpredictable. For instance, this idea of not wanting to engage in regime change, wanting to return to some sort of isolationism, with the exception of fighting terrorism, in quotation marks. You know, it is something that we kind of figured out, we can glean. But if a development takes place that those kinds of policies will have to be expanded, that is not something we can figure out right now. What we can figure out is, yes, there is a sort of inclination not to support the Syrians per se in the manner that this was done before. However there's also obfuscation here. It is not that the Americans really cared about Syrians to begin with. Support, actually, of the Syrian regime throughout the "war on terror" has been what Syrians know. The United States was very grateful that the Asad regime participated in "the war on terror" under the rubric of fighting terrorism when in reality, just like in Egypt, it was a cover to fight their opposition.
by American Dream » Wed Dec 28, 2016 9:24 am
Syria and the Left: A Call to Arms
By CHARLES DAVIS, KAREEM CHEHAYEB AND LOUBNA MRIE
As the world’s imperial powers unify against Syrians, we offer suggestions for how those in the West can demonstrate solidarity with the besieged
THE last year has been one of the worst in history for Syrians, whose country continues to be torn apart by dictatorship, the Islamic State, various rebel groups, and both U.S. and Russian imperialism. As the regime has solidified its grip on Aleppo–one of the last urban strongholds of opposition forces–the Islamic State continues to be a significant force in the country, as shown by its recapture of the ancient town of Palmyra.
The rise of Donald Trump and his desire to openly work alongside Russia and the Syrian regime as part of an escalated war on terror demands change with respect to how the Western left engages the issue of Syria. Some have spent years downplaying or even openly denying the well-documented suffering of Syrians, dismissing such reports as part of a ploy by Clintonites and liberal interventionists seeking to sell the world a no-fly zone that hasn’t come. The presidential election has all but settled this policy debate; moving forward, the left now needs to figure out how it can organize on behalf of those whom the world has united against. Rehashing the past while displaced Syrians are bombed and deported would be a historical dereliction.
Refugees need to be supported wherever they are, and imperial designs for the partition of their homeland–as well as the normalization of a hereditary regime that has killed hundreds of thousands–must be opposed. Meaningful solidarity could take a number of forms that the global left should pursue immediately, lest it continues to fail Syrians as it has for the last half decade.
Let 2017 mark the transition toward solidarity with oppressed peoples, not oppressive states, and opposition to depravity without regard for the identity of the wicked. It should be clear by now that we can’t trust anyone–whether they be on the nominal left or hard right, in Washington or in Moscow–to reject oppression, mass murder, and collective punishment on principle. Instead of looking to centers of power for cues, we need to concern ourselves with people across national boundaries, impoverished and brutalized by the powers that be and which we must pledge to oppose.
Here is how.
Oppose All Imperialisms
President Barack Obama spent months devising a plan to bomb Syria alongside his Russian counterparts, up until the scheme was made politically unpalatable by the bombing of a United Nations aid convoy by pro-regime forces. But President-elect Donald Trump is far less concerned with public relations, and has indicated his intention to join up with Vladimir Putin to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” and formally position the U.S. on the side of the Syrian regime in the name of fighting terror.
This is a ghastly development for the people of Syria, but it does sharpen the dividing lines. All states that rain death on Syrians must be opposed proactively. Such resistance can include protests outside symbols of U.S. and Russian power, like embassies and consulates; campaigns to boycott U.S. and Russian war profiteers; and radical antiwar actions at ports and train depots, blocking the tools of mass murder set to be deployed against Syrians. Anti-imperialists in the U.S. have done this to protest Israel’s U.S.-backed killing of Palestinians and colonization of Palestine; consistency and humanity demand we recognize shifting allegiances, discard antiquated dogmas, and condemn–in word and action–the new reality of a U.S.-Russia consensus to kill Syrians.
The alliance of the world’s leading imperialist powers calls for a unified opposition. Those who continue to apologize for members of this united imperial front are not the allies of those struggling for liberation, and will instead be remembered as enemies.
Demand More Refugees
Top Trump adviser Kris Kobach was recently photographed holding a secret document that appeared to outline Trump’s first year homeland security plan, including a pledge to reduce America’s refugee intake to zero. With a growing far-right threat in Europe, we could now see a push, in concert with the Syrian regime and neighboring states, to not only block refugees but also force them back into Syria.
Syria is the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century: Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, millions have been forced from their homes, and the war’s end does not guarantee peace. With the 45th President of the U.S. promising to block refugees’ resettlement in the states, organizing on behalf of Syrians everywhere, at home and abroad, is a necessity.
We can demand that those who have already gone through 24 months of vetting, expending precious hours and dollars trying to get to the U.S., be allowed to resettle. Thousands of Syrians are in the country today and feel worried after having spent those months navigating the labyrinthine asylum process and listening to the next head of state compare them to snakes. If Trump keeps his pledge, they will again lose their homes.
We can organize to comfort and protect this vulnerable population by standing between them and the agents of a state that will be led by a racist demagogue who consolidates his power at their expense. We must shelter them by any means necessary.
Help Those Who Are Already Here
Many barely escaped with their lives, their home and businesses destroyed by the regime’s barrel bombs and Russia’s cruise missiles. Now “M,” a man in his twenties from Homs and currently living in California, is struggling to survive with his wife and eight-month-old daughter in the United States.
“I’m a professional baker. I’m young. I want to work and support my family,” he told Lama Alzuabi, a math teacher trying to help refugees that have resettled in Southern California, “but no one is helping us. I don’t know where to go and look for a job. I want to learn English and get a driver’s license. I don’t want to live on welfare.” With no one to guide him and his family through an alien bureaucracy, he doesn’t know what to do.
“We have no furniture. No clothing. No kitchen supplies,” he said. “We are all alone. Why did they bring us here to the U.S. if they don’t care about us?”
The left has a lot of things to care about, and caring about the most vulnerable among us–those a liberal government has abandoned, and which a far-right government wants to remove–should be at the forefront. It is a duty, not charity.
“Our refugee work is not strictly humanitarian,” said Terry Burke, an activist with the Committee in Solidarity with the People of Syria. Humanitarianism is crucial, of course, but it is best complemented by political shows of force. This could consist of organizing rallies to welcome refugees, building local support for welcoming them into our communities, and lobbying state and local politicians to reject the xenophobia in Washington, D.C.
“Our work on refugee issues is a way to connect with a broader audience in the community,” Burke explained. “We’ve found that many people will come to refugee events, learn more about the Syrian conflict, and some have become activists.” A few have even gone on to provide medical aid in Syria: one nurse practitioner who started working with refugees has since gone on two trips to Syria sponsored by the Syrian American Medical Society.
Internationalism, one might argue, begins at home.
by American Dream » Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:31 pm
The Cassiopaea Experiment: the grotesque cult in Assad’s corner
Filed under: cults,Syria — louisproyect @ 6:33 pm
Cult figure Laura Knight-Jadczyk,
co-editor of Signs of the Time with Eva Bartlett
When I discovered last week that David Icke was simultaneously a high-profile propagandist for Bashar al-Assad’s genocidal-like war on his own countrymen and an author who writes that a group of shapeshifting reptilian humanoids are conspiring to destroy the planet Earth, my first reaction was stunned disbelief. When I discovered a couple of days ago that a cult with notions just as bizarre as Icke’s was also carrying Assad’s water, it dawned on me that there was a pattern. If you understand the war in Syria as a conspiracy by the West to remove a popular and progressive leader, you would be inclined to see the world in conspiratorial terms generally and be capable of asserting that alien abductions are real.
As I have pointed out in the past, some of the key Assadist outlets such as Global Research are also committed to 9/11 Truthism. But when I ran into the people behind the Sign of the Times website that like David Icke was all too happy to give Eva Bartlett a platform, it finally became clear to me that the Assadist subculture had bred some truly grotesque creatures out of the conspiracist underground that would repel any sensible person on the left. Not only have dozens of her articles appeared on Signs of the Time; she is also listed as an editor.
I was vaguely aware of sott.net since any number of the imbeciles I have debated over the past 5 years have referred to it as a reliable source of information on the war in Syria. Like Global Research, 21st Century Wire, Canary and Mint News, it is primarily an aggregator of news articles sympathetic to Assad, Iran and the Kremlin.
When I noticed a link to it earlier in the week, I decided to check out its provenance—wondering if it was based in Russia like many of these outlets. In small print at the bottom of the home page you find this: “E-mails sent to Sott.net become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc (QFG) and may be published without notice.”
Okay, putting on my tinfoil investigative reporting cap, I decided to check out the QFG. They describe themselves innocently enough:During the the [sic] past hundred years or so, every important idea for social change has been incubated in the nonprofit sector. The struggles for civil rights, for women’s rights, for environmental health, for AIDS treatment, for disabled access, for sustainability, for peace, for family support, for jobs and economic development — these are all ideas that were nurtured and launched through nonprofit organizations that have changed the world. The ideas of the founders and members of Quantum Future Group go to the core of these issues, seeking scientific socio-cultural solutions to the most fundamental problems of humanity.
Nothing wrong with that, I guess.
Looking further as I always do in these instances, I checked out the board of directors. These were the three primary players: Arkadiusz Jadczyk, a physicist with a PhD from a Polish university, his wife Laura Knight-Jadczyk, who attended a community college but lacked a degree, and Joe Quinn, who had an MBA and worked in management before becoming a full-time volunteer for the Quantum Future Group.
Again, no warning signs.
It was only when I went to their Reports page that the plot began to thicken. Ms. Knight-Jadczyk was the author of a forthcoming book titled “Josephus, Pilate and Paul: It’s Just a Matter of Time” that struck me as a bit odd. Meanwhile, her husband had a book titled “Political Ponerology” that struck me as even odder since ponerology is a rather obscure term meaning the study of evil. A quick search on Google revealed that the book had been published by Red Pill Press, which is as you might expect a subsidiary of QFG.
When I went to the Red Pill Press website, that’s when the shit began to hit the fan. Among the books on sale there besides “Political Ponerology” was one called “Manufactured Terror” that was co-authored by the aforementioned Joe Quinn and someone named Niall Bradley and that was described as “banned from Amazon.com”. The book purports to be an investigation of “false flag” incidents, including Sandy Hook where a crazed 20-year old gunman named Adam Lanza killed 20 grade school students and 6 adults working at the school. On Joe Quinn’s blog, he argues that “an elite cabal has existed in the USA for several decades and has been involved in assassinations” and that “it is entirely rational to conclude, on the balance of this collective evidence, that Adam Lanza was not yet another ‘lone gunman’”.
So naturally Eva Bartlett, whose journalism consists mostly of denying that any children were killed in East Aleppo and other outrageous claims, would have an affinity with the likes of Joe Quinn.
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