Bashar Al Assad

[Raul Castro]

Syria is rife with economic inequality before bashar al assad took the reigns, but should we support him in the syrian civil war, if we shouldn't then who should we support. Also what do you think the outcome of the syrian civil war will be? Everybody says that bashar al assad is going to win after Aleppo, but I really think this war is going to drone on for three more years before any kind of resolution is passed, just my prediction

[Gavrilo93]

Assad used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. Obviously we shouldn't support him.

We should support the Kurds in my opinion. Many of them are communists. Even those who are not want to liberate their people from the oppression of the Syrians.

I agree that the war will go on for many years, mainly because the great powers have different interests so they send weapons and money to the various factions again and again. It would be impossible to predict who will win the war eventually at this point.

[Ale Brider]

There is a circlejerk about the Kurds being the agents of US and NATO imperialism, but that's not a really valid reasoning, because the other alternatives are Assad or Islamists really, and since Assad is a slave to Russian imperialism, and Islamic factions are of course unacceptable, the closest thing we have is still the Rojava project and the Kurdish freedom fighters. Their alliance with the US is surely problematic but in this current situation, I don't really care about it. In this war, if you have a powerful ally to realize your goals, and stick to your goals, it's the best thing you can do. If you also manage to defeat ISIS in battle from time to time, its even better. What's the future of Rojava and the Kurdish struggle? We can't know, but right now they are the only acceptable faction for a socialist to support. (Even if I have some major problems with the movement; like the question of national liberation, ideology of democratic confederalism and how it gives opportunity of class collaboration, etc. But when it comes down to some kind of genuine revolutionary movement I have disagreements with versus a capitalist dictator and ultra-reactionary Islamists, I surely take the revolutionary movement over the other two.)

So yeah. In this conflict, for me at least, it's either Rojava or nothing.

[ckaihatsu]

The whole Syria thing is really more of a *geopolitical* dynamic rather than a *local* one:





Joint Russian, Turkish bombing campaign in Syria deepens NATO crisis

By Bill Van Auken

20 January 2017

The launching of coordinated air strikes by Russian and Turkish warplanes against Islamic State (ISIS) targets in northern Syria Wednesday has further exposed the crisis gripping Washington’s intervention in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern country, as well as the deepening contradictions plaguing the NATO alliance on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.

The bombing campaign struck targets around the Syrian town of al-Bab, the scene of bloody fighting between Turkish troops and ISIS militants over the past several weeks.




http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/20/syri-j20.html

[ckaihatsu]

Sign Petition in Support of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's Stop Arming Terrorists Act


Dear Friends of Peace and Justice,

Hands Off Syria Coalition and several other national peace organizations in the United States have jointly initiated a public campaign in support of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s STOP ARMING TERRORISTS ACT (H.R. 608), which she originally introduced to the Congress on December 8, 2016.

H.R. 608 is a bipartisan bill, which has been endorsed by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vermont), Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-North Carolina), and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Florida).

Rep. Gabbard’s Stop Arming Terrorists Act is aiming “To prohibit the use of United States Government funds to provide assistance to Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to countries supporting those organizations...”. More specifically, it demands that “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds made available to any Federal department or agency may be used to provide covered assistance to Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and ISIL, and any individual or group that is affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups.”

We believe that Congresswoman Gabbard’s bill is a very courageous and important first step toward ending the U.S. Government’s policy of forced regime change in other countries with the help of terrorist organizations. This policy has led to endless wars in the past decades, and has cost trillions of dollars at the expense of American taxpayers.

H.R. 608 has been referred to both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Given the present state of politics in our country, the chance of these committees approving the bill seems very slim in the absence of massive public expression of support for it.

For this reason, we strongly urge all supporters of peace and justice in the United States to sign this joint petition in support of Rep. Gabbard’s bill. Your signed petition will be immediately emailed to the 65 members of both committees of the House of Representatives.

To sign the petition, please click on the link below:

http://hr608.info

We also urge you to share this link with as many people and organizations as you can and encourage them to add their signatures to the petition.

Together, we can make a difference.

Thank You!
Coordinating Committee
Hands Off Syria Coalition

Twitter (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=30e650538a&e=2ac94fdcfc) Facebook (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=346683d810&e=2ac94fdcfc) Link (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=e2c2547e6e&e=2ac94fdcfc)

Copyright © 2017 Hands Off Syria Coalition, All rights reserved.
You are on this list because you signed HOSC's Points of Unity Statement.

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list







This email was sent to [email protected]
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
Hands Off Syria Coalition · P.O. Box 8693 · Haledon, NJ 07538 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp

[The Idler]

Couldn't socialists perhaps not offer support to any sides in the Syrian Civil War?

[ckaihatsu]

Couldn't socialists perhaps not offer support to any sides in the Syrian Civil War?


Then you're not an anti-imperialist.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Couldn't socialists perhaps not offer support to any sides in the Syrian Civil War?
I think any 'support' that socialists could give would be pretty meaningless anyway however I basically agree with you. I mean, I don't realistically think workers living under the ISIS regime can properly organise and I don't want women or workers of any stripes to live under those conditions so I would prefer for 'ISIS' to not exist but I don't think that trying to carbon copy liberal democracy to support Western imperialism or propping up a cold war dictatorship to support Russian imperialism offers much to the workers either.

[The Idler]

Then you're not an anti-imperialist.

No, I'm a socialist which can only be against all imperialisms whether US, Russian or Syrian imperialism. Are you?

[ckaihatsu]

I think any 'support' that socialists could give would be pretty meaningless anyway however I basically agree with you.


In the absence of a fully capable independent anti-clerical working class movement there, the dynamics default to that of bourgeois geopolitics. I'm just the messenger here.





I mean, I don't realistically think workers living under the ISIS regime can properly organise and I don't want women or workers of any stripes to live under those conditions so I would prefer for 'ISIS' to not exist


Then what does it *take* for ISIS to not-exist any longer -- ?





but I don't think that trying to carbon copy liberal democracy to support Western imperialism or propping up a cold war dictatorship to support Russian imperialism offers much to the workers either.


It's actually politically *worse* than nation-state imperialism.

Unfortunately the U.S. has been *supporting* ISIS indirectly, and now people in the U.S. (not to mention many other countries) are becoming the victims of entirely preventable terrorist attacks.





[T]he last ISIS-affiliated attack in the United States occurred in November, when Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan drove a car into a group of people after pulling a fire alarm on a building.




http://heavy.com/news/2017/01/isis-islamic-state-fort-lauderdale-hollywood-airport-florida-attack-claim-lone-wolf-terrorism/

- - - Updated - - -




No, I'm a socialist which can only be against all imperialisms whether US, Russian or Syrian imperialism. Are you?


You should consider that the U.S. was the instigator of the invasion of Syria, for imperialist purposes.

These three countries' international interventions are *not* comparable by scale, and so there's no such thing as Russian or Syrian "imperialism".

Syria should be returned to the Syrian people so that they can handle their own matters *internally*, as regarding Assad -- anything else, as from the West / NATO, is imperialist.

[ckaihatsu]

News Updates from CLG
02 February 2017
http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Previous editions: Trump rips up controversial TPP 'trade' deal and says getting out is 'a great thing for the American worker'

Leaked Hillary Clinton emails show U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported ISIS (http://www.salon.com/2016/10/11/leaked-hillary-clinton-emails-show-u-s-allies-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-supported-isis/) --Emails released by WikiLeaks add to the growing body of evidence that [US-backed] Gulf regimes have backed the Islamic State | 11 Oct 2016 | A recently leaked 2014 email from Hillary Clinton acknowledges, citing Western intelligence sources, that the U.S.-backed regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have supported ISIS [I-CIA-SIS]. "We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments [regimes] of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region," the document states. This adds to a growing body of evidence that theocratic Gulf monarchies have helped fuel the surge of extremist groups throughout the Middle East. Another newly released email, from January 2016, includes an excerpt from a private October 2013 speech in which Clinton acknowledged that "the Saudis have exported more extreme ideology than any other place on earth over the course of the last 30 years."

[The Idler]

You should consider that the U.S. was the instigator of the invasion of Syria, for imperialist purposes.

These three countries' international interventions are *not* comparable by scale, and so there's no such thing as Russian or Syrian "imperialism".

Syria should be returned to the Syrian people so that they can handle their own matters *internally*, as regarding Assad -- anything else, as from the West / NATO, is imperialist.

You're using 'imperialism' in an Orwellian way to apply to some (Western) countries and not others. 'Imperialism' is not about scale. Your definition is double standards.

[Ibn.AL.Muqafaa]

I don't think supporting Bashar Al Assad is a good idea, or even the Islamists , or the Kurds.
Every militia has it's own interest, during the war the warlords win and the civilians lose.
As a Lebanese, the civil war from 1975-1990 left the people behind, but the leaders of the militias are now the politicians of Lebanon.

[ckaihatsu]

You're using 'imperialism' in an Orwellian way to apply to some (Western) countries and not others. 'Imperialism' is not about scale. Your definition is double standards.


No, it isn't -- obviously I disagree with you.

I'll be open-minded, though, to some reasoning and/or evidence, if you want to make a case for an alleged comparability between U.S. / Western / NATO imperialism, and the geopolitical influence of Syria or Russia.

[The Idler]

All sides are waging war at the behest of the ruling-classes not against them. None have as their aim, a socialist society. One example would be Russian influence in the Crimea.

[ckaihatsu]

All sides are waging war at the behest of the ruling-classes not against them. None have as their aim, a socialist society. One example would be Russian influence in the Crimea.


Yes, from a *class* perspective you're absolutely correct and I have no quarrel -- but circumstances / social conditions in a place like Syria can't just wait around for a proletarian revolution. Many people have *fled* and are now refugees, while ISIS and its Western imperialist backers continue their warfare, there and in Iraq (etc.).

I find it curious that given the 'realpolitik' of the situation you'd rather side with the *U.S.* line, as regarding Russia and the Crimea, rather than a more national-liberation stance which would favor Crimea versus fascist Ukraine.

[The Idler]

I'm not proposing social conditions / circumstances in Syria should be 'just waiting around'. But I find it strange that Western countries engaging in military interventions you class as 'imperialism' but when Russia sends troops into Crimea, and administers Crimea as a Russian territory, this is not 'imperialism'. Or when the bombs dropped on Mosul, Iraq are imperialist but those dropped on Aleppo, Syria are anti imperialist?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm not proposing social conditions / circumstances in Syria should be 'just waiting around'. But I find it strange that Western countries engaging in military interventions you class as 'imperialism' but when Russia sends troops into Crimea, and administers Crimea as a Russian territory, this is not 'imperialism'.


You chose a bad example, unfortunately:





Crimean status referendum, 2014

A referendum on the status of Crimea was held on March 16, 2014, by the legislature of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as well as by the local government of Sevastopol (both subdivisions of Ukraine), following Russian military takeover of the peninsula. The referendum asked local population whether they wanted to join Russia as a federal subject, or if they wanted to restore the 1992 Crimean constitution and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine.




The official result from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was a 96.77 percent vote for integration of the region into the Russian Federation with an 83.1 percent voter turnout.[a][1] The Mejlis Deputy Chairman Akhtem Chiygoz felt that the actual turnout could not have exceeded 30–40 percent, arguing that to be the normal turnout for votes in the region.[17]

Following the referendum, The Supreme Council of Crimea and Sevastopol City Council declared the independence of the Republic of Crimea from Ukraine and requested to join the Russian Federation.[18] On the same day, Russia recognized the Republic of Crimea as a sovereign state.[19][20]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_status_referendum,_2014


---





Or when the bombs dropped on Mosul, Iraq are imperialist but those dropped on Aleppo, Syria are anti imperialist?


Which bombs, from which countries, are you talking about -- ?

There have been anti-ISIS offensives in both of those cities.

[The Idler]

Why did Russia surreptiously send troops in before the referendum took place. And why did the referendum return 96.77% in favour? Are there any other major free elections where this sort of figure appears and is verified independently?

Imagine you're on your way to work or to spend your wages buying groceries, would you rather be blown up by a Javelin bomb in Mosul, Iraq or by a Metis bomb in Aleppo, Syria. Must you support one of the bomb droppers armed forces? Or would you perhaps consider both of these bombs and the members of the working-class they destroy as unnecessary to support. My answer would be to support neither side, because I'm hoping this illustrates, so-called 'anti-imperialist' struggles and bombs are just as much a sham as 'imperialist' bombs.

[ckaihatsu]

Why did Russia surreptiously send troops in before the referendum took place. And why did the referendum return 96.77% in favour? Are there any other major free elections where this sort of figure appears and is verified independently?

Imagine you're on your way to work or to spend your wages buying groceries, would you rather be blown up by a Javelin bomb in Mosul, Iraq or by a Metis bomb in Aleppo, Syria. Must you support one of the bomb droppers armed forces? Or would you perhaps consider both of these bombs and the members of the working-class they destroy as unnecessary to support. My answer would be to support neither side, because I'm hoping this illustrates, so-called 'anti-imperialist' struggles and bombs are just as much a sham as 'imperialist' bombs.


Yeah, I hear you, and my standard answer here is that 'no one is doing any flag-waving'.

Think of it as a *nominal* geopolitical 'support', so that if things get hairy the world can depend on mass popular political sentiment instead of on professional bourgeois politicians. This, though, of course, is not a 'call' for such, because all of us here are partisan to working class power instead of bourgeois power, entirely.

When world events take away the clock, though, forcing us to take-sides in a geopolitical standoff, we need to be ready to be vocal. Here's an example:





Ghouta chemical attack



The Ghouta chemical attack occurred in Ghouta, Syria, during the Syrian Civil War in the early hours of 21 August 2013. Two opposition-controlled areas in the suburbs around Damascus, Syria were struck by rockets containing the chemical agent sarin. Estimates of the death toll range from at least 281 people[3] to 1,729.[14] The attack was the deadliest use of chemical weapons since the Iran–Iraq War.[15][16][17]

Inspectors from the United Nations Mission already in Syria to investigate an earlier alleged chemical weapons attack,[18](p6)[19] requested access to sites in Ghouta the day after the attack,[20][21][22][22][23][24] and called for a ceasefire to allow inspectors to visit the Ghouta sites.[20] The Syrian government granted the UN's request on 25 August,[25][26][27] and inspectors visited and investigated Moadamiyah in Western Ghouta the next day, and Zamalka and Ein Tarma in Eastern Ghouta on 28 and 29 August.[18](p6)[28][29]

The UN investigation team confirmed "clear and convincing evidence" of the use of sarin delivered by surface-to-surface rockets,[18][30] and a 2014 report by the UN Human Rights Council found that "significant quantities of sarin were used in a well-planned indiscriminate attack targeting civilian-inhabited areas, causing mass casualties. The evidence available concerning the nature, quality and quantity of the agents used on 21 August indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary to manipulate safely large amount of chemical agents."[31] It also stated that the chemical agents used in the Khan al-Assal chemical attack "bore the same unique hallmarks as those used in Al-Ghouta."[31][32][33]

The Syrian opposition,[34] as well as many governments, the Arab League and the European Union[35][36][37] stated the attack was carried out by forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.[38] The Syrian and Russian governments blamed the opposition for the attack,[34] the Russian government calling the attack a false flag operation by the opposition to draw foreign powers into the civil war on the rebels' side.[39] Åke Sellström, the leader of the UN Mission, characterized government explanations of rebel chemical weapons acquisition as unconvincing, resting in part upon "poor theories."[40]

Several countries including France, the United Kingdom, and the United States debated whether to intervene militarily against Syrian government forces.[41][42][43][44] On 6 September 2013, the United States Senate filed a resolution to authorize use of military force against the Syrian military in response to the Ghouta attack.[45] On 10 September 2013, the military intervention was averted when the Syrian government accepted a US–Russian negotiated deal to turn over "every single bit" of its chemical weapons stockpiles for destruction and declared its intention to join the Chemical Weapons Convention.[46][47]




In contrast to the positions of their governments, polls in early September indicated that most people in the US, UK, Germany and France opposed military intervention in Syria.[236][237][238][239][240] One poll indicated that 50% of Americans could support military intervention with cruise missiles only, "meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks."[241] In a survey of American military personnel, around 75% said they opposed air strikes on Syria, with 80% saying an attack would not be "in the U.S. national interest".[242] Meanwhile, a Russian poll suggested that most Russians supported neither side in the conflict, with less than 10% saying they supported Assad.[243]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attack

[badger2]

The Ghouta attack rockets came from the hills, and Assad is correct when having stated that the chemicals can be homemade. In fact, the stabilzer for sarin occurs in the Crataegus (Syrian Hawthorn) that grows in those hills, and as Zizek has already stated, a third entity (the rabble, Jews, etc.) for class struggle is required. Indeed, not only was Joseph's walking stick made from the same wood, the compound that (stabilizes [italics]) sarin is found in Crataegus. The reader may have even more problems when linking Ukraine to Italian Crataegus (the White Hills), because Ukraine was founded as a Viking kingship / Eastern Rite Catholic. Unlike Knowledge Envy's burning of library at Alexandria, the recipe for sarin stabilizer is likely contained somewhere in the Vatican library.

[ckaihatsu]

The Ghouta attack rockets came from the hills, and Assad is correct when having stated that the chemicals can be homemade. In fact, the stabilzer for sarin occurs in the Crataegus (Syrian Hawthorn) that grows in those hills, and as Zizek has already stated, a third entity (the rabble, Jews, etc.) for class struggle is required. Indeed, not only was Joseph's walking stick made from the same wood, the compound that (stabilizes [italics]) sarin is found in Crataegus. The reader may have even more problems when linking Ukraine to Italian Crataegus (the White Hills), because Ukraine was founded as a Viking kingship / Eastern Rite Catholic. Unlike Knowledge Envy's burning of library at Alexandria, the recipe for sarin stabilizer is likely contained somewhere in the Vatican library.


I think you're getting caught-up in the details of this one particular incident.

The live issue at-hand is this:





[M]ust you support one of the bomb droppers armed forces? Or would you perhaps consider both of these bombs and the members of the working-class they destroy as unnecessary to support. My answer would be to support neither side, because I'm hoping this illustrates, so-called 'anti-imperialist' struggles and bombs are just as much a sham as 'imperialist' bombs.


Anti-imperialism means making value judgments among the bourgeois forces in play, to point out that certain nations are more deterministic through their mobilizations than others (the U.S., Western countries, NATO).

We can't pretend that all nations involved in warfare are *equivalent*, and just blithely ignore all interventions evenly without making distinctions about various militaristic actions and their consequences.

This brings us back to the real-world situation of the U.S. versus Syria, and also the issue of ISIS -- we can't treat these three organizations as being equivalent when the outcome could be different for Syrians, and even the world, if the U.S. stops backing fundamentalist forces there. ISIS is *worse* in potentials for harm and repression (active ongoing terroristic violence and Sharia law) than either Syria or the U.S., and should be treated as such by those who are in positions to curtail the Islamic State.

[ckaihatsu]

Another example of needed anti-imperialism:





What should concern us now is not who will pay for the wall: the strength of our protests must destroy the wall from all flanks. In order to achieve this, a necessary condition—which many in Mexico are pointing out— is for the popular revolt to have a higher degree of unity and patriotism, and therefore anti-imperialism, which has been missing even in the face of terrible events that have befallen the Mexicans in recent times. It is also necessary for this recipe of resistance and struggle to expand throughout the rest of the continent, challenging those erroneous predictions that validate Trump’s “nationalism”. The only nationalism that makes sense for those who live between the Rio Grande and Tierra del Fuego to embrace is the one that expels transnational companies and their backers from our lands. It is Latin America’s revolutionary nationalism, represented since 1959 by the heroic Cuban Revolution and strengthened by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales, and others.




http://www.investigaction.net/en/trump-the-mexican-wall-and-a-growing-rebellion/

[ckaihatsu]

Don't give an Oscar to "The White Helmets"


February 9, 2016

Please Sign the Petition:
https://diy.rootsaction.org/p/WhiteHelmetsPropaganda
Do not give a 2017 Academy Award to the netflix movie titled "The White Helmets" .

Why is this important?
The netflix movie titled “The White Helmets” is one of the contenders to win the 2017 Academy Award for best “short documentary”. Here is why the movie should NOT receive this award.

* It is more infomercial than real documentary. The film-makers never set foot in Syria. Some footage from inside Syria appears staged.

* Claims that the “White Helmets” are apolitical volunteers are false. White Helmet leaders actively campaign for US/NATO enforced “No Fly Zone”. The White Helmets only operate in areas controlled by the armed opposition, primarily Nusra/Al Qaeda.

* “The White Helmets” organization is a creation of foreign powers supporting the ‘Contra’ war to overthrow the government of Syria. The White Helmets were initiated by a British military contractor with major funding from the USA and UK. The “White Helmets” brand is managed by a New York based marketing company called “The Syria Campaign” directed by an Irish American woman who has never been to Syria. This is primarily a media campaign with the netflix movie being one of their promotions.

* The White Helmets stole the name Syrian Civil Defence from the legitimate organization which has existed since the 1950’s and which is a founding member of the International Civil Defense Organization. When armed terrorists invaded Aleppo in late 2012, they stole equipment and killed real volunteer rescue workers from the authentic Syrian Civil Defence.

* Claims that “White Helmets” are unarmed are untrue. Photos and videos show their members carrying arms and celebrating Nusra/AlQaeda military victories.

* Claims that the White Helmets have saved 80,000 lives are nonsense. In fact there are very few civilians living in the zones controlled by 'Contra' terrorists in Syria where the White Helmets operate.

* When the Syrian Government recaptured east Aleppo in December 2016, nearly all civilians rushed into the protection of the government controlled areas. They described abuse by the “terrorists” and how civilians who tried to flee had been killed by the armed groups. They described how the “White Helmets” prioritized support to the armed fighters and did little to help civilians.

* In late December 2016 Nusra / Al Qaeda terrorists seized the villages, spring and water pumping station in the Barada Valley that supplies clean water to Damascus. They poisoned the water, then blew up the pumping station stopping the flow of water to 5 million people in Damascus. The White Helmets were among the groups allied with Nusra carrying out this atrocity.

“The White Helmets” movie is symbolic of the disinformation and deceit in the war on Syria.

“The White Helmets” movie deserves an award for advertising and war propaganda but NOT as a documentary movie.

For detailed information see the exposes of the White Helmets by writers such as Jan Oberg, Vanessa Beeley, Rick Sterling, Max Blumenthal, Scott Ritter. Jan Oberg provides a listing with links in his extensive article "Just How Grey are the White Helmets and Their Backers?" See the 5 minute video titled "The White Helmets - Al Qaeda with a Facelift".

Please Sign the Petition:
https://diy.rootsaction.org/p/WhiteHelmetsPropaganda


Twitter (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=37f5217007&e=2ac94fdcfc) Facebook (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=2c73f43053&e=2ac94fdcfc) Website (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=d00c60d13a&e=2ac94fdcfc)


Copyright © 2017 Hands Off Syria Coalition, All rights reserved.
You are on this list because you signed HOSC's Points of Unity Statement.

Our mailing address is:
Hands Off Syria Coalition
P.O. Box 8693
Haledon, NJ 07538

Add us to your address book


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp

[ckaihatsu]

https://news.google.com

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/10/world/middleeast/ap-ml-syria.html


MIDDLE EAST

Assad Says US Troops Welcome in Syria to Fight 'Terrorism'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFEB. 10, 2017, 9:06 A.M. E.S.T.

BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview released on Friday that the United States is welcome to join the battle against "terrorists" in Syria — as long as it is in cooperation with his government and respects the country's sovereignty.

Speaking with Yahoo News, Assad said he has not had any communication — direct or indirect — with President Donald Trump or any official form the new U.S. administration.

But the Syrian leader appeared to make a gesture to the new U.S. president in the interview, saying he welcomes Trump's declaration that he will make it a priority to fight terrorism — a goal Assad said he also shares.

However, Assad's government has labelled all armed opposition to his rule — including the U.S.-backed rebels — as "terrorists."

Continue reading the main story
ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story

"We agree about this priority," Assad said of Trump. "That's our position in Syria, the priority is to fight terrorism."

Syria's six-year civil war has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced half the country's population. The country is shattered and the chaos has enabled the rise of the Islamic State group, which in a 2014 blitz seized a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq. The extremist group, responsible also for several deadly attacks around the world, has declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it controls.

Assad also told Yahoo News that his country would welcome U.S. "participation" in the fight against terrorism but it has to be in cooperation with the Syrian government.

Assad's comment ignored the U.S.-led international coalition, which has been targeting the Islamic State group and al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria with airstrikes since September 2014. The U.S. also has advisers in Syria along with predominantly Kurdish fighters north of the country who are fighting against the Islamic State.

"If you want to start genuinely, as United States ... it must be through the Syrian government," Assad said. "We are here, we are the Syrians, we own this country as Syrians, nobody else, nobody would understand it like us."

"So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government" of Syria, he added.

The Syrian government has always blamed the U.S. for backing opposition fighters trying to remove Assad from power. The rebels formed a serious threat to the Syrian leader until 2015, when Russia joined Syria's war backing Assad's forces and turned the balance of power in his favor.

"We invited the Russians, and the Russians were genuine regarding this issue. If the Americans are genuine, of course they are welcome, like any other country that wants to defeat and to fight with the terrorists. Of course, with no hesitation we can say that," Assad said in English.

But when asked if he wants American troops to come to Syria to help with the fight against the Islamic State group, Assad said that sending troops is not enough — a genuine political position on respecting Syria's sovereignty and unity is also needed.

Morning Briefing: Europe
What you need to know to start your day, delivered to your inbox.


Enter your email address
Sign Up

Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.

PRIVACY POLICY
"All these factors would lead to trust, where you can send your troops. That's what happened with the Russians; they didn't only send their troops," Assad added.

Assad would not comment on Trump's move to bar Syrian refugees and people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S., calling it an "American sovereignty" issue.

But he appeared to offer some veiled support at last, saying that there are "definitely terrorists" among the millions of Syrians seeking refuge in the West, though it doesn't have to be a "significant" number.

Excerpts of Assad's comments were aired on Thursday while the full interview with Yahoo News ran on Friday.

The Syrian president also blasted a report released this week by Amnesty International in which the group said as many as 13,000 prisoners were hanged in over four years in one of Syria's prisons and later buried in mass graves.

"It's always biased and politicized, and it's a shame for such an organization to publish a report without a shred of evidence," Assad said.

He also rejected an initiative that calls for creating "safe zones" in Syria for refugees, an idea also been floated by Trump as a substitute for resettling Syrian refugees in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"Safe zones for Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security," Assad said. "It's much more practical and less costly to have stability than to create safe zones. It's not a realistic idea at all."

In other developments Friday, the Kremlin said that Russia and Turkey have agreed to improve coordination in Syria to prevent further friendly fire incidents after a Russian airstrike killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 the day before.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accidental strike near the town of al-Bab in northern Syria prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss better cooperation in fighting the Islamic State group in the area. In a signal that the incident hasn't hurt a Russia-Turkey rapprochement, Peskov said that Erdogan is set to visit Russia next month.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the Turkish casualties on Thursday were the result of "faulty coordination" in Syria and showed "there is a need for a much closer coordination."

___

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

© 2017 The New York Times Company HomeSearchAccessibility concerns? Email us at [email protected] We would love to hear from you.Contact UsWork With UsAdvertiseYour Ad ChoicesPrivacyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite Information Navigation
Site MapHelpSite FeedbackSubscriptions Go to the next story

[ckaihatsu]

Back Gabbard bill to pressure Saudi Arabia on ties to Al Qaeda in Yemen


Just Foreign Policy


Dear Chris,

Urge your Rep. to back the Stop Arming Terrorists Act to pressure Saudi Arabia.

Take Action (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=QDaYN404AbheuTXUxJnpGuqfMAfAHLMA)

Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's bipartisan bill H.R. 608, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act, would prohibit the use of U.S. funds to provide assistance to Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra, that is, Al Qaeda), and to countries supporting those organizations. The bill would require the Director of National Intelligence to make a periodic determination of whether Saudi Arabia is supporting Al Qaeda and report to Congress about it. [1] The bill's co-sponsors include Reps. Barbara Lee, Peter Welch, Walter Jones, Thomas Massie, and Ted Yoho. [2]

Urge your Representative to co-sponsor Rep. Gabbard's bill by signing our petition at MoveOn (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Mn%2FpBbR6ebXxnV%2BdX4ayfuqfMAfAHLMA).

President Trump is threatening to escalate U.S. support for the catastrophic Saudi war against the Houthis in Yemen. To stop this war, we must undermine Republican support for it. The biggest political vulnerability of the Saudi war in Yemen for Republicans is the fact that the war is strengthening Al Qaeda. Thus, the Saudi war in Yemen is directly threatening the security of the U.S. homeland. [3] Moreover, Saudi forces have fought alongside Al Qaeda in Yemen against the Houthis, [4] and working with al Qaeda has been an integral part of Saudi strategy in Yemen. [5] Building support for Rep. Gabbard's bill will help us raise the issue of Saudi support for Al Qaeda, and that will help us undermine U.S. support for the catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen.

Urge your Representative to co-sponsor Rep. Gabbard's bill by signing and sharing our petition (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eIWThbh9cE2ib4gACuD9aOqfMAfAHLMA).

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns
Just Foreign Policy

If you think our work is important, support us with a $17 donation.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate

References:
1. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/608/text
2. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/608/cosponsors
3. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/25/the-u-s-backed-war-in-yemen-is-strengthening-al-qaeda.html
4. https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-qaeda-fights-on-same-side-as-saudi-backed-militias-in-yemen-1437087067; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35630194
5. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/saudi_arabias_terrorist_allies_in_yemen.pdf

Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy

© 2016 Just Foreign Policy

Click here to unsubscribe

empowered by Salsa

[ckaihatsu]

No to U.S. Ground Troops in Syria!


Just Foreign Policy


Dear Chris,

Urge your Reps. to say that US ground troops in Syria is a terrible idea.

Take Action (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=pitHlwJJ2n65sF%2FVVz%2FBsC4wB%2B%2BO2Ues)

CNN has reported that the Defense Department "might propose that the US send conventional ground combat forces into northern Syria for the first time," and that the move would "significantly alter US military operations in Syria if approved and could put troops on the ground within weeks." CNN says "one goal of their presence would be to help reassure Turkey that Kurdish forces are not posing a threat to Ankara's interests." [1] "Reassuring Turkey" a terrible reason to deploy U.S. troops to danger in Syria.

Urge your Reps. to say sending ground troops to Syria is a terrible idea by signing our petition at MoveOn (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=83RI9Eu64JwlII4xqdp5ki4wB%2B%2BO2Ues).

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul says, "It would be a really rotten, no good, bad idea to have ground troops in Syria." [2] Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy says, "Sending combat troops into Syria would make the unforced errors of the first four weeks look like child's play." California Representative Ted Lieu says, "As Member of House Foreign Affairs Committee, I want to say that sending ground troops to Syria is a VERY BAD IDEA." [3]

Urge your Senators and Representative to join Chris Murphy, Rand Paul, and Ted Lieu in denouncing the idea of sending U.S. ground troops to Syria by signing and sharing our petition (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hJl5SxewxuZlyGm%2FxgviDi4wB%2B%2BO2Ues).

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns
Just Foreign Policy

If you think our work is important, support us with a $17 donation.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate

References:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/pentagon-considering-recommending-combat-troops-in-syria/index.html
2. http://rare.us/rare-politics/issues/foreign-policy/rand-paul-it-would-be-a-really-rotten-no-good-bad-idea-to-have-ground-troops-in-syria/
3. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-troops-to-syria-20170215-htmlstory.html

Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy

© 2016 Just Foreign Policy

Click here to unsubscribe

empowered by Salsa

[ckaihatsu]

Call to Action: International Days of Action on Syria (March 11-19)


International Days of Action!
Against War and Islamophobia!
March 11-19, 2017

STOP THE WAR ON SYRIA!
STOP THREATS OF WAR AGAINST IRAN!
OPPOSE THE TRAVEL BAN!
STOP THE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MUSLIMS!

Since the election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States, the US policy in the Middle East, especially in Syria, has taken an alarmingly dangerous turn. While President Trump says he will not pursue a policy of regime change in Syria, he has surrounded himself with Islamophobes and militarists. Thanks to the new US administration, Islamophobia is on the rise throughout the Western world.

Over the last 16 years since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, rising Islamophobia has come hand-in-hand with escalating U.S.-led wars and occupations in the Middle East and North Africa. The Trump administration is now attempting to impose an inhumane travel and refugee ban on seven Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — all targets of U.S. military attack or sanctions by the current and previous administrations.

The Pentagon is considering sending more U.S. ground forces to Syria. To justify this military escalation, the demonization of Syrian Government has been intensified though a new wave of misleading propaganda. The most recent salvo is a sensational yet unfounded report from Amnesty International, which has been broadcast by media outlets around the world.

Iran has been made the target of new threats as well. False claims about an Iranian attack on US ships in the Persian Gulf, combined with threats of new economic sanctions against Iran, which can easily jeopardize the Iran Nuclear Deal, are setting the stage for a new round of confrontation with Iran. Mass killing of innocent civilians in Yemen by the criminal Saudi government, with full support from the United States, is being intensified. To add fuel to the fire, the Trump administration has talked about moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move that will certainly lead to another dangerous conflagration in the Middle East.

All these point to the fact that we are moving toward another, more disastrous, catastrophe in the Middle East. We call on all peace loving people throughout the world to unite and take action during the International Days of Action (March 11-19) against U.S. intervention in Syria and throughout the Middle East, against Islamophobia, and against the refugee Travel Ban.

Here are some suggested actions that you can take during the International Days of Action:

Initiate local actions together with civil rights and peace activists — demonstrations, teach-ins, workshops, panel discussions, video presentations — to oppose War, occupation and Islamophobia, and to reveal their connections.

Activists outside the US: Demand that your government actively opposes the U.S. policy of forced regime change in Syria.

Tell the U.S. President Trump and Congress that you oppose the Travel Ban and that you want the U.S. to pursue peaceful relations with Syria, Iran and all the nations of the Middle East.

Ask your Congressional Representatives to support Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s bill, (H.R. 608). Please both call your Congressional Representative’s office directly AND sign the petition in support of STOP ARMING TERRORISTS ACT at http://hr608.info.

Write letters-to-the-editor of your local newspaper. Expose war propaganda aimed at justifying regime change in Syria and elsewhere.

We ask you to send a report of your planned activities for the International Days of Action (March 11-19) to Hands Off Syria Coalition so that we can publicize them on our web site: [email protected]

We also encourage you to form your own local chapter of Hands Off Syria Coalition. For more information about forming local chapters of HOSC please go to our web site: http://HandsOffSyriaCoalition.net and click on “Forming An HOSC Chapter” link on top of the page.

SAY NO TO WAR AND OCCUPATION!
SAY NO TO ISLAMOPHOBIA!

Hands Off Syria Coalition
February 23, 2017
[email protected]
HandsOffSyriaCoalition.net



Copyright © 2017 Hands Off Syria Coalition, All rights reserved.
You are on this list because you signed HOSC's Points of Unity Statement.

Our mailing address is:
Hands Off Syria Coalition
P.O. Box 8693
Haledon, NJ 07538

Add us to your address book


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp

[ckaihatsu]

Yes, it won the Oscar ........


Dear Friends,

Thank you for signing the petition Don't give an Oscar to "The White Helmets".

Unfortunately the infomercial did win an Oscar.

Despite this, there is growing recognition of the fact that the White Helmets are not who they claim to be.

Thanks for your support on this!

The struggle continues to stop the criminal war on Syria, stop US funding of terrorists and restore international law.

Best,

Rick Sterling


Rick Sterling started this petition on RootsAction. If there's an issue close to your heart that you'd like to campaign on, you can start your campaign here (http://diy.rootsaction.org/petition/new?source=petition_email_footer).


You received this email because you signed the petition 'Don't give an Oscar to "The White Helmets" (http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/do-not-give-2017-academy-award-to-the-white-helmets)'. If you don't want to receive emails from the 'Don't give an Oscar to "The White Helmets" (http://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/do-not-give-2017-academy-award-to-the-white-helmets)' campaign in the future, please unsubscribe.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39217015



IS conflict: US sends Marines to support Raqqa assault

14 minutes ago

From the section Middle East Related TopicsSyrian civil war

Share

Sgt. Joseph Reed Jr., training chief, Headquarters and Service company, Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, (BLT 2/1), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, fires his first M777A2 Howitzer round as part of a Tactical Air Control Party exercise during Realistic Urban Training Marine Expeditionary Unit Exercise (RUTMEUEX) 14-1 at Camp Roberts, California, 26 March 2014Image copyrightCPL. DEMETRIUS MORGAN/US MARINE CORPS

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/71CF/production/_95053192_mediaitem95053049.jpg
The Marines will reportedly set up an artillery battery including M777 Howitzers

The US has sent several hundred Marines to Syria to support an allied local force aiming to capture the so-called Islamic State (IS) stronghold of Raqqa.

They reportedly arrived in the past few days to establish an outpost from which they will be able to fire artillery at IS positions some 32km (20 miles) away.

US special forces are already on the ground, advising the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.

The alliance is expected to launch an assault on Raqqa in the coming weeks.

Defence officials told the Washington Post the Marines planned to set up an artillery battery that could fire powerful 155mm shells from M777 howitzers.

Over the weekend, a separate force of elite US army Rangers was also deployed near a town north-west of Raqqa in heavily armoured vehicles, in an attempt to end clashes between SDF fighters and a Turkish-backed rebel force.

Inside 'Islamic State': A Raqqa diary

Islamic State group: The full story

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/BFEF/production/_95053194_syria_turkey_kurds_v14_624map_10_2_2017. png
Map showing control of northern Syria

Why are the Marines being sent now?

IS can only be defeated in this war if its militants are forced to stand and fight as a conventional army, the BBC's Paul Danahar writes from Washington.

Much of its senior military leadership is made up of former Iraqi army commanders from the Saddam Hussein era, and their instinct the last time they faced a defeat on the battlefield, during the US-led invasion in 2003, was to melt away.

Islamic State militants in Raqqa on 30 June 2014Image copyrightREUTERS

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/00EB/production/_95053200_ad6dbf9c-edf6-4d70-a77a-1cbcf21dffb1.jpg
Raqqa is the de facto capital of the "caliphate" IS proclaimed in June 2014

They re-emerged as the leaders of militants opposing the US occupation who then joined to form an umbrella grouping which became al-Qaeda in Iraq. After the start of the Syrian civil war this morphed into IS.

What the US Marines will hope to do, working along aside US special forces, is create a net tight enough to kill or capture these men before they get away. That means co-ordinating the assault and making sure the anti-IS forces work together.

They will hope to finally force the men the US military has been fighting for more than a decade into a last stand.

Isn't there a limit on the number of US troops in Syria?

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/E501/production/_95052685_68e21771-9872-427a-862c-6a98000c303e.jpg
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters ride on a vehicle north of Raqqa, Syria (5 February 2017)Image copyrightREUTERS
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters are expected to launch an assault on Raqqa soon

Under President Barack Obama, US special operations forces were deployed to recruit, train and advise the SDF's 30,000 Arab and Kurdish fighters. However, their numbers were limited to 500.

The Marines' deployment is considered temporary, so it is not affected by the cap.

What about the Rangers?

Col Dorrian said the dozens of Rangers who had arrived on the outskirts of Manbij, about 110km (68 miles) from Raqqa, were also there "for a temporary period".

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/96E1/production/_95052683_ff75d8d6-eadc-40aa-b9a6-561ee6f099f8.jpg
A convoy of US forces armoured vehicles drives near the village of Yalanli, on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Manbij (5 March 2017)Image copyrightAFP
US army Rangers arrived on the outskirts of Manbij in heavily armoured vehicles

The Rangers were seeking to "create some assurance", Col Dorrian added, following clashes between Turkish-backed Arab rebels and local fighters from the Manbij Military Council, which was set up by the SDF when it captured the town.

The Turkish government considers the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia, which dominates the SDF, a terrorist group because of its links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey.

Does this still signal an escalation in US involvement?

It is not yet clear but the deployment comes as President Donald Trump considers a new plan to defeat IS that was submitted by the Pentagon late last month.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/13321/production/_95052687_75d549e5-2aff-49ab-be2f-8a2e0dba696a.jpg
US Army Lt Gen Stephen Townsend talks with an Iraqi officer during a tour north of Baghdad, Iraq (8 February 2017)Image copyrightAP
Some 6,000 US troops are deployed in Iraq and Syria as part of a coalition against IS

The Associated Press news agency reports that Mr Trump wants to give the Pentagon greater flexibility to make routine combat decisions in the fight against IS.

Commanders on the ground were frustrated by what they considered micromanagement by the Obama administration, it adds.

The US is also said to be preparing to send up to 1,000 troops to Kuwait to serve as a reserve force that can deployed to fight IS in Syria and Iraq if necessary.

How is the campaign to capture Raqqa going?

Col Dorrian said the SDF's current operation to encircle the city, which began in November, was going "very, very well" and could be completed in a few weeks. "Then the decision to move in can be made," he added.

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/10E0F/production/_95053196_77f7fd64-8f56-4719-b76e-ad33180eef82.jpg
A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter rests while looking over the River Euphrates north of Raqqa city, (8 March 2017)Image copyrightREUTERS
A US-led coalition spokesman said the SDF's campaign to isolate Raqqa was going "very well"

Earlier this week, the SDF cut the main supply route connecting Raqqa to IS-held territory to the south-east in Deir al-Zour province.

The New York Times meanwhile cited US officials as saying there were an estimated 4,000 militants inside Raqqa.

Related Topics

Islamic State groupSyriaSyrian civil warUS Armed Forces

Share this story About sharing

Email

Facebook

Messenger

Twitter

Pinterest

LinkedIn

More on this story

Copyright © 2017 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/03/10/syri-m10.html


US airstrike kills 23 civilians as Marines deploy to Syria

By Bill Van Auken

10 March 2017

A US airstrike on the northern Syrian village of Al-Mataba near the Syrian city of Raqqa claimed the lives of at least 23 civilians Wednesday night. Many of the victims were from one family, whose house was demolished in the bombardment. The dead were reported by Syrian monitoring groups to have included at least six children and four women.

The carnage from the air coincided with a dramatic escalation of the US military intervention on the ground with the deployment of a US Marine battalion armed with powerful M777 howitzers, artillery capable of firing as many five rounds per minute over a range of more than 20 miles. The amphibious task force was taken off Navy ships at the US Special Forces base at Djibouti, flown into Kuwait and then into Syria, a Pentagon official told the Washington Post.

The deployment of the Marines from the San Diego-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with a contingent of Army Rangers, roughly doubles the number of US troops inside Syria, which was previously limited to just over 500 special forces “trainers and advisers.”

The new troops are to provide fire support for the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, a militia dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which operates as a proxy ground force for the US intervention in Syria. Washington is preparing these forces for an assault on Raqqa, a Syrian city of 300,000 which is under the control of the Sunni Islamist militia, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The US military command is operating on the pretense that the deployment of the new American forces is only “temporary,” but their arrival likely signals the escalation of the US intervention in Iraq and Syria that the Trump administration has advocated. The Pentagon presented a report to the White House outlining proposals for such an escalation at the end of last month.

Testifying before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Gen. Joseph Votel, the chief of US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees military operations in the region, claimed that the authorization to use military force (AUMF) passed by the US Congress in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington provided the authority to escalate the deployment in Syria (a country that had nothing to do with 9/11) in order to fight ISIS (which did not exist in 2001). Votel also made it clear that the US intervention was being carried out without the permission of the Syrian government.

It was further reported Thursday that the Pentagon is preparing to send nearly 1,000 additional troops to Kuwait to serve as a “reserve” force that US commanders on the ground in Iraq and Syria could call into the country as they see fit.

These changes are part of a shift in the rules of engagement for the US intervention in the region, which is ostensibly directed at defeating ISIS. US commanders are to be given far greater discretion in terms of calling in airstrikes and ordering other offensive actions, which previously had to be approved by the senior brass. Also being lifted are restraints that were supposedly in place to limit so-called “collateral damage,” i.e., the slaughter of Iraqi and Syrian civilians.

The past several weeks have seen a major escalation of the US-led bombing campaign leading to a steady increase in the number of civilian deaths in both countries. This toll will only increase with the deployment of US artillery.

The Pentagon’s spokesman for the US intervention in Iraq and Syria, referring to the deployment of the Marine battalion, told Reuters, “We have had what I would describe as a pretty relentless air campaign to destroy enemy capabilities and to kill enemy fighters in that area already. That is something that we are going to continue and intensify with this new capability.”

According to statistics released by the US Air Forces Central Command, US and allied warplanes dropped 7,494 bombs, rockets and other munitions on targets in Iraq and Syria during the first nine weeks of this year. This represents an increase of nearly 50 percent compared to the same period in 2016, and is nearly double the number of airstrikes conducted in 2015.

The group Airwars, which monitors airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, has estimated that as many as 370 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the US bombardment of the densely populated neighborhoods of western Mosul just since March 1. The assault on the ISIS-held area of the city has turned whole blocks into rubble and forced 40,000 civilians to flee their homes over the last week alone.

According to Airwars, as many as 130 civilians died on March 5 in an assault on a government compound in the Dawassa district of Mosul, which reportedly involved US Apache attack helicopters. Another 50 to 80 were killed in a March 1 airstrike against a mosque that was being used as a shelter for refugee families.

The monitoring group estimates the number of civilians killed in both Iraq and Syria by the US air war since its beginning in 2014 at nearly 2,500.

Part of the US escalation in Syria has consisted of sending Army Rangers aboard Stryker armored vehicles into the area around Manbij, northwest of Raqqa. This intervention, dubbed by the Pentagon as a “reassure and deter” mission, is aimed at forestalling an armed clash between the US proxy forces in the Kurdish YPG and Washington’s NATO ally in the region, Turkey.

Turkey has threatened to attack YPG forces--which Ankara describes as “terrorists”-- in the area in order to prevent linking up the two “cantons” of Kobane and Afrin to form a Kurdish autonomous zone along Turkey’s border with Syria.

“What is important for us is to clear Manbij of YPG elements. Why did the YPG come there? To establish its terrorist canton and to gain more territory,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Thursday.

For its part, the YPG has denounced Turkish troops inside Syria as an “occupation force” and has insisted that they cannot be allowed to participate in the planned offensive against Raqqa. Unconfirmed reports circulated on social media Wednesday that elements of the YPG had used a US-supplied TOW missile to attack a Turkish tank in northern Syria.

The increasingly tense situation in the region was discussed in a three-way meeting held in the Turkish port city of Antalya Wednesday between the US, Russian and Turkish military chiefs of staff. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with his Turkish counterpart, Gen. Hulusi Akar, and Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Vasily Gerasimov.

The Pentagon issued a statement saying the meeting was necessary because the area surrounding Raqqa had become “a crowded battlespace” and the conflicting interests of the different armed forces operating there had created “a dangerous situation.”

The growing dangers in Syria are the outcome of the nearly six-year-old US-orchestrated war for regime change and the attempt by US imperialism to utilize the conflict as a means of weakening the positions of regional and global rivals, particularly Iran and Russia. The growing US military presence in the region poses the threat of the conflict in Iraq and Syria escalating into a far wider war.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/03/22/syri-m22.html#


Fighting flares in Damascus as US escalates air war in Syria

By Jordan Shilton

22 March 2017

Some of the heaviest fighting in Damascus since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 has occurred over recent days. A surprise attack by a collection of Islamist and other opposition forces, including a considerable number of fighters from the former al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front, launched a surprise attack on eastern neighborhoods of the city on Sunday, gaining some ground.

Even the New York Times, which has championed the overthrow of Assad and the installation of a puppet regime in Damascus, hypocritically noted “political concerns” about the “alliance between a spectrum of rebel groups and hard-line Islamists” which conducted the attack.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a counter-attack on Monday and recaptured much of the territory taken by the Islamists the previous day, according to Syrian government sources. But a second offensive was initiated yesterday by the rebels with the aim of breaking the government siege of the rebel-held Qaboun district.

Other assaults on government-controlled territory were reported in Hama Province and in western Aleppo.

Syrian and Russian aircraft have launched heavy bombardments of rebel-held areas, with reports of 143 airstrikes since Sunday’s surprise attack began. The rebels have indiscriminately targeted civilians, including with a recent suicide bombing at a court house in Damascus which killed 30.

While it remains unclear whether the collection of Jihadi forces and other opposition fighters can sustain their attacks and push further into Damascus, the escalation of fighting demonstrates that the ceasefire brokered in December by Russia and Turkey is a dead letter. Observers almost unanimously anticipate that planned peace talks beginning tomorrow in Geneva chaired by the UN’s special Syria envoy will produce no concrete progress. Mohammad al-Alloush, designated the head opposition negotiator in the Geneva talks, is also leader of the Army of Islam, one of the groups leading the attack on Damascus.

The fighting also underscores the highly unstable and explosive situation into which the Trump administration is preparing to send a further 1,000 US marines as part of a vast expansion of American participation in the war in Syria and Iraq.

The brutal US-instigated war for regime change in Syria, which entered its seventh year last week, has already claimed the lives of upwards of half a million people and driven a further 11 million from their homes.

Airwars, a group monitoring US and coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, recently noted that since Trump took office, civilian casualties in both countries had undergone an “unprecedented” increase. Local sources in the Iraqi city of Mosul, currently the target of a US-backed assault to retake control of it from ISIS, reported to Airwars that in the first week of March alone, between 250 and 370 non-combatants were killed by US-led airstrikes.

Over the past three years, Airwars calculates that airstrikes conducted by the US-led coalition have claimed the lives of some 2,590 civilians in Syria.

The latest atrocity reportedly occurred Tuesday in the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, when an alleged airstrike struck a school building housing hundreds of civilians. If confirmed, the strike will be the second over the past week to claim a large number of civilian lives, following the partial destruction of a mosque in Idlib province which the US claimed was being used by al-Qaida as a base. At least 42 people were killed in that attack, although reports spoke of many more still trapped in the rubble.

Confronted with a growing number of photos, video footage and eye witness accounts detailing the devastation following last Thursday’s strike, US military officials told CNN yesterday that an official investigation into the strike was being launched.

The increased targeting of civilians is part of the Trump administration’s drastic escalation of the Syrian war. Trump has given the CIA authorization to carry out airstrikes and requested that the rules of engagement for US forces be loosened to permit targets to be struck even if civilian casualties could result.

The stepping up of the US intervention takes place under conditions of rising regional tensions. Last Friday, Israel launched one of its most provocative air raids in Syria, striking a site near the government-held city of Palmyra. The Assad regime alleged the Israeli strike hit a government military position and fired air defense missiles at the planes, prompting Tel Aviv to shoot one missile down with its Arrow air defense system. Israel claimed it was targeting a weapons shipment destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Russian officials subsequently stated that a number of Russian military personnel were in close proximity to the attack. Moscow summoned the Israeli ambassador for an explanation for the strike.

Israeli politicians have gone on the offensive, vowing to expand similar strikes in the future. Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told Israeli Public Radio on Sunday, “The next time the Syrians use their air defense systems against our airplanes, we will destroy all of them without thinking twice.”

Israel has also sought to justify its intervention with allegations that Iran is attempting to strengthen its influence over Damascus by establishing a permanent military presence in the country. Tel Aviv’s hardline stance towards Teheran enjoys the full backing of the Trump administration.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a trip to China, dismissed any talk of tensions with Russia, but insisted that strikes would go on. “If there is a feasibility from an intelligence and military standpoint—we attack and so it will continue,” he said.

Assad, in response to the Israeli airstrike, called on Russia to prevent future attacks. “Russia can play a role so that Israel no longer attacks Syria,” Assad stated to Russian journalists. “I think Russia can play an important role in this regard.”

The Kremlin, which intervened in the Syrian conflict in September 2015 with the aim of propping up the Assad dictatorship, is responding to the expansion of US involvement by extending its own presence on the ground. On Monday, a Kurdish spokesman confirmed that the Kurdish YPG militia, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), had struck a deal with Moscow to establish a military base in northwest Syria where Russian soldiers will train Kurdish fighters. Troops and armored vehicles have already arrived in the town of Afrin, Redur Zelil said. Russia stated that it had no intention of establishing an additional military base on Syrian territory, claiming it already had a presence in Aleppo province.

The YPG is also being supported by Washington, with US troops imbedded with the Kurdish militia to direct the offensive to retake Raqqa from ISIS.

The news of the Russian training initiative prompted a hostile rebuke from Turkey, which intervened into northern Syria last August with the primary goal of preventing the establishment of a contiguous territorial area on its border controlled by Kurdish forces. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus declared that Ankara would not tolerate a “region of terror” in Syria and added that the ethnic structure of the region had to be kept intact.

Turkish forces have repeatedly clashed with the YPG, which Ankara designates as a terrorist organization. Earlier this month, Turkey threatened to attack the town of Manbij if YPG militia did not withdraw. However, it was compelled to back down in the face of opposition from the US and Russia.

The increase in US troops on the ground in this contested region, and the broader escalation of the conflict being pursued by the Trump administration throughout Syria and Iraq, is adding fuel to the fire of a conflict that could rapidly spiral out of control. Even an unintended clash between any combination of the myriad competing military forces operating in Syria would be sufficient to draw in regional and global powers, with catastrophic consequences for the long-suffering population of the Middle East.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

---





лидия • 8 hours ago

"A State Department release prior to the meeting said a key goal would be to “accelerate international efforts to defeat ISIS.”"
Then they should do something against Zionist colonizers of Palestine, which back ISIS:

Israeli commandos save Islamic militants from Syria | Daily Mail
Israel acknowledges it is helping Syrian rebel fighters | Times of Israel
UN Reveals Israeli Links With Syrian Rebels | Haaretz
Exclusive: Israel Is Tending to Wounded Syrian Rebels | Foreign Policy
Israel Helps ISIS Recruit Militants In Syria | Middle East Press
Israel Key Link in Exporting ISIS Oil | The Real News Network




http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/03/23/syri-m23.html

[ckaihatsu]

https://news.google.com

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-military-now-bomb-syria-rebels-isis-iran-575237


WORLD

RUSSIAN MILITARY CAN NOW BOMB SYRIAN REBELS AND ISIS FROM IRAN

BY TOM O'CONNOR ON 3/28/17 AT 10:15 AM

Dozens killed in Damascus after suicide bomber detonates inside judicial building

WORLDSYRIAIRANRUSSIAN AIR FORCE

Iran announced Tuesday it would allow Russia limited use of Iranian air bases to launch missions in Syria, where both Moscow and Tehran back the Syrian government against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, and various insurgent groups.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Reuters that Tehran would evaluate each individual request by Moscow to use Iran's military facilities to bolster offensives by the Syrian army and pro-government militias, which include the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. Iran previously permitted Russian jets to use Iran's Hamadan Air Base, also known as Shahid Nojeh Air Base, in August, marking the first time a foreign power was granted such a privilege in the nearly four-decade-long history of the Islamic Republic. This permission was revoked after the government was criticized by Iranian hardliners, but Zarif's latest statement came as Moscow and Tehran strove for closer bilateral and international cooperation.

"Russia doesn't have a military base [in Iran], we have good cooperation, and on a case by case basis, when it is necessary for Russians fighting terrorism to use Iranian facilities, we will make a decision," Zarif told Reuters.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2017/03/28/rtx31trn.jpg
A map showing areas of control in Syria as of March 19, 2017.
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR/REUTERS

The move came during a visit Monday by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Zarif to Moscow and marked a warming in relations between the two nations as the position of their mutual partner, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, grew more powerful in the seventh year of his civil war against rebels backed by Turkey, the Gulf Arab states and, formerly, the West. The U.S., once a primary sponsor of the Syrian opposition, has since backed the Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and launched an operation this week against ISIS' de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. Russia has also provided training to U.S.-backed Kurdish militant organizations such as the People's Protection Units (YPG), considered a terrorist organization by Turkey.

Related Stories
Turkey Summons Russian Envoy Over Soldier's Killing
Iran Responds to Sanctions by Penalizing 15 U.S. Firms
While in Moscow, Rouhani expressed his hope Monday for "a new turning-point" in Iran's relationship with Russia, according to Reuters. In addition to increased military cooperation in Syria, Rouhani was expected to discuss several lucrative energy and economic deals during a meeting Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin. Rouhani was set to run for reelection in May and would likely face more conservative opponents critical of efforts by the Rouhani administration to open Iran diplomatically and economically.

© 2017 NEWSWEEK LLC

[The Sentinel]

I'm all for Socialism, but we can't just get there by destroying anything we disagree with. I guess that is a lesson we didnt learn from Iraq. I'm not saying that Saddam Hussain was the best person ever, but surely we can agree that the situation was better with him in power than it is now.. What say?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm all for Socialism, but we can't just get there by destroying anything we disagree with. I guess that is a lesson we didnt learn from Iraq. I'm not saying that Saddam Hussain was the best person ever, but surely we can agree that the situation was better with him in power than it is now.. What say?


Yes, there's a clear parallel between Iraq then and Syria now -- in both cases we as socialists should be anti-imperialist, meaning that we oppose new U.S. / NATO / Western initiatives and interventions as acts of 'betterment' (my terming).

I'm currently seeing a lot of foot-dragging regarding the U.S.'s efforts as part of the SDF, so I'd certainly default to siding with the regional major powers there, as a hoped-for return to the ante-imperialist status quo, as a start. Syria, Russia, and Iran would do better than the U.S. with all of its flip-flopping and rock-bottom credibility.

[Hihi]

Assad is no leftist, and I don't think any communist "likes" him (or at least they shouldn't), but regardless we should always support a) the right to a nation's self-determination and b) anti-imperialism. Being anti-Assad (and against the Syrian state forces) is supporting imperialism, full stop. There's really only two sides in this conflict: those that are fighting with the Syrian state and those fighting against it.

As for the Kurds, like Rojava, YPG/J, etc., we should probably support them as well! They do work with Assad and Russia to fight off ISIS, although I'm aware of their ties to the U.S. and it's questionable, to say the least. But they're not really a big player when it comes to fighting off the western imperialist forces, as why I support both the Syrian state and the Kurds. Of course, after this is all over, there's the fact that Assad doesn't want Rojava to exist, but that's later. And of course I support the Kurds' right to self-determination and the land they claim in northern(?) Syria.

[The Sentinel]

I have to agree! US/NATO's motives are far from trustable. I'm actually surprised I'm saying this, but at this point Iran, despite all its imperialism seems like a better model of.. betterment for Syria.

[willowtooth]

I have to agree! US/NATO's motives are far from trustable. I'm actually surprised I'm saying this, but at this point Iran, despite all its imperialism seems like a better model of.. betterment for Syria.
Iran is a barbaric state compared to Syria (or atleast the former Syria)

[The Sentinel]

At least they have some vague kind of democracy; Which is more than I can say for former or current Syria.
And despite being so "barbaric", Syria would probably be better off with Iran backing than under US/NATO control.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas.html


Assad Apparently ‘Gasses’ Civilians Days After Tillerson Hints He Can Stay in Power

Evidence of a sophisticated chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime suggests the dictator in Damascus thinks he’s now got Trump’s carte blanche to kill as he likes.

MICHAEL WEISS

KIMBERLY DOZIER

ROY GUTMAN

04.04.17 8:59 AM ET

ISTANBUL, Turkey—Days ago, in Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that the U.S. had no quarrel with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a man Tillerson’s predecessor compared to Adolf Hitler after he slaughtered more than 1,000 people with poison gas in 2013.

The “longer-term status of President Assad,” Tillerson said, “will be decided by the Syrian people,” a euphemism used by Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran to indicate that he isn’t going anywhere.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer used almost identical language the next day, saying, “Well, I think with respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now.”

But the gas, it appears, is raining down once again on civilians.

In a video made Tuesday, Dr. Shajul Islam showed the camera a young man lying on a gurney with a catatonic expression on his face. His pupils were shrunk to the size of pinheads. “This is not chlorine,” he said. “We do not smell chlorine on this patient.” The industrial chemical has often been used as crude weapon on the Syrian battlefield.

Perhaps this time it was organic phosphate, another easily acquired chemical.


ZTszOjAZNtI


But other Syrians—and outside observers—say that it’s more likely the Assad regime dropped sarin gas on civilians—a much more sophisticated odorless and colorless nerve agent that Damascus was supposed to have gotten rid of as part of a U.S.-Russian-brokered deal in 2013.

“If it’s what it looks like, it’s clearly a war crime,” said a senior State Department official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

As ever in the six-year civil war, the death toll depends on whom you consult. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts it at 58. The White Helmets, on-the-ground first responders, at first said the figure was closer to 50. Other estimates are upward of 100 dead, with probably about 300 more injured.

The “poisonous gas,” as one Syrian activist put it, was dropped by helicopters in a series of airstrikes in the city of Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province, one of the last enclaves of rebel control in the area, mainly administered by al Qaeda and other Islamist groups.

But videos on social media do not show jihadis lying as waxy corpses in makeshift hospitals. They show children. In one image, published by Al Jazeera, a half dozen are laid out in a row under a blanket in the back of a pickup truck. Boys on the left, girls on the right, their ages probably as young as 3.

Dr. Firas Jundi, health minister for the opposition interim government, told The Daily Beast he had the names of 60 people killed in the gas attack. He said the death toll was bound to rise as there are 300 wounded, many in critical care hospitals and clinics throughout the province.

GET THE BEAST IN YOUR INBOX!



Enter your email address

By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

SUBSCRIBE

The number of victims was an indication that this is not chlorine gas, he added in a Whatsapp conversation from Idlib, where the interim government is located. "Usually chlorine doesn't kill such big number.”

He said the signs of trauma suggested a nerve agent like sarin was used in the attack, but testing was needed to say for sure. He said local authorities have recovered parts of the rocket that carried the gas canisters and are ready to turn them over to international investigators.

“What I noticed about the victims was they had difficulty breathing, many had lost consciousness and the pupils of their eyes had narrowed,” he said.

“If there are pinpoint pupils and convulsions, it’s likely nerve gas. The number of deaths is too high for chlorine for an outdoor attack,” said Andy Weber, former assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs under the Obama administration.

Syria Attack

http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas/jcr:content/body/inlineimage.img.800.jpg/49710935.cached.jpg
SHUTTERSTOCK

“Pinpoint pupils is diagnostic for sarin,” said Ambassador Laura Holgate, who was the Obama White House’s senior director for weapons of mass destruction. “Sarin kills you with a drop on your skin,” though its lethality depends on how its delivered, and the weather conditions when its dispersed.

“There was never any indication that we didn’t get all the sarin in the 2014 elimination project,” said Holgate, who was part of the team that negotiated the disarming Syria of its chemical arms in 2014, together with Moscow. “If he has sarin, it wasn’t declared or destroyed as it should have been,” as part of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-monitored operation.

“We may have gotten all of it, but they may have made more,” said Weber, who was part of the same Obama administration disarmament mission. “It’s a chemical synthesis process they obviously know how to do. Their entire [chemical warfare] program was indigenous.”

“You don’t have to have tons of it to deliver a few small bombs,” he added.

The only way to know definitively what was used is for the OPCW to gather its own tissue samples from survivors, which is difficult to do in hot zones that are still under fire. Otherwise, both former officials said, you have “chain of custody” issues in that you are trusting a human-rights group or other a local militia group’s account on exactly where and when a sample was taken.

“You’re taking their word for where they got it,” she said. “That’s why the U.S. government was always leery to lend its credence to the claims.”

Nevertheless, there are early and strong indicators of the Idlib attack’s perpetrator. “The fact that it was air delivered means it was definitely the regime that did it,” said Weber, who is now senior fellow at the Belfer Center.

The airstrikes started at around 6:30 Tuesday morning.

A hospital treating patients of the alleged chemical attack was also bombed, according to AFP, which was reporting from the location.

Syria Attack

http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas/jcr:content/body/inlineimage_0.img.800.jpg/49710935.cached.jpg
SHUTTERSTOCK

This was not the only attack on civilians Tuesday. “The people in Idlib are terrified,” Jundi said. A hospital was bombed in Salqin, killing 15 people, he said. “Everyone here is waiting for death.”

Othman Al Khani, a Khan Sheikhoun resident who lives about one mile from the area targeted, said it was residential, and there were no military installations or personnel stationed there. At least half the residents were internally displaced families from Hama province.

“Last night was very long and tiring for the people of Khan Sheikhoun,” he told The Daily Beast. “We were under bombardment until late at night, and then when people slept they slept very deeply. That is why when the gas started to leak into the houses people didn't notice it. They were deep in sleep.”

But Khani was awake and listening to rebel radio warning there was a Sukhoi combat plane flying in the vicinity.

“I heard the sort of small explosion of the type that occurs when a missile doesn’t blow up,” he said. The plane flew another 15 minutes and carried out three more strikes, he said.

The first strike turned out to be the most lethal. The local first responders from the Civil Defense had come ill-equipped and were all affected by the gas, he said.

Later in the day, he witnessed the Khan Sheikhoun hospital and the Civil Defense center coming under attack. “I was there, inside the Civil Defense center,” he said. The Center, like the hospital, is located in a cave area out of the city. “The warplane kept maneuvering above us for half an hour and hit the two places with more than ten strikes,” he said. But they were well protected by big boulders, and only the equipment and cars outside the two locations were destroyed.

Idlib province has become a frequent drop zone for chemical agents. A year-long study conducted jointly by the United Nations and the OPCW found last year that regime helicopters dropped chlorine-filled bombs on the towns of Talmenes and Sarmin, the former in late April 2014, the latter in mid-March 2015.

Sryia Chem attack

http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas/jcr:content/body/inlineimage_1.img.800.jpg/49710935.cached.jpg
AP

Chlorine is also a common industrial chemical. Its most familiar use is to keep water clean in swimming pools. But it was also one of the first chemical weapons used in World War I more than a century ago, and it is banned as an agent of warfare by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Syria signed on to that treaty in 2013 as part of a deal to acknowledge and relinquish its stocks of sarin, VX, and mustard gas. The alternative was to be U.S. intervention in the conflict.

The regime had used sarin that year in East Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, against opposition forces. Around 1,400 people were killed in that attack, according to the U.S. government, in the deadliest chemical weapons use since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s gassing of Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

Even after the OPCW judged that 99.6 percent of all declared chemicals in Syria had been removed from the country, it still found victims who had been exposed to sarin, a substance that is neither easily handled nor easily weaponized.

Last December, the regime reportedly used sarin again in eastern Hama, a day after Islamic State terror group fighters recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra. More than 90 were killed and 300 were hospitalized.

"I'm appalled by the reports that there's been a chemical weapons attack on a town south of Idlib allegedly by the Syrian regime," British prime minister Theresa May said in a statement.

"If proven, this will be further evidence of the barbarism of the Syrian regime... I'm very clear that there can be no future for Assad in a stable Syria which is representative of all the Syrian people and I call on all the third parties involved to ensure that we have a transition away from Assad," she added, using language that could not have been more different from the Trump administration's earlier statements.

But by Wednesday afternoon, the Trump administration had begun to shift that accommodationist tone, blaming the Assad regime—and President Obama—for the attacks. "These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution." Spicer said.

The senior State Department official took a different tack, placing part of the blame for the attack on Moscow and Tehran.

“Russia and Iran signed up and they claim themselves to be the guarantors” of the Syrian regime, but are “unwilling or unable” to deliver on it, the official added.

The official added that the Trump regime would be “unlikely” to work with the Assad regime against ISIS, but did not insist Assad must go—saying that Syria’s future must be determined by its people via the Geneva negotiation process, led by UN Special Envoy Staffan De Mistura.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/05/syri-a05.html


US seizes on dubious gas attack to push for expanded Syrian war

By Jordan Shilton

5 April 2017

The Trump administration has seized on allegations Tuesday that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad carried out a gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-controlled province of Idlib to push for a further escalation of military conflict in the Middle East.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring body linked to the Syrian opposition, 58 people, among them 11 children aged eight or younger, were killed in the early morning attack.

Rebel forces, which control the area, accused the government of using chemical weapons in an air strike. Pro-government sources argued that the blast had been caused by an explosion at a weapons factory run by the Islamist al-Nusra Front, which has a strong presence in the region and has previously conducted chemical weapons attacks.

The Syrian government released a statement denying all responsibility, while Russia confirmed it had not launched any air strikes in the area.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov stated that the Syrian air force struck a munitions factory east of the town, where rebels were producing shells filled with toxic gas to be sent to Iraq. He added that Islamist militants had used similar chemical weapons last year during the fighting in the city of Aleppo.

While it remains unclear who bears responsibility for the reported attack, the circumstances surrounding it are highly dubious. Late last week, high-ranking Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, stated publicly that Washington’s main priority in Syria was not the removal of Assad but the waging of the conflict against Islamic State.

This prompted a sharp rebuke from leading Republicans and Democrats. Senator John McCain denounced any shift away from “regime-change” as a “recipe for more war, more terror, more refugees, and more instability.”

In the wake of Tuesday’s alleged attack, the tone was quite different. The Trump administration and the corporate-controlled media wasted no time in declaring the guilt of the Assad regime to be beyond doubt.

“Today’s chemical attack in Syria against innocent people, including women and children, is reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world,” a statement from the White House declared. “These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and irresolution. President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a ‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons, and then did nothing.”

This was an explicit criticism of the Obama administration, which incited the Syrian civil war in 2011, for its failure to launch an all-out US-led intervention in 2013 to topple Assad. At the time, Obama was on the verge of throwing the full force of the US military into battle against the Assad regime, following a weeks-long lying propaganda campaign about an alleged August 21, 2013 sarin gas attack on Gouta, east of Damascus. He was forced to pull back due to divisions within the military-intelligence establishment over the tactical advisability of a war in Syria, as well as deep-seated popular opposition to yet another act of US imperialist aggression.

The Western powers, led by the United States, have repeatedly seized on unverified allegations of chemical weapons’ use in Syria to ratchet up pressure on the Assad regime. The attack on Gouta, which claimed the lives of up to 1,000, was the most infamous. No concrete evidence was ever presented by the Obama administration linking Assad’s forces to the atrocity.

It was later revealed, in an article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, that the US deliberately ignored intelligence that al-Nusra was capable of manufacturing poison gas, including sarin, in bulk.

Trump and Tillerson have made no secret of their intentions to vastly escalate Washington’s wars in the Middle East. Last week’s remarks by Tillerson and Haley were in no sense a retreat from the US plan to assert hegemony over the energy-rich region, but a recognition that the US-backed rebel forces are in disarray after being driven out of Aleppo in December by Assad’s military and Russian airpower.

Two weeks ago, Tillerson told a meeting of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition that Washington was preparing for long-term occupations of Iraq and Syria. He proposed the creation of “interim zones of stability” to be overseen by US-installed politicians and protected by the US military—in other words, safe zones for the proxy US militias opposed to the Assad government.

The prospect of a direct US-led assault on the Syrian regime cannot be underestimated. The alleged gas attack has provided the pretext.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer stated ominously Tuesday: “I think the president has made it clear in the past and will reiterate that today, that he is not here to telegraph what we’re going to do. But rest assured that I think he has been speaking with his national security team this morning, and we will continue to have that discussion.”

That such an attack would be directed not only at Assad, but at Washington’s chief regional rivals in the Middle East, was made clear by Tillerson’s response to Tuesday’s events. The secretary of state denounced Assad for his “brutal, unabashed barbarism,” before adding that Russia and Iran bore “moral responsibility” for the attack.

Tillerson’s provocative remarks come on the heels of last week’s comments from General Joseph Votel, chief of the US Central Command, who told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that Iran “poses the greatest long-term threat to security in this part of the world.”

Since Trump took office, the war initiated by Obama in Syria and Iraq has been drastically intensified. Trump has given a free hand to commanders on the ground to launch air strikes and other attacks, while increasing the number of troops deployed on the ground and expanding their mandates to act closer to the front lines of fighting. The result has been a devastating rise in civilian casualties in both countries, with the death of hundreds of civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul and hundreds more in air strikes in northern Syria.

Trump has also moved to limit information released by the Pentagon on US military operations in the Middle East. “In order to maintain tactical surprise, ensure operational security and force protection, the coalition will not routinely announce or confirm information about the capabilities, force numbers, locations, or movement of forces in or out of Iraq and Syria,” Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, stated recently.

The Syrian conflict is becoming even more explosive as Washington’s imperialist rivals seek to assert their own interests with ever-more aggressiveness. A day prior to the gas attack, the European Union (EU) Council adopted a new Syrian strategy which demanded Assad’s removal and the implementation of a “political transition” in the country. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative, was one of the first to denounce Assad for the “awful” attack.

French President François Hollande and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson have urged that Assad be held accountable for the gas attack. Both countries have military personnel operating in the country, as does Germany, which has been seeking to advance its own imperialist ambitions in the Middle East and Africa over recent years and has openly spoken of the need to stand up to the US in the wake of Trump’s assumption of the presidency.

An emergency session of the UN Security Council will take place on Wednesday, where an outpouring of anti-Assad, anti-Iranian and anti-Russian rhetoric can be expected from the US and European powers.

Working people in the United States and internationally must reject with contempt the feigned outrage of Trump, Hollande and other imperialist politicians over the slaughter of civilians. As demonstrated most recently by the bloodbath in Mosul, US imperialism has no qualms about indiscriminately massacring innocent civilians if it suits its own imperialist goals. Over the past quarter century, the unending series of wars waged by Washington have cost millions of people their lives and forced millions more to flee their homes.

The only way to put an end to the horrific conflict in Syria and Iraq is through the construction of an international anti-war movement dedicated to the struggle against war and the social system from which it arises: capitalism.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/06/pers-a06.html


Syria’s alleged gas attack: An imperialist provocation

6 April 2017

The Trump administration publicly responded to unsubstantiated allegations that forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad bore responsibility for a chemical attack in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province with the threat of a new escalation of the American intervention in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern country.

Speaking alongside one of Washington’s favorite Arab puppet rulers, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, during a joint news conference at the White House, Trump declared that the “heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated” and had “crossed a lot of lines for me.” While condemning his predecessor, Barack Obama, for failing to carry through on a threat to intervene militarily in Syria over alleged chemical weapons attacks in 2013, Trump declared “I now have the responsibility,” adding that his “attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.”

Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, meanwhile, issued an even more direct threat of unilateral US military action in the run-up to an anticipated Russian veto of a provocative Western-backed resolution that could serve as a fig leaf for aggression against Syria. “When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action,” she said.

Fourteen years after the US invaded Iraq, turning that country and much of the Middle East into a charnel house, Washington is at it again, employing a strikingly similar pretext for imperialist aggression.

Once again, the US and world public is being bombarded with unsubstantiated claims about “weapons of mass destruction” allegedly employed by an oppressed former colonial country, mixed with crocodile tears and feigned moral outrage from a government responsible for more civilian deaths and war crimes than any regime since the fall of the Nazi Third Reich.

The pretext for this orchestrated campaign has all the earmarks of an imperialist provocation planned and executed by the Central Intelligence Agency and allied Western secret services with the aim of shifting US policy in relation to Syria.

First, there is the question of motive. Who benefits from such a crime? Clearly, it is not the Assad regime, which, with the aid of Russia and Iran, has largely vanquished the Islamist “rebels” that were armed, financed and trained by the CIA and Washington’s regional allies in the bloody six-year-long war for regime change. The government now rules over 80 percent of the country, including all of its major cities, with the Islamists’ hold reduced to largely rural areas of Idlib province. Under conditions in which the Trump administration had been signaling a shift in focus from toppling Assad to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), why would Damascus carry out such a provocative attack?

The CIA-backed “rebels” themselves, however—along with their patrons in the US military and intelligence apparatus—have every interest in staging such a provocation as a means of thwarting the government’s consolidation of its rule throughout Syria. Moreover, numerous investigations, including by the UN’s own chemical disarmament agency, have made it clear that these forces, dominated by the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, the Al Nusra Front, have carried out similar attacks using both chlorine and sarin gas, which they have received from their regional backers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey and which they themselves have proven capable of manufacturing.

Then there is the issue of timing. The alleged gas attack was launched Tuesday morning, coinciding with the opening in Brussels of a European Union-sponsored “Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region,” which was to review proposals for “political transition” in Syria as well as Europe’s intervention in the potentially lucrative reconstruction of the ravaged country. The alleged chemical attack set the stage for renewed demands for regime change and criticism of the Trump administration for suggesting that the ouster of Assad was no longer a priority.

There is a definite pattern here. The last time that Washington and its allies accused the Assad regime of a major chemical weapons attack and nearly launched a full-scale war on that pretext was in August 2013. That alleged attack, which subsequent revelations exposed as a “rebel” provocation carried out with the help of Turkish intelligence, was launched on the very day that UN weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus.

The most telling aspect of the entire affair, however, is the extraordinary coordination of the entire corporate media in the launching of a full-throated campaign for military action before the basic facts of the incident were even known, much less a serious investigation conducted. It seemed that even before the alleged incident in Syria was reported, all of the major newspaper editors and columnists as well as the television news commentators had received the same talking points.

None of them, of course, bothered to inform their readers and viewers that the sole sources of the information they retailed as good coin consisted of Al Qaeda-connected “activists” in Syria along with US intelligence and military officials pushing for war.

Leading the pack, as usual, was the New York Times, which carried the headline “Chemical Attack on Syrians Ignites World’s Outrage.” What evidence there is of such “outrage,” outside of the world of intelligence agencies, state officials and their media hacks was not clear. Nor, for that matter, was there any explanation for the selective character of this “outrage.”

It is noteworthy that this moral outpouring came just a day after Trump gave the red carpet treatment to Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the butcher of Cairo, who slaughtered 1,000 unarmed demonstrators in a single day. Nor, for that matter, did the Times evince any such “outrage” over the 200 Iraqi civilians killed in a single US bombing raid in Mosul last month, or the hundreds if not thousands more buried alive by US bombs and missiles dropped on schools, mosques and homes in Syria itself, not to mention in Yemen.

There are certain bylines that appear on such articles that brand them as the product of direct collaboration with US intelligence. In this case, it was that of Anne Barnard, who has provided such services over the entire course of the US-orchestrated war for regime change in Syria. Her work was supplemented by that of Thomas Friedman, who has backed every US imperialist intervention over the course of over a quarter century. He offers a modest proposal for the “partition of Syria” and the creation of “protected” zones enforced by the US military. “It won’t be pretty or easy,” he allows, noting reassuringly that the US maintained 400,000 troops in Europe during the Cold War.

What is also strikingly uniform in the media propaganda campaign over the events in Syria is the across-the-board indictment of Iran and Russia as equally culpable in the alleged chemical attack. The Times editorial charged that the attack speaks to Assad’s “depravity and that of his enablers, especially Russia and Iran.”

A Washington Post editorial insisted: “Now it is Mr. Trump’s turn to decide whether to stand up to Mr. Assad and his Iranian and Russian sponsors.”

The aim is clear. The murky events in Syria are to be exploited in order to shift the bitter internal debate on foreign policy within the US ruling establishment. The intention is to bring the Trump administration into line with the predominant tendency within the US military and intelligence apparatus which is pushing for an uninterrupted buildup to military confrontation with both Iran and Russia.

That these efforts are having their desired effect found concrete expression Wednesday not only in Trump’s remarks on Syria, but also in the removal of Stephen Bannon, Trump’s fascistic chief strategist, from the principals committee of the National Security Council. The ouster of the ideological architect of Trump’s “America first” right-wing nationalist demagogy was reportedly dictated by Gen. H.R. McMaster, the president’s new national security adviser, an active duty officer who speaks for the Pentagon. Faced with intractable social and political crises at home, Trump, like his predecessors, appears to be turning toward war abroad.

The working class in both the US and internationally must take these developments, along with the CIA provocation in Syria and its accompanying media propaganda campaign, as a deadly serious warning. It faces the threat of being dragged not only into a renewed bloodbath in the Middle East, but a far more dangerous conflagration involving the world’s two major nuclear powers.

Bill Van Auken

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

Call to Urgent Action to Prevent US Attack on Syria!


US PEACE COUNCIL
Member of the World Peace Council
P. O. Box 3105, New Haven, Connecticut 06515
Telephone: 203-387-0370; Fax: 203-397-2539; Email: [email protected]

April 6, 2017

EMERGENCY!

Act Now to Prevent a Trump Attack on Syria!
Phone the White House and Congress Now!

Yesterday President Trump — who during the campaign expressed a desire for a new, more restrained approach to the war in Syria — publicly accepted the claim that the Syrian government is using chemical weapons against its own people, including children. He declared: “Lines have been crossed.” He threatened to take some sort of action. The photos are horrific. The media has for several days gone into full hysteria mode, repeating unproven allegations, attributing blame, and relying on biased sources. Is this another Gulf of Tonkin?

This is more than a dangerous moment. It is a full-blown war crisis. It is no secret that President Trump is an impulsive and often ill-informed individual. His Administration in its first months has been buffeted by missteps, defeats, and embarrassments. He may think he “needs a win.” We must make sure his Administration does not think an attack on Syria would be "a win." We have hours, at most a few days to do so.

We have been down this road before. Sophisticated observers have already noted this alleged attack has all the earmarks of a false flag operation. The Syrian government has absolutely no motive for mounting such an attack. (see: Gerry Condon (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=fd67456526&e=786f83a96f); Patrick Henningsen (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=50507dfbcf&e=786f83a96f); and Phyllis Bennis (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=74e6914e3d&e=786f83a96f))

As a leader of Veterans for Peace, Gerry Condon, has wisely observed, the sources for the gas attack reports are the rebel forces themselves, their own media, and the "White Helmets" and other Western-funded NGOs who are notorious for creating "regime change" propaganda against the Assad government. Famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has documented that the last large Sarin attack blamed on the Syrian government was carried out by terrorist groups with the support of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Hersh also documented that chemical weapons were transported from Libya to U.S.-backed rebel groups in Syria by the CIA and Hillary Clinton's State Department.

Yet the mainstream media do not mention any of this. They ask no tough questions. They entertain no doubts. They repeat previous lies that have already been debunked. They unashamedly interview sources which have long been cheerleaders for military intervention in Syria.

We can stop an attack. In 2013, an immense surge of phone calls to the White House and Congress stayed the hand of President Obama under similar pressure to “do something.” We successfully prevented Obama from attacking Syria in 2013.

We can do it again. Pick up that phone!
Call the White House at 202-456-1414;
Call your Congress members House and Senate at 202- 224-3121
Yours in peace,

Alfred L. Marder, President
U.S. Peace Council

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list






This email was sent to [email protected]
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
U.S. Peace Council · P.O. Box 3105 · New Haven, CT 06515-0205 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp

[VoiceOfReason]

Most of the usa has become a warrior culture. Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters." There will be American blood, soon.

[ckaihatsu]

Protests in Cities Across the Country To Say NO To War On Syria


View this message in your browser. (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=n%2Bk%2BFNgsho2drwMcVNTDpNNC5VMjd89W)

World Can't Wait
Downloads Store Chapters Events

Share this message:

Tweet (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=E%2BKfu83nzxaunj8F1ARHONNC5VMjd89W) Facebook (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KAfpiiC5tQAQc65hj5CXf9NC5VMjd89W)


Chris,

Protests in Cities Across the Country – Find one near you or organize one. Bring Refuse Fascism’s NO!

Donald Trump told us all along he would “bomb the shit out of” the Middle East.

Thursday he sent 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into a Syrian government airbase, in what he said was retaliation against the Assad regime’s reported poison gas attack which killed 200 Syrian civilians.

Trump, who said he was responding to the deaths of “innocent children, innocent babies,” had ordered an airstrike on a mosque in Al-Jineh Syria March 16, killing 46 civilians. He has twice attempted to ban civilians from that same country, Syria, from entering the U. S. as refugees.

Join Refuse Fascism and other organizations to condemn the thuggish aggression of the Trump/Pence regime. They are illegitimate and a danger to humanity.

World Can't Wait says The World Can't Wait — Stop The Crimes Of Your Government!

Join World Can't Wait, Refuse Fascism, ANSWER Coalition and other organizations in the streets tomorrow and over the next few days:

Anchorage, Alaska (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=xATvqLUOhJT8FwB25s%2BiCtNC5VMjd89W)

Asheville, North Carolina (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5K1YdR0nKBaqCsyKnG%2F8V9NC5VMjd89W)

Austin, Texas (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4TLkdjmPNhO0BJ04HG9G2NNC5VMjd89W)

Boston, Massachusetts (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eaqBEedEyDG4OSvrdujhEdNC5VMjd89W)

Chicago, Illinois (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=rBVtLhSBymFSbMyI0R2cIdNC5VMjd89W)

Cleveland, Ohio (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GGI9WjV%2Bww5WmHBhZGU5etNC5VMjd89W)

Denver, Colorado (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=opU55k3f2N6GVJctFtcTV9NC5VMjd89W)

Jacksonville, Florida (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BHtO5yG1TzrfR3klebzq4DWEQZ5hyTlX)

New York City, New York
Friday April 7— 5PM: Trump Tower (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VHjiMidogKDWjpzjRYfkFdNC5VMjd89W)
Friday April 7 — 6:30PM: Union Square (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oBsjkdIT55LZgce%2F%2FjFQxdNC5VMjd89W)

Houston, Texas (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vBGYRK0WMmQL1ifSeNCk%2B9NC5VMjd89W)

Los Angeles, California (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lBRcEPMuObbm6QX%2B%2FFQUfNNC5VMjd89W)

New Haven, Connecticut (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hdmJwr6Q5O2dI2%2FnmsJfZ9NC5VMjd89W)

New Orleans, Louisiana (April 11) (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=HHHvyrI6Qkw1svqz%2BiwBB9NC5VMjd89W)

Newark, New Jersey (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=b%2FiomLyjfD6ETsPI0R1W7dNC5VMjd89W)

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BVR3yJQwFCR5R6ztipoQU9NC5VMjd89W)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3RwsVvVmd2iXbWQ7C6Pz8tNC5VMjd89W)

Tampa, Florida (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=crQDGwZhIC7fRIPubAr8MNNC5VMjd89W)

Tucson, Arizona (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BhLlaonWpYPB8tGwdJ5EtdNC5VMjd89W)

San Francisco, California (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Qnug2tzJPd5WavFmxlkNstNC5VMjd89W)

Sarasota, Florida (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2B6MgKbLbZSFvOb4ZCiLNDNNC5VMjd89W)

Seattle, Washington
Friday April 7 — 5PM: Seattle Central College (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2zm%2FIEqECiKw2AJG1dU%2BxjWEQZ5hyTlX)
Friday April 7 — 6PM: Westlake Center (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=h9zTqHdZLxw7k4uvb0%2FB09NC5VMjd89W)

Spokane, Washington (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tg9zFJk8ArbEs3MH%2FvQkX9NC5VMjd89W)

The White House, Washington DC (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=p6j4FwEbmgagJWv%2BLpWwINNC5VMjd89W)

George Washington University, Washington DC (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=XckL3eV%2BR99t6rjdHb4qH9NC5VMjd89W)


Donate Now (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5K1YdR0nKBaX4UbOI8QIXtNC5VMjd89W)


Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

If you were forwarded this message and would like to subscribe directly, sign up here (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tcI7daUphNYMKvkIECsECdNC5VMjd89W).

World Can't Wait (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=E62NCK5XzQad%2BbdSm1NbiNNC5VMjd89W) | (646) 807-3259 | 305 West Broadway #185 NY, NY 10013

Make a donation online (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ILlDm1tFpnw6gULRBrst%2F9NC5VMjd89W) | Make a tax-deductible donation online (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6N7mm96tak88uOaOYkYXCdNC5VMjd89W)

Send checks or money orders, payable to "World Can't Wait":
World Can't Wait
305 W. Broadway #185
New York, NY 10013

To make a tax-deductible donation of $100 or more in support of World Can't Wait's educational activities, please make checks out to "World Can't Wait/Alliance for Global Justice," a 501(3)(c) organization.

You are receiving this email because [email protected] is subscribed to this email announcement list.
If you would like to unsubscribe click here.

empowered by Salsa

[TomLeftist]

I think that the real objective of US government of saying and claiming that Bashar Al-Assad is an evil killer is really, to steal the oil and wealth of Syria. Even Ron Paul wrote an article about how the goals of the neocons warhawks is to own the whole world. The philosophers Voltaire and Schopenhauer claimed that the objective of countries with powerful armed forces invading countries with weaker armed forces is really the countries with stronger armed forces to steal wealth from the countries of weaker armed forces


The Ghouta attack rockets came from the hills, and Assad is correct when having stated that the chemicals can be homemade. In fact, the stabilzer for sarin occurs in the Crataegus (Syrian Hawthorn) that grows in those hills, and as Zizek has already stated, a third entity (the rabble, Jews, etc.) for class struggle is required. Indeed, not only was Joseph's walking stick made from the same wood, the compound that (stabilizes [italics]) sarin is found in Crataegus. The reader may have even more problems when linking Ukraine to Italian Crataegus (the White Hills), because Ukraine was founded as a Viking kingship / Eastern Rite Catholic. Unlike Knowledge Envy's burning of library at Alexandria, the recipe for sarin stabilizer is likely contained somewhere in the Vatican library.

[TomLeftist]

But a state using weapons and repression against its own people is normal like brushing your teeths. I don't see any thing wrong with that. All states since the ancient greeks and ancient states are really violent dictatorships. Even in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels claim that the goal of the workers-dictatorship right after the overthrow of capitalist states, is a repressive machine violating the rights of the overthrown enemy class (capitalist class). USA state doesn't use gas against its own people, but it has used other weapons and mass mass-murdered its own people (Waco, Texas) and individually murdered its own citizens (Oscar Grant, Michael Brown etc)

Felipe Calderon (former Mexican president killed 130,000 people in his governance. The thing is that US government didn't invade Felipe Calderon because Mexico is a free market capitalist neoliberal client state that is a slave state of USA, and lets US economic imperialists bomb Mexico with Mcdonalds, Wal marts, Taco Bells etc. What US economic imperialists really want as well on top of the oil is to fill Syria with Mcdonalds, Walmarts etc. (To Mcdonalize Syria)


.

Assad used weapons of mass destruction against his own people..

[TomLeftist]

I think that one of the main reasons of why there is not a powerful anti-war movement composed of about 100 million people or more, is that most US citizens are trained and educated with the mentality of "What's in it for me" thinking. And since there is not any automatic profit for each US anti-war activist if most americans would become a pro-active anti-war activist, most people in the USA are just not motivated to spend physical and mental energies to protest against the present threat of US Imperialism against the state of Syria.

Heck man, most US citizens are not even physically motivated to exercise and to follow a diet, because being in an ideal shape, in good physical shape won't automatically increase the personal incomes of people. That's the way people in USA think, with an evil Ayn Rand Wall Streets investor mentality


The Ghouta attack rockets came from the hills, and Assad is correct when having stated that the chemicals can be homemade. In fact, the stabilzer for sarin occurs in the Crataegus (Syrian Hawthorn) that grows in those hills, and as Zizek has already stated, a third entity (the rabble, Jews, etc.) for class struggle is required. Indeed, not only was Joseph's walking stick made from the same wood, the compound that (stabilizes [italics]) sarin is found in Crataegus. The reader may have even more problems when linking Ukraine to Italian Crataegus (the White Hills), because Ukraine was founded as a Viking kingship / Eastern Rite Catholic. Unlike Knowledge Envy's burning of library at Alexandria, the recipe for sarin stabilizer is likely contained somewhere in the Vatican library.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The real general reason for most US wars is kind of what they say at some point... you just have to parse through their euphemisms and over-generalizations. (The arguments they make to "sell" a war to the domestic and international public are usually BS).

The US wants "stability" by which they really mean the continued US dominance in most regions and to prevent regional (Russia, in this case) and international (china in most cases) competitors from gaining their own ground. This is how they can be "frenimies" with Assad during the "war on terror" and an enemy when the regime is no longer able to maintain that status-quo stability.

The US, Russia, Assad regime all have their own interests and none will make workers more powerful.

Most People in the US are confused because the news confuses things and the de-facto opposition Democrats have been cheerleading for Trump to "stand up to Russia" using warmongering xenophobic arguments.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[VoiceOfReason]

the usa can't afford universal health care, so they say. However, they can afford endless wars of oppression.

Why?

Because wars make profits for banks and the warrior cliques.

[ckaihatsu]

I think that the real objective of US government of saying and claiming that Bashar Al-Assad is an evil killer is really, to steal the oil and wealth of Syria. Even Ron Paul wrote an article about how the goals of the neocons warhawks is to own the whole world. The philosophers Voltaire and Schopenhauer claimed that the objective of countries with powerful armed forces invading countries with weaker armed forces is really the countries with stronger armed forces to steal wealth from the countries of weaker armed forces


News Updates from CLG
08 April 2017
http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Ah, then came the dawn. Oil prices soar after U.S. launches missile strike in Syria (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKBN17905I) | 07 April 2017 | Oil prices surged more than 2 percent to a one-month high on Friday after the United States launched dozens of cruise missiles at an airbase in Syria, later dropping back as there seemed no immediate threat to supplies. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched earlier this week, declaring he acted in America's "national security interest" against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

[cruxcommunista]

LOL. "Assad used weapons of mass destruction against his own people", you watch too much Western TV. What is your evidence? Where are you getting it? The rebels who mobilize with IS have been the aggressors doing so. This is the same song and dance that has been used to justify Imperialist interventionist policies since time immemorial. The Syrian Arab Army have been doing very well against the extremists, and it has been the West's task to under-mind this achievement. Of course we should support the Kurds, why wouldn't we? This is already a virtual consensus in the Left.

[TomLeftist]

You know I don't know a lot and haven't read about how the US government uses psychology specialists, mind-manipulators and scientists of the brain to control people and to prevent a communist-revolution. But I think (like you just said), that the US mind-controllers, use a sort of de-construction of the meaning of words, euphemisms (like the ancient greeks and ancient evil Roman Imperialist gov did to sell their wars). And the mind-manipulators also know that most US citizens, even the 50 million or more immigrants who live in USA, love the USA a lot, and Napoleon Bonaparte as well as other thinkers (Slavoj Zizek) claimed that love destroys rational thinking.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo

For example (if a rich man falls in love with a beautiful woman, that rich guy would spend a lot of money in order to make that girl love him back). Even in the book "The Holy Family" there is a part that says that love has a sort of drug magical effect on people. And that's one of the reasons of why there is not a revolutionary situation in USA yet, even in a country where almost 100 million people will not be able to go to a dentist if they have a tooth ache. And where millions of people have to take like 20 sleeping pills before sleeping at night, because (In the present 100% neoliberal economic pure capitalist free market phase of capitalism), there is no security measures for workers who are fired, and for those workers to get the necessary money that they need every month (more than 600 dollars per month) in order not to sleep in a tent outside or in a parking lot)

Even Jefferson predicted that the USA will turn into a country of people sleeping the streets, I think he had Nostradamus powers or something like that.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -Thomas Jefferson

But that's what will happen in USA if americans keep loving their country so much, that they think a revolution against the ruling class is really a war against their own country. And the mind-controllers are able to sort of create the idea that a communist-revolution is really a terrorist ISIS, Al Qaeda hatred evil war against USA


the usa can't afford universal health care, so they say. However, they can afford endless wars of oppression.

Why?

Because wars make profits for banks and the warrior cliques.

[The Sentinel]

The British PM saying how "appalled" she is about what another regime did; kinda ironic I must say. I guess the British govt has just forgotten about the hundreds of years colonialism eh! Glass houses people!

[willowtooth]

The British PM saying how "appalled" she is about what another regime did; kinda ironic I must say. I guess the British govt has just forgotten about the hundreds of years colonialism eh! Glass houses people!
Who do you think sold Assad his sarin in the first place? lol

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Should we "support Assad"? Firstly, who is "we"?

"We" need to recognize that there is a huge discrepancy in the kind of action which can realistically be taken to "support Assad" by the average Westerner when compared with the average Syrian. Syrians have to decide whether to obey their country's military conscription law; Western leftists are faced with what to post on social media or whether or not to network with whatever folks are at the nearest #HandsOffSyria protest. Given the inequality of this situation in which one supporter is asked to potentially sacrifice their own life and the other “supporter” is asked to spare some of their free time, Assad's "supporters" in the West really need to keep their privilege in the perspective.

The anti-war movement in the belly of empire, geographically isolated from Syria, is only superficially “on the same side” as the empire’s adversary in Syria and in whatever imperialist war it is that we are talking about. Did one have to “support” the Argentinian military junta, which was committing its own mini-Holocaust with US support before it came into conflict with Britain over the Falkland Islands?

Would a successful anti-war movement in the USA strengthen the Syrian government's position? Yes, because the USA and NATO have made Syria their military adversary. But does an anti-war movement in the USA need to declare support for Assad in order to be successful in defending Syria, as a nation, from US aggression? No, because the anti-war movement must do more than passively display cheerleading-like “solidarity” with the Syrian military; it must become an active participant in the defense of Syria by shutting down the U.S. war machine.

It must also be recognized that the U.S. anti-war movement is essentially failing to defend Syria from U.S. militarist aggression. In Syria, the state can be said to play a role in blocking the full impact of U.S. aggression. However, we also know that just a few years ago, the CIA was outsourcing torture to Syria with the full cooperation of its bourgeois authorities. Any government that would allow itself to be subjugated into complicity with this crime clearly lacks significant guidance by anti-imperialist principles.

The primary task of leftists outside Syria is to show solidarity with the people of Syria by building their own outside, independent movement to defend Syria, not stand on the outside and order Syrians to sacrifice their lives for their national defense (or selectively amplify the voices of Syrians who order other Syrians to sacrifice their lives for national defense from within Syria) or implicitly argue that the combat-capable individuals who choose to leave Syria as refugees are cowards for not being like the heroic military determiners of the nation's selfhood. Diaspora is also an aspect of a nation’s self-determination. Talk about “supporting” Assad more directly (as opposed to working as an independent force against US militarism) is empty bluster when there is no material basis to do so, no organization to facilitate the international brigades to fight in Syria under his leadership.

The other problem with transmuting an anti-war stance in the U.S. -- or any other country outside Syria for that matter -- into a pro-Assad, pro-Syrian Arab Army, pro-war stance is that it ignores the inter-imperialist character of the Syrian conflict. If highlighting the notion of "inter-imperialist conflict" causes you to groan or roll your eyes, you're probably a vulgar anti-imperialist.

Vulgar "anti-imperialists" are allergic to the phrase "inter-imperialist conflict" because they do not accept a Leninist theory of imperialism (which defines global monopoly capitalism as inherently multi-polar, never fully eliminating competition between various national centers of the world system). Instead they have adopted the Kautskyian notion of ultra-imperialism/super-imperialism (the theory that Empire would eventually unite, and now supposedly has united, all the world's imperialist forces into one camp for joint exploitation of the planet). This leads them to pretend that the “other” great powers, namely China and Russia, are not imperialist states, ignoring the fact that they use finance capital to dominate the economies of smaller nations which they had previously annexed via military conquest (e.g. Moldova, Crimea) or that China-based multinationals are invading the territories of indigenous peoples in Bolivia or the Niger Delta. Thus the pro-war Western "supporter" of Assad, while attempting to co-opt the Western anti-war movement, must simultaneously oppose any efforts to build movements which weaken the appetite for imperial conquest and/or defense of gains made by imperial conquest in the other capitalist great powers (i.e. China and -- especially -- Russia), because the Russian war effort in favor of maintaining the status quo of Syria as a host of Russian militarism is painted as anti-imperialist, despite the aforementioned reality of Russian imperialism.

Vulgar anti-imperialism's demand is for the defeat of one empire at the hands of another. Vulgar anti-imperialism is the naive belief that when one empire conflicts with another and acts in its own interests, it is implementing anti-imperialist policy against that other empire.

Those whose anti-war praxis consists of betting on military outcomes offered by conflicting imperialist forces do not propose socialism, but progressive capitalism. Because the vulgar “anti-imperialist” left does not propose the construction of any alternative outcome to those offered by the conflicting imperialist powers, it is the ultimate reduction of political engagement to spectacle and consumption.

[willowtooth]

I dont think we should be against US involvement in Syria because that presupposes that another country wont take their place. Everyone on the left got all up in arms over the Iraq war, and what difference did it make? It's the 15 year anniversary of the iraq war and American troops aren't leaving anytime soon. If you add to that the fact that Trump is increasing the military budget by 10% or $50 billion it shows that American military interventionism, imperialism, whatever you want to call it, is not stopping anytime soon. This means any efforts against the Syrian war are both futile and short sighted.

[ckaihatsu]

I dont think we should be against US involvement in Syria because that presupposes that another country wont take their place. Everyone on the left got all up in arms over the Iraq war, and what difference did it make? It's the 15 year anniversary of the iraq war and American troops aren't leaving anytime soon. If you add to that the fact that Trump is increasing the military budget by 10% or $50 billion it shows that American military interventionism, imperialism, whatever you want to call it, is not stopping anytime soon. This means any efforts against the Syrian war are both futile and short sighted.


This, unfortunately, is a *utilitarian* argument.

My own position is on the grounds of U.S. *performance* against ISIS, which has been fair, but certainly not laudable. (One would think that a country like the U.S. would be far more aggressive in getting rid of ISIS since it has suffered multiple attacks on its own soil from that organization.)

From post #36:





Yes, there's a clear parallel between Iraq then and Syria now -- in both cases we as socialists should be anti-imperialist, meaning that we oppose new U.S. / NATO / Western initiatives and interventions as acts of 'betterment' (my terming).

I'm currently seeing a lot of foot-dragging regarding the U.S.'s efforts as part of the SDF, so I'd certainly default to siding with the regional major powers there, as a hoped-for return to the ante-imperialist status quo, as a start. Syria, Russia, and Iran would do better than the U.S. with all of its flip-flopping and rock-bottom credibility.


Regarding the latter part of LC's content at post #56, I think we need to distinguish between inter-imperialist geopolitics, and our own, class-based interests as the worldwide working class. We have no *inherent* material interest in *any* country, of course, and would prefer to see a total *collapse* of *all* great-powers conflict at once -- that not being realistic, though, we have to look at what would be most disruptive to nation-state *hegemony* there, as from the U.S., NATO, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Unless we ourselves have a solid countervailing force to summarily *neutralize* the entire situation -- a worldwide workers strike -- we should look to how inter-imperialist conflicts can play out in the least overall damaging way.

We might call this the *good-flipside* of world war -- that conflicts among the major powers at least forestall hegemony and continued mono-imperialist takeovers of the world's various regions. This isn't to call for grassroots involvement behind the various contending nations -- Syria, Russia, North Korea, and China -- but rather to say that world war can have a *class-polarizing* effect on people's consciousness due to the potential popular rejection of *all* bourgeois forces, shown plainly to be barbaric.

[The Sentinel]

I have to agree, the issue here isn't US involvement in Syria. I think it's US military involvement anywhere. Cz that's not helping other countries or the US itself, in the long run that is. There's a reason why large empires don't last forever. And the current US foreign policy just seems awfully similar to the Roman one. I guess someone needs to find more sustainable way to run the empire.. I mean country.

[Antiochus]

Actually the difference in foreign policy between the Roman Empire and the U.S is huge. Let me say that a bit 'tongue in cheek'. The Roman Empire only sought to maintain itself and opportunistically expand and then keep itself in stasis. The U.S is a CAPITALIST empire. Its end goal is, at the risk of sounding like Pinky and Brain, world domination. World domination of markets, world domination of raw materials. No one has been anywhere near as close as the U.S is today towards this end.

U.S foreign policy in the Pacific Rim area aren't the blustering of that idiot Trump, but a calculated and extremely risky effort to provoke a premeditated war with China. Similar to the way Germany sought to provoke a war in 1914 against Russia before they became too strong to contain. The question is what will China's next move will be. They need only 5-10 years before they reach military parity with the U.S in the East Asia theater.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I dont think we should be against US involvement in Syria because that presupposes that another country wont take their place. Everyone on the left got all up in arms over the Iraq war, and what difference did it make? It's the 15 year anniversary of the iraq war and American troops aren't leaving anytime soon.

The anti-war movement was politically weak, but that doesn't mean it was pointless or inevitably weak.

For one thing, the initial large protests broke the idea that the war was unquestionably supported (and showed that the consensus was in Washington and London, not amongst the broader population. Prior to these protests the US was still in a situation where the only acceptable popular expression of opinion was a US flag on a suburban SUV. The anti war protests broke the post 9-11 atmosphere.

The problem was that the movement never got past the Democratic Party who barely had to break a sweat getting ahead of the movement. They "broke" further development of the movement by successfully counter posing war with "reasonable (run by Democrats) war" because of general (if different) weaknesses of liberals (tied to the system so unable to offer alternatives) and the left (unable to wage popular campaigns that can inspire people to fight for an independent option).

Unfortunately we are In the same place but for a much more "confusing" situation. Any anti war sentiment, left to inertia, will likely fall into an anti-trump mode in the short-term and other segments might fall into a crude anti-imperialism that views Assad or Russia as the lesser-evil.

The point of anti-war/imperialism is always more or less aimed domestically. The weak links in terms of ruling class arguments in the US, I think, would be the right's hypocrisy around migrants/refugees as well as a generation-long "war on terror" supported by both parties as well as the same excuse Russia uses for its imperial actions and domestic repression.

Solidarity isn't all that possible because there isn't a domestic force capable of providing any real aid or mass strikes etc at the moment. But if people mean identification, then that's not a bad starting point. Islamophobic arguments were not uncommon in the broader anti Iraq-war protests and groups, but it may be easier, post Arab-spring, to push back against this if a movement develops.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[willowtooth]

This, unfortunately, is a *utilitarian* argument.

My own position is on the grounds of U.S. *performance* against ISIS, which has been fair, but certainly not laudable. (One would think that a country like the U.S. would be far more aggressive in getting rid of ISIS since it has suffered multiple attacks on its own soil from that organization.)

From post #36:
I dont think we should look at syria like iraq, the situation is more like libya. Which I did not see many anti-war protests over. I didn't see many protest against US involvement in Tunisia or Egypt either. Atleast not compared to the Iraq war, I think the largest was a couple thousand people, in Bamako of all places.

The US created alqueda, they have fought hand in hand against every left wing socialist government in the middle east. They promote radical jihadism and even printed children's books to teach kids the most radical violent interpretation of Islam imaginable. So their performance against their old allies is irrelevant.

Most importantly we should remember that assad is backed by far right nationalists, Trump doesn't want him going anywhere he said so himself dozens of times back when obama was considering intervening after the Ghouta massacre. Why would Trump protest US intervention after 1400+ die with sarin gas but then blow up an airport because the same Syian government used the same weapon to kill less than 100?





Regarding the latter part of LC's content at post #56, I think we need to distinguish between inter-imperialist geopolitics, and our own, class-based interests as the worldwide working class. We have no *inherent* material interest in *any* country, of course, and would prefer to see a total *collapse* of *all* great-powers conflict at once -- that not being realistic, though, we have to look at what would be most disruptive to nation-state *hegemony* there, as from the U.S., NATO, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Unless we ourselves have a solid countervailing force to summarily *neutralize* the entire situation -- a worldwide workers strike -- we should look to how inter-imperialist conflicts can play out in the least overall damaging way. well the syrian communist party says to support assad so if we are just going to promote solidarity with whoever waves around a hammer and sickle we should support assad who is the leader of the (still technically socialist) baath party. Who was supported by the USSR


We might call this the *good-flipside* of world war -- that conflicts among the major powers at least forestall hegemony and continued mono-imperialist takeovers of the world's various regions. This isn't to call for grassroots involvement behind the various contending nations -- Syria, Russia, North Korea, and China -- but rather to say that world war can have a *class-polarizing* effect on people's consciousness due to the potential popular rejection of *all* bourgeois forces, shown plainly to be barbaric.

Which might be fine if there was a soviet union to support, but there isn't we have China thats all, and other than them selling a few more missles to Assad I dont think they will get involved. While assad is not really supported by China or Russia, they will continue to use him to exert influence in the region. Syria is not an imperialist power, therefore it will become subject to one. I dont really see the difference between a puppet state organized by one imperialist or the next.

That is one of the worst parts about neo colonialism it does not allow for proper development. Syria is empty, less than half of Syrians are still there. Under normal circumstances Turkey or some other neighboring power would've invaded along time ago and declared Syria part of their territory. Instead its a power struggle between governments on the other side of the earth. Nobody involved shares a border with Syria. They are all just competing for which nations wealthiest will be able to profit from them.

normally I would say support the people who are fighting for a regional power to unite people regardless of race or national origin. Unfortunately the only people doing that is ISIS. I dont really see any difference between Assad regime and ISIS, other than one being sunni and the other being shia. I dont think israel sees much of a difference either, since neither recognize its existence

[ckaihatsu]

I dont think we should be against US involvement in Syria because that presupposes that another country wont take their place. Everyone on the left got all up in arms over the Iraq war, and what difference did it make? It's the 15 year anniversary of the iraq war and American troops aren't leaving anytime soon. If you add to that the fact that Trump is increasing the military budget by 10% or $50 billion it shows that American military interventionism, imperialism, whatever you want to call it, is not stopping anytime soon. This means any efforts against the Syrian war are both futile and short sighted.





This, unfortunately, is a *utilitarian* argument.

My own position is on the grounds of U.S. *performance* against ISIS, which has been fair, but certainly not laudable. (One would think that a country like the U.S. would be far more aggressive in getting rid of ISIS since it has suffered multiple attacks on its own soil from that organization.)

From post #36:

Yes, there's a clear parallel between Iraq then and Syria now -- in both cases we as socialists should be anti-imperialist, meaning that we oppose new U.S. / NATO / Western initiatives and interventions as acts of 'betterment' (my terming).

I'm currently seeing a lot of foot-dragging regarding the U.S.'s efforts as part of the SDF, so I'd certainly default to siding with the regional major powers there, as a hoped-for return to the ante-imperialist status quo, as a start. Syria, Russia, and Iran would do better than the U.S. with all of its flip-flopping and rock-bottom credibility.





I dont think we should look at syria like iraq, the situation is more like libya. Which I did not see many anti-war protests over.


Libya was *easy* for NATO -- they were able to do that one *quickly* before a mass consciousness could form to express opposition to the proxy carve-up of the territory for multinational corporate oil rights. (There was also that bloodthirsty mood whipped up against Ghaddafy.)

But we *did* see protests and a solid popular position against punishing Syria in 2013 for the Ghouta attacks when it was far from clear that the perpetrator was Syria:





International[edit]

Main articles: International reactions to the 2013 Ghouta attacks, Agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, and US–Russia peace proposals on Syria

The international community condemned the attacks. United States President Barack Obama said the US military should strike targets in Syria to retaliate for the government's purported use of chemical weapons, a proposal publicly supported by French President François Hollande, but condemned by Russia and Iran.[223][224] The Arab League stated it would support military action against Syria in the event of UN support, though member states Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Tunisia opposed it.[225]

At the end of August, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom voted against military intervention in Syria.[226] In early September, the United States Congress began debating a proposed authorisation to use military force, although votes on the resolution were indefinitely postponed amid opposition from many legislators[227] and tentative agreement between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on an alternative proposal, under which Syria would declare and surrender its chemical weapons to be destroyed under international supervision.[228]

In contrast to the positions of their governments, polls in early September indicated that most people in the US, UK, Germany and France opposed military intervention in Syria.[229][230][231][232][233] One poll indicated that 50% of Americans could support military intervention with cruise missiles only, "meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks."[234] In a survey of American military personnel, around 75% said they opposed air strikes on Syria, with 80% saying an attack would not be "in the U.S. national interest".[235] Meanwhile, a Russian poll suggested that most Russians supported neither side in the conflict, with less than 10% saying they supported Assad.[236]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attack#International


---





I didn't see many protest against US involvement in Tunisia or Egypt either. Atleast not compared to the Iraq war, I think the largest was a couple thousand people, in Bamako of all places.


Those were part of the Arab Spring proper (not a 'color revolution'-type revolt instigated from without, as was attempted on Assad by the CIA, riding on the *coattails* of the genuine Arab Spring international protests).

The U.S. had its 'Occupy' movement more-or-less in parallel, for whatever that was worth.





Bulletin of the League for the Revolutionary Party
March 1, 2012

Occupy Wall Street:
A Marxist Assessment

http://lrp-cofi.org/statements/OWS_030112.html





War, 2011–16[edit]

Main article: Timber Sycamore

Wikileaks has reported that the US government has been covertly funding the Syrian opposition since 2006.[40] Special Activities Division teams are speculated to have been deployed to Syria during the uprising to ascertain rebel groups, leadership and potential supply routes.[41]

In early September 2013, President Obama told U.S. Senators that the CIA had trained the first 50-man insurgent element and that they had been inserted into Syria.[42] The deployment of this unit and the supplying of weapons may be the first tangible measure of support since the U.S. stated they would begin providing assistance to the opposition.[43][44] However, the CIA had been facilitating the flow of arms from Libya to Syria "for more than a year" beforehand in collaboration with "the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar"; "the operation was largely run out of a covert CIA annex in Benghazi." U.S. military intelligence predicted "the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria's takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya."[45]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Syria#War.2C_2011.E2.80.9316


---





The US created alqueda, they have fought hand in hand against every left wing socialist government in the middle east. They promote radical jihadism and even printed children's books to teach kids the most radical violent interpretation of Islam imaginable. So their performance against their old allies is irrelevant.


No, it's *not* irrelevant, because we can clearly see the U.S. national identity through its current, ongoing foreign policy positions -- much pivoted *instantly* in 2013 around the Western response to the Ghouta attacks, where, for the first time, the U.S. had to take open responsibility for the monster it created (ISIS), even though this policy shift conflicted with its legacy of backing the Islamic fundamentalist groups that it (along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia) was indirectly supporting militarily up to that point.





Most importantly we should remember that assad is backed by far right nationalists, Trump doesn't want him going anywhere he said so himself dozens of times back when obama was considering intervening after the Ghouta massacre. Why would Trump protest US intervention after 1400+ die with sarin gas but then blow up an airport because the same Syian government used the same weapon to kill less than 100?


This latter contention of yours is dubious -- you may want to provide some references here.

Trump *had* a hands-off, 'isolationalist' policy regarding Syria, but has since, recently, been trumped by the Democratic-aligned 'deep state' apparatus / faction:





[T]he Democratic-imperialist / 'deep state' faction is politically prevailing with their previously laid plans for Syria, despite any formality of the presidential election results for Trump.

Hopefully this helps people to wake-up to the fact that the U.S. president is just an employee of the state along for the ride, and that it's the nation-state *institution* itself that sets foreign policy over the span of decades.

That leaves only the *class divide* as being valid and significant, and *not* ruling-class intra-state factionalism (as during election season) since the same kind of imperialist policies are carried-out either way.




Trump government attacks Syria

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/196902-Trump-government-attacks-Syria?p=2881987#post2881987


---





well the syrian communist party says to support assad so if we are just going to promote solidarity with whoever waves around a hammer and sickle we should support assad who is the leader of the (still technically socialist) baath party. Who was supported by the USSR


Yes, this is geopolitics, unfortunately.





Which might be fine if there was a soviet union to support, but there isn't we have China thats all, and other than them selling a few more missles to Assad I dont think they will get involved. While assad is not really supported by China or Russia,

Here's a current news headline:


US to Russia: Abandon Syria's President Bashar al-Assad

Aljazeera.com-Apr 11, 2017

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/russia-abandon-syria-president-bashar-al-assad-170411110327774.html


---





they will continue to use him to exert influence in the region. Syria is not an imperialist power, therefore it will become subject to one. I dont really see the difference between a puppet state organized by one imperialist or the next.


You're making the common mistake of equating *all* nations as being the same in this regional proxy war and proto-world-war.

Remember *this* part -- ?





well the syrian communist party says to support assad so if we are just going to promote solidarity with whoever waves around a hammer and sickle we should support assad who is the leader of the (still technically socialist) baath party. Who was supported by the USSR


Can you really equate a democratically elected leader (Assad) and Syria's international ally, Russia, with NATO and its recent rampage of destruction through the Middle East -- ?


---





That is one of the worst parts about neo colonialism it does not allow for proper development. Syria is empty, less than half of Syrians are still there. Under normal circumstances Turkey or some other neighboring power would've invaded along time ago and declared Syria part of their territory. Instead its a power struggle between governments on the other side of the earth. Nobody involved shares a border with Syria. They are all just competing for which nations wealthiest will be able to profit from them.


True. It's an international *proxy* war, not an internal 'civil' war.

And please recall who attacked Syria *initially*. (See the section about the CIA, above.)





normally I would say support the people who are fighting for a regional power to unite people regardless of race or national origin. Unfortunately the only people doing that is ISIS. I dont really see any difference between Assad regime and ISIS, other than one being sunni and the other being shia. I dont think israel sees much of a difference either, since neither recognize its existence


You sound like you're *defending* Israeli intervention, and ISIS.

You're unable to make qualitative distinctions between NATO, Syria and Russia and Iran, and ISIS -- this is far too casual and facile on your part.

[ckaihatsu]

[EmergencyResponseforUSAttackonIranorSyria] NO TO THE U.S. BOMBING OF SYRIA! U.S. HANDS OFF SYRIA!


This is the content of a new leaflet from the March 19th Anti-War Coalition. Your comments are welcome. If you want hard copies for distribution, please let us know. [email protected]

NO TO THE U.S. BOMBING OF SYRIA!
U.S. HANDS OFF SYRIA!

The U.S. bombing of Syria on April 6 must be opposed as a criminal act.

Why call it criminal?

# 1. Syria has never attacked the U.S. The U.S., under international law, including the UN Charter, which the U.S. has signed, has no right to attack Syria.

# 2. The U.S. bombed for no legitimate reason. The Trump Administration claims the government of Syria used poison gas against civilians. Thet have presented NO evidence to prove this. Let’s remember that the government and corporate media spread Big Lies before, such as claiming there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The evidence that is available about the source of the gas attack in Syria on April 4 is that the U.S.-backed rebels in Syria had poison chemicals in a storage building. (yahoo.com/news/russia-argue-u-n-syria-rebels-blame-gas-115906393.html).

There is evidence U.S. backed rebels used poison gas previously in Syria, such as in the notorious attack in 2013 (dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-2320223/UN-accuses-Syrian-rebels-carrying-sarin-gas-attacks-blamed-Assads-troops.html).

We should be clear that the U.S. missile strike on Syria on April 6 was not the act of a lone criminal named Trump. Democrats and other Republicans have enthusiastically applauded the U.S. bombing. Among them is Hillary Clinton, who has long advocated bombing airfields in Syria. Bernie Sanders is not condemning the attack; instead he is raising concerns about whether it is the best step to gain domination over Syria.

Trump represents a section of the ruling class-- the billionaire and millionaire owners of banks and corporations who funded and supported the outrageousTrump campaign for president, to “make America great again.”

Trump was chosen to deal with the challenges to the U.S. capitalist empire. Its competition has been strengthening, its production has been dropping, and people are opposing U.S. imperialism in the U.S. and all over the world.

One big problem the U.S. has in Syria is that the Syrian government has regained many key towns from the U.S.-backed rebels, and peace talks for a peaceful political solution were moving forward. This has been a blow to the U.S. plans for regime change and its desire to dominate Syria because of its important position in the Middle East, and to undercut the influence of Russia and Iran in the region.

The U.S. ruling class decided years ago that it would attack Syria in an all-around way and not allow the Syrian people to exercise their right to self-determination. (See, for example, counterpunch.org/2015/09/17/the-dirty-politics-behind-the-syrian-conflict/). And so, under Obama and the Democrats, the U.S. underhandedly attacked Syria using proxies to overthrow its democratically-elected government. The U.S. government has admitted it funded, supplied, and trained “rebels” including el Qaeda offshoots. Under Obama, the U.S. began to put U.S. boots on the ground. In recent weeks the U.S. has inserted a more than a thousand additional U.S. troops.

The U.S. ruling class is so desperate it is willing to risk provoking a war with Russia, which has answered the call of the Syrian government for assistance.

Why is the U.S. government continually interfering in the Middle East?

The U.S. capitalist empire cannot tolerate any independence from the U.S., such as the government of Gaddafi in Libya or Iran or the government of Syria.

There are oil and oil pipelines in the Middle East that the U.S. corporations want to control, and the Middle East is strategically important to the U.S. ruling class.

But, we the people do not have to stand for any wars for U.S. empire, spreading misery and creating millions of refugees. We have a responsibility to stand up against these crimes being committed in our name, and do this with mass demonstrations and by interfering in ruling class plans (such as youth refusing to join the military).

At the same time we need to work for a future in which we have a genuinely democratic government of, for, and by the people—an anti-war government, a government of peace and justice.

Let us take even more time from our busy lives to make sure we have discussion with our friends and neighbors and all people of conscience about all these issues facing us, especially the escalating crimes of the Trump regime.

No wars for U.S. Empire! Get the U.S. war machine out of the Middle East NOW!

Fight for an anti-war government in the U.S., a truly democratic peace and justice government!


This leaflet is from the
March 19th Anti-War Coalition
[email protected]

4.12.17

[willowtooth]

Libya was *easy* for NATO -- they were able to do that one *quickly* before a mass consciousness could form to express opposition to the proxy carve-up of the territory for multinational corporate oil rights. (There was also that bloodthirsty mood whipped up against Ghaddafy.)

But we *did* see protests and a solid popular position against punishing Syria in 2013 for the Ghouta attacks when it was far from clear that the perpetrator was Syria:
Libya started by the situation in Tunisia, now I know the CIA is pretty good at organizing protests but they didn't organize any self immolations. Libya the country is less populated than the city of los angeles, he couldve easily stepped down instead he started spreading rumors about jews starting riots by passing out hallucinogens. Im sure he accused the marxists as well. Qaddafi and Assad are anti communists.






---






Those were part of the Arab Spring proper (not a 'color revolution'-type revolt instigated from without, as was attempted on Assad by the CIA, riding on the *coattails* of the genuine Arab Spring international protests).

The U.S. had its 'Occupy' movement more-or-less in parallel, for whatever that was worth.
Okay but the CIA also supported the Assad regime, there were also protests called the Damascus spring against assad in 2000. there are alot of people that want to see the downfall of the assad regime other than hillary clinton









---






No, it's *not* irrelevant, because we can clearly see the U.S. national identity through its current, ongoing foreign policy positions -- much pivoted *instantly* in 2013 around the Western response to the Ghouta attacks, where, for the first time, the U.S. had to take open responsibility for the monster it created (ISIS), even though this policy shift conflicted with its legacy of backing the Islamic fundamentalist groups that it (along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia) was indirectly supporting militarily up to that point.The official record still says assad was responsible for the ghouta attack. only russian and syrian governments say different the Un, human rights watch, the EU everybody claims it was assad






This latter contention of yours is dubious -- you may want to provide some references here.

Trump *had* a hands-off, 'isolationalist' policy regarding Syria, but has since, recently, been trumped by the Democratic-aligned 'deep state' apparatus / faction:



Trump was fervently against the syrian war, even claimed Hillary Clinton would get into war with Syria
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/04/07/trump-tweets-about-syria/100154318/

I dont know what the Democratic-aligned 'deep state' apparatus is sounds scary but ive never heard of it. Trump wont get into Syria he wants assad to stick around, now why he blew up an airport is anyones guess but as you can see assad is still here. Fascists love Assad when talking about Syrian immigrants, "support assad so we can send them all back" there's new propaganda going around about "setting up safe zones inside of syria" whatever that means but of course their not above nuking the whole country. Ive seen nazis promote the alawites as more "racially pure" than the arabs, ive seen them use pictures of blond bikini clad beachgoers under the headlines Assad's syria, vs women in hijabs under obama's ISIS, ive seen them hailed for standing up to the jews etc.






---





Yes, this is geopolitics, unfortunately.




Here's a current news headline:


US to Russia: Abandon Syria's President Bashar al-Assad

Aljazeera.com-Apr 11, 2017

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/russia-abandon-syria-president-bashar-al-assad-170411110327774.html


---





You're making the common mistake of equating *all* nations as being the same in this regional proxy war and proto-world-war.

Remember *this* part -- ?





Can you really equate a democratically elected leader (Assad) and Syria's international ally, Russia, with NATO and its recent rampage of destruction through the Middle East -- ?


---

Assad is not democratically elected he ran unopposed with 99.7% of the vote, he won the election in the sense that he made sure he wouldn't suffer a military coup if he took power after his father, the King of saudi arabia is more democratically elected then assad. they have been under martial law for over 50 years, they gave asylum to nazi war criminals to help their military learn how to torture protesters better, there's nothing democratic about it




True. It's an international *proxy* war, not an internal 'civil' war.

And please recall who attacked Syria *initially*. (See the section about the CIA, above.)Nobody attacked Syria because it shouldnt exist, its a neo colonial state drawn in the footprint of the ottoman empire, the borders were drawn perfectly to make sure its as ungovernable on its own as possible






You sound like you're *defending* Israeli intervention, and ISIS.

You're unable to make qualitative distinctions between NATO, Syria and Russia and Iran, and ISIS -- this is far too casual and facile on your part.of course not lol you know me I would prefer to turn the whole middle east into Hoxha's Albania, but either way it doesn't matter the USA wont do anything against assad so we can go back to supporting the FSA now

[ckaihatsu]

Libya started by the situation in Tunisia,


Yes, there was discontent with Ghaddafi, but the sentiment got co-opted by *monarchists* there, who themselves got co-opted by Western / NATO interests over Libya's oil:


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Flag_of_Libya.svg/220px-Flag_of_Libya.svg.png




The former Libyan flag used during the monarchy (1951–69) had been used by some protesters as an opposition symbol. After the war's conclusion, it once again became the flag of Libya.[1]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Gaddafi_forces





2011 military intervention in Libya

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Operation Freedom Falcon" redirects here. For the Iraq War battle, see Operation Falcon Freedom.

Clashes between Libya and the United States

On 19 March 2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya, ostensibly to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. The United Nations Intent and Voting was to have "an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute crimes against humanity" ... "imposing a ban on all flights in the country's airspace – a no-fly zone – and tightened sanctions on the Qadhafi regime and its supporters." The resolution was taken in response to events during the Libyan Civil War,[19] and military operations began, with American and British naval forces firing over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles,[20] the French Air Force, British Royal Air Force, and Royal Canadian Air Force[21] undertaking sorties across Libya and a naval blockade by Coalition forces.[22] French jets launched air strikes against Libyan Army tanks and vehicles.[23][24] The Libyan government response to the campaign was totally ineffectual, with Gaddafi's forces not managing to shoot down a single NATO plane despite the country possessing 30 heavy SAM batteries, 17 medium SAM batteries, 55 light SAM batteries (a total of 400-450 launchers, including 130-150 SA-6 launchers and some SA-8 launchers), and 440-600 short-ranged air-defense guns.[25][26] The official names for the interventions by the coalition members are Opération Harmattan by France; Operation Ellamy by the United Kingdom; Operation Mobile for the Canadian participation and Operation Odyssey Dawn for the United States.[27]

From the beginning of the intervention, the initial coalition of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, UK and US[28][29][30][31][32] expanded to nineteen states, with newer states mostly enforcing the no-fly zone and naval blockade or providing military logistical assistance. The effort was initially largely led by France and the United Kingdom, with command shared with the United States. NATO took control of the arms embargo on 23 March, named Operation Unified Protector. An attempt to unify the military command of the air campaign (whilst keeping political and strategic control with a small group), first failed over objections by the French, German, and Turkish governments.[33][34] On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone, while command of targeting ground units remains with coalition forces.[35][36][37] The handover occurred on 31 March 2011 at 06:00 UTC (08:00 local time). NATO flew 26,500 sorties since it took charge of the Libya mission on 31 March 2011.

Fighting in Libya ended in late October following the death of Muammar Gaddafi, and NATO stated it would end operations over Libya on 31 October 2011. Libya's new government requested that its mission be extended to the end of the year,[38] but on 27 October, the Security Council voted to end NATO's mandate for military action on 31 October.[39]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya





Criticism[edit]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Miting_podr%C5%A1ke_Gadafiju_u_Beogradu.JPG/220px-Miting_podr%C5%A1ke_Gadafiju_u_Beogradu.JPG
Protest in Belgrade, Serbia on March 26, 2011 against military intervention in Libya

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/April_2%2C_2011_Minnesota_protest_against_military _action_in_Libya_3.jpg/220px-April_2%2C_2011_Minnesota_protest_against_military _action_in_Libya_3.jpg
Protest in Minneapolis, United States on April 2, 2011 against US military intervention in Libya

Some critics of Western military intervention suggested that resources—not democratic or humanitarian concerns—were the real impetus for the intervention, among them a journalist of London Arab nationalist newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the Russian TV network RT and the (then-)leaders of Venezuela and Zimbabwe, Hugo Chávez and Robert Mugabe.[218][219][220][221] Gaddafi's Libya, despite its relatively small population, was known to possess vast resources, particularly in the form of oil reserves and financial capital.[222] Libya is a member of OPEC and one of the world's largest oil producers. It was producing roughly 1.6 million barrels a day before the war, nearly 70 percent of them through the state-owned National Oil Corporation.[223] Additionally, the country's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, was one of the largest in the world,[224] controlling assets worth approximately US$56 billion,[225] including over 100 tons of gold reserves in the Central Bank of Libya.[226]

Accusations of imperialism on the part of NATO and the West were voiced by many leaders of states that had traditionally aligned themselves with the Communist bloc and subsequently Russia, including: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei (who said he supported the rebels but not Western intervention[221]), Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (who referred to Gaddafi as a "martyr"[220]), and President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe (who referred to the Western nations as "vampires"[219]), as well as the governments of Raúl Castro in Cuba,[227] Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua,[228] Kim Jong-il in North Korea,[229] Hifikepunye Pohamba in Namibia,[230] and others. Gaddafi himself referred to the intervention as a "colonial crusade ... capable of unleashing a full scale war",[231] a sentiment that was echoed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: "[UNSC Resolution 1973] is defective and flawed...It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."[232] President Hu Jintao of the People's Republic of China said, "Dialogue and other peaceful means are the ultimate solutions to problems," and added, "If military action brings disaster to civilians and causes a humanitarian crisis, then it runs counter to the purpose of the UN resolution."[233] Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was critical of the intervention as well, rebuking the coalition in a speech at the UN in September 2011.[234] Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, despite the substantial role his country played in the NATO mission, also spoke out against getting involved: "I had my hands tied by the vote of the parliament of my country. But I was against and I am against this intervention which will end in a way that no-one knows" and added "This wasn't a popular uprising because Gaddafi was loved by his people, as I was able to see when I went to Libya."[235][236]

Russia's foreign broadcasting service, RT, has postulated that NATO intervention may have been motivated by Gaddafi's attempts to establish a unified federation of African states that would use the gold dinar as its currency and demand that foreign importers of African oil pay in gold.[218] Despite its stated opposition to NATO intervention, Russia abstained from voting on Resolution 1973 instead of exercising its veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council; four other powerful nations also abstained from the vote—India, China, Germany, and Brazil—but of that group only China has the same veto power.[237]

Moreover, criticisms have been made on the way the operation was led. According to Michael Kometer and Stephen Wright, the outcome of the Libyan intervention was reached by default rather than by design. It appears that there was an important lack of consistent political guidance caused particularly by the vagueness of the UN mandate and the ambiguous consensus among the NATO-led coalition. This lack of clear political guidance was translated into an incoherent military planning on the operational level. Such a gap may impact the future NATO's operations that will probably face trust issues.[238]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya#Criticism


---





now I know the CIA is pretty good at organizing protests but they didn't organize any self immolations. Libya the country is less populated than the city of los angeles, he couldve easily stepped down instead he started spreading rumors about jews starting riots by passing out hallucinogens. Im sure he accused the marxists as well. Qaddafi and Assad are anti communists.


Here's some proof, regarding Libya:





Libya's economy witnessed increasing privatization; although rejecting the socialist policies of nationalized industry advocated in The Green Book, government figures asserted that they were forging "people's socialism" rather than capitalism.[291] Gaddafi welcomed these reforms, calling for wide-scale privatization in a March 2003 speech.[292] In 2003, the oil industry was largely sold to private corporations,[293] and by 2004, there was $40 billion of direct foreign investment in Libya, a sixfold rise over 2003.[294] Sectors of Libya's population reacted against these reforms with public demonstrations,[295] and in March 2006, revolutionary hard-liners took control of the GPC cabinet; although scaling back the pace of the changes, they did not halt them.[296] In 2010, plans were announced that would have seen half the Libyan economy privatized over the following decade.[297]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi#Pan-Africanism.2C_reconciliation_and_privatization:_19 99.E2.80.932011





Muammar Gaddafi's response to the 2011 Libyan Civil War
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Muammar Gaddafi (1942 - 2011) attributed the protests against his rule to people who are "rats" and "cockroaches", terms that have been cited by Hutu radicals of the Tutsi population before the Rwanda genocide began, thus causing unease in the global community. Gaddafi accused his opponents as those who have been influenced by hallucinogenic drugs put in drinks and pills. He specifically referred to substances in milk, coffee and Nescafe. He claimed that Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were distributing these hallucinogenic drugs. He also blamed alcohol.[1][2]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi%27s_response_to_the_2011_Libyan_Ci vil_War


---





Okay but the CIA also supported the Assad regime,





21st century[edit]

Following the 11 September 2001 attacks the United States, in particular the CIA, has been accused of rendering hundreds of people suspected by the government of being terrorists—or of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations—to third-party states such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. Such "ghost detainees" are kept outside judicial oversight, often without ever entering US territory, and may or may not ultimately be transferred to the custody of the United States.[33] According to the former CIA case officer Bob Baer, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt."[45]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#21st_century


---





there were also protests called the Damascus spring against assad in 2000. there are alot of people that want to see the downfall of the assad regime other than hillary clinton


Yes, but the problematic there is that opposition to Assad plays right into the hands of geopolitical imperialism, plus the opposition itself tends to be reactionary anyway:





Long-standing members of the Syrian opposition were notable in animating the movement




[U]ntil 2005 one salon, the Jamal al-Atassi National Dialogue Forum, was still permitted to function. The Atassi forum was shut down after a member had read a statement from the banned Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist organization which had rebelled against the government of Hafiz al-Assad in the early 1980s by murdering thousands of government officials and civilians, which culminated in the Hama Massacre. The government made clear that any collaboration with the Brotherhood, which despite the exile of its leadership was considered to be by far the strongest opposition movement in Syria, was a "red line" not to be crossed.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_Spring#Events





Syria has publicly condemned international terrorist attacks, and has not been directly linked to terrorist activity since 1986, as it denies any involvement in Hariri killing. Syria actively bars any Syrian-based terrorist attacks and targeting of Westerners. Instead, Syria provides “passive support” to groups it deems as legitimate resistance movements.[7] The United States characterizes this as providing safe-havens for terrorists groups, as the Syrian government allows groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command to operate within its borders .[8] The U.S. believes that Syria provides tactical and political support to these groups and in April 2010 condemned Syria as it believes it provides SCUD missiles to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.[7]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Terrorism


---





The official record still says assad was responsible for the ghouta attack. only russian and syrian governments say different the Un, human rights watch, the EU everybody claims it was assad


On the contrary, there's very good empirical evidence for the final determination in 2013, that Syria was *not* responsible for the attack:





Primary Evidence

This section contains findings which are directly indicative of a rebel attack.

The attack was launched from an opposition-controlled area 2 km north of Zamalka.
Evidence the rockets were launched from the north:

One impact site was documented by locals during the UN visit, showing a rocket buried in the ground pointing north

A second impact site was documented by locals a few hours after the attack, showing an UMLACA and crater clearly pointing from north to south

A third impact site was documented during the UN visit showing a hole in the northern wall of an apartment

Full details here (https://web.archive.org/web/20170205032940/http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2013/10/impact-site-analysis.html)




https://web.archive.org/web/20170205032940/http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-conclusion.html


---





Trump was fervently against the syrian war, even claimed Hillary Clinton would get into war with Syria
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/04/07/trump-tweets-about-syria/100154318/

I dont know what the Democratic-aligned 'deep state' apparatus is sounds scary but ive never heard of it.


Definition in political science[edit]
Deep state has been defined in 2014 by Mike Lofgren, a former Republican U.S. Congressional aide, as "a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process."[23]

In his 1956 book The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills outlined the origins of power and its development in the United States. Mills' conclusions were that by the mid-twentieth century, American power had become concentrated into three major divisions; the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and the Pentagon. Prior to President Eisenhower's coinage of the term 'military-industrial complex', its existence and impact on American politics and governmental policy were well developed and recognized by Mills.

In The Concealment of the State, professor Jason Royce Lindsey argues that even absent a conspiratorial agenda, the term "deep state" is useful for understanding aspects of the national security establishment in developed countries, with emphasis on the United States. Lindsey writes that the deep state draws power from the national security and intelligence communities, a realm where secrecy is a source of power.[24][/quote]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_the_United_States#Definition_in_poli tical_science


---





Trump wont get into Syria he wants assad to stick around, now why he blew up an airport is anyones guess but as you can see assad is still here.


Our 'deep state' at work, considering the link you just provided to Trump's tweets that show his past, *contrary* stance (expressing non-intervention in Syria).





The 2017 Shayrat missile strike took place on the morning of 6 April 2017[1] and involved the launch by the United States of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea into Syria, aimed at the Shayrat Airbase controlled by the Syrian government.[4][5][6] The strike was ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump as a direct response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack that occurred on 4 April.[5][7]




The chemical attack was attributed by the U.S. and its allies to the Syrian government, but the Syrian government denied responsibility.[11]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Shayrat_missile_strike


---





Fascists love Assad when talking about Syrian immigrants, "support assad so we can send them all back" there's new propaganda going around about "setting up safe zones inside of syria" whatever that means but of course their not above nuking the whole country. Ive seen nazis promote the alawites as more "racially pure" than the arabs, ive seen them use pictures of blond bikini clad beachgoers under the headlines Assad's syria, vs women in hijabs under obama's ISIS, ive seen them hailed for standing up to the jews etc.


Interesting, but 'the [worldwide diaspora of] Jews' is not perfectly equivalent to the State of Israel, which is what that reference *means*, more-accurately.

Revolutionary leftists are / are supposed-to-be anti-Zionists, which is *not* being anti-Semitic.


---





Assad is not democratically elected he ran unopposed with 99.7% of the vote, he won the election in the sense that he made sure he wouldn't suffer a military coup if he took power after his father, the King of saudi arabia is more democratically elected then assad. they have been under martial law for over 50 years, they gave asylum to nazi war criminals to help their military learn how to torture protesters better, there's nothing democratic about it


Noted.





Nobody attacked Syria because it shouldnt exist, its a neo colonial state drawn in the footprint of the ottoman empire, the borders were drawn perfectly to make sure its as ungovernable on its own as possible


Sounds plausible, but you may want to provide a reference on this one.





of course not lol you know me I would prefer to turn the whole middle east into Hoxha's Albania, but either way it doesn't matter the USA wont do anything against assad so we can go back to supporting the FSA now


Not funny if you're attempting humor here -- the FSA is practically synonymous with the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

I would have preferred Trump's relative 'isolationism' regarding Assad, but that official position ended with the recent chemical attack and the U.S.'s knee-jerk (prevailing deep-state) response to it.





Policy on Bashar al-Assad[edit]

On 29 March 2017, during the Presidency of Donald Trump the United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed that the longer term status of president Bashar al-Assad is to be "decided by the Syrian people".




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Policy_on_Ba shar_al-Assad

[willowtooth]

Sounds plausible, but you may want to provide a reference on this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement





Not funny if you're attempting humor here -- the FSA is practically synonymous with the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

I would have preferred Trump's relative 'isolationism' regarding Assad, but that official position ended with the recent chemical attack and the U.S.'s knee-jerk (prevailing deep-state) response to it.are you saying you support assad? not just against US invasion but against the FSA, the YPG, even the PKK?

[ckaihatsu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

are you saying you support assad? not just against US invasion but against the FSA, the YPG, even the PKK?


Well, the YPG and PKK have been fighting on the side of the Syrian state, or at least *parallel* to it, against ISIS.

The FSA has been like a 'political loophole' -- a so-called 'moderate' faction of the anti-Assad opposition that has enjoyed the receipt of Western armaments, which are then funneled to the fundamentalist ISIS-type groups.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army#International_support_for_Free_Sy rian_Army_labeled_groups


Also:





In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA

Nabih Bulos, W.J. Hennigan and Brian BennettContact Reporters

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.

The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html

[ckaihatsu]

---





Assad is not democratically elected he ran unopposed with 99.7% of the vote, he won the election in the sense that he made sure he wouldn't suffer a military coup if he took power after his father, the King of saudi arabia is more democratically elected then assad. they have been under martial law for over 50 years, they gave asylum to nazi war criminals to help their military learn how to torture protesters better, there's nothing democratic about it





Syrian presidential election, 2014

Syria

← 2007 June 3, 2014 Next →

Turnout 73.42%

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Bashar_al_Assad.jpg/100px-Bashar_al_Assad.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Hassan_al-Nouri.jpg/100px-Hassan_al-Nouri.jpg

Nominee Bashar al-Assad Hassan al-Nouri

Party Ba'ath Party NIACS

Popular vote 10,319,723 500,279

Percentage 88.7% 4.3%


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_presidential_election,_2014

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.investigaction.net/en/reflecting-on-syria/


Reflecting on Syria

12 Apr 2017 ANDRE VLTCHEK

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Syria-Will-Prevail-640x480.jpg (http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Syria-Will-Prevail.jpg)
Ms. Yayoi Segi is based in Beirut, Lebanon, and she has worked in Syria for almost 3 years. She is extremely passionate about the country, which she admires and tries to support in her position as an accomplished specialist in national education development.

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Entrance-to-half-destroyed-Umayyad-Mosque-in-Aleppo-640x480.jpg
Entrance to half destroyed Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo

She agreed to share her collection of personal photos from Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.

I asked about her impressions regarding Syria and its people, and she replied, frankly:

“Syria is not what the mainstream media wants us to believe it is. One has to see it, to understand. Seeing is believing! It is an extraordinarily exceptional country. All that we have been told about Syria and its people is a lie.”

And what is the war doing to the country?

“The war… it is devastating the country. Life is of course tough now, but it never stopped; it definitely goes on. Electricity is cut often and water supplies are limited, but still life goes on. People endure; they even socialize. Syrians are very humble, very caring, warm and gentle people. They like to joke. They believe in their nation, in themselves; they are truly remarkable.”

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/In-Damascus-life-goes-on...-640x480.jpg
In Damascus, life goes on…

Yayoi has been literally dedicating her life to the Syrian nation. She is ‘building schools’ there, and she is defending the nation whenever she goes. She is drawn to the Syrian people and she admits that she is philosophically close to them. She says:

“It is extremely important, what goes on in Syria, especially on the ideological front in highly politicized field of education, because ideology shapes education, and vice versa.”

“Even in the time of crises that was implanted from outside, the Syrian people still maintain tremendous sense of solidarity towards those whose lives have been shattered for decades, mainly Palestinians.”

She recounts her practical experience, which clearly illustrates the big heart of the Syrians:

“In Damascus, there is a waiter working in my favorite teashop. He is a Palestinian refugee who has been living in Damascus for a very long time. Every time I meet him, he gives me the most beautiful smile. I ask him how is he doing? And he says, “Alhamdulillah, all is fine”. He has three kids, all have enough to eat, and all are going to school, thanks to the help from the Syrian people.”

All this is happening despite the war.

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Little-but-determined-and-patriotic-640x480.jpg
Little but determined and patriotic

Ms. Segi is greatly impressed by how educated and confident the nation is:

“Syrians are the most hospitable, gentle people. When we meet, we never talk about the war, the conflict. It is a tremendous civilization… They always talk about their life, the future. They discuss their poets and their thinkers. People in Syria are very well educated. They know what is going on, on our Planet. Despite what some parts of the world have done to them, they are extremely respectful and polite to everybody. I never heard them speaking ill of others. They appreciate that you come and work with them, and they are confident.”

Foreigners, some foreign organizations and certain powerful countries are often bossing around Syria. As if terrible damage done by the outsiders would not be enough. Ms. Segi is enraged about this fact:

“There have been so many seminars, conferences and meetings on Syria, yet the Syrian people are very rarely invited. All these events are ‘about them’ but without even inviting them, and without listening to them.”

But Syria is standing, and in the field of education, as in the several other fields, it is progressing and even improving, despite the hardship and devastation that is injuring this proud nation. Ms. Segi recalls:

“Once the Minister of Education told me: ‘we are not some nation of beggars. We never beg!’ The Minister and three other top educationalists are true intellectuals, and all of them were educated in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern block countries.”

“On the education front, the system was one of the best in the region, before the crisis began. Now, despite more than 6 years of horrendous war, the system is still standing and strong. Syrians know exactly what they want, and they have the capacity to implement their aspirations. Like in Aleppo; after the victory, the government immediately moved in and began opening schools.”

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/School-in-Aleppo-still-smiling-despite-pain-640x480.jpg
School in Aleppo – still smiling despite the pain



All photos by Yayoi Segi



About Authors:

Yayoi Segi is a Japanese education policy and planning specialist with close to 20 years of international experience working for a multilateral organization. Since 2014, Yayoi has been involved in education sector humanitarian and development work, in the Arab region with focus on Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora”and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.



Source: Investig’Action



Follow us on Facebook

©Copyright investig'action 2015
-
ShareThis Copy and Paste - See more at: http://www.investigaction.net/en/reflecting-on-syria/#sthash.Z2SsnxuO.dpuf

[willowtooth]

Well, the YPG and PKK have been fighting on the side of the Syrian state, or at least *parallel* to it, against ISIS.the ypg was created to fight Assad after he massacred kurds at the start of the war. ISIS and other groups like al nusra control territory, just as the Kurdish rojava forces do, which are right next to eachother, the kurds have not been fighting alongside the Syrian army anymore than they have been fighting alongside al queda, in fact Syrians claim they are in bed with them. The Kurds themselves have seen massive US involvement funding, training and cooperation since before the first gulf war pre-dating al queda, if there is any US backed soldiers that we are to dismiss just because they are affiliated with NATO or the west it should be the Kurds.


The FSA has been like a 'political loophole' -- a so-called 'moderate' faction of the anti-Assad opposition that has enjoyed the receipt of Western armaments, which are then funneled to the fundamentalist ISIS-type groups.
the FSA was a loose collection of rebels. Syria is a small country most intelligence reports suggest they no longer exist. There's dozens of small groups mostly led by a tribal leader but im sure that some of the groups like al-nusra and these turkomen tribes who walk the line between ISIS and the rebels have received weapons by the US, especially since recruits have switched sides in the absence of the international support against assad that they expected to receive after Libya Egypt Tunisia etc. But that doesn't mean there aren't people for a secular democratic Syria.

the only reason why NATO didn't intervene was because of Russia, not because they wanted to create some neo feudalistic system of organized chaos to help drill for that sweet sweet oil

[ckaihatsu]

the ypg was created to fight Assad after he massacred kurds at the start of the war.


Incorrect. The YPG predates the 2011 NATO invasion of Syria:





The People's Protection Units (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel‎, یەکینەکانی پاراستنی گەل pronounced [jɑkinæjen pɑrɑstinɑ gæl]; YPG) is a Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of Rojava's Syrian Democratic Forces.[4][5][6][7] The YPG is mostly ethnically Kurdish, but it also includes Arabs, Western volunteers, and the Syriac Military Council, a militia of Assyrian Christians.

The YPG was formed in 2004 as the armed wing of the Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party. It expanded rapidly in the Syrian Civil War and came to predominate over other armed Kurdish groups.

In early 2015, the group won a major victory over the Islamic State at the Siege of Kobanî, where the YPG began to receive air and ground support from the United States and other coalition nations. Since then, the YPG has primarily fought against ISIL, as well as on occasion fighting other Syrian rebel groups.[8]

In late 2015, the YPG founded the Syrian Democratic Forces upon the US's urging, as an umbrella group to better incorporate Arabs and minorities into the war effort. The SDF's Raqqa offensive was launched in late 2016 to capture the Arab city of Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Protection_Units





The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê‎) is a left-wing organization based in Turkey and Iraq[verification needed]. Since 1984 the PKK has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state for equal rights and self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey,[16] who comprise between 18% and 25% of the population and have been subjected to repression for decades.[25][26]

The group was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis (near Lice) by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan.[27] The PKK's ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent, Marxist–Leninist state in the region, which was to be known as Kurdistan.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party


---





ISIS and other groups like al nusra control territory, just as the Kurdish rojava forces do, which are right next to eachother, the kurds have not been fighting alongside the Syrian army anymore than they have been fighting alongside al queda, in fact Syrians claim they are in bed with them. The Kurds themselves have seen massive US involvement funding, training and cooperation since before the first gulf war pre-dating al queda, if there is any US backed soldiers that we are to dismiss just because they are affiliated with NATO or the west it should be the Kurds.


Why would one 'dismiss the Kurds' -- ??

Just because they've received military support from the U.S. / NATO to fight ISIL -- ?





Relations between the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are unclear and varied among the different FSA factions. Many FSA-affiliated rebel groups oppose the YPG due to allegations of war crimes and the YPG's unclear relations with the Syrian government. Both are opposed to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; however, the FSA is also opposed to the Syrian government whilst the YPG maintains a mostly working relationship with the government at times while opposing it at other times. Consequently several clashes have taken place. Under pressure from the United States (who has assisted both), some groups in the FSA have joined the YPG to battle ISIL under the name of Syrian Democratic Forces, although some others remained in conflict with the Syrian Democratic forces.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YPG%E2%80%93FSA_relations


---





the FSA was a loose collection of rebels. Syria is a small country most intelligence reports suggest they no longer exist. There's dozens of small groups mostly led by a tribal leader but im sure that some of the groups like al-nusra and these turkomen tribes who walk the line between ISIS and the rebels have received weapons by the US, especially since recruits have switched sides in the absence of the international support against assad that they expected to receive after Libya Egypt Tunisia etc.




But that doesn't mean there aren't people for a secular democratic Syria.


F.y.i.:





The Free Syrian Army (Arabic: الجيش السوري الحر‎‎, al-Jaysh as-Sūrī al-Ḥurr; abbreviated FSA) is a faction in the Syrian Civil War.[1][2] It was founded on 29 July 2011[3] by officers who defected from the Syrian Armed Forces who said their goal was to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad.[2][3][4]

In late 2011 it was considered the main Syrian military defectors group.[5][6] From July 2012 onward, ill-discipline and infighting weakened the FSA, while jihadist groups became dominant within the armed opposition.[7]

The Free Syrian Army aims to be "the military wing of the Syrian people's opposition to the regime",[8] and it aims to bring down the government by armed operations, encouraging army defections and by carrying out armed action.[9] As the Syrian Army is highly organized and well-armed, the Free Syrian Army has adopted guerrilla-style tactics in the countryside and cities. The FSA's military strategy is focused on a dispersed countrywide guerrilla campaign with a tactical focus on armed action in the capital of Damascus. The campaign is not meant to hold territory, but rather, to spread government forces and their logistics chains thin in battles for urban centers, to cause attrition in the security forces, to degrade morale, and to destabilize Damascus, the center of government.[10]

After July 2016 the group regained prominence – Turkish intervention in Syria has revived FSA fortunes in Northern Syria, with on-ground support of an organised military backed by Turkish airpower,[11] and with some analysts saying the group is closely aligned with Turkish troops in Syria.[12]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army


---





the only reason why NATO didn't intervene was because of Russia,


Yup.





not because they wanted to create some neo feudalistic system of organized chaos to help drill for that sweet sweet oil


The Western countries *do* want 'some neo feudalistic system of organized chaos to help drill for that sweet sweet oil'.

[willowtooth]

The Western countries *do* want 'some neo feudalistic system of organized chaos to help drill for that sweet sweet oil'.
I understand this sentiment but the soviet union has collapsed, there is no competing power. Assad is/was supported by the west. The country of Syria is a creation of the west. Supporting the Syrian state and the existing government is supporting the west. It is supporting colonialism. without foreign power supporting the syrian state it cannot stand. At one point Syria in its almost completely blood filled history was allied with the soviet union, but that doesn't matter now.

Let me ask you this if Assad was being supported unconditionally by the USA funded armed etc. would you still support him? Do you think USA should?

[ckaihatsu]

The Western countries *do* want 'some neo feudalistic system of organized chaos to help drill for that sweet sweet oil'.





I understand this sentiment but the soviet union has collapsed, there is no competing power.


Actually I was thinking more along the lines of what's *been* going on, the attempted destabilization of the whole country from without, as usual, by the U.S. and/or NATO -- done far more successfully in Libya.

You make it sound as though the U.S. empire is now uncontested globally with the ending of the USSR, when that's really not the case -- we're currently seeing 'Cold War II', mainly between the U.S. and its allies, and Syria-Russia-Iran-North-Korea-and-China on the other side, with Europe's international identity being pulled in opposite directions between these two main geopolitical factions.





Assad is/was supported by the west.


During NATO's attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, circa 2001-2005, yes, but definitely not since the Arab Spring (2011).





Maher Arar case[edit]

Main article: Maher Arar

Maher Arar, a Syrian-born dual Syrian and Canadian citizen, was detained at Kennedy International Airport on 26 September 2002, by US Immigration and Naturalization Service officials. He was heading home to Canada after a family holiday in Tunisia. After almost two weeks, enduring hours of interrogation chained, he was sent, shackled and bound, in a private jet to Jordan and then Syria, instead of being deported to Canada. There, he was interrogated and tortured by Syrian intelligence. Maher Arar was eventually released a year later. He told the BBC that he was repeatedly tortured during 10 months' detention in Syria—often whipped on the palms of his hands with metal cables. Syrian intelligence officers forced him to sign a confession linking him to Al Qaeda.

He was finally released following intervention by the Canadian government. The Canadian government lodged an official complaint with the US government protesting Arar's deportation. On 18 September 2006, a Canadian public enquiry presented its findings, entirely clearing Arar of any terrorist activities.[89] In 2004 Arar filed a lawsuit in a federal court in New York against senior U.S. officials, on charges that whoever sent him to Syria knew he would be tortured by intelligence agents.[90] US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Mueller were all named in the lawsuit.[12] In 2009, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that U.S. law did not allow victims of extraordinary rendition to sue U.S. officials for torture suffered overseas.[91]

On 18 October 2006, Arar received the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award from the Institute for Policy Studies for his ordeal. On 18 October 2007, Maher Arar received a public apology from the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, who apologized, stated that he would fight any efforts to end the practice.

In 2007, Arar was awarded $10.5 million in compensation from the Canadian government for pain and suffering in his ordeal and a formal apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.[92]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Maher_Arar_case


---





The country of Syria is a creation of the west. Supporting the Syrian state and the existing government is supporting the west.


No, that's too facile and inaccurate, especially considering the U.S. empire's ongoing neocon 'shit list' (my terming) for foreign policy objectives:





Premeditated Wars

The report then continues to advocate an increase in military spending to enable this “military capability” as well as asserting one year before 9/11 that all this would be unlikely to manifest unless there was a “new Pearl Harbour” event (p.63). In addition, the document lists a number of regimes that the group viewed as “deeply hostile to America”. “North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria” (p.63 & p.64) are all pinpointed as enemies of the U.S. well before the illegal war in Iraq in 2003, as well as the illegal 2011 war in Libya and the ongoing proxy war in Syria.




Israel is also set to benefit if the government of al-Assad is replaced with a client state of the West. A study group led by neocon Richard Perle prepared a policy document in 1996 for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, titled: ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’, in which it outlines the strategic importance of removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq as well as the desire to weaken the regime in Syria:

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”




http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-neoconservative-hit-list-iraq-libya-and-now-syria-a-plan-for-global-us-military-supremacy/5407538


---





It is supporting colonialism.


This is absurd since supporting Syria *against* Western predations would *eliminate* imperialist / colonialist interventions, by definition.





without foreign power supporting the syrian state it cannot stand.


I myself won't try to make such a sweeping judgment one way or the other, but it should suffice to say that Syria should be able to have its own international allies (Russia), the same as any other country, like those in the *Western* geopolitical faction.





At one point Syria in its almost completely blood filled history was allied with the soviet union, but that doesn't matter now.




Let me ask you this if Assad was being supported unconditionally by the USA funded armed etc. would you still support him? Do you think USA should?


The U.S. empire's neoconservative foreign policy would *never* be supportive of Assad and/or Syria in any kind of self-determining way -- this is a *very* contrived, unrealistic, imaginary scenario.

I *do* continue to think that the U.S. should 'clean up its own mess' in the Middle East regarding the proliferation of ISIS, which would mean more Assad-favorable U.S. military efforts in the SDF coalition, but I don't really think that that's going to happen, again due to overall neocon foreign policy, in the neocolonialist direction, and actual recent results -- numerous civilian killings from U.S. bombings.

[willowtooth]

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of what's *been* going on, the attempted destabilization of the whole country from without, as usual, by the U.S. and/or NATO -- done far more successfully in Libya.

You make it sound as though the U.S. empire is now uncontested globally with the ending of the USSR, when that's really not the case -- we're currently seeing 'Cold War II', mainly between the U.S. and its allies, and Syria-Russia-Iran-North-Korea-and-China on the other side, with Europe's international identity being pulled in opposite directions between these two main geopolitical factions.

and I suppose on the opposite side is USA Israel and al queda? your starting to sound like a russian intelligence officer in training. Why not throw in brazil south africa and india while your at it?

there is no European identity, there is barely a western European identity. you cant even get them to speak the same language. if anyone is tearing them apart its themselves. How's Brexit going is Scotland a separate country yet?


During NATO's attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, circa 2001-2005, yes, but definitely not since the Arab Spring (2011).

So what happened? did they change their minds? Maybe your suggesting the American election had something to do with it?




No, that's too facile and inaccurate, especially considering the U.S. empire's ongoing neocon 'shit list' (my terming) for foreign policy objectives:


What's a neocon? you mean the trotskyists? who is and is not a neocon and why?


This is absurd since supporting Syria *against* Western predations would *eliminate* imperialist / colonialist interventions, by definition.

I myself won't try to make such a sweeping judgment one way or the other, but it should suffice to say that Syria should be able to have its own international allies (Russia), the same as any other country, like those in the *Western* geopolitical faction.

if we were talking about north korea maybe? This is Syria the assad family is an outright monarchy they're worth billions Bashar al-Assad is wealthier than Trump

North korea is a self liberated government inside an existing empire. they are not a ethnic minority puppet government installed by foreign powers to govern over the majority. The alawites were illiterate cave people before the french showed up and decided they could use them to control the sunni arab majority. Then they arbitrarily drew the Iraqi-syrian borders, they actually changed it slightly at the last minute to place Mosul in Iraq because they recently discovered oil there, in between drawing the borders and finally announcing them.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1035998/full_content

The assad's are secular in the sense that they are religious minority being propped up by western governments, and if they ever lose power, them and the Alawite Shiite minorities face execution by the masses. That's half the reason why the Sunni fled Iraq after the Shiites were given control "democratically". To avoid their own slaughter, and every rumor and conspiracy theory among iraqis suggested a miniature holocaust by the shiite iraqi forces and the US government. Now assad the shiite is allowed to stay in power? Meaning every sunni south of Turkey and north of suadi arabia faces execution. And you wonder why they are joining al queda and all these so-called jihadists groups? The Assad family should've stepped before they committed the Hama massacre the fact that they are still in power at all, is a testament to the power of neo-colonialism



The U.S. empire's neoconservative foreign policy would *never* be supportive of Assad and/or Syria in any kind of self-determining way -- this is a *very* contrived, unrealistic, imaginary scenario.
there's that word again... I dont know who you think these people are but they sound awesome



I *do* continue to think that the U.S. should 'clean up its own mess' in the Middle East regarding the proliferation of ISIS, which would mean more Assad-favorable U.S. military efforts in the SDF coalition, but I don't really think that that's going to happen, again due to overall neocon foreign policy, in the neocolonialist direction, and actual recent results -- numerous civilian killings from U.S. bombings.

I'm curious as to what you think that would entail, what actions do you think the USA should take in order to 'clean up its own mess'?

[ckaihatsu]

and I suppose on the opposite side is USA Israel and al queda?


It's what I just said:





between the U.S. and its allies, and Syria-Russia-Iran-North-Korea-and-China on the other side





your starting to sound like a russian intelligence officer in training.


Just because I want to keep up with what's going on in the world -- ? (Harsh.)





Why not throw in brazil south africa and india while your at it?


Those countries are *peripheral* to the geopolitics just stated -- remember the 'BRICS' -- ?





At its establishment in 2009, BRICS was touted as a bloc of the leading “developing” countries that could act as an economic and geo-political counterweight to Washington and Wall Street, and more generally the imperialist powers.

Seven years on, this has been exposed as an illusion. Most of the BRICS countries are mired in deep economic crisis due to the collapse of the commodity-price boom, which is itself bound up with the dramatic slowing of economic growth in China. Moreover, the most powerful BRICS states, China, Russia and India, are pursuing different and to a large degree opposed geo-political agendas.




BRICS summit riven by geo-political rivalry

By Deepal Jayasekera
26 October 2016

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/26/bric-o26.html


---





there is no European identity, there is barely a western European identity. you cant even get them to speak the same language. if anyone is tearing them apart its themselves.


You're using the context of some kind of vague 'social group' -- I'm speaking in terms of geopolitics and world economics.





How's Brexit going is Scotland a separate country yet?


It's just a web search away, if you really want to find out. (Maybe you're anticipating some kind of further-balkanized 'Scexit' -- ?)


---





Assad is/was supported by the west.





During NATO's attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, circa 2001-2005, yes, but definitely not since the Arab Spring (2011).





So what happened? did they change their minds? Maybe your suggesting the American election had something to do with it?


No on the latter part -- take another look at the neocon shit-list. It's now active U.S. foreign policy.





What's a neocon? you mean the trotskyists? who is and is not a neocon and why?


No, not Trotskyists -- the U.S. nation-state.





Project for the New American Century
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservative[1][2][3] think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan.[4][5] PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership."[6] The organization stated that "American leadership is good both for America and for the world," and sought to build support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."[7]

Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.[8][9][10][11] Observers such as Irwin Stelzer and Dave Grondin have suggested that the PNAC played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush Administration, particularly in building support for the Iraq War.[12][13][14][15] Academics such as Inderjeet Parmar, Phillip Hammond, and Donald E. Abelson have said PNAC's influence on the George W. Bush administration has been exaggerated.[16][17][18]

The Project for the New American Century ceased to function in 2006;[19] it was replaced by a new think-tank named the Foreign Policy Initiative, co-founded by Kristol and Kagan in 2009.




Calls for regime change in Iraq[edit]

Kristol and Kagan advocated regime change in Iraq throughout the Iraq disarmament crisis.[22][23] Following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, core members of the PNAC including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Zoellick, and John Bolton were among the signatories of an open letter initiated by the PNAC to President Bill Clinton calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein.[19][24] Portraying Saddam Hussein as a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies, and oil resources in the region, and emphasizing the potential danger of any Weapons of Mass Destruction under Iraq's control, the letter asserted that the United States could "no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections." Stating that American policy "cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council," the letter's signatories asserted that "the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf."[25] Believing that UN sanctions against Iraq would be an ineffective means of disarming Iraq, PNAC members also wrote a letter to Republican members of the U.S. Congress Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott,[26] urging Congress to act, and supported the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (H.R.4655)[27][28] which President Clinton signed into law in October 1998.

In February 1998, some of the same individuals who had signed the PNAC letter in January also signed a similar letter to Clinton, from the bipartisan Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf.[24][29]

In January 1999, the PNAC circulated a memo that criticized the December 1998 bombing of Iraq in Operation Desert Fox as ineffective. The memo questioned the viability of Iraqi democratic opposition, which the U.S. was supporting through the Iraq Liberation Act, and referred to any "containment" policy as an illusion.[30]

Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the PNAC sent a letter to President George W. Bush, advocating "a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq", or regime change. The letter suggested that "any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," even if no evidence surfaced linking Iraq to the September 11 attacks. The letter warned that allowing Hussein to remain in power would be "an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."[31] From 2001 through the invasion of Iraq, the PNAC and many of its members voiced active support for military action against Iraq, and asserted leaving Saddam Hussein in power would be "surrender to terrorism."[32][33][34][35][36]

Some have regarded the PNAC's January 16, 1998 letter to President Clinton urging "the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power,"[25][37] and the involvement of multiple PNAC members in the Bush Administration[10][11] as evidence that the PNAC had a significant influence on the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, or even argued that the invasion was a foregone conclusion.[14][38][39][40][41] Writing in Der Spiegel in 2003, for example, Jochen Bölsche specifically referred to PNAC when he claimed that "ultra-rightwing US think-tanks" had been "drawing up plans for an era of American global domination, for the emasculation of the UN, and an aggressive war against Iraq" in "broad daylight" since 1998.[42] Similarly, BBC journalist Paul Reynolds portrayed PNAC's activities and goals as key to understanding the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration after September 11, 2001, suggesting that Bush's "dominant" foreign policy was at least partly inspired by the PNAC's ideas.[38]

Some[who?] political scientists, historians, and other academics have been critical of many of these claims. Donald E. Abelson has written that scholars studying "PNAC's ascendancy" in the political arena "cannot possibly overlook the fact" that several of the signatories to PNAC's Statement of Purposes "received high level positions in the Bush administration," but that acknowledging these facts "is a far cry from making the claim that the institute was the architect of Bush's foreign policy."[16][43][44]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century


---





[I]t should suffice to say that Syria should be able to have its own international allies (Russia), the same as any other country, like those in the *Western* geopolitical faction.





if we were talking about north korea maybe?


That's not enough for you -- ? North Korea and its nukes is becoming a litmus test for Trump in office.





This is Syria the assad family is an outright monarchy they're worth billions Bashar al-Assad is wealthier than Trump


I think you're saying that the wealth of this-or-that personage is *spurious* to matters of class struggle -- I happen to think that details of geopolitical relations are worth knowing about, even if they're ultimately intra-ruling-class matters.





North korea is a self liberated government inside an existing empire. they are not a ethnic minority puppet government installed by foreign powers to govern over the majority. The alawites were illiterate cave people before the french showed up and decided they could use them to control the sunni arab majority. Then they arbitrarily drew the Iraqi-syrian borders, they actually changed it slightly at the last minute to place Mosul in Iraq because they recently discovered oil there, in between drawing the borders and finally announcing them.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/1035998/full_content


So your point is that North Korea is more politically 'pure', independent, and self-determining than the typical colonized situation as seen in the modern Middle East -- ?





The assad's are secular in the sense that they are religious minority being propped up by western governments,


This latter part is incorrect since the Western hegemonic (neoconservative) policy has been calling for the *removal* of Assad.





and if they ever lose power, them and the Alawite Shiite minorities face execution by the masses. That's half the reason why the Sunni fled Iraq after the Shiites were given control "democratically". To avoid their own slaughter, and every rumor and conspiracy theory among iraqis suggested a miniature holocaust by the shiite iraqi forces and the US government. Now assad the shiite is allowed to stay in power?


I'm not / never claiming that it's an *easy* situation, but any internal politics should be handled *internally*, by the Syrian people themselves, and not from *without*, by the Western powers in their own neo-colonialist interests (as in Libya).

I think what you're describing here is the sea-change change-in-fortunes following the U.S.'s getting rid of their former CIA asset in Iraq, Saddam Hussein.





Meaning every sunni south of Turkey and north of suadi arabia faces execution. And you wonder why they are joining al queda and all these so-called jihadists groups?


Good point -- so do you think these Sunni vs. Shiite rivalries are all 'intramural' now, and should be *ignored* within the context of geopolitics -- ?

(I can appreciate the initial 'grassroots' impetus to do Arab-Spring-like overthrows of local elitist rulers, as from the FSA regarding Assad in 2011, but *that* initiative, however, quickly became too militarized and played into the hands of the now geopolitical proxy war from the international Western powers -- NATO.)





The Free Syrian Army (Arabic: الجيش السوري الحر‎‎, al-Jaysh as-Sūrī al-Ḥurr; abbreviated FSA) is a faction in the Syrian Civil War.[1][2] It was founded on 29 July 2011[3] by officers who defected from the Syrian Armed Forces who said their goal was to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad.[2][3][4]

In late 2011 it was considered the main Syrian military defectors group.[5][6] From July 2012 onward, ill-discipline and infighting weakened the FSA, while jihadist groups became dominant within the armed opposition.[7]

The Free Syrian Army aims to be "the military wing of the Syrian people's opposition to the regime",[8] and it aims to bring down the government by armed operations, encouraging army defections and by carrying out armed action.[9]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army


---





The Assad family should've stepped before they committed the Hama massacre the fact that they are still in power at all, is a testament to the power of neo-colonialism


So you'd side with the Muslim Brotherhood, then -- ?





Background[edit]

Main article: Islamist uprising in Syria

See also: History of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

The Ba'ath Party of Syria, which advocated the ideologies of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism had clashed with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group with a Sunni Islamist ideology, since 1940.[10] The two groups were opposed in important ways. The Ba'ath party was nominally secular, nationalist. The Muslim Brotherhood, like other Islamist groups, saw nationalism as un-Islamic and religion as inseparable from politics and government. Most Ba'ath party members were from humble, obscure backgrounds and favored radical economic policies, while Sunni Muslims had dominated the souqs and landed power of Syria, and tended to view government intervention in the economy as threatening.[11] Not all Sunni notables believed in fundamentalism, but even those who did not often saw the Brotherhood as a useful tool against the Ba'ath.[12]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre#Background


---





The U.S. empire's neoconservative foreign policy would *never* be supportive of Assad and/or Syria in any kind of self-determining way -- this is a *very* contrived, unrealistic, imaginary scenario.





there's that word again... I dont know who you think these people are but they sound awesome


Yeah, see the entry / history of 'PNAC', above. Also:





Neocon ‘Chaos Promotion’ in the Mideast

April 13, 2015

Exclusive: After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, America’s neocons thought no country could stand up to the high-tech U.S. military, and they realized the Soviet Union was no longer around to limit U.S. actions. So, the “regime change” strategy was born and many have died, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern

Former Washington insider and four-star General Wesley Clark spilled the beans several years ago on how Paul Wolfowitz and his neoconservative co-conspirators implemented their sweeping plan to destabilize key Middle Eastern countries once it became clear that post-Soviet Russia “won’t stop us.”

As I recently reviewed a YouTube eight-minute clip of General Clark’s October 2007 speech, what leaped out at me was that the neocons had been enabled by their assessment that after the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia had become neutralized and posed no deterrent to U.S. military action in the Middle East.




https://consortiumnews.com/2015/04/13/neocon-chaos-promotion-in-the-mideast/


---





I *do* continue to think that the U.S. should 'clean up its own mess' in the Middle East regarding the proliferation of ISIS, which would mean more Assad-favorable U.S. military efforts in the SDF coalition, but I don't really think that that's going to happen, again due to overall neocon foreign policy, in the neocolonialist direction, and actual recent results -- numerous civilian killings from U.S. bombings.





I'm curious as to what you think that would entail, what actions do you think the USA should take in order to 'clean up its own mess'?


I just said it -- more actual anti-ISIS incursions as a part of the SDF coalition, but I don't think the U.S. would do that *cleanly*, since it *hasn't* been doing it cleanly (too much collateral damage, etc.).

Please recall that Assad's regime is at least nominally secular, which makes for a better, more-preferred civil society than if Islamic fundamentalists like the Islamic State / caliphate were in power to enforce Sharia law over everyone.

[willowtooth]

Just because I want to keep up with what's going on in the world -- ? (Harsh.)
because you sound like putin

Those countries are *peripheral* to the geopolitics just stated -- remember the 'BRICS' -- ?brazil and south africa have as little to do with syria as they do with north korea. They just happen to be russian trading partners





That's not enough for you -- ? North Korea and its nukes is becoming a litmus test for Trump in office.

Trump nuking the entire korean peninsula for shits and giggles makes sense, him trying to harm one hair on assad's pretty hitler mustache does not




I think you're saying that the wealth of this-or-that personage is *spurious* to matters of class struggle -- I happen to think that details of geopolitical relations are worth knowing about, even if they're ultimately intra-ruling-class matters.
I'm saying a billionaire family that has ruled a nation for over 50 years is not a socialist democracy, his kids, his cousins kids, his second uncle twice removed are all billionaires

https://www.juancole.com/2016/04/syria-al-assad-familys-massive-stolen-wealth-in-panama-papers-helps-explain-revolution.html





So your point is that North Korea is more politically 'pure', independent, and self-determining than the typical colonized situation as seen in the modern Middle East -- ?atleast their borders were drawn by koreans






This latter part is incorrect since the Western hegemonic (neoconservative) policy has been calling for the *removal* of Assad.

Western hegemonic policy has been calling for influence with or without Assad they work well with the democratic government of Turkey and the monarchy of Saudi Arabia




I'm not / never claiming that it's an *easy* situation, but any internal politics should be handled *internally*, by the Syrian people themselves, and not from *without*, by the Western powers in their own neo-colonialist interests (as in Libya).they are not being handled internally under the syrian government.... are you telling me the people in this tiny green section should control the affairs of the entire country because the Russians need a naval base?http://www.heritageforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Levant_Ethnicity_lg-smaller1-zoom.jpg







Good point -- so do you think these Sunni vs. Shiite rivalries are all 'intramural' now, and should be *ignored* within the context of geopolitics -- ?

(I can appreciate the initial 'grassroots' impetus to do Arab-Spring-like overthrows of local elitist rulers, as from the FSA regarding Assad in 2011, but *that* initiative, however, quickly became too militarized and played into the hands of the now geopolitical proxy war from the international Western powers -- NATO.)


the initiative is still there as long as shiites control Syria for no reason it will be there.




So you'd side with the Muslim Brotherhood, then -- ?do you mean the sunnis, the majority of syria?



I just said it -- more actual anti-ISIS incursions as a part of the SDF coalition, but I don't think the U.S. would do that *cleanly*, since it *hasn't* been doing it cleanly (too much collateral damage, etc.).

Please recall that Assad's regime is at least nominally secular, which makes for a better, more-preferred civil society than if Islamic fundamentalists like the Islamic State / caliphate were in power to enforce Sharia law over everyone.its not secular, the only reason its not a full blown iranian theocracy is because its too weak install shia islam across the whole country. Its not even nominally secular since the constitution says only a muslim can be president. only in the most twisted reformist sense can this government be declared secularism. Even the israelis prefer an ISIS caliphate to Assad.

[ckaihatsu]

Just because I want to keep up with what's going on in the world -- ? (Harsh.)





because you sound like putin


So you're doing what, then, here -- profiling, stereotyping.


---





Those countries are *peripheral* to the geopolitics just stated -- remember the 'BRICS' -- ?





brazil and south africa have as little to do with syria as they do with north korea. They just happen to be russian trading partners


Yes, exactly -- you're reinforcing my point *for* me, that they're peripheral to the *major* geopolitical factions.





Trump nuking the entire korean peninsula for shits and giggles makes sense,


Hmmmm, maybe you should explain *how* such 'makes sense'.





him trying to harm one hair on assad's pretty hitler mustache does not


And yet here's the actual history of *anti*-Assad Western efforts:





International support for Free Syrian Army labeled groups[edit]

The US-led coalition admits militarily supporting some, so-called "moderate", groups fighting under the banner of the FSA. FSA is said to have received substantial weapons, financing and other support from the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.

Arms deliveries from U.S., Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, others[edit]

Further information: Syrian Train and Equip Program and Timber Sycamore




In December 2012, security officials from the United States, United Kingdom, France, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Jordan were present at an FSA meeting that elected a new leadership council.[103][104][105] By December 2012 the international diplomatic collective ‘Friends of Syria Group’ had pledged non-military aid to unspecified militant rebels.[104]

Since December 2012, Saudi Arabia has supplied FSA labeled groups with weapons from Croatia.[208]

In April 2013, the US promised to funnel $123 million nonlethal aid to Syrian rebels through the Supreme Military Council, a then coordination body of FSA labeled groups.[134]

In June 2013, rebels reported to have received 250 9M113 Konkurs anti-tank missiles with a range of 4 kilometers and accuracy of 90%.[209]

In April 2014, according to Charles Lister at the U.S. Brookings Institution, 40 different rebel groups first began receiving U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW missiles costing $50,000 each, through the CIA.[210] FSA labeled and other rebel groups posted videos of TOW missile launches online.[210] In December 2014, the Institute for the Study of War reported that the U.S.-led Military Operations Command was leading training and assist missions for FSA labeled groups in Dera'a, at the Jordanian border.[138]

The Washington Post stated in late 2014 that the US and European friends had "in recent years" given training, financial and military support to Syrian "rebel groups", more or less suggesting that FSA was among them.[145] Also an ISIL commander then stated that FSA rebels who in 2014 ran over to ISIL had received training from United States’, Turkish and Arab military officers at an NATO base in southern Turkey.[145]

The Dutch government stated in December 2014 that the 59 countries strong US-led coalition that had convened in Brussels that month was militarily supporting “the moderate Syrian opposition”.[211] After being pressed by their Parliament to be more precise, they admitted that ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ meant: some, but not all, groups that are part of the Free Syrian Army – but squarely refused to name the FSA groups that were being supported.[212]

Since 2014, tens of FSA labeled groups in southern, central, and northern Syria have been provided with BGM-71 TOW missiles. In February 2015, The Carter Center listed 23 groups within the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army that have been documented using US-supplied TOWs.[213] Groups provided with TOWs in northern and central Syria include the Hazzm Movement, the 13th Division, Syria Revolutionaries Front, Yarmouk Army, Knights of Justice Brigade, and the 101st Division.[214]

In 2015 the International Business Times wrote the U.S. has sent weapons shipments to FSA labeled groups through a U.S. CIA program for years.[157] In October 2015 Reuters reported that the U.S. (CIA) and allied countries had broadened the number of rebel groups clandestinely receiving TOW missiles.[215] The International Business Times reported that TOW missile attacks against Syrian government tanks increased by 850% between September and October 2015.[210] Rebel groups associated with the FSA in November 2015 released numerous videos showing them launching TOW missiles against Syrian government forces.[215] According to Russian and Syrian sources, the missiles were delivered through Turkish territory.[215]

In October 2015 Reuters reported that the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Qatar had broadened the number of rebel groups clandestinely receiving TOW missiles.[215] Also the BBC reported in October 2015 that a Saudi official confirmed the delivery of 500 TOW missiles to FSA fighters.[216]

The U.S. supplied a considerable amount of weapons and ammunition, generally of Soviet-type from Easter Europe, to Syrian rebel groups under operation Timber Sycamore. For example Jane's Defence Weekly reported a December 2015 shipment of 994 tonnes of weapons and ammunition (including packaging and container weight) to Syrian rebel groups. A detailed list of weapon types and shipment weights had been obtained from the U.S. government's Federal Business Opportunities website.[217][218]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army#International_support_for_Free_Sy rian_Army_labeled_groups


---





I think you're saying that the wealth of this-or-that personage is *spurious* to matters of class struggle -- I happen to think that details of geopolitical relations are worth knowing about, even if they're ultimately intra-ruling-class matters.





I'm saying a billionaire family that has ruled a nation for over 50 years is not a socialist democracy, his kids, his cousins kids, his second uncle twice removed are all billionaires

https://www.juancole.com/2016/04/syria-al-assad-familys-massive-stolen-wealth-in-panama-papers-helps-explain-revolution.html


Of course -- I don't consider Syria to be any kind of 'socialist democracy'.


---





So your point is that North Korea is more politically 'pure', independent, and self-determining than the typical colonized situation as seen in the modern Middle East -- ?





atleast their borders were drawn by koreans


Fair enough.


---





The assad's are secular in the sense that they are religious minority being propped up by western governments,





This latter part is incorrect since the Western hegemonic (neoconservative) policy has been calling for the *removal* of Assad.





Western hegemonic policy has been calling for influence with or without Assad they work well with the democratic government of Turkey and the monarchy of Saudi Arabia


Agreed on the latter part, but in recent history (late '90s onward) the West has had Syria on its shit list.

Here's from post #74:





[T]he document lists a number of regimes that the group viewed as “deeply hostile to America”. “North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria” (p.63 & p.64) are all pinpointed as enemies of the U.S. well before the illegal war in Iraq in 2003, as well as the illegal 2011 war in Libya and the ongoing proxy war in Syria.




http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-neoconservative-hit-list-iraq-libya-and-now-syria-a-plan-for-global-us-military-supremacy/5407538


---





I'm not / never claiming that it's an *easy* situation, but any internal politics should be handled *internally*, by the Syrian people themselves, and not from *without*, by the Western powers in their own neo-colonialist interests (as in Libya).





they are not being handled internally under the syrian government....


Of course not, because governments *don't* act in the interests of the people.





are you telling me the people in this tiny green section should control the affairs of the entire country because the Russians need a naval base?[IMG]http://www.heritageforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Levant_Ethnicity_lg-smaller1-zoom.jpg[IMG]


If the people / workers of Syria controlled the country maybe such foreign basing arrangements would be changed by them.


---





(I can appreciate the initial 'grassroots' impetus to do Arab-Spring-like overthrows of local elitist rulers, as from the FSA regarding Assad in 2011, but *that* initiative, however, quickly became too militarized and played into the hands of the now geopolitical proxy war from the international Western powers -- NATO.)





the initiative is still there as long as shiites control Syria for no reason it will be there.


So you'd prefer to see an open-ended, never-ending religious sectarian conflict between dethroned Sunnis and now-favored Shiites -- ?


---





So you'd side with the Muslim Brotherhood, then -- ?





do you mean the sunnis, the majority of syria?


Okay, now say the words 'I, willowtooth, fully support the Muslim Brotherhood.'





its not secular, the only reason its not a full blown iranian theocracy is because its too weak install shia islam across the whole country. Its not even nominally secular since the constitution says only a muslim can be president. only in the most twisted reformist sense can this government be declared secularism.


This is quite thoroughly secular compared to outright Sharia law:





Religion and culture[edit]

The constitution says that the state respects and protects all religions and adds that the Islamic jurisprudence is a major source of inspiration, like in the current constitution.[4] The constitution draft states that the scientific research is supported by the state and the freedom of scientific research, artistic creation, literature and cultural creativity are protected.[6]

Rights and freedom[edit]

The constitution draft forbids any discrimination on the grounds of sex, origin, religion or language.[6] National unity, integrity and military service are considered a "sacred duty" while freedom is considered a sacred right.[6]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_constitutional_referendum,_2012#Religion_an d_culture


---





Even the israelis prefer an ISIS caliphate to Assad.


And what's the significance of this to you -- ? That you're inspired by the geopolitical opinions and positions of the Zionist / adventurist / imperialist State of Israel -- ? (If you're talking about the *people* of Israel you should provide some data reference here.)

[TomLeftist]

Another reason, motive on why millions of US voters keep voting for capitalist imperialist pro-war-mongers (Like Obama, Hillary, Bush, Donald Trump, Democrats and Republicans) is something that Napoleon Bonaparte said. Napoleon Bonaparte who was very smart, claimed that humans are more motivated by feelings of fascist-competitive country-narcissism xenophobic fascist-nationalism than by economic, physical, social, psychological and emotional progress. Maybe Donald Trump destroying Syria and being a fascist super-hero is more important for millions of US voters and US citizens, than personal economic and general progress.

I think that inferiority complex, low-self-opinion, depression, sadness and feeling very little in about 75% of the US population (which is caused by capitalism, because capitalism only benefits about 20% to 25% of USA,) is what leads ma ny voters to vote for xenophobic fascist-nationalists like Democrats, Republicans, Bill Clinton, Obama, Bush, Hillary and Donald Trump (who are all really the same, because even Obama had a fascist xenophobic ultra-nationalist language). The philosopher Schopenhauer claimed that people who feel depressed and suffer from inferiority complex usually support nationalist fascists. While people who feel good, do not really need to rely on fascist xenophobic politicians.

I think that the whole US ruling class is aware, it knows, that millions of americans suffer from inferiority complex (caused by a life of very little opportunities, no opportunity to study in college, no access to health care, no dental care, no progress at all. And that life lived by the majority of US citizens right now produces depression, inferiority complex, feeling low. And the ruling class is aware that when people feel low, and empty, they are in need of a fascist xenophobic nationalist hero that can get them out of their low-life mental state. And that's one of the main reasons of why fascist-nationalists rise to power so easy in societies with deep economic, mental and physical problems




the usa can't afford universal health care, so they say. However, they can afford endless wars of oppression.

Why?

Because wars make profits for banks and the warrior cliques.

[willowtooth]

So you're doing what, then, here -- profiling, stereotyping.
Yes, exactly -- you're reinforcing my point *for* me, that they're peripheral to the *major* geopolitical factions.yes im agreeing with you but im saying that means very little now that the soviet union is gone, there is a second tier of what i guess we could call sub-prime borrowers that are trying to convince their wealthy investors to not invest in London or new york where they will get the best return on their money, but to instead invest at home out of a sense of nationalistic pride. usually (but not always) in exchange for backdoor deals, unnecessary subsidies, tax breaks, cronyism and corruption. this leads to oligarchy not socialism

Hmmmm, maybe you should explain *how* such 'makes sense'.Assad would be like if Suharto never stepped down and his kid was "president" and had began slaughtering protesters again.


And yet here's the actual history of *anti*-Assad Western efforts:there's also alot of anti-ISIS western efforts that doesnt mean should support them either

Of course -- I don't consider Syria to be any kind of 'socialist democracy'.well you are calling it a secular democracy, or atleast nominally secular, even though only muslims can be president, and sharia law is apart of the constitution



If the people / workers of Syria controlled the country maybe such foreign basing arrangements would be changed by them.
So you'd prefer to see an open-ended, never-ending religious sectarian conflict between dethroned Sunnis and now-favored Shiites -- ?that is exactly what you will get if Assad remains in office. And if no other option is given but join Assad or join ISIS then the masses will join ISIS


Okay, now say the words 'I, willowtooth, fully support the Muslim Brotherhood.'lol okay only if you say you support Shabiha

This is quite thoroughly secular compared to outright Sharia law:lol sharia law ....America is under biblical law, abortions, homosexuals, gambling, prostitution, no beer on sundays, there is plenty of biblical laws. Sharia law is no different, Assad wont get anyone to stop wanting strict religious law, he will encourage it, not just by provoking sunnis but by enforcing shiite sharia himself



And what's the significance of this to you -- ? That you're inspired by the geopolitical opinions and positions of the Zionist / adventurist / imperialist State of Israel -- ? (If you're talking about the *people* of Israel you should provide some data reference here.)ISIS has homemade bombs and stolen weapons, syria and iran are military states, Iran's nuclear weapons are alot more dangerous than some illiterate cave dweller with a homemade pipe bomb made out of an old Pepsi bottle

[ckaihatsu]

yes im agreeing with you but im saying that means very little now that the soviet union is gone, there is a second tier of what i guess we could call sub-prime borrowers that are trying to convince their wealthy investors to not invest in London or new york where they will get the best return on their money, but to instead invest at home out of a sense of nationalistic pride. usually (but not always) in exchange for backdoor deals, unnecessary subsidies, tax breaks, cronyism and corruption. this leads to oligarchy not socialism


I agree that such an economic landscape for capital ownership is not one of real 'choice', and that it is inherently an oligarchical arrangement.

The 'emerging markets' category (as in Pakistan, for example) typically gives higher rates of return, but with greater risks of non-payment / bankruptcy.





Assad would be like if Suharto never stepped down and his kid was "president" and had began slaughtering protesters again.


Okay, that's a decent analogy.





there's also alot of anti-ISIS western efforts that doesnt mean should support them either


Well, this is the *crux* of the issue, I think -- you're obviously of the position that Islamic fundamentalism is comparable to American fundamentalism, and I just can't see the two as really being similar, mostly due to the religious 'core' of strict Sharia law, which is decidedly reactionary.

Western traditions are *still* historically rooted in the European Enlightenment, and bourgeois revolutions, as distant as those may seem under contemporary regressive political-economic conditions.

I can't abide the left-peace blanket position of 'everyone put their weapons down' because I *know* that ISIS won't, and such a position ignores ISIS altogether in a 'know-nothing' kind of way.

And absent a fully effective Rojava-like revolutionary offensive -- that doesn't slip / succumb to sheer militarism, like the initial anti-corruption FSA did -- the only forces physically capable of repelling the Islamic State are the major bourgeois ones like Syria, Russia, Iran, and nominally the U.S.

I don't *like* this particular situation -- I'm just recounting the factual aspects of it.


---





[I] don't consider Syria to be any kind of 'socialist democracy'.





well you are calling it a secular democracy, or atleast nominally secular, even though only muslims can be president, and sharia law is apart of the constitution


Syria *is* nominally secular, which is far-preferable to any kind of strict, fundamentalist implementation of Sharia law.


---





If the people / workers of Syria controlled the country maybe such foreign basing arrangements would be changed by them.




So you'd prefer to see an open-ended, never-ending religious sectarian conflict between dethroned Sunnis and now-favored Shiites -- ?





that is exactly what you will get if Assad remains in office. And if no other option is given but join Assad or join ISIS then the masses will join ISIS


What *is* this -- political blackmail -- ??

You'd rather only describe the 'realpolitik' of the situation, than provide a historical-progressive-type of analysis as a guide towards future understandings and positions.

Again, I really don't see any kind of political equivalence between Assad's Syria, and the Islamic State. The world cannot afford to let this issue linger and should instead take sides on it immediately.


---





Okay, now say the words 'I, willowtooth, fully support the Muslim Brotherhood.'





lol okay only if you say you support Shabiha


This jokey attitude is *not* appropriate here -- look at what you're getting into bed with:





The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Quran and the Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state".[13] Its mottos include "Believers are but Brothers", "Islam is the Solution", and "Allah is our objective; the Qur'an is the Constitution; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our wish".[14][15][16]

It is financed by members, who are required to allocate a portion of their income to the movement,[17] and was for many years financed by Saudi Arabia, with which it shared some enemies and some points of doctrine.[17][18]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood


---





lol sharia law ....America is under biblical law, abortions, homosexuals, gambling, prostitution, no beer on sundays, there is plenty of biblical laws. Sharia law is no different,


Bullshit -- you're incorrectly equating religious fundamentalist law to Western mostly-secular civil society, including Bill-of-Rights-type progressive reforms and a domestic legacy of anti-racist civil rights movements.





Assad wont get anyone to stop wanting strict religious law, he will encourage it, not just by provoking sunnis but by enforcing shiite sharia himself


Where are you getting this from -- ? You need to provide sources and/or your own reasoning on this.

Regardless this, if true, would just play into unceasing religious sectarian conflict due to its political indecisiveness.





ISIS has homemade bombs and stolen weapons, syria and iran are military states, Iran's nuclear weapons are alot more dangerous than some illiterate cave dweller with a homemade pipe bomb made out of an old Pepsi bottle


Now you're an *apologist* for ISIS -- the Islamic-fundamentalist opposition 'rebels' have been well-provided-for, from Western governments, as I noted in post #78:





International support for Free Syrian Army labeled groups[edit]

The US-led coalition admits militarily supporting some, so-called "moderate", groups fighting under the banner of the FSA. FSA is said to have received substantial weapons, financing and other support from the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.

Arms deliveries from U.S., Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, others[edit]

Further information: Syrian Train and Equip Program and Timber Sycamore




In December 2012, security officials from the United States, United Kingdom, France, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Jordan were present at an FSA meeting that elected a new leadership council.[103][104][105] By December 2012 the international diplomatic collective ‘Friends of Syria Group’ had pledged non-military aid to unspecified militant rebels.[104]

Since December 2012, Saudi Arabia has supplied FSA labeled groups with weapons from Croatia.[208]

In April 2013, the US promised to funnel $123 million nonlethal aid to Syrian rebels through the Supreme Military Council, a then coordination body of FSA labeled groups.[134]

In June 2013, rebels reported to have received 250 9M113 Konkurs anti-tank missiles with a range of 4 kilometers and accuracy of 90%.[209]

In April 2014, according to Charles Lister at the U.S. Brookings Institution, 40 different rebel groups first began receiving U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW missiles costing $50,000 each, through the CIA.[210] FSA labeled and other rebel groups posted videos of TOW missile launches online.[210] In December 2014, the Institute for the Study of War reported that the U.S.-led Military Operations Command was leading training and assist missions for FSA labeled groups in Dera'a, at the Jordanian border.[138]

The Washington Post stated in late 2014 that the US and European friends had "in recent years" given training, financial and military support to Syrian "rebel groups", more or less suggesting that FSA was among them.[145] Also an ISIL commander then stated that FSA rebels who in 2014 ran over to ISIL had received training from United States’, Turkish and Arab military officers at an NATO base in southern Turkey.[145]

The Dutch government stated in December 2014 that the 59 countries strong US-led coalition that had convened in Brussels that month was militarily supporting “the moderate Syrian opposition”.[211] After being pressed by their Parliament to be more precise, they admitted that ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ meant: some, but not all, groups that are part of the Free Syrian Army – but squarely refused to name the FSA groups that were being supported.[212]

Since 2014, tens of FSA labeled groups in southern, central, and northern Syria have been provided with BGM-71 TOW missiles. In February 2015, The Carter Center listed 23 groups within the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army that have been documented using US-supplied TOWs.[213] Groups provided with TOWs in northern and central Syria include the Hazzm Movement, the 13th Division, Syria Revolutionaries Front, Yarmouk Army, Knights of Justice Brigade, and the 101st Division.[214]

In 2015 the International Business Times wrote the U.S. has sent weapons shipments to FSA labeled groups through a U.S. CIA program for years.[157] In October 2015 Reuters reported that the U.S. (CIA) and allied countries had broadened the number of rebel groups clandestinely receiving TOW missiles.[215] The International Business Times reported that TOW missile attacks against Syrian government tanks increased by 850% between September and October 2015.[210] Rebel groups associated with the FSA in November 2015 released numerous videos showing them launching TOW missiles against Syrian government forces.[215] According to Russian and Syrian sources, the missiles were delivered through Turkish territory.[215]

In October 2015 Reuters reported that the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Qatar had broadened the number of rebel groups clandestinely receiving TOW missiles.[215] Also the BBC reported in October 2015 that a Saudi official confirmed the delivery of 500 TOW missiles to FSA fighters.[216]

The U.S. supplied a considerable amount of weapons and ammunition, generally of Soviet-type from Easter Europe, to Syrian rebel groups under operation Timber Sycamore. For example Jane's Defence Weekly reported a December 2015 shipment of 994 tonnes of weapons and ammunition (including packaging and container weight) to Syrian rebel groups. A detailed list of weapon types and shipment weights had been obtained from the U.S. government's Federal Business Opportunities website.[217][218]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army#International_support_for_Free_Sy rian_Army_labeled_groups

[willowtooth]

I agree that such an economic landscape for capital ownership is not one of real 'choice', and that it is inherently an oligarchical arrangement.

The 'emerging markets' category (as in Pakistan, for example) typically gives higher rates of return, but with greater risks of non-payment / bankruptcy.


Okay, that's a decent analogy.

that's where the so called hegemony ends at the bank vault, its like supporting British colonialism over the french. The soviet union kept these governments funded, now that there are no more subsidies coming in, they are forced to privatize, after they privatize like qaddafi did, and like assad did a long time ago, there is no argument for maintaining a single party state, if there is no war there is no excuse for a 50 year military style government. The whole thing falls apart.




Well, this is the *crux* of the issue, I think -- you're obviously of the position that Islamic fundamentalism is comparable to American fundamentalism, and I just can't see the two as really being similar, mostly due to the religious 'core' of strict Sharia law, which is decidedly reactionary.

Western traditions are *still* historically rooted in the European Enlightenment, and bourgeois revolutions, as distant as those may seem under contemporary regressive political-economic conditions.there's nothing about Christianity thats different about islam its the same fucking religion. there's no argument about religious fundamentalism to be made except that theyre poor.


I can't abide the left-peace blanket position of 'everyone put their weapons down' because I *know* that ISIS won't, and such a position ignores ISIS altogether in a 'know-nothing' kind of way.
interesting because i can repeat this back the other way around "I can't abide the left-peace blanket position of 'everyone put their weapons down' because I *know* that Assad won't, and such a position ignores Assad altogether in a 'know-nothing' kind of way."



And absent a fully effective Rojava-like revolutionary offensive -- that doesn't slip / succumb to sheer militarism, like the initial anti-corruption FSA did -- the only forces physically capable of repelling the Islamic State are the major bourgeois ones like Syria, Russia, Iran, and nominally the U.S.

I don't *like* this particular situation -- I'm just recounting the factual aspects of it.See this is what i dont understand your saying rojava and kurdish forces are great when they have been in bed with NATO and western imperialist forces for decades, yet your denouncing the entire Syrian revolution because of some conspiracy theories about USA using ISIS to destabilize the whole region and funding these rebels as some kind of secret plot


AS A Syrian who has always identified politically with the left, I am particularly appalled by those men and women who call themselves left-wingers--and are therefore supposed to stand in solidarity with struggles for justice worldwide--and yet openly support the regime of the Assads, father and son, who are chiefly responsible for the Syrian disaster.Following four months of intense bombardment by the Russian Air Force, Bashar al-Assad's army, along with Shiite militias hailing from everywhere and mobilized by the Iranian mullahs, have now finished "liberating" Eastern Aleppo. Liberated from whom? From its inhabitants. More than 250,000 inhabitants were forced to flee their own city to escape massacres, as had the people of Zabadani and Daraya before them, and as will many more Syrians if systematic social and sectarian "cleansing" continues in their country under the cover of a massive media disinformation campaign.
That in Syria itself wealthy residents of Aleppo, belonging to all religious sects, rejoice over having been rid of the "scum"--meaning the poor classes who populated Eastern Aleppo--is not surprising at all. We are accustomed to it: the arrogance of dominant classes is universal.
That Shiite mullahs stuck in another era celebrate the event as a great victory of the true believers over Umayyad disbelievers, or proclaim that Aleppo has been Shiite in the past and will turn Shiite again, can also be understood if one is familiar with their doctrine, as delirious as that of their Sunni counterparts.
Finally, that, in the West, politicians and opinion makers of the far right or the hard right reaffirm, loudly, their support for Assad is also quite natural. Such people have nothing but contempt for Arabs and Muslims, and they believe, today as ever, that these "tribes" must be led with a big stick.

https://socialistworker.org/2017/01/03/to-the-leftist-admirers-of-assads-syria



Syria *is* nominally secular, which is far-preferable to any kind of strict, fundamentalist implementation of Sharia law.

not anymore, once the soviet union collapsed every mention of socialism/secularism/democracy was stripped its sharia law now



Syria has never been a secular country and its regime has never been liberal despite the elegance of Assad’s wife, Asmaa. It is naive to describe regimes by judging appearances. If we are to do so, we will conclude that Cuba is an Islamic country because of President Castro’s thickly-grown beard!
Secular?

Tunisia was a security regime and Libya, under Qaddafi’s governance, was like Syria under the Assad family’s rule. These regimes were not religious but security ones. People in these countries complained of suppression and police siege.

There is not a single Arab country whose regime can be described as secular or its society as liberal. Even Lebanon which is the less extremist among Arab countries is ruled by Sunni, Shiite, Christian and Druze religious sects.

As for the besieged Assad, he knows since the beginning of war against terrorism that he pushed the opposition towards the extremists. He knows that convincing the world that the opposition are groups that resemble “Al-Qaeda” may turn the public opinion against it, not only in the West but even in Arab areas that fight such groups. Half of Assad’s speech during the interview with the daily was addressed to the Western public opinion. He tried to convince it that he was like the West fighting Islamic extremism! Assad, however, is a supporter of extremist groups. He is a supporter of the extremist Shiite Iranian regime and the very extremist Hezbollah. In addition to this support, there are his ties to extremist Sunni organizations like Fateh al-Islam which fought Hariri’s government in Lebanon as well as ties with Iraqi al-Qaeda movements that committed murders and wreaked havoc in Iraq.
The region’s contradictions

Those who study the affairs of our region cannot overlook the reunion of these contradictions which despite their strangeness are justified. Iran which is an extremist Shiite regime supports al-Qaeda, the extremist Sunni organization, despite the historical enmity among the fanatics from both sects because they agree on the same goals. Most veteran al-Qaeda leaders are currently in Iran. Seif al-Adel, one of al-Qaeda’s leaders in Iran, has been residing there since the 90's. Osama Bin Laden’s children resorted to Iran as well after fleeing Afghanistan and they did not leave it until three years ago.

Although he is religious, Syria’s president is the biggest supporter of jihadi groups that revolve in the orbit of his regime, like the Hamas Movement, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, the Palestinian Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, almost all jihadi groups in Iraq and of course the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Assad today is trying to convince the West that he is secular and liberal and that he is fighting Islamic extremism. Those who work in the field of politics, however, know Assad’s regime very well. They know it is nothing more than an extension of the extremist political and religious Iranian regime. His father adopted the case of Arab Baath to justify his seizure of power and continuity of sectarian rule. After him, his son sought the company of long-bearded men from supreme leader Khamenei to Hassan Nasrallah. He resorted to holding Islamic jihadi conferences in Damascus.


After the revolution erupted, he now speaks of secularism and claims it!https://english.alarabiya.net/views/2013/03/05/269716.html



What *is* this -- political blackmail -- ??

You'd rather only describe the 'realpolitik' of the situation, than provide a historical-progressive-type of analysis as a guide towards future understandings and positions.

Again, I really don't see any kind of political equivalence between Assad's Syria, and the Islamic State. The world cannot afford to let this issue linger and should instead take sides on it immediately.


you would never accept this logic with anyother country I know you wouldn't, if the choice was israel or al queda you would not say "lets support netanyahu he's a secularist who believes in democracy". why is it not okay for israel to bomb sunnis but okay for assad to do the same thing for the same reason?








This jokey attitude is *not* appropriate here -- look at what you're getting into bed with:I could say the same thing to you and the assad family has been around alot longer than ISIS and killed alot more innocent people than the muslim brotherhood or whatever other sunni muslims youve been told to fear, al shabbab, taliban, al queda, boko haram who ever


A number of reports indicated that the Syrian government has attacked civilians at bread bakeries with artillery rounds and rockets in opposition-controlled cities and districts in Aleppo province and Aleppo city, shelling indiscriminately.[33] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-33) HRW said these are war crimes, as the only military targets in the areas were rebels manning the bakeries and that dozens of civilians were killed.[34] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-34)Upon retaking the capital Damascus after the Battle of Damascus (2012) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Damascus_(2012)), the Syrian government began a campaign of collective punishment against Sunni suburbs in-and-around the capital which had supported FSA presence in their neighborhoods.[35] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-35)
The charity Save the Children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Children) conducted interviews in refugee camps with Syrian civilians who had fled the fighting, and released a report in September 2012 containing many accounts of detention, torture and summary execution, as well as other incidents such as the use of civilians as human shields (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield), allegedly including tying children onto advancing tanks so that rebel forces would not fire upon them.[36] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-36)
In a 23 October 2012 statement, Human Rights Watch said that Syrian military denials notwithstanding, HRW had "evidence of ongoing cluster bomb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_munition) attacks" by Syria’s air force. HRW has confirmed reports "through interviews with victims, other residents and activists who filmed the cluster munitions", as well as "analysis of 64 videos and also photos showing weapon remnants" of cluster bomb strikes.[37] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-37) The use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions is prohibited by the 2008 international Convention on Cluster Munitions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions) treaty. Use of cluster bombs have been considered a grave threat to civilian populations because of the bombs' ability to randomly scatter thousands of submunitions or "bomblets" over a vast area, many of which remain waiting to explode, taking civilian lives and limbs long after the conflict is over.[38] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-38)
David Nott (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nott), a British surgeon who volunteered for five weeks in mid-2013 on the ground in Syria at hospitals in conflict zone, reported that victims of government snipers would all display wounds in a particular area on particular days, indicating that they may have intentionally chosen to target a specific area each day as a sort of "game". On at least one occasion a pregnant women was found shot through the uterus, killing her unborn child.[39] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-39)
The Syrian government has reportedly used "barrel bombs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_bomb)" to attack civilian populations in rebel held territories in defiance of United Nations Security Council (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council) Resolution 2139 passed on February 22, 2014.[40] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-HRW-WR-2016-40) The bombs are "cheaply made, locally produced, and typically constructed from large oil drums, gas cylinders, and water tanks, filled with high explosives and scrap metal to enhance fragmentation, and then dropped from helicopters".[40] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-HRW-WR-2016-40) Between February 2014 and January 2015, Human Rights Watch reports that "at least 450 major damage sites" in Syria "showed damage consistent with barrel bomb detonations". A local Syrian group estimates that in the first year after UN resolution 2139 was passed, aerial barrel bomb attacks killed 6,163 civilians in Syria, including 1,892 children.[40] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-HRW-WR-2016-40) According to a UN investigation, in September 2016 the Syrian air force dropped barrel bombs from helicopters on a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy at Urum al-Kubra headed to Aleppo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2016_Urum_al-Kubra_Aid_Convoy_attack). The bombs were followed by rocket fire from jets, and strafing of survivors with machine guns, killing 14 aid workers. In a report issued 1 March 2017, the United Nations found the attack was “meticulously planned” and “ruthlessly carried out” -- and because it was deliberate, a war crime.[41] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-nyt-1-3-17-41)[42] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-42)
According to three eminent international lawyers.[43] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-43) Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the "systematic killing" of about 11,000 detainees. Most of the victims were young men and many corpses were emaciated, bloodstained and bore signs of torture. Some had no eyes; others showed signs of strangulation or electrocution. Experts say this evidence is more detailed and on a far larger scale than anything else that has yet emerged from the 34-month crisis.[44] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-44)[45] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-45) According to a report by Amnesty International (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International), published in November 2015, the Syrian regime has forcibly disappeared more than 65,000 people (who are yet to be heard from) since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War.[46] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-46) According to a report in May 2016 by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Observatory_for_Human_Rights), at least 60,000 people have been killed through torture or died from dire humanitarian conditions in Syrian government jails since March 2011.[47] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r#cite_note-47)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r






---






Bullshit -- you're incorrectly equating religious fundamentalist law to Western mostly-secular civil society, including Bill-of-Rights-type progressive reforms and a domestic legacy of anti-racist civil rights movements.Islam itself is anti-racist, it took the crazy Christians over 1000 years to match the level of anti-racism that's in Islam. The middle east itself has been home too thousands of cultures ethnicities and religions for thousands years, and welcomes muslims of every race around the world to mecca your so called western secular society can't go more than few decades without a genocide. Ask the jews how they feel about "Western secular civil society" and their progressive reforms. Hell we wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for the genocidal white Christians in the first place






Where are you getting this from -- ? You need to provide sources and/or your own reasoning on this.

Regardless this, if true, would just play into unceasing religious sectarian conflict due to its political indecisiveness.





Now you're an *apologist* for ISIS -- the Islamic-fundamentalist opposition 'rebels' have been well-provided-for, from Western governments, as I noted in post #78:

okay so its either support bashar the lion or your with ISIS? "you either love freedom or your with the terrorists" huh? now who's the neocon?

Bashar loves ISIS they kill those american paid rebels you hate for whatever reason, he sends Hezbollah to go train them.... I suppose your going to tell me Hezbollah is also "nominally secular" and will protect us from sharia law?


The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has long had a pragmatic approach to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), says a Syrian businessman with close ties to the government. Even from the early days the regime purchased fuel from ISIS-controlled oil facilities, and it has maintained that relationship throughout the conflict. “Honestly speaking, the regime has always had dealings with ISIS, out of necessity.”The Sunni businessman is close to the regime but wants to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions from both ISIS supporters and the regime. He trades goods all over the country so his drivers have regular interactions with ISIS supporters and members in Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in Syria, and in ISIS-controlled areas like Dier-ezzor.
The businessman cites Raqqa’s mobile phone service as an example of how there is commerce between the regime, Syrian businesses, and ISIS. The country’s two main mobile phone operators still work in Raqqa. “Both operators send engineers to ISIS-controlled areas to repair damages at the towers,” he says. In addition, there are regular shipments of food to Raqqa. “ISIS charges a small tax for all trucks bringing food into Raqqa [including the businessman’s trucks], and they give receipts stamped with the ISIS logo. It is all very well organized.”

http://time.com/3719129/assad-isis-asset/

Honestly I understand your desperation for some side in this conflict that looks even slightly reasonable here, and Assad's fathers former alliance with the soviet union makes him seem like a plausible option. but this is not 1982 anymore. Maybe if Assad wanted to govern one little province in western syria I wouldn't mind... in a we've got bigger fish to fry sort of way.

...but he doesn't he wants all of syria and has expanded into lebanon and attempted to expand into Turkey and is just as every bit as adventurist as israel, or Iran. the Iranians want to expand into old Persian empire from Baluchistan to Sana'a to Baku. what the hell does israel want? the golan heights? are they going to try and restore an entire Asiatic empire with nuclear warheads at their back?

https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/revolutionary-left-current-in-syria-establishment-of-the-peoples-liberation-faction-to-commemorate-the-third-anniversary-of-the-syrian-revolution/


http://fortune.com/2017/01/20/oil-gas-isis-syria-assad/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-syrias-assad-directly-supporting-isis/article/2565466

[ckaihatsu]

that's where the so called hegemony ends at the bank vault, its like supporting British colonialism over the french. The soviet union kept these governments funded, now that there are no more subsidies coming in, they are forced to privatize, after they privatize like qaddafi did, and like assad did a long time ago, there is no argument for maintaining a single party state, if there is no war there is no excuse for a 50 year military style government. The whole thing falls apart.


I'm not going to argue-for / defend 50-year military-style governments, but at the same time you're ignoring the status quo, which is a world patchwork of mostly-separatist nation-states.

Someone like Assad can legitimately argue for nation-state sovereignty, to say that the West / U.S. / NATO should never have invaded Syria, and on such a flimsy pretext as foreign Western backing of internal militaristic opposition to his democratically elected rule -- producing the international proxy war / Cold War II that exists today.

There's no 'single party state' in Syria, as mentioned in post #69.





there's nothing about Christianity thats different about islam its the same fucking religion. there's no argument about religious fundamentalism to be made except that theyre poor.


They're both monotheistic, but the U.S. is definitely *not* a 'Christian country' the way that the nascent Islamic State is a fundamentalist Islamic state.

You seem to think that the killing of innocent people ('civilians') in the Middle East by the U.S. military somehow justifies the formation of a reactionary caliphate, carved-out from portions of Iraq and Syria.


---





I can't abide the left-peace blanket position of 'everyone put their weapons down' because I *know* that ISIS won't, and such a position ignores ISIS altogether in a 'know-nothing' kind of way.





interesting because i can repeat this back the other way around "I can't abide the left-peace blanket position of 'everyone put their weapons down' because I *know* that Assad won't, and such a position ignores Assad altogether in a 'know-nothing' kind of way."


Your point isn't clear -- I *agree* with this statement of yours empirically, meaning that the 'peace' position just isn't realistic. (I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term.)





See this is what i dont understand your saying rojava and kurdish forces are great when they have been in bed with NATO and western imperialist forces for decades,


In this particular context Kurdish national self-determination is *justified* because it's the Kurds who are doing the actual fighting ('political labor') against the reactionary Islamic State. If they are aided by a major power -- or several -- like the U.S., all the better because, again, Western secularism, such as it is, is objectively *preferable* (historically-progressive) to a fucking murderous Islamic-fundamentalist regime.





yet your denouncing the entire Syrian revolution because of some conspiracy theories about USA using ISIS to destabilize the whole region and funding these rebels as some kind of secret plot


I'm denouncing the 'Syrian revolution' -- ? What, the Western-proxy FSA -- ? Islamic-fundamentalist Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra, ISIS -- ?

Where's the revolution -- ?

Has the U.S. and NATO been (indirectly) funding these reactionary forces, or haven't they -- ? (See the identical corroborating material at posts #78 and #81.)


And:





Al-Nusra Front [...] is a Salafist jihadist terrorist organization fighting against Syrian government forces in the Syrian Civil War, with the aim of establishing an Islamic state in the country.[37] The group announced its formation on 23 January 2012.[38]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front


---





https://socialistworker.org/2017/01/03/to-the-leftist-admirers-of-assads-syria




That Shiite mullahs stuck in another era celebrate the event as a great victory of the true believers over Umayyad disbelievers, or proclaim that Aleppo has been Shiite in the past and will turn Shiite again, can also be understood if one is familiar with their doctrine, as delirious as that of their Sunni counterparts.


I really don't think that *anyone* on the revolutionary left is saying 'Let's get Syria into the hands of the Shiites, for Shiite rule.'

This author's perspective is *myopic*, blithely ignoring the larger geopolitical situation at hand, one that calls for a halt to the *international* proxy war ongoing on Syrian soil, so that the people of Syria can sort out their own internal affairs without outside interference.





[Assad's] "leftist" supporters nod approvingly under the pretext that there is no other choice: It's either him or ISIS.


This happens to be true, and is properly in-context. That doesn't mean that Assad has to *stay*, but rather that he would be subject to *internal* politics, as from below.





And yet the Syrians who rose in 2011 were the first to vigorously condemn the jihadi groups of all sorts and kinds, and in particular ISIS, that have infested their popular uprising after it was forced into militarization.


Agreed.





But neither jihadi intrusion nor the shortcomings of the self-proclaimed representatives of the Syrian Revolution, nor any argument used to justify the unjustifiable, can invalidate two fundamental facts: that the Syrians had a thousand reasons to revolt, and that they did so with exceptional courage, under conditions of near-universal indifference, countering the ruling clan's limitless terror, Iran's imperial ambitions and, since September 2015, a U.S.-approved Russian military intervention that has already killed several thousand civilians.


This latter part is *beside the point*, though -- the author just acknowledged (in the previous quote here) that the initial popular uprising was 'forced into militarization'. This fact means that there's no longer *any* 'revolution' past the point of international invasion and neocolonialism.

The deaths of Syrian people killed by foreign interventions, and even by Assad's Syrian regime, are deplorable, of course, but none of it changes the *overall* political situation, which is still one of Western-imperialist ongoing interventions in the affairs of the Syrian state, which should never have happened in the first place. Western imperialist forces are not doing *anyone* any favors with their involvement, and they need to stop all of their activities, which happen to be intrinsically at the expense of Syrian sovereignty and popular self-determination.





Until the executioners are defeated and punished, Syria's endless martyrdom risks foreshadowing many others in the world--a world from which Syria will have vanished.


The question, then, is *who* (what forces) should be the ones to 'mete out justice' regarding the barbarities under Assad's rule -- ? The U.S. / West / NATO certainly does not have clean hands, and I wouldn't trust such forces to intervene on strictly *humanitarian*, selfless grounds -- such would-be / is imperialist and neocolonialist.

What I *do* trust outside forces to do is to deny sovereignty to a *worse* national formulation, that of ISIS / ISIL / the Islamic State, as a matter of *priority*. And, unfortunately, that's where things stand right now. World public opinion and political positions need to cohere and demand uniformly that ISIS be denied any foothold, perpetually -- and without further civilian deaths. Until then, those who *do* fight ISIS physically, as from Assad's Syrian internal forces, are justified in their actions that diminish ISIS' strongholds.


---





not anymore, once the soviet union collapsed every mention of socialism/secularism/democracy was stripped its sharia law now

https://english.alarabiya.net/views/2013/03/05/269716.html


Whatever.

This is a blatantly partisan news source:





Al Arabiya English is the English language service of the Dubai-based regional Arab newscaster, Al-Arabiya News Channel.




Following an Op-Ed published on 5 March 2015,[15] calling for President Obama to "listen to (Israeli PM) Netenyahu" when it comes to the threat imposed by the Iranian nuclear deal,[15] many pro-Hezbollah Arab, Iranian and even Western media outlets criticized Al Arabiya English's editorial stance. Based on this Op-Ed, The Independent's Robert Fisk wrote a piece[16] on 6 March that the column, which was written by Al Arabiya English's Editor-in-Chief at the time, wouldn't have been published unless it was blessed by the Saudi Monarchy.[16] By doing so, Fisk was echoing unconfirmed claims that Al Arabiya is owned by the Saudi government and as such unable to publish views that weren't aligned with those of Riyadh.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Arabiya_English


---





What *is* this -- political blackmail -- ??

You'd rather only describe the 'realpolitik' of the situation, than provide a historical-progressive-type of analysis as a guide towards future understandings and positions.

Again, I really don't see any kind of political equivalence between Assad's Syria, and the Islamic State. The world cannot afford to let this issue linger and should instead take sides on it immediately.





you would never accept this logic with anyother country I know you wouldn't, if the choice was israel or al queda you would not say "lets support netanyahu he's a secularist who believes in democracy".


You're roundly incorrect in your guesswork here -- I'm pro-Palestinian and wouldn't *ever* back Netanyahu. Israel *cooperates* with Islamic-fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda.





http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/03/18/syri-m18.html


Israel air raid targets government positions as Syrian conflict intensifies

By Jordan Shilton

18 March 2017

In yet another sign of the threat of a wider war in the Middle East, the Syrian government fired anti-aircraft missiles early Friday morning at Israeli planes after Tel Aviv launched one of its deepest incursions into the conflict to date, carrying out a raid near the Syrian city of Palmyra.

Although none of the fighter jets were shot down, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deployed its Arrow missile defense system to take down one of the Syrian missiles north of Jerusalem. Residents were awoken by air raid sirens and pieces of the Syrian missile landed in Jordan, prompting the Israeli army to issue a statement on the incident.

Israeli planes have conducted numerous strikes since 2012 on arms shipments Tel Aviv claims are being sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The army has tended to downplay these activities, with initial reports generally appearing in the international media.

But Friday’s attack marked the deepest incursion yet. The positions hit near Palmyra were reportedly occupied by government troops and aligned Hezbollah forces who are advancing on Islamic State fighters to the east.




Israel air raid targets government positions as Syrian conflict intensifies

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/196807-Israel-air-raid-targets-government-positions-as-Syrian-conflict-intensifies?p=2881392#post2881392


---





why is it not okay for israel to bomb sunnis but okay for assad to do the same thing for the same reason?


You're being vague here -- Israel did not bomb Sunnis, it bombed *Syrian* forces.


---





This jokey attitude is *not* appropriate here -- look at what you're getting into bed with:





The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Quran and the Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state".[13] Its mottos include "Believers are but Brothers", "Islam is the Solution", and "Allah is our objective; the Qur'an is the Constitution; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our wish".[14][15][16]

It is financed by members, who are required to allocate a portion of their income to the movement,[17] and was for many years financed by Saudi Arabia, with which it shared some enemies and some points of doctrine.[17][18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood





I could say the same thing to you and the assad family has been around alot longer than ISIS and killed alot more innocent people than the muslim brotherhood or whatever other sunni muslims youve been told to fear, al shabbab, taliban, al queda, boko haram who ever


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_Wa r


'Fear' -- ?? How dare you. You're using your presumptuous attitude in a decidedly *condescending* way.

And you're still missing the point -- that of the empirical situation at-hand.

My standing position, from above, is this:

I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term [due to existing priority geopolitical circumstances and the necessity of defeating ISIS].


---





Islam itself is anti-racist, it took the crazy Christians over 1000 years to match the level of anti-racism that's in Islam. The middle east itself has been home too thousands of cultures ethnicities and religions for thousands years, and welcomes muslims of every race around the world to mecca your so called western secular society can't go more than few decades without a genocide. Ask the jews how they feel about "Western secular civil society" and their progressive reforms. Hell we wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for the genocidal white Christians in the first place


You're buying into the fallacy that all of this is just 'cultural', or a 'clash of civilizations'.

No. It's due to Western imperialism, primarily -- Syria should not have been invaded by the U.S.





okay so its either support bashar the lion or your with ISIS?


They're actually diametrically opposite, so it's either Syrian sovereignty or the *takeover* of Syria (and Iraq, etc.) by the Islamic State.





"you either love freedom or your with the terrorists" huh? now who's the neocon?


The neoconservative agenda has been *aimed* at invading Syria, all the way back to before 2003, as referenced (identically) at posts #74 and #78. It's not *my* agenda.





Bashar loves ISIS they kill those american paid rebels you hate for whatever reason,


You're being dramatic, and I don't 'hate' (which is an emotion) -- I *oppose* ISIS rule.

Regarding the facts, ISIS has *coordinated* with American-paid rebels like the FSA and al-Nusra.

Here's from that article:





Assad does not see ISIS as his primary problem, the businessman says. "The regime fears the Free Syrian Army and the Nusra Front, not ISIS. They [the FSA and Nusra] state their goal is to remove the President. But ISIS doesn’t say that. They have never directly threatened Damascus.” As the businessman notes, the strikes on ISIS targets are minimal. “If the regime were serious about getting rid of ISIS, they would have bombed Raqqa by now. Instead they bomb other cities, where the FSA is strong.” That said, the businessman does not believe that the regime has a formal relationship with ISIS, just a pragmatic one. “The more powerful ISIS grows, the more they are useful for the regime. They make America nervous, and the Americans in turn see the regime as a kind of bulwark against ISIS.”




http://time.com/3719129/assad-isis-asset/


I'll note that any given geographic location cannot be occupied by both Syria and by the Islamic State at the same time.





[Assad] sends Hezbollah to go train [ISIS]....


This is quite a claim -- I'll need some kind of reference for this one.





I suppose your going to tell me Hezbollah is also "nominally secular" and will protect us from sharia law?


Why do you rely so much on your spurious assumptions -- ?

Hezbollah is best at being anti-Zionist.





Honestly I understand your desperation for some side in this conflict


This is a *severe* mischaracterization on your part -- global politics is *everyone's* business, and you're making it sound as though people should somehow be *excluded* from addressing situations in the real world, for whatever strange reason you may have for such.





that looks even slightly reasonable here, and Assad's fathers former alliance with the soviet union makes him seem like a plausible option. but this is not 1982 anymore. Maybe if Assad wanted to govern one little province in western syria I wouldn't mind... in a we've got bigger fish to fry sort of way.

...but he doesn't he wants all of syria and has expanded into lebanon and attempted to expand into Turkey and is just as every bit as adventurist as israel, or Iran. the Iranians want to expand into old Persian empire from Baluchistan to Sana'a to Baku. what the hell does israel want? the golan heights? are they going to try and restore an entire Asiatic empire with nuclear warheads at their back?


Well this is why we're *primarily* socialists, and not looking to *back* careerist-type regional political aspirations from *any* separatist national interest. We're having to deal with messy, undesirable geopolitical realities, unfortunately, so we should keep in mind to avoid becoming bourgeois-sectarian ourselves.





https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/revolutionary-left-current-in-syria-establishment-of-the-peoples-liberation-faction-to-commemorate-the-third-anniversary-of-the-syrian-revolution/


http://fortune.com/2017/01/20/oil-gas-isis-syria-assad/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-syrias-assad-directly-supporting-isis/article/2565466

[TomLeftist]

Jimmy: I think that the USA ruling class, the mind-manipulation ruling class is aware that the way of thinking among the general population is based on "Argumentum ad populum"

Here is the definition of Argumentum Ad Populum: In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."

Definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum


For example: "If the great majority believe that Bashar Al Assad is evil and kills his own people with chemical weapons, than it must be true that Bashar Al Assad is evil and kills his own people with chemical weapons.


Another example: "If the great majority of the population of USA believes that the US government and its Armed Forces are a beacon of light, that capitalism is the most democratic system, and that marxism, communism are evil. Then it must be true that USA, US government, and its political system is the beacon of light, the home of the free"


This type of argument is known by several names, including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, vox populi, and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), fickle crowd syndrome, and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea.


And that's why in USA, in any social event, in any public place with regular american joes and janes, you see everybody dressing the same, eating the same thing, with the same behaviour patterns, the same gestures. It's like a majority-tyranny, where things are true if the majority believes it to be true.


And this is still the way most US citizens behave. And unfortunately, maybe the US capitalist-imperialist pro-war political system will be powerful in the USA for many decades to come, unless there is either a leftist coup de etat done by leftist sectors of the US Armed Forces, or if the majority of US citizens experience a mental awakening, as a result of believing a lot more in alternative news (counterpunch, democracynow.org etc and not trusting the corporate regular news anymore)


However if most adult americans begin to read classical literature books (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Goethe, Hegel, Voltaire, Marx, Feuerbach etc.) maybe there could be a way for people to be aware that literally all traditional mainstream news sources (TV and newspapers) are all liars and work for the upper exploiter classes.


But unfortunately I don't think that a general knowledge book-reading revolution spread to the masses will happen in USA, because of many factors: americans work all day, are super-busy all day and do not have the physical and mental energies to digest classical literature, psychology which could help americans destroy mental-slavery. And the other reasonf of why such a mental awakening won't take place is that books such as philosophy and sociology books, classical books are super expensive for the already low buying power of most regular US workers and regular people who are all economically broke



The anti-war movement was politically weak, but that doesn't mean it was pointless or inevitably weak.

For one thing, the initial large protests broke the idea that the war was unquestionably supported (and showed that the consensus was in Washington and London, not amongst the broader population. Prior to these protests the US was still in a situation where the only acceptable popular expression of opinion was a US flag on a suburban SUV. The anti war protests broke the post 9-11 atmosphere.

The problem was that the movement never got past the Democratic Party who barely had to break a sweat getting ahead of the movement. They "broke" further development of the movement by successfully counter posing war with "reasonable (run by Democrats) war" because of general (if different) weaknesses of liberals (tied to the system so unable to offer alternatives) and the left (unable to wage popular campaigns that can inspire people to fight for an independent option).

Unfortunately we are In the same place but for a much more "confusing" situation. Any anti war sentiment, left to inertia, will likely fall into an anti-trump mode in the short-term and other segments might fall into a crude anti-imperialism that views Assad or Russia as the lesser-evil.

The point of anti-war/imperialism is always more or less aimed domestically. The weak links in terms of ruling class arguments in the US, I think, would be the right's hypocrisy around migrants/refugees as well as a generation-long "war on terror" supported by both parties as well as the same excuse Russia uses for its imperial actions and domestic repression.

Solidarity isn't all that possible because there isn't a domestic force capable of providing any real aid or mass strikes etc at the moment. But if people mean identification, then that's not a bad starting point. Islamophobic arguments were not uncommon in the broader anti Iraq-war protests and groups, but it may be easier, post Arab-spring, to push back against this if a movement develops.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[willowtooth]

I'm not going to argue-for / defend 50-year military-style governments, but at the same time you're ignoring the status quo, which is a world patchwork of mostly-separatist nation-states.

Someone like Assad can legitimately argue for nation-state sovereignty, to say that the West / U.S. / NATO should never have invaded Syria, and on such a flimsy pretext as foreign Western backing of internal militaristic opposition to his democratically elected rule -- producing the international proxy war / Cold War II that exists today.

There's no 'single party state' in Syria, as mentioned in post #69.

Assad the alawi cannot argue for any nation state sovereignty, if there were a law that allowed religious minortities to be president, and then he was elected as suspiciously as assad was, then him staying in power for one term would be suspicious, him staying in power for 50 years is outright tribalism. I wonder if Assad was christian would you be saying the same thing? The foreigners didn't invade Syria they created it.... and that includes Russia.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-asia/1980-03-01/great-game-asia




They're both monotheistic, but the U.S. is definitely *not* a 'Christian country' the way that the nascent Islamic State is a fundamentalist Islamic state.

You seem to think that the killing of innocent people ('civilians') in the Middle East by the U.S. military somehow justifies the formation of a reactionary caliphate, carved-out from portions of Iraq and Syria.

It might not justify it, but it does explain it, and it should be expected again, look how much difficulty me and you have at assessing these things, how do you think a sunni muslim living in the hills outside baghdad would react to this clusterfuck? Most of ISIS are illiterate alot of them are drug addicts escaped mental patients and liberated prisoners. Even more are Saddams old soldiers. Did you support Saddam?









Your point isn't clear -- I *agree* with this statement of yours empirically, meaning that the 'peace' position just isn't realistic. (I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term.)
I understand that point, but I'm saying you shouldn't be, because syria isn't a country, its a colony like the British east india company





In this particular context Kurdish national self-determination is *justified* because it's the Kurds who are doing the actual fighting ('political labor') against the reactionary Islamic State. If they are aided by a major power -- or several -- like the U.S., all the better because, again, Western secularism, such as it is, is objectively *preferable* (historically-progressive) to a fucking murderous Islamic-fundamentalist regime. who are you to say what's preferable? If the people vote "democratically" to restore 6th century islamic laws, should we send american troops to stop them? Maybe you'd prefer if the troops were ethnically russian?






I'm denouncing the 'Syrian revolution' -- ? What, the Western-proxy FSA -- ? Islamic-fundamentalist Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra, ISIS -- ?

Where's the revolution -- ?
yes and your fighting an up hill battle for an unworthy cause, Assad will step down/ be shot eventually and Americans wont be the ones doing it

Has the U.S. and NATO been (indirectly) funding these reactionary forces, or haven't they -- ? (See the identical corroborating material at posts #78 and #81.)

they've been there in one form or another ever since the invention of the automobile








I really don't think that *anyone* on the revolutionary left is saying 'Let's get Syria into the hands of the Shiites, for Shiite rule.'I sure hope not...


This author's perspective is *myopic*, blithely ignoring the larger geopolitical situation at hand, one that calls for a halt to the *international* proxy war ongoing on Syrian soil, so that the people of Syria can sort out their own internal affairs without outside interference.

This happens to be true, and is properly in-context. That doesn't mean that Assad has to *stay*, but rather that he would be subject to *internal* politics, as from below.
in order to "stay out of it" they would have to give up that sweet sweet oil money which they wont do, not to mention all the money that comes from rebuilding all these bombed out cities, there's a few big paychecks to hand out there too.




This latter part is *beside the point*, though -- the author just acknowledged (in the previous quote here) that the initial popular uprising was 'forced into militarization'. This fact means that there's no longer *any* 'revolution' past the point of international invasion and neocolonialism.This might sound like an ignorant question but seriously, what's so wrong with being militarized?




The deaths of Syrian people killed by foreign interventions, and even by Assad's Syrian regime, are deplorable, of course, but none of it changes the *overall* political situation, which is still one of Western-imperialist ongoing interventions in the affairs of the Syrian state, which should never have happened in the first place. Western imperialist forces are not doing *anyone* any favors with their involvement, and they need to stop all of their activities, which happen to be intrinsically at the expense of Syrian sovereignty and popular self-determination.
The existence of the country of Syria is the only thing that should've never happened in the first place





The question, then, is *who* (what forces) should be the ones to 'mete out justice' regarding the barbarities under Assad's rule -- ? The U.S. / West / NATO certainly does not have clean hands, and I wouldn't trust such forces to intervene on strictly *humanitarian*, selfless grounds -- such would-be / is imperialist and neocolonialist.
russia seems happy to do it? they like oil money, they like building stuff, they love hummus its a perfect fit




What I *do* trust outside forces to do is to deny sovereignty to a *worse* national formulation, that of ISIS / ISIL / the Islamic State, as a matter of *priority*. And, unfortunately, that's where things stand right now. World public opinion and political positions need to cohere and demand uniformly that ISIS be denied any foothold, perpetually -- and without further civilian deaths. Until then, those who *do* fight ISIS physically, as from Assad's Syrian internal forces, are justified in their actions that diminish ISIS' strongholds. your taking the opportunistic aims of the USA, and coincidental evidence to mean that USA is 200% in charge of al queda that Osama's real name is timothy, and that Baghdadi is an undercover CIA agent. You've gone from great man theories about assad into fullblown rothschilds conspiracy land, holocaust denial is around the corner. And assad is a holocaust denier by the way, Syria is one of the leaders in distribution of antisemitic propaganda and is supported directly by neonazis around the world from the KKK to Golden dawn, theyve even gone from greece to fight for him




Whatever.

This is a blatantly partisan news source:better than syrian state TV




You're roundly incorrect in your guesswork here -- I'm pro-Palestinian and wouldn't *ever* back Netanyahu. Israel *cooperates* with Islamic-fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda.
Palestinians have cooperated alot more with islamic fundamentalist than Israel, Osama stated his main reason for attacking USA was the plight of the Palestinians. Israelis regularly label every muslim with an attitude an al-queda terrorist just like Assad does, and Assad has cooperated with ISIS way more than netanyahu has, last I checked Israel wasn't buying oil from them





You're being vague here -- Israel did not bomb Sunnis, it bombed *Syrian* forces.they bombed muslims they didn't care what flag they were waving, it was brutal, almost like they were fighting for holocaust revenge against an unmatched enemy




They're actually diametrically opposite, so it's either Syrian sovereignty or the *takeover* of Syria (and Iraq, etc.) by the Islamic State.i have a feeling there's more than two options






The neoconservative agenda has been *aimed* at invading Syria, all the way back to before 2003, as referenced (identically) at posts #74 and #78. It's not *my* agenda.
the agenda has been aimed at getting that sweet oil money, the country of syria was created to help drill for it, who cares who's the boss of it?





I'll note that any given geographic location cannot be occupied by both Syria and by the Islamic State at the same time.



the syrian government can barely control these red lines

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Syrian%2C_Iraqi%2C_and_Lebanese_insurgencies.png









Well this is why we're *primarily* socialists, and not looking to *back* careerist-type regional political aspirations from *any* separatist national interest. We're having to deal with messy, undesirable geopolitical realities, unfortunately, so we should keep in mind to avoid becoming bourgeois-sectarian ourselves.which is hard in a region where the majority of the people is a member of religion we are told to hate, Sunni islam is technically the largest religion in the world, and is only growing, if we hate every sunni with a gun we are jumping in on this psuedo-christian crusade which millions of Christians believe in, christian dominion theory is widely believed in the DOD

[ckaihatsu]

Assad the alawi cannot argue for any nation state sovereignty,


'Argue' -- ??

Assad isn't one of us here at RevLeft, jockeying in a theoretical space. He has *power* and can determine to some extent how Syria operates within the larger geopolitical context, which you're leaving out here in this electoralist-minded treatment of yours.





if there were a law that allowed religious minortities to be president, and then he was elected as suspiciously as assad was, then him staying in power for one term would be suspicious, him staying in power for 50 years is outright tribalism. I wonder if Assad was christian would you be saying the same thing?


I'm not religious, and I'm *not partisan* to Assad:





(I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term.)


---





The foreigners didn't invade Syria they created it.... and that includes Russia.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-asia/1980-03-01/great-game-asia


Yes, you're describing the modern era, but now how about focusing on *contemporary* developments, like the start of the U.S.-led *proxy war* into Syria:





American-led intervention in Syria

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the closely related operations in Iraq, see American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–present).

During the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, the United States first supplied the rebels of the Free Syrian Army with non-lethal aid (including food rations and pickup trucks), but quickly began providing training, cash, and intelligence to selected Syrian rebel commanders.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_Syria


---





They're both monotheistic, but the U.S. is definitely *not* a 'Christian country' the way that the nascent Islamic State is a fundamentalist Islamic state.

You seem to think that the killing of innocent people ('civilians') in the Middle East by the U.S. military somehow justifies the formation of a reactionary caliphate, carved-out from portions of Iraq and Syria.





It might not justify it, but it does explain it,


Okay, so we agree on this empirical dynamic.

To be *political*, however, one has to face *forward* and take positions on how the terrain of Syria and Iraq *should* be -- so far you've only indicated that you see the Shiite and Sunni factions as being equivalent, and that they can just continue their intra-regional warring *indefinitely*. This isn't being political, and is actually *misidentifying* the groupings since the *political* distinctions would be about the FSA, al-Nusra, ISIS, Western (and Gulf) support for the same, versus the geopolitical states of Syria, Russia, and Iran on the *other* side.





and it should be expected again,


The dynamic is ongoing.





look how much difficulty me and you have at assessing these things,


What *is* this -- a fatalistic attitude -- ? Either we figure out the descriptions of what we're talking about, for any given scale, or we don't.





how do you think a sunni muslim living in the hills outside baghdad would react to this clusterfuck? Most of ISIS are illiterate alot of them are drug addicts escaped mental patients and liberated prisoners.


Why are you maligning people's abilities to understand political dynamics -- ? This is more of your trite profiling and stereotyping at work.





Even more are Saddams old soldiers. Did you support Saddam?


I would support local popular self-determination, over any localist comprador- or separatist bourgeois rule and/or internationalist bourgeois hegemony from without.

Of course such is easier said than done.


---





Your point isn't clear -- I *agree* with this statement of yours empirically, meaning that the 'peace' position just isn't realistic. (I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term.)





I understand that point, but I'm saying you shouldn't be, because syria isn't a country, its a colony like the British east india company


No, that's not a correct characterization:





Politics of Syria

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Politics in the Syrian Arab Republic takes place in the framework of a semi-presidential republic with multiparty representation. President Bashar al-Assad's family and his Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party have remained dominant forces in the country's politics since a 1970 coup.[1][2]

Until the early stages of the Syrian uprising, the president had broad and unchecked decree authority under a long-standing state of emergency. The end of this emergency was a key demand of the uprising, and decrees are now subject to approval by the People's Council, the country's legislature.[3] The Ba'ath Party is Syria's ruling party and the previous Syrian constitution of 1973 stated that "the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party leads society and the state."[4] At least 167 seats of the 250-member parliament were guaranteed for the National Progressive Front, which is a coalition of the Ba'ath Party and several other much smaller allied parties.[2] The new Syrian constitution of 2012 introduced multi-party system based on the principle of political pluralism without guaranteed leadership of any political party.[5] The Syrian army and security services maintained a considerable presence in the neighbouring Lebanese Republic from 1975 until 24 April 2005.[6]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Syria





The modern Syrian state was established after the end of centuries of Ottoman control in World War I as a French mandate, and represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab Levant. It gained independence as a parliamentary republic on 24 October 1945 when Syria became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the former French Mandate – although French troops did not leave the country until April 1946. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949–71. In 1958, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic, which was terminated by the 1961 Syrian coup d'état. The Arab Republic of Syria came into being in late 1961 after December 1 constitutional referendum, and was increasingly unstable until the Ba'athist coup d'état, since which the Ba'ath Party has maintained its power. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens. Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000.[11]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria


---





In this particular context Kurdish national self-determination is *justified* because it's the Kurds who are doing the actual fighting ('political labor') against the reactionary Islamic State. If they are aided by a major power -- or several -- like the U.S., all the better because, again, Western secularism, such as it is, is objectively *preferable* (historically-progressive) to a fucking murderous Islamic-fundamentalist regime.





who are you to say what's preferable?


Welcome to politics, wt -- I have as much wherewithal to make judgment calls on the state of the world as anyone else does.

You're stuck in the position of viewing secularism and clericalism as being value-interchangeable, which they *aren't*.





If the people vote "democratically" to restore 6th century islamic laws, should we send american troops to stop them?


Well that's not how ISIS / the Islamic State came about -- the formulation / emergence of nation-states isn't always so formal and formally-democratic.

And, yes, once again, Western secularism is objectively qualitatively *better* than fundamentalist religious-sectarian clericalism, to the point where the use of military force would be justified, as against ISIS.





Maybe you'd prefer if the troops were ethnically russian?


You should know better than this -- you're sinking to the level of 'cultural determination', as though it's the 'clash of civilizations' -- as with 'Shiite vs. Sunni' -- that determines history, instead of that of discrete political interests within the dynamic of historical / materialist / dialectical determinism.


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle



http://s6.postimg.org/44rloql0x/160309_History_Macro_Micro_politics_logistic.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/r686uhkod/full/)


---





I'm denouncing the 'Syrian revolution' -- ? What, the Western-proxy FSA -- ? Islamic-fundamentalist Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra, ISIS -- ?

Where's the revolution -- ?





yes


Yes, *what* -- ??





and your fighting an up hill battle for an unworthy cause, Assad will step down/ be shot eventually and Americans wont be the ones doing it


Again you're misconstruing my position -- I'm not *partisan* to Assad:





(I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term.)


---





Has the U.S. and NATO been (indirectly) funding these reactionary forces, or haven't they -- ? (See the identical corroborating material at posts #78 and #81.)





they've been there in one form or another ever since the invention of the automobile


So then the call should be for the geopolitical *sovereignty* of Syria as a first step, and the *defeat* of the reactionary Islamic State / fundamentalist militarist groupings.


---





I really don't think that *anyone* on the revolutionary left is saying 'Let's get Syria into the hands of the Shiites, for Shiite rule.'





I sure hope not...


---





This author's perspective is *myopic*, blithely ignoring the larger geopolitical situation at hand, one that calls for a halt to the *international* proxy war ongoing on Syrian soil, so that the people of Syria can sort out their own internal affairs without outside interference.




This happens to be true, and is properly in-context. That doesn't mean that Assad has to *stay*, but rather that he would be subject to *internal* politics, as from below.





in order to "stay out of it" they would have to give up that sweet sweet oil money which they wont do, not to mention all the money that comes from rebuilding all these bombed out cities, there's a few big paychecks to hand out there too.


You're misunderstanding -- I'm not saying that Assad should *voluntarily* 'stay out of [rule]', but rather that there needs to be an end to the reactionary Islamic State, and all reactionary Islamic-fundamentalist groups, and an end to outside (Western / Gulf) support and backing for the same.

Once the situation is more-or-less back to a pre-2011 state of things, the people of Syria themselves can decide what to do about Assad, and for the country as a whole, on their own -- popular sovereignty.


---





This latter part is *beside the point*, though -- the author just acknowledged (in the previous quote here) that the initial popular uprising was 'forced into militarization'. This fact means that there's no longer *any* 'revolution' past the point of international invasion and neocolonialism.





This might sound like an ignorant question but seriously, what's so wrong with being militarized?


It detracts from a mass-popular base, or -- better yet -- a mass *proletarian* base, as we saw briefly among workers in the Suez region of Egypt during the Arab Spring:


http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/workers-unite-rally-against-abuses

Workers unite, rally against abuses

Author: Jano Charbel



A labor conference was held at the Journalists Syndicate on Thursday with the aim of detailing the condition of more than 10,000 workers at the Ceramica Cleopatra company, whose employer has confronted them with a lock-out, after police forces assaulted and detained a group of protesting workers in Suez City on Tuesday evening. Following the conference, the ceramic workers led a march through the streets of downtown Cairo.

Over 100 workers from Ceramica Cleopatra attended the conference, while tens of other struggling workers from the United Sugar Company, the Nile Textile Company and the Egyptian Petroleum Services Company (EPSCO) were also in attendance. Unionists, students, labor activists and lawyers also addressed the conference.

Ceramica Cleopatra’s workers have been subjected to a lock-out for over a week, while over 10,000 workers at two companies (located in 10th of Ramadan Industrial City and the Red Sea Town of Ain Sokhna) are threatened with mass unemployment if the company owner, ceramics tycoon Mohammed Abul Enein, moves ahead with his alleged plans to liquidate these companies.

The multi-millionaire Abul Enein was a former MP from Hosni Mubarak’s now-defunct National Democratic Party, and ex-chairman of the dissolved Parliament’s Industrial Committee. His company was the biggest producer of ceramic tiles and sanitary ware in Egypt.

This bigwig of the former ruling regime is still being investigated on charges of instigating armed attacks against protesters in Tahrir Square on 2 and 3 February, commonly known as the Battle of the Camel, which left 13 protesters dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Ceramica Cleopatra’s angry workers chanted against Abul Enein: “If you slipped away from the [trial of the Battle of the] Camel, you won’t be able to slip away from the workers.”

“Abul Enein claims that we [workers] are thugs and thieves for demanding our basic rights, yet he is behind the mobilization of thugs who attacked protesters in the square, and who have also attacked us,” said Amr Suleiman, a unionist from Ceramica Cleopatra’s Ain Sokhna branch.

Addressing the audience, Suleiman added, “He claims that we are harming the economy with our protests, yet he is the one harming and threatening the national economy through the liquidation of our companies.”

Abdallah Hussein, a worker from the 10th of Ramadan Company, commented, “Both of the companies have come to a standstill since last week. Abul Enein and his administration have stopped sending busses to transport us to work and back. We fear that we are not going to get paid this month, and we fear that he will shut down the factories for several more weeks, if not months.”

“We don’t know how we will feed ourselves and our families during the holy month of Ramadan,” Hussein added.

Cleopatra’s workers chanted, “There is no God but Allah, and Abul Enein is Allah’s enemy.” Others chanted slogans in support of Egypt’s new president: “There is no God but Allah, and President Morsy is Allah’s beloved.”

Fatma Ramadan, a labor activist and leading member of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, said, “Abul Enein was an influential figure within the old regime. We must make sure that the does not become a member of the new ruling regime. We must not allow him, or his likes, to continue stealing the rights of workers.”

Khaled Ali, a prominent labor lawyer and a former presidential candidate, addressed President Mohamed Morsy, saying, “Just like you met with businessmen to assess their needs and to protect their interests, so too must you meet with workers to protect their rights.”

“I call on President Morsy to avoid the manipulations of Egypt’s businessmen, and to avoid being controlled, used or influenced by corrupt businessmen,” Ali continued. “If such businessmen decide to shut down their factories and sack thousands of workers, then we must nationalize these factories.” This statement was met with thundering applause and chants from the workers in attendance.

Ali concluded by saying that workers can best protect their rights if they unite and stand in solidarity with each other. He recommended that workers visit the 23,000 striking workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla City to express their solidarity with them during Ramadan, if their strike continues.

Workers at the conference chanted, “Sugar, ceramics, and textile workers are one hand.”

A striking worker from the Nile Textile Company, Mohamed Ibrahim, commented that he and his fellow workers express their solidarity with workers at Ceramica Cleopatra, Misr Spinning and Weaving, the United Sugar Company, EPSCO and all other struggling workers. Workers at the Nile Company have been striking for the past 16 days in demand of overdue bonuses, profit-sharing payments and overtime payments, among other demands.

"In his presidential address before Tahrir Square, President Morsy spoke of upholding the rights and dignity of Egypt’s workers, both at home and abroad,” Ibrahim said. “We are holding the president accountable for his promises to us.”

“Our rights and dignity should be above all other considerations. Yet our rights continue to be neglected and our dignity is being trampled on. This is evident as we have seen with the case of Ceramica Cleopatra’s workers who were brutally assaulted by police forces in Suez,” he continued.

More than two weeks after having met with Morsy and his staff at the presidential palace in hopes of resolving their grievances, hundreds of protesting workers from the Ain Sokhna branch of Ceramica Cleopatra embarked on a protest march to the Suez Governorate headquarters on Tuesday, 17 July.

Authorities and some media reports accused Ceramica Cleopatra’s workers of attempting to storm and occupy the governorate building, while other reports claimed that the disgruntled workers attempted to burn it down.

After crossing a barbed-wire fence workers began to throw rocks, and were met with volleys of teargas canisters and beatings administered by security forces. At least two workers were injured at the hands of the police, and five were detained for several hours before being released.

Ahmed Salah, a conservative worker with a long beard, shaved mustache and a bandaged head, addressed a group of journalists, saying, “Yes, we crossed the barbed-wire fence. Yet there were a few instigators, not workers, among us who began throwing rocks at the Central Security Forces.” Salah said he was clubbed and beaten in the head with the butt of a rifle, and also stabbed in the back with knives some police officers had in their possession.

Tareq Ali, another bearded worker who was assaulted, unbuttoned his shirt to reveal numerous shallow cuts on his chest. “We were cursed, slapped, knifed, and beaten with clubs, tree branches, metal pipes, rifle butts, fists and boots,” he said, adding that both he and Salah were singled out for physical and verbal abuse because they are Islamists.

“Security forces in Egypt haven’t changed since the revolution. They remain as brutal and abusive as they were before,” Ali added. “We were not seeking trouble or clashes at the governorate, we were only seeking our rights and a resolution to our grievances.”

EPSCO workers claimed that they had been subjected to similar assaults on Wednesday, 18 July, but at the hands of company security personnel, not police forces.

EPSCO worker Wael Ibrahim showed a video he had captured on his cell phone. The video shows security personnel beating protesting workers with clubs and belts outside the petroleum company’s branch in the Maadi district of Cairo.

“We were cursed and mercilessly beaten by company security for demanding improved wages and working conditions. We cannot speak of social justice for workers and employees under these oppressive circumstances.”

Following the conference, over 100 workers — primarily from Ceramica Cleopatra — took to the streets of downtown Cairo where they marched and chanted slogans against Abul Enein. They demanded the re-opening of their companies and that production resume. “Revolution, revolution until victory; revolution against the thieves of Egypt,” they chanted.

A number of these workers beat a large photo of Abul Enein with their shoes. Others chanted, “Close down factories or burn them down; the workers’ voice is rising.”

Publishing Date: Thu, 19/07/2012 - 21:15
Source URL (retrieved on 19/04/2017 - 16:02): http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/997316


---





The deaths of Syrian people killed by foreign interventions, and even by Assad's Syrian regime, are deplorable, of course, but none of it changes the *overall* political situation, which is still one of Western-imperialist ongoing interventions in the affairs of the Syrian state, which should never have happened in the first place. Western imperialist forces are not doing *anyone* any favors with their involvement, and they need to stop all of their activities, which happen to be intrinsically at the expense of Syrian sovereignty and popular self-determination.





The existence of the country of Syria is the only thing that should've never happened in the first place


This isn't valid, because you're wanting to turn-back-the-clock to a previous time -- you're sidestepping current conditions, which, again, isn't being political at all.





russia seems happy to do it? they like oil money, they like building stuff, they love hummus its a perfect fit


This is the correct position:





The “longer-term status of President Assad,” Tillerson said, “will be decided by the Syrian people,” a euphemism used by Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran to indicate that he isn’t going anywhere.




http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas.html


---





What I *do* trust outside forces to do is to deny sovereignty to a *worse* national formulation, that of ISIS / ISIL / the Islamic State, as a matter of *priority*. And, unfortunately, that's where things stand right now. World public opinion and political positions need to cohere and demand uniformly that ISIS be denied any foothold, perpetually -- and without further civilian deaths. Until then, those who *do* fight ISIS physically, as from Assad's Syrian internal forces, are justified in their actions that diminish ISIS' strongholds.





your taking the opportunistic aims of the USA, and coincidental evidence to mean that USA is 200% in charge of al queda that Osama's real name is timothy, and that Baghdadi is an undercover CIA agent.


No, these imputations of yours are sheer fabrications.





You've gone from great man theories about assad


I haven't used any 'Great Man' formulations regarding Assad.





into fullblown rothschilds conspiracy land, holocaust denial is around the corner.


No, you're going off on tangents, and none of this speculation of yours is valid.





And assad is a holocaust denier by the way, Syria is one of the leaders in distribution of antisemitic propaganda and is supported directly by neonazis around the world from the KKK to Golden dawn, theyve even gone from greece to fight for him


Well, that's unfortunate, but, again, from the revolutionary left the point is *national self-determination*, which requires non-intervention from the forces of imperialism.


---





Whatever.

This is a blatantly partisan news source:





better than syrian state TV


I disagree.


---





You're roundly incorrect in your guesswork here -- I'm pro-Palestinian and wouldn't *ever* back Netanyahu. Israel *cooperates* with Islamic-fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda.





Palestinians have cooperated alot more with islamic fundamentalist than Israel, Osama stated his main reason for attacking USA was the plight of the Palestinians. Israelis regularly label every muslim with an attitude an al-queda terrorist just like Assad does, and Assad has cooperated with ISIS way more than netanyahu has, last I checked Israel wasn't buying oil from them


Just because many sectarian interests use the Palestinian plight opportunistically doesn't mean that the Palestinian cause itself is *invalid*, as you're suggesting here.

Yes, profiling and stereotyping happen -- and you do it yourself -- but all of that is *tangential* to the subject of the politics itself.

Regarding the latter part, economic relationships are distinctly different from political / geopolitical ones -- Assad still wants to curtail and eliminate ISIS / IS, as far as I can tell, but until that actually happens his state is currently in an economic situation wherein trading with that entity is materially *advantageous* for Syria.

And, for another example, despite the Cold-War-II hostile rhetoric from the U.S. towards Russia, there continues to be economic trade between the two countries:





"Last year [2015] was not particularly favorable for trade between Russia and the U.S. Our overall 2015 turnover was $21 billion, a decline of 27.9 percent," said a senior Russian official in April 2016.[176]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Economic_ti es


---





why is it not okay for israel to bomb sunnis but okay for assad to do the same thing for the same reason?





You're being vague here -- Israel did not bomb Sunnis, it bombed *Syrian* forces.





they bombed muslims they didn't care what flag they were waving, it was brutal, almost like they were fighting for holocaust revenge against an unmatched enemy


You're going off on a tangent again -- Israel interference is as bad as Western / U.S. / NATO / Gulf involvement.


---





They're actually diametrically opposite, so it's either Syrian sovereignty or the *takeover* of Syria (and Iraq, etc.) by the Islamic State.





i have a feeling there's more than two options


Your feeling is incorrect and misleading.


---





The neoconservative agenda has been *aimed* at invading Syria, all the way back to before 2003, as referenced (identically) at posts #74 and #78. It's not *my* agenda.





the agenda has been aimed at getting that sweet oil money, the country of syria was created to help drill for it, who cares who's the boss of it?


Syrian popular sovereignty and self-determination should be favored over U.S. imperialist interests.

You're using initial Great Powers imperialism as a political justification / apologia for *present-day* Western imperialism.


---





I'll note that any given geographic location cannot be occupied by both Syria and by the Islamic State at the same time.






the syrian government can barely control these red lines

[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Syrian%2C_Iraqi%2C_and_Lebanese_insurgencies.png[IMG]


You're going off on a tangent yet again -- you're merely being *empirical* at best, and not *political*.


---





Well this is why we're *primarily* socialists, and not looking to *back* careerist-type regional political aspirations from *any* separatist national interest. We're having to deal with messy, undesirable geopolitical realities, unfortunately, so we should keep in mind to avoid becoming bourgeois-sectarian ourselves.





which is hard in a region where the majority of the people is a member of religion we are told to hate, Sunni islam is technically the largest religion in the world, and is only growing, if we hate every sunni with a gun we are jumping in on this psuedo-christian crusade which millions of Christians believe in, christian dominion theory is widely believed in the DOD


You obviously have to find a historically-progressive line / position regarding all of this -- you're defaulting to an acceptance of the status-quo, which is definitely *not* revolutionary.

You also need to focus on the *political* entities at-play, and not the religious-ethnic-cultural ones.

[willowtooth]

You obviously have to find a historically-progressive line / position regarding all of this -- you're defaulting to an acceptance of the status-quo, which is definitely *not* revolutionary.

You also need to focus on the *political* entities at-play, and not the religious-ethnic-cultural ones.

Lets take a step back we both agree that a US military invasion in Syria either like Iraq or Libya should be opposed. More importantly I think we can both agree that a military invasion is extremely unlikely under the current US administration. If we were to promote any activism it should be under the general anti-war agenda, rather than "Assad forever" "Assad or we burn the country" slogans like you hear his supporters scream in Syria. I think we agree on these things for majorly different reasons but we agree nonetheless

However I will add that you cannot denounce western imperialism, while simultaneously championing so called western secularism. It is those ideals that created western imperialism. Or as we should call it white christian imperialism and white christian secularism.

Whatever country we are talking about the decisions have already been made, so while we may collectively be able to prevent this attack by the US, the military will simply move on to the next country, as we speak troops are moving into Somalia, regime change is being openly supported in Venezuela, Erdogan of Turkey is being labelled a dictator by US media. So they may leave Syria alone for now but they will be back later, and in the meantime will simply attack another country. the US military itself needs to be defunded, and that goes for every major world power. Since in reality every bullet needs to be fired, and every million dollar aircraft needs to fire its missiles atleast once, so without shutting down the military entirely we will only be chasing the coat tails of the militarists, meaning we will only be playing catch up forever chasing after dead bodies like the Red Cross.

Here's to another 15 years of war! In a place that most of us enlightened westerners can't even find on a map

[ckaihatsu]

Lets take a step back we both agree that a US military invasion in Syria either like Iraq or Libya should be opposed.


The tricky part of this is that the U.S. has been using *proxies* (FSA, al-Nusra, even ISIS), so the 'invasion' of Syria has already happened, and as a result there is a portion of both Syria and Iraq that has been carved-out for the nascent 'Islamic State', which must be opposed.

Trickier still, the U.S. *has* provided some efforts to *dislodge* ISIS (through the SDF), and Syria, the Kurds, and Russia have all contributed to this anti-fundamentalist-terror campaign, to their credit.

That's why I don't uphold a generic 'anti-war' line, because the situation has *not* been empirically resolved yet. All geopolitical and local military efforts against the Islamic State should be welcomed.





More importantly I think we can both agree that a military invasion is extremely unlikely under the current US administration.


Remember this -- ?


Trump government attacks Syria

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/196902-Trump-government-attacks-Syria


---





If we were to promote any activism it should be under the general anti-war agenda, rather than "Assad forever" "Assad or we burn the country" slogans like you hear his supporters scream in Syria. I think we agree on these things for majorly different reasons but we agree nonetheless


I, at least, am not saying 'Assad forever'. Please recall my position:





(I'm not *partisan* to Assad -- I'm on the side of Syrian *self-determination*, as through Assad in the near-term.)


---





However I will add that you cannot denounce western imperialism, while simultaneously championing so called western secularism. It is those ideals that created western imperialism. Or as we should call it white christian imperialism and white christian secularism.


No, untrue -- you're succumbing to 'cultural determination' again. Regardless of whatever Western culture happens to look like, there are *material* reasons for imperialism:





Summary[edit]

In his Prefaces, Lenin states that the First World War (1914–1918) was "an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war"[2] among empires, whose historical and economic background must be studied "to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics".[3]

In order for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capitalism—the exportation and investment of capital to countries with underdeveloped economies. In turn, such financial behaviour leads to the division of the world among monopolist business companies and the great powers. Moreover, in the course of colonizing undeveloped countries, business and government eventually will engage in geopolitical conflict over the economic exploitation of large portions of the geographic world and its populaces. Therefore, imperialism is the highest (advanced) stage of capitalism, requiring monopolies (of labour and natural-resource exploitation) and the exportation of finance capital (rather than goods) to sustain colonialism, which is an integral function of said economic model.[4][5] Furthermore, in the capitalist homeland, the super-profits yielded by the colonial exploitation of a people and their economy permit businessmen to bribe native politicians, labour leaders and the labour aristocracy (upper stratum of the working class) to politically thwart worker revolt (labour strike).




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage_of_Capitalism#Summa ry


Western secularism is objectively historical-progressive and *preferable* to reactionary clericalist religious fundamentalism.


---





Whatever country we are talking about the decisions have already been made, so while we may collectively be able to prevent this attack by the US, the military will simply move on to the next country, as we speak troops are moving into Somalia,


Opposing U.S. attacks on Somalia isn't historically-progressive, either, because doing so would put one into the Al-Shabaab camp -- a reactionary fundamentalist regime.





regime change is being openly supported in Venezuela,


Yeah, Venezuela is on the U.S. shit-list, too, and U.S. imperialist intervention there should be opposed since Venezuela is secular and relatively historical-progressive (especially compared to the U.S. / West).





Erdogan of Turkey is being labelled a dictator by US media.


I would like to see some references on this -- Turkey has been a solid ally and I doubt there'd be a schism anytime soon.





So they may leave Syria alone for now but they will be back later, and in the meantime will simply attack another country. the US military itself needs to be defunded, and that goes for every major world power. Since in reality every bullet needs to be fired, and every million dollar aircraft needs to fire its missiles atleast once, so without shutting down the military entirely we will only be chasing the coat tails of the militarists, meaning we will only be playing catch up forever chasing after dead bodies like the Red Cross.

Here's to another 15 years of war! In a place that most of us enlightened westerners can't even find on a map

[willowtooth]

I would like to see some references on this -- Turkey has been a solid ally and I doubt there'd be a schism anytime soon.

I'm pretty sure this is all from this year, from both the right and the left

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d5/1a/8a/d51a8a452c12529d4bfec9dea3f248a3.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Gz6wa96.jpg

https://counterjihadnews.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/eh-copy-1024x953-e1451773552180_2.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-to-erdogan-congrats-on-your-dictatorship/
http://www.newsweek.com/how-erdogan-rigged-election-makes-him-dictator-586108
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/turkeys-vote-makes-erdogan-effectively-a-dictator
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alon-benmeir/how-turkey-became-a-de-fa_b_9932160.html
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/17/is_turkey_becoming_a_dictatorship_erdogan
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/446815/turkey-referendum-erdogan-win-dictatorship

[ckaihatsu]

I'm pretty sure this is all from this year, from both the right and the left

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d5/1a/8a/d51a8a452c12529d4bfec9dea3f248a3.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Gz6wa96.jpg

https://counterjihadnews.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/eh-copy-1024x953-e1451773552180_2.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-to-erdogan-congrats-on-your-dictatorship/
http://www.newsweek.com/how-erdogan-rigged-election-makes-him-dictator-586108
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/turkeys-vote-makes-erdogan-effectively-a-dictator
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alon-benmeir/how-turkey-became-a-de-fa_b_9932160.html
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/17/is_turkey_becoming_a_dictatorship_erdogan
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/446815/turkey-referendum-erdogan-win-dictatorship


Hmmmm, okay, thanks -- maybe the U.S. has a mind to put him out to pasture, as with Saddam Hussein, et al....

There *has* already been a precedent for this direction:





On 15 July 2016, a coup d'état was attempted in Turkey against state institutions, including, but not limited to the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[29] The attempt was carried out by a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces that organized themselves as the Peace at Home Council. They attempted to seize control of several key places in Ankara, Istanbul, and elsewhere, but failed to do so after forces loyal to the state defeated them. The Council cited an erosion of secularism, elimination of democratic rule,[30] disregard for human rights, and Turkey's loss of credibility in the international arena as reasons for the coup.[31][32] The government[33][34] accused the coup leaders of being linked to the Gülen movement,[30] which is designated as a terrorist organization by the Republic of Turkey and led by Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish businessman[35][36][37][38] and cleric[39][40][41] who lives in Pennsylvania, United States.[42][43][44][45]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.investigaction.net/en/attack-against-syria-and-the-region-speaking-up/


AGENDA

Attack against Syria and the region speaking up

18 Apr 2017 ANDRE VLTCHEK

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Zeinab-Al-Saffar-Iraqi-thinker-and-journalist-640x480.jpg (http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Zeinab-Al-Saffar-Iraqi-thinker-and-journalist.jpg)

[Andre Vltchek in Beirut] – As the US Tomahawk missiles were raining on Syria, the entire Middle East was shaken to its core. Here, even the name itself – Syria – triggers extremely complex and often contradictory sets of emotions. To some, Syria is synonymous with pride and a determined struggle against Western imperialism, while others see it as an uncomfortable reminder of how low their own rulers and societies have managed to sink, serving foreign interests and various neo-colonialist designs.

Many people are hiding their heads in the sand, obediently repeating the official Western narrative, while others are gradually resorting to the alternative sources of information that are coming from outlets such as RT Arabic, Al-Mayadeen and Press TV.

Here in the Middle East and in fact all over the entire Arab world, feelings towards the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad are always ‘strong’; no one appears to be ‘neutral’. But even the divisions are often ‘pre-defined’, carved along pan-Arab versus pro-Western, or Sunni versus Shi’a lines. It is rarely being mentioned that the Syrian state is constructed mainly on secular and socialist principles.

The recent opportunistic statements by certain badly informed and biased Western ‘progressive’ intellectuals, calling the Syrian system “disgraceful” has confused things even further.



***



Overall, in the countries encircling Syria, there is very little support among the general population as well as among the intellectuals, for the Western assaults on the country, conducted directly, and indirectly by proxies. Pro-Western regimes and governments are currently governing Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and all of them are officially supporting the Western military actions. So is, naturally, Israel. The leaders of both Turkey and Israel would actually like to see more military actions, and more attacks against one of the last Arab countries, which is still upholds its independence.

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Incirlik-NATO-air-base-in-Turkey-near-Syria-640x480.jpg
Incirlik NATO air base in Turkey near Syria

But ask the thinkers from all over the region, and the reaction is near unanimously against the assaults that are being conducted by the West.

An Iraqi educationalist, prominent journalist and researcher, Ms Zeinab Al-Saffar explained:

“I believe that the attacks against Syria that we are now witnessing, are a pre-orchestrated flagrant imperialist violation of a sovereign state, a flexing of muscles which is supposed to prove that the US is still the global power. Why on earth would the Syrian government perform a chemical attack knowing that the fingers would be immediately pointed at it, consequently thwarting an ongoing political process? Only fools could buy such narratives that are reminiscent of the 2003 US-led aggression to destroy the WMDs in Iraq, which only resulted in the devastation of Iraq, in the ruining of its people, and wiping out of its culture.”

After the US missile assault on Syria, the Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations, Sacha Llorenti, lashed out at Trump’s decision, which he defined as, “an extremely serious violation of international law.”

Llorenti reminded the Council of February 5th, 2003, when the then US secretary of State Colin Powell, “came to this room to present to us, according to his own words, convincing proof that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Such views are not held in Iraq only; I encountered fairly similar logic and recollection of the events even in Turkey, from where a well-known columnist Feryal Çeviköz wrote to me:

“The real question is: “who orchestrated that chemical attack?” It seems that only the US could benefit from this chemical assault. The US had finally found the ‘reason’, the pretext for its direct attack against Syria. There were already many similar incidents in the region and in other parts of the world, and the screenplay is always the same. It seems that only the players, the actors keep changing.”

In Latin America, Russia, China, much of Africa and of course in the neighboring Iran, people are beginning to see clearly both the pattern and predictability of the Western foreign policy.

A young prominent Iranian researcher, columnist and filmmaker, Hamed Ghashghavi, gave me his opinion on the recent developments:

“It seems to me that the US behaves like an injured wolf that is close to its death, but before vanishing is trying to hurt others. The more aggressively the US behaves, the closer, it appears to be at its end. The recent attack against Syria, whatever the reasons and consequences, has symbolically proven how and why the so-called US Empire is declining. What the US did is also sending a strong signal to Iran and its project of the military base near the Syrian town of Khmeimim, but it is also a message to an anti-Trump wing of neocons who have been accusing him of being too much ‘pro-Putin’ and ‘pro-Assad’.”

What is now clearly detectable in the region is not just a condemnation of the US and Western actions, it is also a deep fatigue of having to endure the same type aggression which brings absolutely nothing except misery to the people of the Middle East and the world.

In Syria, the sentiments are clear. My friend, a Syrian educator Ms. Fida Bashour summarized it all, I believe:

“I feel sad and worried. I want this war to finally stop, no blood any more, I want peace and to have my safe existence. I don’t want others to interfere in our life. Why doesn’t Trump let us live as we want to; why is he doing this to us?”


Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” (https://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Andre-Vltchek/dp/6027354364/) and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” (https://www.amazon.com/Exposing-Lies-Empire-Andre-Vltchek/dp/6027005866) and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism (https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Against-Western-Imperialism-Vltchek/dp/6027005823)”. View his other books here (http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/books.html). Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website (http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/) and his Twitter (https://twitter.com/AndreVltchek).



Cover photo: Zeinab Al-Saffar – Iraqi thinker and journalist

First published by NEO

Source: Investig’Action



Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/InvestigactionENG/)
https://scontent-dft4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p50x50/15894612_1827793574139048_905419524559944290_n.png ?oh=b01f49cbe8a02792be7a752812d00730&oe=594D8182


A lire aussi :
Behind the attack on Syria Swedish Doctors for Human Rights: White Helmets Video, Macabre Manipulation of Dead Children and Staged Chemical Weapons Attack to Justify a “No-Fly Zone” in Syria Reflecting on Syria Turkey and Syria: Blood, Tears and Walls
Derniers articles d'Investig'Action :
AURELIEN MONDON
The Mélenchon Factor
ANDRE VLTCHEK
Trump – in North Korea you will be murdering human beings!
ANDRE VLTCHEK
Attack against Syria and the region speaking up
JOSHUA FRANK
Snipers and Infiltrators at Standing Rock: Quashing Protests at Taxpayer Expense
Latest videos :
1 MINUTE!
French Presidential Election – Stick or Twist?
1 MINUTE!
Chilean muralists in 1 Minute
1 MINUTE!
1 Minute: Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party
1 MINUTE!
Blockade and humanitarian crisis in Gaza in 1 minute
BOOKS AND DVD’S
MICHEL COLLON’S COLUMN
SAID BOUAMAMA’S COLUMN
ARCHIVES


NEWSLETTER
Subscribe / Unsubscribe


OUR AUTHORS
Grégoire Lalieu
Grégoire Lalieu
Why we lost the battle against terrorism and how we can win it

Alex Anfruns
Alex Anfruns
Hands off Venezuela!

SEE THE AUTHOR'S INDEX
©Copyright investig'action 2015
-
ShareThis Copy and Paste - See more at: http://www.investigaction.net/en/attack-against-syria-and-the-region-speaking-up/#sthash.2uqWVWlL.dpuf

[Jimmie Higgins]

Jimmy: I think that the USA ruling class, the mind-manipulation ruling class is aware that the way of thinking among the general population is based on "Argumentum ad populum"

Here is the definition of Argumentum Ad Populum: In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."

Definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum


For example: "If the great majority believe that Bashar Al Assad is evil and kills his own people with chemical weapons, than it must be true that Bashar Al Assad is evil and kills his own people with chemical weapons.


Another example: "If the great majority of the population of USA believes that the US government and its Armed Forces are a beacon of light, that capitalism is the most democratic system, and that marxism, communism are evil. Then it must be true that USA, US government, and its political system is the beacon of light, the home of the free"


This type of argument is known by several names, including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, vox populi, and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), fickle crowd syndrome, and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea.


And that's why in USA, in any social event, in any public place with regular american joes and janes, you see everybody dressing the same, eating the same thing, with the same behaviour patterns, the same gestures. It's like a majority-tyranny, where things are true if the majority believes it to be true.


And this is still the way most US citizens behave. And unfortunately, maybe the US capitalist-imperialist pro-war political system will be powerful in the USA for many decades to come, unless there is either a leftist coup de etat done by leftist sectors of the US Armed Forces, or if the majority of US citizens experience a mental awakening, as a result of believing a lot more in alternative news (counterpunch, democracynow.org etc and not trusting the corporate regular news anymore)


However if most adult americans begin to read classical literature books (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Goethe, Hegel, Voltaire, Marx, Feuerbach etc.) maybe there could be a way for people to be aware that literally all traditional mainstream news sources (TV and newspapers) are all liars and work for the upper exploiter classes.


But unfortunately I don't think that a general knowledge book-reading revolution spread to the masses will happen in USA, because of many factors: americans work all day, are super-busy all day and do not have the physical and mental energies to digest classical literature, psychology which could help americans destroy mental-slavery. And the other reasonf of why such a mental awakening won't take place is that books such as philosophy and sociology books, classical books are super expensive for the already low buying power of most regular US workers and regular people who are all economically broke

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. First I don't think US justifications are an opportunistic appeal to popular ideas. If it were then many wars never would have been argued for, we'd have universal healthcare, Clinton would have sounded more like Sanders from day one, etc.

The us ruling class devotes a great deal of energy to arguing A) there are one or two "realistic" (i.e. Currently neoliberal ) options for most situations B) that their goals are "popular". Trump's "silent majority" is actually a loud and confident electoral minority. Trump, congress and the DNC have record-low approvals, etc.

But if people hate trump and the dnc... what's the viable alternative? If your boss says you have to accept cuts but your union agrees and says that they will try and minimize the pain... what's the viable alternative? We know there are potential working class alternatives... but we should also realize that they are not in existence in a generalized sense at this time.

The US military exists and agitates on its behalf, backed by the ruling class... a revolutionary international does not. Bosses and sometimes business-unionist labor organizations exist... independent rank and file militant organizations largely do not at this time.

This, independent class movements, is the unknown quantity. This is the wildcard that, if it can build steam, becomes a viable alternative outside the ruling class deck of cards. When this has happened in the US it has been "overnight explosions"... the late 30s and late 60s. But I don't think ideas were the spark (ideas are important, but not in isolation) it was that labor or black power began to be seen as credible alternatives which caused a rapid popularization of radical ideas and activities.

"Stable" capitalist countries contain or repress this alternative. But capitalism is unstable which creates the potential for these movements to be born.

On a side note, I don't think the broad population is the source of the problem. If people all eat the same food at public events (which I wish there were more of in the US) it likely has much more to do with the power of a few large chains... if coke was simply "popular" it would be a waste of effort to try and monopolize market spaces or buy food chains that only sell your drinks. People eat mass-produced food because it's cheap and engineered to be a sugary thrill that lasts 30 seconds and then leaves you craving more.

Professionals, on the other hand, pride themselves on adventurous dining and daring cuisine... and they are some of the dullest most conformist people with the crappiest politics in the US.

As far as reading philosophy, in the absence of actual class forces and movements, marx's high stage of communism is about as viable as plato's slaveocracy. Both are simply tomes of ideas. Existing class consciousness and struggle give Marxism weight beyond an idea. Maybe I project my own experiences too much, but personally I read Marx only after getting involved in movements because this made what he wrote practical and relevant.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/27/turk-a27.html


Turkish warplanes hit Washington’s Kurdish proxy forces in Syria

By Bill Van Auken

27 April 2017

Turkish cross-border attacks against Kurdish militia positions in Syria and Iraq continued for a second day Wednesday, following dozens of airstrikes on Tuesday that left at least 70 people, including both Kurdish fighters and civilians, dead.

The attacks were met with protests from both Washington and Moscow, as well as the Syrian government. One of the main targets of the strikes was the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which constitutes the backbone of so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which serves as the main proxy ground force in the US intervention against ISIS in Syria.

The US State Department said Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned” about the airstrikes, which it charged were launched “without proper coordination” and had “led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces.”

A spokesman for the US-dominated anti-ISIS “coalition” told a Pentagon teleconference Wednesday that Turkey had provided less than an hour’s warning before bombs fell on Iraq and Syria.

“That’s not enough time and this was notification, certainly, not coordination as you would expect from a partner and an ally in the fight against ISIS,” US Air Force Col. John Dorrian said.

The spokesman added that the hour’s notice combined with the “vague” character of the Turkish warning made it impossible to “ensure safety of our forces on the ground.” US troops were reportedly deployed within six miles of the areas targeted.

The unilateral military intervention by Turkey, Washington’s NATO ally, targeting forces armed and trained by the Pentagon, has further escalated the multi-sided conflict provoked by the six-year-old US-orchestrated war for regime change in Syria. It further threatens to turn it into a region-wide and even global conflict. Tensions had already escalated sharply in the wake of the US launching cruise missiles against a Syrian government airbase on April 7, on the pretext of retaliating to a chemical weapons attack that Washington blamed on the Syrian government.

Russia, which has also sought ties with the YPG and sent military advisors into the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria, denounced the Turkish bombings, issuing a statement warning that “in a situation where the war on terror in Iraq and Syria is far from over, such actions clearly do not contribute to the consolidation of anti-terrorist efforts.”

In reality, the bombings only underscore the fact that, in the name of the “war on terror,” Washington, Turkey and Russia are all intervening in Syria to further their own, opposing interests.

Washington has sought since 2011 to effect “regime change” in Syria in order to impose a more pliant puppet regime in Damascus to further its drive for hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East. Russia has sent forces to back the government of President Bashar al-Assad, its principal ally in the Middle East, against the Al Qaeda-linked militias supported by Washington and its regional allies, including Turkey. For its part, Ankara has sought to further its own regional ambitions and, most crucially, to prevent the consolidation of an autonomous Kurdish region along its southern border.

Turkish officials have rejected the US protests over the attacks. Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Wednesday that his government had given both the US and Russia notice “two hours” before launching the airstrikes. Speaking to reporters in Uzbekistan, Çavuşoğlu also claimed that Turkey had discussed its planned attacks over the “last few weeks” with Washington.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan bluntly defended the actions, saying that Turkey would continue its attacks in both Iraq and Syria “until the last terrorist is eliminated” and that it would “drain the swamp.”

The Erdoğan government claims that its military actions are aimed against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a Kurdish guerrilla group that has waged a decades-long fight for an independent Kurdish state inside Turkey and has been outlawed by Ankara. The Turkish authorities consider the Syrian YPG a branch of the PKK.

The Turkish airstrikes in Iraq were supposedly aimed against the PKK, which has had a presence in the Sinjar region near the Syrian border since it intervened there in 2014, backed by US air power, to drive out ISIS. Ankara has allied itself with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), controlled by the Barzani clan, against the PKK.

Tuesday’s air strikes, however, killed at least six members of the KRG’s peshmerga forces, something that Ankara said it regretted. The attacks may serve to deepen hostility among Iraqi Kurds to the Barzanis’ close ties to Turkey.

Wednesday also saw clashes on the Syrian-Turkish border between the YPG and Turkish troops as well exchanges of artillery fire across the border, with the Turkish military targeting both the YPG and Syrian government forces, allegedly in retaliation for attacks against Turkey.

Clashes were also reported in northern Aleppo between the YPG and Turkish-backed militias, which are dominated by the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, whose forces in Idlib province have joined the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Kurdish forces have called on the US-led “coalition” to establish a no-fly zone over northern Syria, a measure that would entail a qualitative escalation of the US military intervention, intensifying the threat of a military confrontation with Russia, whose warplanes operate in Syrian airspace.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/05/09/in-blow-to-u-s-turkey-ties-trump-administration-approves-plan-to-directly-arm-syrian-kurds-against-islamic-state/?utm_term=.9018c3c71aec

https://news.google.com


Checkpoint

In blow to U.S.-Turkey ties, Trump administration approves plan to directly arm Syrian Kurds against Islamic State

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Missy Ryan May 9 at 1:40 PM

President Trump has approved a plan to directly arm Kurdish forces fighting in Syria as part of a U.S. military plan to capture Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the Islamic State’s de facto capital, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said the president made the decision on Monday and described the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, as “the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future.”

“We are keenly aware of the security concerns of our coalition partner Turkey,” White said in a statement. “We want to reassure the people and government of Turkey that the U.S. is committed to preventing additional security risks and protecting our NATO ally.”

The decision, which was first reported by NBC, is sure to enrage Turkey, the NATO ally that views the YPG as a threat and has rebuked the United States for partnering with the group in its fight against extremists in Syria.

White provided no details on what kind of weaponry would be provided to the Kurdish fighters or when. The YPG, which dominates a diverse group of fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has emerged as the United States’ premier partner force against the Islamic State in Syria.

That partnership has generated ongoing friction with Ankara, which sees the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by both Turkey and the United States.

The Turkish position has created a dilemma for U.S. military officials, who see no viable alternative force in Syria capable of and willing to mount an assault on the Islamic State’s final stronghold. Already, the YPG has received air support from the United States and, indirectly through Arab fighters, some U.S. weaponry.

Neither the Trump administration, nor the Barack Obama administration before it, had made any secret of its intention to give the Syrian Kurds a primary role in isolating Raqqa leading up to the planned offensive. Defense officials have said repeatedly that such a role would require direct weapons shipments and upgrading the equipment provided to move through what are expected to be vast minefields and other obstacles leading into Raqqa.

Turkish officials have privately acknowledged that the matter appeared to be decided. But they have continued to complain publicly about what they framed as a counterproductive U.S. strategy that amounted to enlisting a terrorist group to fight another terrorist group.

Turkey has continued to lobby the Trump administration to change course in the days leading up to Erdogan’s visit, dispatching top Turkish officials, including General Hulusi Akar, the military chief of staff, and Hakan Fidan, the intelligence chief, to Washington. A Turkish delegation briefly met with President Trump on Monday, according to a report in the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper.

Trump is expected to officially inform Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of his decision next Tuesday, when Erdogan visits the White House.

To soften the blow, senior administration and military officials have been in near constant contact with their Turkish counterparts to assure them the Kurds will not be part of the force that enters Raqqa and will not dominate the establishment of a new local government. That force, U.S. officials have said, will be comprised of the Arab fighters who are part of the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces.

Turkey has charged that the political wing of the YPG has moved in behind the SDF forces who have taken territory from the Islamic State across northern Syria and forced out Arab and Turkmen populations. Their goal, Erdogan has said, is to create a Kurdish canton that can join with Turkish Kurds of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, separatists who have been at war with the Turkish government—and which both the United States and Turkey have designated as a terrorist organization.

Turkish forces moved into northern Syria late last year, ostensibly to fight against the Islamic State, but equally to ensure that YPG forces did not consolidate their control of the border. Erdogan has said that he will now send his troops, and Syrian rebels fighting with them, to Raqqa, eliminating the need for the United States to depend on Kurdish forces.

Defense Sec. Jim Mattis, speaking earlier on Tuesday, suggested that the United States hoped to continue some sort of military partnership with Turkey in Syria.

“Our intent is to work with the Turks, alongside one another to take Raqqa down,” Mattis said during a news conference in Denmark. “We’re going to sort it out, we’ll figure out how to do it, but we’re all committed to it.”

Mattis would not elaborate on the possible Turkish involvement or if that meant Turkish troops would enter Raqqa. “NATO allies stick together,” he said. “That’s not to say we all walk into the room with same appreciation of the problem.”

The White House decision comes as Turkey ramps up its military operations against PKK and YPG fighters in Iraq and Syria. Last month, Turkish warplanes launched assaults on Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria, killing more than a dozen people, and prompting a public condemnation from Washington. In the latest airstrikes, on Tuesday, Turkey said that it had destroyed “PKK terrorist camps” in northern Iraq, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu News Agency.

Currently, the SDF troops are locked in a pitched battle with the Islamic State around the Syrian town of Tabqa on the Euphrates River.

U.S. officials have championed the fight there as a key part of the operation to retake Raqqa and an example of the group’s prowess.

The U.S.-backed campaign against the Islamic State is just one of several parallel conflicts unfolding in Syria after more than six years of civil war.

It was not immediately clear whether the decision by Trump means the YPG will receive heavier weapons, including anti-tank missiles and armored vehicles. Both are likely to be needed if Kurdish troops are to successfully penetrate Raqqa, well-fortified by Islamic State militants.

Kareem Fahim and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. Gibbons-Neff reported from Vilnius and Fahim reported from Istanbul.

[pastradamus]

Then you're not an anti-imperialist.

That's very unfair. He is allowed to abstain from such matters and still call himself an anti-imperialist. We can't choose what they do, but we can certainly not choose sides under a conflict involving them.

[pastradamus]

There are numerous factions involved here. We have the SAA (Syrian Arab Army) under the leadership of Assad. Thank god its only Bashir we are dealing with and not his brother Bassel-Al-Assad. Basically it all started when Bashir was studying in London, met his wife and settled down. Then suddenly his brother Bassel died and he was the chosen replacement. He takes over Syria and starts applying more libertarian laws to the country but this back-fires, protests become more common and he then resorts to punishing people profusely. One common method, in order to punish someone quickly was to beat their bare feet publicly with heavy canes.

Arab Spring comes along. Assad's troops open fire on protesters, giving the general population a reason to revolt. Many army officers defect. A group falls in place calling itself the "Free Syrian Army".

The "Rebels": Made up today of 99% Islamist's they have fought Assads regime main from the Idlib province. They have become almost totally overtaken by the Al-Nusra faction, HET (or whatever the fuck they call themselves this week). The Rebels are the most dangerous here IMO.

ISIS - Fuck ISIS.

YPG /YPJ/SDF - I'm simply in love with these comrades. They have proven themselves many times, especially in Kobane. They have taken on the Turkish-Sponsored jihadists around Al-bab and Jarablus and despite losing turf to the Turks they dealt Erdogan a bloody-nose in doing-so. They recently crossed 50km south of this canton and took land there moving toward Tabqa which they now control 90%. Trump has advised the media that he will arm them in their movement towards Raqqa. Raqqa is going to be dangerous though. Its a vastly pre-dominant Sunni Arab city. This new mantle of the SDF allows Arabs to participate but, even though I believe they will take Ar-Raqqa, the American's and the Russians will eventually throw them under the bus and betray them. As a huge YPG supporter I certainly hope this doesn't happen but I am more discouraged by the KRG in Iraq blaming the PKK for the stikes on Sinjar. It's splintering before our eyes. But yeah.....her biji kurdistan.

19721

[ckaihatsu]

There are numerous factions involved here. We have the SAA (Syrian Arab Army) under the leadership of Assad. Thank god its only Bashir we are dealing with and not his brother Bassel-Al-Assad. Basically it all started when Bashir was studying in London, met his wife and settled down. Then suddenly his brother Bassel died and he was the chosen replacement. He takes over Syria and starts applying more libertarian laws to the country but this back-fires, protests become more common and he then resorts to punishing people profusely. One common method, in order to punish someone quickly was to beat their bare feet publicly with heavy canes.

Arab Spring comes along. Assad's troops open fire on protesters, giving the general population a reason to revolt. Many army officers defect. A group falls in place calling itself the "Free Syrian Army".

The "Rebels": Made up today of 99% Islamist's they have fought Assads regime main from the Idlib province. They have become almost totally overtaken by the Al-Nusra faction, HET (or whatever the fuck they call themselves this week). The Rebels are the most dangerous here IMO.

ISIS - Fuck ISIS.

YPG /YPJ/SDF - I'm simply in love with these comrades. They have proven themselves many times, especially in Kobane. They have taken on the Turkish-Sponsored jihadists around Al-bab and Jarablus and despite losing turf to the Turks they dealt Erdogan a bloody-nose in doing-so. They recently crossed 50km south of this canton and took land there moving toward Tabqa which they now control 90%. Trump has advised the media that he will arm them in their movement towards Raqqa. Raqqa is going to be dangerous though. Its a vastly pre-dominant Sunni Arab city.




This new mantle of the SDF allows Arabs to participate but, even though I believe they will take Ar-Raqqa, the American's and the Russians will eventually throw them under the bus and betray them.


Yup -- it's obvious:










[S]enior administration and military officials have been in near constant contact with their Turkish counterparts to assure them the Kurds will not be part of the force that enters Raqqa and will not dominate the establishment of a new local government. That force, U.S. officials have said, will be comprised of the Arab fighters who are part of the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces.





As a huge YPG supporter I certainly hope this doesn't happen but I am more discouraged by the KRG in Iraq blaming the PKK for the stikes on Sinjar. It's splintering before our eyes. But yeah.....her biji kurdistan.

19721


---





Couldn't socialists perhaps not offer support to any sides in the Syrian Civil War?





Then you're not an anti-imperialist.





That's very unfair. He is allowed to abstain from such matters and still call himself an anti-imperialist. We can't choose what they do, but we can certainly not choose sides under a conflict involving them.


No, I don't think this sentiment is valid -- as revolutionaries we should *always* be able to provide some kind of position regarding the geopolitical (bourgeois) arena. If we don't we're *forfeiting* / abstaining-from political involvement.

In geopolitics nothing will be revolutionary, but we can identify which side of capital is relatively more-historically-progressive than all of the others. ISIS is a priority to be dealt with, so it really doesn't matter *who* does the military work of fighting them off -- even U.S. involvement is to be welcomed for this since the threat of fundamentalist Islamic rule is *worse* than Western-type bourgeois imperialism (since it at-least tends to be secular and has a domestic history of civil rights movements).

Anti-imperialism, in this current real-world context, *implies* being against Islamic clerical rule, and then also against U.S. / NATO / Western imperialism and opportunism in the Middle East -- hence the defense of Syrian national sovereignty against U.S. predations.

[willowtooth]

I think its important to point out that successful labor revolutions in the middle east a major source of our energy and trade, would create a major impact, imagine if every oil rig worker, shipyard, and railworker went on strike in the middle east for even a day

[ckaihatsu]

I think its important to point out that successful labor revolutions in the middle east a major source of our energy and trade, would create a major impact, imagine if every oil rig worker, shipyard, and railworker went on strike in the middle east for even a day


From post #86:


http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/workers-unite-rally-against-abuses

Workers unite, rally against abuses

Author: Jano Charbel

A labor conference was held at the Journalists Syndicate on Thursday with the aim of detailing the condition of more than 10,000 workers at the Ceramica Cleopatra company, whose employer has confronted them with a lock-out, after police forces assaulted and detained a group of protesting workers in Suez City on Tuesday evening. Following the conference, the ceramic workers led a march through the streets of downtown Cairo.

Over 100 workers from Ceramica Cleopatra attended the conference, while tens of other struggling workers from the United Sugar Company, the Nile Textile Company and the Egyptian Petroleum Services Company (EPSCO) were also in attendance. Unionists, students, labor activists and lawyers also addressed the conference.

Ceramica Cleopatra’s workers have been subjected to a lock-out for over a week, while over 10,000 workers at two companies (located in 10th of Ramadan Industrial City and the Red Sea Town of Ain Sokhna) are threatened with mass unemployment if the company owner, ceramics tycoon Mohammed Abul Enein, moves ahead with his alleged plans to liquidate these companies.

The multi-millionaire Abul Enein was a former MP from Hosni Mubarak’s now-defunct National Democratic Party, and ex-chairman of the dissolved Parliament’s Industrial Committee. His company was the biggest producer of ceramic tiles and sanitary ware in Egypt.

This bigwig of the former ruling regime is still being investigated on charges of instigating armed attacks against protesters in Tahrir Square on 2 and 3 February, commonly known as the Battle of the Camel, which left 13 protesters dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Ceramica Cleopatra’s angry workers chanted against Abul Enein: “If you slipped away from the [trial of the Battle of the] Camel, you won’t be able to slip away from the workers.”

“Abul Enein claims that we [workers] are thugs and thieves for demanding our basic rights, yet he is behind the mobilization of thugs who attacked protesters in the square, and who have also attacked us,” said Amr Suleiman, a unionist from Ceramica Cleopatra’s Ain Sokhna branch.

Addressing the audience, Suleiman added, “He claims that we are harming the economy with our protests, yet he is the one harming and threatening the national economy through the liquidation of our companies.”

Abdallah Hussein, a worker from the 10th of Ramadan Company, commented, “Both of the companies have come to a standstill since last week. Abul Enein and his administration have stopped sending busses to transport us to work and back. We fear that we are not going to get paid this month, and we fear that he will shut down the factories for several more weeks, if not months.”

“We don’t know how we will feed ourselves and our families during the holy month of Ramadan,” Hussein added.

Cleopatra’s workers chanted, “There is no God but Allah, and Abul Enein is Allah’s enemy.” Others chanted slogans in support of Egypt’s new president: “There is no God but Allah, and President Morsy is Allah’s beloved.”

Fatma Ramadan, a labor activist and leading member of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, said, “Abul Enein was an influential figure within the old regime. We must make sure that the does not become a member of the new ruling regime. We must not allow him, or his likes, to continue stealing the rights of workers.”

Khaled Ali, a prominent labor lawyer and a former presidential candidate, addressed President Mohamed Morsy, saying, “Just like you met with businessmen to assess their needs and to protect their interests, so too must you meet with workers to protect their rights.”

“I call on President Morsy to avoid the manipulations of Egypt’s businessmen, and to avoid being controlled, used or influenced by corrupt businessmen,” Ali continued. “If such businessmen decide to shut down their factories and sack thousands of workers, then we must nationalize these factories.” This statement was met with thundering applause and chants from the workers in attendance.

Ali concluded by saying that workers can best protect their rights if they unite and stand in solidarity with each other. He recommended that workers visit the 23,000 striking workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla City to express their solidarity with them during Ramadan, if their strike continues.

Workers at the conference chanted, “Sugar, ceramics, and textile workers are one hand.”

A striking worker from the Nile Textile Company, Mohamed Ibrahim, commented that he and his fellow workers express their solidarity with workers at Ceramica Cleopatra, Misr Spinning and Weaving, the United Sugar Company, EPSCO and all other struggling workers. Workers at the Nile Company have been striking for the past 16 days in demand of overdue bonuses, profit-sharing payments and overtime payments, among other demands.

"In his presidential address before Tahrir Square, President Morsy spoke of upholding the rights and dignity of Egypt’s workers, both at home and abroad,” Ibrahim said. “We are holding the president accountable for his promises to us.”

“Our rights and dignity should be above all other considerations. Yet our rights continue to be neglected and our dignity is being trampled on. This is evident as we have seen with the case of Ceramica Cleopatra’s workers who were brutally assaulted by police forces in Suez,” he continued.

More than two weeks after having met with Morsy and his staff at the presidential palace in hopes of resolving their grievances, hundreds of protesting workers from the Ain Sokhna branch of Ceramica Cleopatra embarked on a protest march to the Suez Governorate headquarters on Tuesday, 17 July.

Authorities and some media reports accused Ceramica Cleopatra’s workers of attempting to storm and occupy the governorate building, while other reports claimed that the disgruntled workers attempted to burn it down.

After crossing a barbed-wire fence workers began to throw rocks, and were met with volleys of teargas canisters and beatings administered by security forces. At least two workers were injured at the hands of the police, and five were detained for several hours before being released.

Ahmed Salah, a conservative worker with a long beard, shaved mustache and a bandaged head, addressed a group of journalists, saying, “Yes, we crossed the barbed-wire fence. Yet there were a few instigators, not workers, among us who began throwing rocks at the Central Security Forces.” Salah said he was clubbed and beaten in the head with the butt of a rifle, and also stabbed in the back with knives some police officers had in their possession.

Tareq Ali, another bearded worker who was assaulted, unbuttoned his shirt to reveal numerous shallow cuts on his chest. “We were cursed, slapped, knifed, and beaten with clubs, tree branches, metal pipes, rifle butts, fists and boots,” he said, adding that both he and Salah were singled out for physical and verbal abuse because they are Islamists.

“Security forces in Egypt haven’t changed since the revolution. They remain as brutal and abusive as they were before,” Ali added. “We were not seeking trouble or clashes at the governorate, we were only seeking our rights and a resolution to our grievances.”

EPSCO workers claimed that they had been subjected to similar assaults on Wednesday, 18 July, but at the hands of company security personnel, not police forces.

EPSCO worker Wael Ibrahim showed a video he had captured on his cell phone. The video shows security personnel beating protesting workers with clubs and belts outside the petroleum company’s branch in the Maadi district of Cairo.

“We were cursed and mercilessly beaten by company security for demanding improved wages and working conditions. We cannot speak of social justice for workers and employees under these oppressive circumstances.”

Following the conference, over 100 workers — primarily from Ceramica Cleopatra — took to the streets of downtown Cairo where they marched and chanted slogans against Abul Enein. They demanded the re-opening of their companies and that production resume. “Revolution, revolution until victory; revolution against the thieves of Egypt,” they chanted.

A number of these workers beat a large photo of Abul Enein with their shoes. Others chanted, “Close down factories or burn them down; the workers’ voice is rising.”

Publishing Date: Thu, 19/07/2012 - 21:15
Source URL (retrieved on 19/04/2017 - 16:02): http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/997316

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/11/kurd-m11.html


US-Turkish tensions mount over plan to arm Syrian Kurdish militia

By Bill Van Auken

11 May 2017

The US announcement that President Donald Trump has given his authorization for the direct US arming of the Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), was met with heated protests from the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is set to visit the White House next week.

The Pentagon has determined that the YPG represents the only local force that can serve as a credible US proxy on the ground in Syria in the bid to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) out of the northern city of Raqqa. The US is opposed to the city being retaken by forces loyal to the Syrian government, which Washington has sought to overthrow, while the so-called Free Syrian Army that the CIA had backed in the war for regime change has been largely routed and is dominated by the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda and similar groups.

Previously, under the Obama administration, Washington had indirectly funneled arms to the Kurdish militia through the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the YPG and a far smaller Syrian Sunni Arab contingent. Hundreds of US special operations troops have also been deployed in Syria to provide assistance and training to the Kurdish militia.

Under the new plan, the US military will ship small arms, ammunition, machine guns, armored vehicles and engineering equipment to the YPG, according to Pentagon officials. US Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, said that the weapons shipments had been pre-positioned and could be delivered to the Kurdish militia “very quickly.”

The position of the Erdogan government is that the YPG represents a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an on-again, off-again guerrilla war in Turkey itself for over three decades. Not only Ankara, but also Washington and the EU, have labeled the PKK as a “terrorist organization.”

The Turkish government fears that the crisis in Syria, which it played a major role in creating by backing Islamist “rebels” in the more than six-year-old war for regime change, will pave the way to the carving out of an autonomous Kurdish territory on its southern border. Erdogan ordered troops into Turkey last year under the pretext of battling ISIS, but for the real purpose of driving a wedge between Kurdish cantons in the east and west of northern Syria.

More recently, on April 25, Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes against YPG positions in northern Syria, killing at least 20 Kurdish fighters. Washington condemned the attack and responded by deploying hundreds of US troops equipped with Stryker armored vehicles to serve as a buffer between Turkish forces and the Syrian Kurds.

The level of tensions between Washington and Ankara found expression last week when Turkish presidential adviser Ilnur Cevik warned in a radio interview that if the YPG and its US special forces advisers “go too far, our forces would not care if American armor is there, whether armored carriers are there. ... All of a sudden, by accident, a few rockets can hit them.”

Erdogan, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington on May 16, said that Turkey’s “patience has ended” with the US decision to arm the YPG. “I want to believe that Turkey’s allies will side with us, not with terrorist organizations,” he said.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, told reporters during a visit to Montenegro Wednesday, “Both the PKK and the YPG are terrorist organizations and they are no different, apart from their names. Every weapon seized by them is a threat to Turkey.”

Meanwhile the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main bourgeois opposition party, called for Erdogan to “reconsider” his trip to Washington, saying that the US decision had put Turkey in “a weak position.”

The humiliation of the Turkish regime over the Trump administration’s decision was compounded by the presence in Washington on the day of its announcement of Erdogan’s advance team, which included Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın and National Intelligence Agency (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan. The three had held meetings with their US counterparts and Trump’s national security advisor, Gen. H.R. McMaster.

The Washington Post Wednesday quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying that the officials delivered the “message to the Trump administration...that Turkey reserves the right to take military action,” while suggesting that airstrikes could be intensified.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who was in Turkey just days before the announcement of the decision to directly arm the YPG, dismissed the protests from Ankara. “We’ll work out any of the concerns,” he said during a visit to Lithuania. “We will work very closely with Turkey in support of their security on their southern border. It’s Europe’s southern border, and we’ll stay closely connected.”

The Wall Street Journal Wednesday provided a concrete indication of what Mattis met by support for Turkish security. The US, the newspaper reported, is beefing up the capabilities of a so-called intelligence fusion center run by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies in Ankara “to help Turkish officials better identify and track the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.” The plan will reportedly double the capacity of the center, while providing drones and other US intelligence assets.

Thus, US intelligence will assist the authoritarian regime of Erdogan to hunt down and kill Kurdish militants in both neighboring Iraq and Turkey itself. There is every reason to believe that, once the Syrian Kurdish forces of the PYG have completed their mission in Raqqa, the same resources will be provided to go after them.

The Pentagon’s present reliance on the Kurdish militia against ISIS—itself a product of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria—is merely a temporary tactical initiative in the protracted and bloody campaign by US imperialism to impose its hegemony over the Middle East by means of invasions, bombing campaigns and wars for regime change.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[pastradamus]

No, I don't think this sentiment is valid -- as revolutionaries we should *always* be able to provide some kind of position regarding the geopolitical (bourgeois) arena. If we don't we're *forfeiting* / abstaining-from political involvement.

In geopolitics nothing will be revolutionary, but we can identify which side of capital is relatively more-historically-progressive than all of the others. ISIS is a priority to be dealt with, so it really doesn't matter *who* does the military work of fighting them off -- even U.S. involvement is to be welcomed for this since the threat of fundamentalist Islamic rule is *worse* than Western-type bourgeois imperialism (since it at-least tends to be secular and has a domestic history of civil rights movements).

Anti-imperialism, in this current real-world context, *implies* being against Islamic clerical rule, and then also against U.S. / NATO / Western imperialism and opportunism in the Middle East -- hence the defense of Syrian national sovereignty against U.S. predations.


I think of an example in my own life with this regard. My brother is an extremely active leftist here in Ireland. Whilst he has a great deal of respect for the SDF and the YPG in general he refuses to offer his endorsement of them. When I ask him "why?" he says "I don't know enough about them to be honest, i'm not on the ground in Syria, I don't know how leftist they are. I don't know how leftist their soldiers are etc", I'm a massive YPG/YPJ supporter and despite my disappointment at not being able to bring my brother around on this particular issue - I wouldn't dare accuse him of not being a revolutionary leftist, you have to pick your struggles, you have to pick your studies and devote you time to these matters in this context. His current beef is with the anti-working class taxes being hammered on the head of the Irish worker at the moment, the SDF are the last thing on his menu right now.

So my belief is that while both you and I feel very strongly about the SDF, other are allow to feel less-inspired about them and devote time to their own struggles (Palestine, France, USA or whatever).

I've had a little bit of beef with the YPG calling for a no-fly zone over Rojava recently but I still wear the YPG T-Shirt (Best €15 I ever spent ;-) )

[Sentinel]

I think of an example in my own life with this regard. My brother is an extremely active leftist here in Ireland. Whilst he has a great deal of respect for the SDF and the YPG in general he refuses to offer his endorsement of them. When I ask him "why?" he says "I don't know enough about them to be honest, i'm not on the ground in Syria, I don't know how leftist they are. I don't know how leftist their soldiers are etc", I'm a massive YPG/YPJ supporter and despite my disappointment at not being able to bring my brother around on this particular issue - I wouldn't dare accuse him of not being a revolutionary leftist, you have to pick your struggles, you have to pick your studies and devote you time to these matters in this context. His current beef is with the anti-working class taxes being hammered on the head of the Irish worker at the moment, the SDF are the last thing on his menu right now.

So my belief is that while both you and I feel very strongly about the SDF, other are allow to feel less-inspired about them and devote time to their own struggles (Palestine, France, USA or whatever).

I've had a little bit of beef with the YPG calling for a no-fly zone over Rojava recently but I still wear the YPG T-Shirt (Best €15 I ever spent ;-) )

I agree with this; while the YPG's vision and methods do differ of those of my tendency (which is closely politically related to your brothers), I also personally send a small amount of financial aid there regularly and have taken part in and shared fundraisers etc before. The cause of Rojava deserves the critical support of the left, as the most progressive force in the region.

We need to comradely criticise the shortcomings without condemning a fighting leftist movment in a very sticky situation. I also agree with that the increasing level of dependance of the US army is worrying, but I also realise that it is easy to say to leftists stuck between a Turkish hammer and a Daesh anvil.

[pastradamus]

I agree with this; while the YPG's vision and methods do differ of those of my tendency (which is closely poltiically related to your brothers), I also personally send a small amount of financial aid there regularly and have taken part in and shared fundraisers etc before. The cause of Rojava deserves the critical support of the left, as the most progressive force in the region.

We need to comradely criticise the shortcomings without condemning a fighting leftist movment in a very sticky situation. I also agree with that the increasing level of dependance of the US army is worrying, but I also realise that it is easy to say to leftists stuck between a Turkish hammer and a Daesh anvil.

The "Turkish hammer and a Daesh Anvil"....im sooooooo stealing that.

[ckaihatsu]

I think of an example in my own life with this regard. My brother is an extremely active leftist here in Ireland. Whilst he has a great deal of respect for the SDF and the YPG in general he refuses to offer his endorsement of them. When I ask him "why?" he says "I don't know enough about them to be honest, i'm not on the ground in Syria, I don't know how leftist they are. I don't know how leftist their soldiers are etc", I'm a massive YPG/YPJ supporter and despite my disappointment at not being able to bring my brother around on this particular issue - I wouldn't dare accuse him of not being a revolutionary leftist,


Yeah -- none of this that we do is *personal*, because we're dealing with issues that are decidedly *greater* than any one of us.

I'm not going to start *finger-pointing* as to who is a 'genuine' revolutionary leftist and who isn't. But on the whole we as revolutionaries *should* be able to state an appropriate *policy* going-forward, for any given situation, short of international proletarian revolution.





you have to pick your struggles, you have to pick your studies and devote you time to these matters in this context. His current beef is with the anti-working class taxes being hammered on the head of the Irish worker at the moment, the SDF are the last thing on his menu right now.


Yeah. No prob.





So my belief is that while both you and I feel very strongly about the SDF, other are allow to feel less-inspired about them and devote time to their own struggles (Palestine, France, USA or whatever).


Certainly.





I've had a little bit of beef with the YPG calling for a no-fly zone over Rojava recently but I still wear the YPG T-Shirt (Best €15 I ever spent ;-) )


Hmmmm, this is the first I'm hearing of it, and it *is* problematic since it's a direct capitulation to desired neocon U.S. / Western treatment of Syria -- (divide-and-conquer).





I agree with this; while the YPG's vision and methods do differ of those of my tendency (which is closely politically related to your brothers), I also personally send a small amount of financial aid there regularly and have taken part in and shared fundraisers etc before. The cause of Rojava deserves the critical support of the left, as the most progressive force in the region.


Yes.





We need to comradely criticise the shortcomings without condemning a fighting leftist movment in a very sticky situation. I also agree with that the increasing level of dependance of the US army is worrying, but I also realise that it is easy to say to leftists stuck between a Turkish hammer and a Daesh anvil.


Yes, and it looks like any claims for Kurdish national-liberation are going to be overshadowed by Great Powers maneuvering, as indicated in the article at post #100:





Thus, US intelligence will assist the authoritarian regime of Erdogan to hunt down and kill Kurdish militants in both neighboring Iraq and Turkey itself. There is every reason to believe that, once the Syrian Kurdish forces of the PYG have completed their mission in Raqqa, the same resources will be provided to go after them.

The Pentagon’s present reliance on the Kurdish militia against ISIS—itself a product of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria—is merely a temporary tactical initiative in the protracted and bloody campaign by US imperialism to impose its hegemony over the Middle East by means of invasions, bombing campaigns and wars for regime change.

[pastradamus]

Hmmmm, this is the first I'm hearing of it, and it *is* problematic since it's a direct capitulation to desired neocon U.S. / Western treatment of Syria -- (divide-and-conquer).


Yeah, I get why people on the ground are asking for this, its obvious, but I don't like the idea of senior SDF members promoting it. It seems to be waning in the last few days with the reduction of Turkish airstrikes, but we'll just have to watch development's really.

[ckaihatsu]

News Updates from CLG
16 May 2017
http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

2 top ISIS commanders join US-backed Free Syrian Army (https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/two-isis-warlords-defect-rebels-ranks-ahead-looming-defeat-deir-ezzor/) | 13 May 2017 | On Friday, two prominent ISIS [I-CIA-SIS] commanders left caliphate ranks to join forces with Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters terrorists on the provincial border between Homs and Deir Ezzor. After communicating with FSA contigents, Ghassan Al-Sankeh and Mahmoud Al-Faraj arrived in Badia in central Syria, leaving behind ISIS fighters under their command in rural Deir Ezzor. The ISIS commander Mahmoud Al-Faraj was said to be one of the highest-ranking commanders in Al-Mayadin, a city on the Euphrates River which reports indicate the Islamic State has transformed into its new capital.

[ckaihatsu]

US Special Forces Are Secretly Training Syrian Rebels And Fighting Alongside Them (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h13/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0Iabgd1rbDwuvckpQTeRaVawvXMIn5w6J8 lQcREDUBAx32h3H-2FcJLR46MOmC2d4ksUaU9iBV5PRgkSMxWOW45Pcd-2FGchzXHucdC3PUlxFiOR1fMnHTsjePCooZs9B9-2FIdUEVzbJSfst8Y4qc7YzGMt7MtQHWYR5sMJsTnqUBzZhlla0 C5Styjp1qVgSnDYDnVegVrvUIlq8SsYvLspf6VLAJBawsUxFn1 Nvj7-2FHNS44P-2B-2F0S4wScPjHDCU9Cntwj0Y2mno3N01H3BQFNd8TNFQyYNFS2Sm wwXdfR2zMv5-2BoOrtK6mEh23WnJnKyMxEkZiSDkHfHh57O0y5RVG4b8aXSuca ui9E-2F2MgEYjAc2-2BGX-2F-2FMUc38yxW61uHFHRi-2FiKiGyJ1Oc1EOllC04oFU4dZqZnj9QPP4Z5URXLslCEDLdz9N vxUbaDonDjP4ZS7Ze9XP-2FyfBmqmgf5Sgu-2B3EcbwKJlCSf-2FLRAo1OZbSBLo55-2F4Tlsr-2B6jiK03XujC2a1gapzf3JXvPGQKPYw9AwMj9NFYbfJee8gid9 eFsNytYU6dqwZmY)

https://noczone-fvdefpncfaxtmfnyjx.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/rebels-696x469.jpg

BuzzFeed News reports that US commandos have engaged in combat with ISIS during a secret deployment to southern Syria. The deployment - which a military contractor working with the coalition said has been ongoing for about six months - is centered on a secret base called Tanf near the Iraqi border. Experts say the region, which stretches along Jordan and Iraq, is a developing center of gravity for ISIS as it loses territory elsewhere. US commandos there are training and mentoring two pro-Western rebel groups while also accompanying them on combat missions as part of the anti-ISIS campaign developed under then-President Barack Obama and continued by the Trump administration. [More (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h14/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0Iabgd1rbDwuvckpQTeRaVawvXMIn5w6J8 lQcREDUBAx32h3H-2FcJLR46MOmC2d4ksUaU9iBV5PRgkSMxWOW45Pcd-2FGchzXHucdC3PUlxFiOR1fMnHTsjePCooZs9B9-2FIdUEVzbJSfst8Y4qc7YzGMt7MtQFNRwl4F1-2BSA1M94W62aUnmHvDhNWXMYTnsZyelXP-2FjjC-2FkTkClGLcvX5nHJGhBcVjhQGfFTNEZxp-2FXPu50vzS9Yhbt3ZXDbTNqYC31Ximi4SLj-2F9gs0HRyZ85lsqXKrwUF7VbZrIHx8hRZQL0zaxE-2FVfMkjgYvTPqzkf9MMtlyWf2cel-2B3eTxAnKegBi-2B7iqC1vBlXDTsSObGLm-2B1Ry3bXrgkalztgkBh0AE-2BfbshRyFO-2BLP74Adi2CdUxJW5my6ylHqX0U0-2BpTUWpqRH3ECfak5zyp30wbx7dn50QUqy6dM39YLrac5aj-2BNf9JaJvyOuFF9l0-2FrAo2TKua8q-2B06aex-2F8hNbVyctOPwpfetH2eaq862N3-2FP5n8R-2FV5XJbcaL66GQbR7jFWwUdvd1ZGWHJ9)] Also see: The myth of “moderate rebels” in Syria (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h15/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0Iabgd1rbDwuvckpQTeRaVawvXOAC-2BHYd838rO8QHLhEAOPGEMCHa0Bg8Ot7V7ONHt80ufMvPuTASb VWvMR0CHshnhuQsPEa5CX1HUh5LYaX3gHttgEQCnXyAKhiui-2FYHXpPpLTI3v-2F5gwd6L7XmWMBnuORaCFD2w-2BEI-2Fof2HBhdxCKMK6RHCVUnGVrUC-2FX-2FOY6si3mrTzC1LmBvMY9liLKxJ7JNRApJ7ptOMz7y5T3FlYnD E0lTfnbfoOYN3SjSLBW5tgN-2F1nQhEtSW3RkhG-2FtoGFW6Folpf7es1pj6G0HoL4y3-2BjdIm3l8clntvh4envdFY4YL3iKHVEWgKttl7jOP9VGC45QcF IJ019C-2BBzRdI9N3y7yjepqiQIfjKVvGyB337qv88XFinX-2BBRZZ8d55zh-2BHT-2FwN0SItubO2eQ6ecd71MNBNpCPJIJjCv8Prd0QjBqWK7-2Bp2PkS-2BpYcSDBzIxXAidyBl4ggK7Fb502c7jfqee) and also Arming the Kurds: Trump’s Syrian Gambit (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h16/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0Iabgd1rbDwuvckpQTeRaVawvXN2r7QQs5 A-2FOakNi4MLNkuWl9Sd6pPNQ45tLW48GmiWbDr4MjBukbyx8HPu Q-2BjreOlipLlE0MZxSKKN7jiQG64m68j74al6WlwTV9pn58Xqqu 9tFsYYR6Zbhe0i4X8mUKMNjQLC-2FZVbCgC2UeIQAnp8CfOq00rW5-2BfoECwXc-2Fp3nzo-2BOQjx42LzdS2dZAksxnshWEWnHw-2F2vr6XUr6ZUKmHXfXKhs-2Bf23xD9Dgf8h38Gdnf4nQYuEwkMUT4VoCSIRMn8zslmCvR7QY-2B2XsnCzyNPEt4ql7pFbxU0HEd06tx9fxg-2FqXo4OXgeuY1zknucdQXa1fYUcLa-2FY2XgS7q1Dvl3UGCCxyc0rFcDh9gB5-2Fxfiztqm8m1ZlrMFJf6uz7LrPe1zcZpMfz5uZzSVNgBTRMLrb ACpwapTM3Sp3qllbbYg-2BhXOiKzg41TwlcJbd7Z-2BxEwQwqXhfI25RG5IW4Fpbt)


This is just a small sample of the many newly posted articles and videos added to the USLAW information archive (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h33/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0IabgbFZ31lwpcb0UOIAppRKeJi0KRS-2BmjgL3TJxzDmvsv9Mgkq7OJF0nU2jVCv-2FL8MTpgl1Ym1vfUBesM-2BTo1U9rctP9Xrwg1LIxU2QerO3PJccSo4NPyBPHJVzUJqFqHh jScvq7oTvzhNBSCGsCujuMOzJNqCuHbwDFnLv4qT6mDS7VPF8O qhK7ZX5hcMN8QiEHIIaQP-2FMEdfOK8TFdJCCyQycmOau6grkOsK0SerKo8y-2FN7wEsWgCRpMlNQ7JDkFabeJu4GzNNwoWnaddG2gTzLzwhPa0 a5rwkuJJ1PT2FPDhJHnMY-2FtXlw2pbOrmgoyBJp1iK7vTj6NdiFdHe-2FpABBvA2WyKxH0-2BRhBeKf1HREJvwO4Q6dB92evgY1TwZ-2B-2FBh44ETI-2FUv-2FPblOjCWFk-2Bn0U7eVbXQgo2WPhMZ35BpOyi) in the last week. Check the site frequently to see what else is new, including the videos toward the bottom of the home page. If you find these resources to be useful, don't keep them a secret. Share the links with others and suggest they subscribe (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h34/WQ-2BlIwq7W2eCmkkcwbDiBbZZ8k6zBVQtuO7myuMWelnHvYX0UR8 O3KvXmFBYuoJh6MM8L1VNB7oshaPh4FuSCy9Ucd8LZY2knGOvz CeuYeXMtpfbS2r6Ur4N-2Bi-2FMfW-2BiY-2BT6gBOMse-2Fwez00wPvr6-2Ff4e7GxfqdxAnw7BzPJk6ob4vzhxLDCzzW8YX5Izee0kaJre8 EJINotST5O4BdPg-2BwABkYN1oeatjSbTLH-2F0-2F5hkD6tAasZ67AoYDcvyBxA1GCA78ZzapJbxstEFsh-2FCEkU0RT6ndBfYFcsul7wDbtZUUGASdpdQJyEzqc8xaZpeCOR D12UBko2nGsV3lZQzVD6D7l-2FPvGTVJBM4LXQgFqm331ddwH0vJ1U7j-2Fi6JlyqF9Z4WKlLIajaM4MI9pOx8Hn5sCpYFOokD8d16xU8iZ DsUY6ndiVJdj5I9b1-2BZsTrtf5pPpOhdy05CGpB7-2FkIw-3D-3D) so they can receive this bulletin each week.

http://uslaboragainstwar.org/public/album_photo/0d/05/0508_f301.png?c=8cc5 (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h35/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0IabgbFZ31lwpcb0UOIAppRKeJgrnZQ2-2F-2Fn3PtlTA3S-2Fj44n2unmqYQ3seKYv2xMkDX9ARWEy01E4NTYxZ08nu0zg408 V0RCAa2XJTgIr2SQ-2FBxdwkaXmurV9EqDNPj19TtUfMpFFB3y1vTc0Jlu-2FdBYX5-2F8b-2FW-2F0s37q6ITl8OjLLKDC6D2mdNbqn88C1gm9yQbUDbNMYwWU173 h3PYUWub7hibQvWUl3-2F-2B4FW1v-2FgppDd2ZFpcx3-2BpoZiM34sX6bPpTahttfJaBJs4DS9EbQBQFvF7IrU4-2Fb-2Fwso2J95-2Bieg7WSuiRUkNvjNFcQO9uQMcIAbmgMAil5xNoQA-2FcomZ5Ebx5LM2Hmcb6IFYoJztdweNY-2FYdQ7ZWTuI-2BaFKyHZBFymbFNORD6fCqyamVKdz7mxMYp9niWDqCzHyE8UgN Oc9iy)

Use "Quick Search" buttons to see everything posted on various current topics in the news.

https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/data/000/065/378/original/If_you_value_DONATE.png (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h36/WQ-2BlIwq7W2eCmkkcwbDiBSD9p4T6xn7Ql1kXw4yNstd5rKk1g5N jqGm8iXWobioI7EgYsisGwpKiGBTwN66yICbAVvoRv-2FxodrCJAlYxTRkZj-2BT-2Bq9ug3ouwIRJcRBYJFyfhI83xpbAwKZd60S8vImfQCMJYEBVq CDPyv-2FC464N4cZR7PhxXBKGMfijPYq734hNcC-2BwVblv2q5n-2F2R4Ax5cmhCoVDYXHohHUJQNUGlsDR1SWEPslaRIoRjl2biTh bYc-2FVOLd7S9iL32VTpV9mrOID4C7uH0GKNh0GrbLOjD7tlOfaS1g fw5B-2FnTTK1OnZV2bmI4625-2F-2FspFmAp5t-2B7wtWGCzcRJj0uNMpJb5L5CHzsfoOdUTz-2BIX62ZM-2Bl85cFji0NXfbjJV0I68SNYrSReMxBO4LYqq5ORuERO7CkSs9 Zqh2MqxMkvCoc3BFc5MLHCPAJbhSVfVkaQTQ0MN-2BUpvvNd3wXL8-2F8c5NrDViOE-3D)

Your contribution will be greatly appreciated.

Donate (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h37/WQ-2BlIwq7W2eCmkkcwbDiBSD9p4T6xn7Ql1kXw4yNstd5rKk1g5N jqGm8iXWobioI7EgYsisGwpKiGBTwN66yIOKQRJkcVdDa6ptXZ 0sIDtoBWAKpAJW62zvoxbq7n83JjBPc-2B4tZncVX2Ulw0oikQ7blZjBgFoTgDlEUKW1m-2BlgBxZtj9oiX-2BKK3fuwAKwCHK7hcNG-2BmtPWbmMj6cZiZbDz9-2FAHSn5GZTe43nH1WjIF0bqLcENK4j3TqmoP7l8POMZJFRRtep oxoCcx6kD4-2B2Anf16OhJda9hTaGrInCVTEyz1W2Rg-2Bs67kTvQji3Mh20lvlCAi-2Fg-2BObkBGLiiOfG5PeErnzjobhwlVSLiu9abrp6Hbdzr1aPgTZy-2B2XodYS2XBJYCWnNXKt-2Bdac-2Bi7Wk1vUKuL-2F935zmge9Ctgp4SlUwgRSrFnGT5G1NOlMPuAIzxq67QIKgRWt mSI-2BGKwfbkDFnJbAM3dUrRD8NstQSto-3D)

This is a low-volume email list operated by US Labor Against the War (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h38/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0IabgSykMhxVId6NZMGTcqd7mESBv6Eu25 q9OZZmu3WFJu56qs2MYSA0EHOM-2BmWDKuKeC9pNpSV69SGqSrBj0vgcDwiNg7uBTIGhnEvfhU24g YCGPH-2FV4mzb0OgxU7Cfe00aHM8Ah5c5BDxCFnXAHTV3-2F7QyL-2FT73Ynhf3mMnzAKZ2LbItCED1DBvWB1IP0L1MgCSbHE6zoML2-2BQe-2F2Zpk6QfAMBfH-2Fl0MFI-2FVkO9-2Bc-2FdFVkBPJ3FElXp8Pp9UtBywY-2FNbn5yktzowLlN-2BWLXrhZwX1PxqHcz-2Bm-2FGPQL54eCco8qDG4QSJUwdK35yuGxcrNG4p77e1K3BcytQfz3 14Z-2FfUBMXRKaONro13IyPqGdXjeufR-2B-2FPWC3mmvuUxIwekLgoc72g9TqHYLJGrdVE9f5zm3aroPZUtKS wnOQjdCF0esx)

1030 15th St, NW #153 | Washington DC 20005 | 202-521-5265 | Contact USLAW (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h39/ZcQUeioteD4kF6Kj0IabgfHZ3h4LSZyNTMWUfhHLuaztoOqzEh TvEIXPiQb5XIpovdqWmC3d-2FQ-2FpBG59PhNpJf7KNY1xeDKY9xT9i9QO08nZoahAcw6mvqG-2FM4th-2FiylcFQI4URTGNOnSBxotyOwT3Gfr4bG15WF9GXItli-2BgRXeMZ-2B3tUIAiwhzoYmPE4tRMGyKlC6tN8CcCyXFKUQO6B4bqjukql4 wxZIJZZakNH9c-2BY1ppzqW1Pub4bPy6F95-2F7UbuKNeNmuN6NQ-2Fu-2F-2FxudMQs1rEafo0olWKMWUvjd445anOB6iZbTKzPensce1Banm LFenwKGc1QWKYVE4TUklfSzL2Zy-2BocmkIVm5tVO4bjS9G4oulOpGb658jp1vHDqTPnBRxfgAw5FB 5BiYU2AJzIcFr009-2B1mCqxEZj3HMsyZJHw2UAarEUqF9YFJZLnJSmADxzXo9jIrZk IKVnbg-3D-3D)

Sent via ActionNetwork.org (http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/4gA/ni0YAA/t.27d/wdZbnNmbQ6KAF4nrrDmHAw/h40/55uI0ZjpoLA9-2FYhqE-2F4Eitwb7nFGaBM-2BttuyqSTdMS4-3D). To update your email address or to stop receiving emails from U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), please click here.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/19/syri-m19.html


US airstrike targets pro-Assad forces in Syria

By Jordan Shilton

19 May 2017

American warplanes launched an attack on pro-government forces in southeastern Syria Thursday, near the borders with Iraq and Jordan. The attack is the first time since the April 6 cruise missile assault on the al-Shayrat air base that the US military has targeted forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

According to the US version of events, the fighters violated a deconfliction zone by advancing to within 18 miles of the al-Tanf base, where US and British special forces have been training Sunni militants for over a year. This military action is in blatant violation of international law since the Western forces have not been invited onto Syrian territory by the Assad government.

The actions of the pro-government forces “posed a threat” to partner forces, the US-led coalition said in a statement.

The forces involved appear to be a paramilitary group aligned with Assad. The Syrian military reported that six personnel were killed and three injured in the attack, according to the al-Masdar News agency.

According to the US-led coalition’s statement, after performing a “show of force” by flying low over the area and firing a warning shot, the US planes struck a tank, a bulldozer and fighters.

But in contrast to the US version of events, a Damascus-based political analyst, Alaa Ibrahim, told RT that according to Syrian military sources, the paramilitary group never received any warning prior to the strike.

There was no indication that the pro-government fighters posed an immediate threat to US troops. The US military statement merely noted that the Syrian fighters were engaged in constructing fighting positions when the aircraft struck. It added that they clashed with the Pentagon-backed Maghawir al-Thawra militant group, formerly known as the New Syrian Army.

The reality is that the Islamist forces being trained by the US are part of its regime change operation against Damascus, which Washington has been pursuing since it fomented the Syrian civil war in 2011. Its ordering of a strike on pro-government forces underscores the deepening tensions as both sides in the conflict scramble to seize territory from Islamic State in the east of the country so as to strengthen their hand in the struggle for control over Syria.

Washington has swiftly stepped up its intervention in Syria since the coming to power of Donald Trump in January. Thursday’s strike marks the second time in less than six weeks that Washington has directly targeted Assad’s forces, following the April 6 cruise missile assault on the al-Shayrat air base in retaliation for the alleged chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime in Khan Sheikhoun two days earlier.

The number of ground forces operating in the country has been more than doubled and Trump has untied the military’s hands by loosening the rules of engagement for air strikes, resulting in a spike in civilian casualties. In the latest atrocity, at least 40 civilians were killed and many more wounded by a suspected US-led coalition air strike in Deir ez-Zor.

The US escalation carries with it the threat of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia, which intervened into the Syria conflict in 2015 to prop up its sole ally in the Middle East region. Although US officials maintained they had contacted the Russians prior to the air strike yesterday, this does nothing to take away from the fact that Washington and Moscow are working at cross purposes in Syria.

Washington is in a tacit alliance with ISIS insofar as the Jihadi group continues to attack government-controlled areas. As the US focused attention on the purported “threat” posed by the pro-government fighters near al-Tanf Thursday, ISIS launched a significant offensive in the central region, capturing a village and killing dozens of Syrian soldiers.

US officials showed no concern for the reports of beheadings and removal of limbs from women and children by ISIS in the predominantly Shia villages captured. At least 52 people, including 11 women and 17 children belonging to the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam, were killed in the violence in Hama province. The attack occurred near the highway linking Damascus to the northern city of Aleppo, from where pro-Assad forces expelled US-backed Islamists last December.

Rami Razzouk, a coroner at the national hospital in Salamiyeh, told AP that nine of the children were beaten to death with heavy objects and two of them “had most of their limbs removed so they had to be carried in blankets.”

There were no reports of air strikes launched by the ostensible anti-ISIS international coalition in the area to curb the Islamist militia’s advance.

This should come as no surprise. During the 2011 bombardment of Libya to oust the Gaddafi regime, US imperialism gave its backing to Islamist extremist forces, many of whom were subsequently funneled, with the assistance of the CIA, into Syria to act as the backbone of the rebel forces fighting Assad. Some of them united to form ISIS with disaffected Sunni elements in Iraq, who had been radicalized by Washington’s deliberate incitement of sectarian tensions in the wake of its illegal 2003 invasion.

Indicating the mounting rivalries between US imperialism and the other powers involved in Syria, the Financial Times reported earlier this week that the latest ceasefire arrangement agreed in Astana May 4, which included a deal to stop fighting in four de-escalation zones, is being viewed by all parties as a mechanism to accelerate the partition of the country. A buffer zone in the south close to the Jordanian border, which would include the al-Tanf base from where the US and British special forces are training Islamist rebels, could become the basis for a push by the US proxies to cut off Iranian supply lines through the east of Syria. One diplomat told the FT that “the race now is to get the biggest share.”

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), is advancing on the ISIS capital of Raqqa. The Trump administration’s authorization of the provision of heavy weaponry to the SDF last week, over the strenuous objections of NATO ally Turkey, is aimed at preparing an all-out offensive to retake the city which will reportedly be launched in the coming weeks. The consequences of such an assault for the civilian population will be disastrous, as can be seen in the Iraqi city of Mosul where thousands of civilians have been slaughtered in indiscriminate air strikes and shelling by the Iraqi army.

Thursday’s US strike on pro-Assad forces will make it even less likely that any significant progress will be attained at the ongoing sixth round of peace talks, which began in Geneva on Tuesday. Already on the eve of the negotiations, the State Department issued lurid and unverified allegations about the operation by the Assad regime of a crematorium at the Sednaya prison near Damascus in a move designed to undermine the UN-sponsored initiative.

Discussions on a future constitution for the country broke down Thursday as opposition groups requested clarification on a proposal that would have seen a UN commission, under the leadership of the UN’s Syria envoy Staffan di Mistura, oversee a transition process following a peace agreement.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/20/trum-m20-1.html


Trump approves new Pentagon strategy to “annihilate” ISIS

By Niles Niemuth

20 May 2017

Defense Secretary James Mattis announced at a press briefing on Friday that President Donald Trump had approved a new Pentagon plan that would escalate the war for US domination of the Middle East and North Africa.

Mattis told reporters that the plan would aim to militarily encircle strongholds of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to “annihilate” the Islamist militia which still controls significant portions of Syria and Iraq.

The immediate target is the ISIS capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, where a major offensive is being prepared by the US in coordination with the various Kurdish and Arab Syrian militias it has built up during the five-year conflict. The civil war has been stoked by the US and its regional allies with the aim of unseating Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

Mattis also reported that Trump had delegated the ability to authorize military operations to him and to commanders on the ground to speed up operations. “We’ve accelerated the campaign,” Mattis said, indicating that commanders were already taking advantage of their new-found authority.

The Obama administration used the emergence of ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to justify redeploying thousands of US troops to Iraq and deploying hundreds of troops to Syria, while opening a campaign of airstrikes across both countries.

The bloody campaigns by US and Iraqi forces to retake cities seized by ISIS, including Fallujah and Mosul, have resulted in the complete destruction of entire neighborhoods and have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. US airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians, with a significant uptick in causalities since Trump took office in January.

ISIS developed out of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, in which the US stoked sectarian divisions between Shiites and Sunnis to assert its control, and the war for regime change in Syria beginning in 2011, in which the CIA and Pentagon supported Sunni Islamist militias, elements of which formed ISIS.

According to the Pentagon, ISIS now maintains branches and affiliates in multiple countries, all of which will require US military intervention across a broad swath of territory from Central Asia to West Africa.

The decision by Trump heralds a dramatic escalation of conflicts that have killed more than a million people and displaced tens of millions from their homes over the last 16 years under the guise of the so-called “war on terror.” In the eyes of military planners, the turn by the United States to use military force to offset its relative economic decline and assert its dominance over the entire globe is just in its beginning stages.

Military operations waged against ISIS and other Islamist militias are underway in Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the US recently dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat on a network of caves allegedly being used by the ISIS Khorasan affiliate.

The ever-expanding use of military force is not limited to the United States. At Friday’s press conference, Mattis singled out the deployment of 4,000 French troops to the Lake Chad region of West Africa. France has been fighting Islamist insurgents there since 2014, including Boko Haram militants who have pledged their allegiance to ISIS.

The announcement of the Pentagon’s wide-ranging war strategy came just one day after American war planes launched airstrikes on Shiite militias loyal to the Assad government near the borders with Jordan and Iraq. It was the first attack on forces aligned with Assad by the Trump administration since the April 6 cruise missile strike on al-Shayrat airbase.

The pro-Assad paramilitary group that came under attack had allegedly come within 18-miles of a military base where American and British Special Forces are engaged in training Sunni militants.

Mattis noted the airstrike at the press conference on Friday, blaming the attack on the intervention of Iran in Syria. "It [the strike] was necessitated by offensive movement with offensive capability of what we believe was Iranian-directed forces inside an established and agreed upon deconfliction zone," he claimed.

Both Russia and Iran have intervened militarily to prop up their ally Assad. While the US military intervention in Syria, illegal under international law, is couched as an effort to defeat ISIS and eliminate the threat of terrorism, it is ultimately aimed at the ouster of Assad. This has created the conditions for a direct clash between the US and Russian and Iranian-backed forces that could quickly spiral out of control, precipitating a much larger conflict.

The announcement of the Pentagon’s new strategy came as Trump left Washington for his first foreign trip in office. The first stop will be Saudi Arabia, where the president is expected to announce a record $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi monarchy. The deal reportedly includes precision guided bombs which had been withheld by the Obama administration while it funneled billions of dollars of other weaponry.

The brutal Saudi onslaught against Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, aims to re-impose a Saudi- and US-backed puppet government. The war, which began in 2015, has killed thousands of civilians and pushed millions to the brink of famine. The latest weapons deal will further escalate the carnage.

Saudi Arabia has been using US weapons and support to wage an unrelenting air war and naval blockade against Yemen, creating a humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands are now threatened by a deadly outbreak of cholera.

The US support for Saudi Arabia, which is one of the main funders of Sunni Islamist militias along with the other Gulf monarchies, belies the narrative that the US is waging a war to defeat these groups. These outfits serve as convenient props for American imperialism, used as proxy forces against those that stand in the way of American dominance and trotted out as an excuse for the deployment the US military to every corner of the globe.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

No more tax dollars for war in Syria! (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=99EbPwUgxGFvF%2Bb%2Fy%2BYRcuQ5v57TnfU9)

https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6503/images/syriacongressEMAIL.jpg (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BgcXjDuraY9OWJWg9N6sqOQ5v57TnfU9)

GRAPHIC: Sign here button (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UFly9LxsJmZ2enKNbHYMYOQ5v57TnfU9)


Share this action on Facebook (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Zcgew%2FM9ttsalnbYFgGJ%2FeQ5v57TnfU9)
Share this action on Twitter (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4w17ZUoUOZFGtlXt13bkHeQ5v57TnfU9)


It’s urgent that your senators and representative in Congress hear directly from you about ongoing U.S. war-making and war-facilitating in Syria. As a constituent, you can quickly send a message to all three of them by clicking here (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4w17ZUoUOZE%2FO3BZf%2BrshOQ5v57TnfU9).

Unpredictable bombings, continued weapons shipments, and a new alliance with Saudi Arabia all add to the grim prospects for Syria. U.S. attacks in Syria also risk conflict with Russia, and therefore the fate of the earth.

In a democracy, when the people lead, the leaders can be compelled to follow. But that can only happen if we assert ourselves.

Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called “the madness of militarism.” Today, that madness is all too prevalent. Please click here to tell your senators and representative that you favor a complete cutoff of funding for U.S. military actions in Syria (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5gews7XxI2eY%2B10Qe1RIS%2BQ5v57TnfU9).

The elected officials who are supposed to represent you in Congress must hear from you.

Links below go to key information and astute analysis in the aftermath of the missile attack on Syria.

After emailing Congress, please use the tools on the next webpage to share this urgent action with your friends.

This work is only possible with your financial support. Please chip in $3 now. (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Du8XxtcvxaQnCO%2BALlymueQ5v57TnfU9)

-- The RootsAction.org Team

P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.

Background:
> The Hill: Mattis: Trump Strategy Aims to 'Annihilate' ISIS
> New York Times: Saudis Welcome Trump's Rebuff of Obama's Views
> Antiwar.com: Syria Says US Airstrike Killed Several Soldiers Near Jordan Border



www.RootsAction.org (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=XkcDl3KyCyWWmtXNb60MwuQ5v57TnfU9)

Donate button (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cor291W5vsU80kmI%2FEVkoPj4GN474YZS) Facebook button (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=MLt0L%2Bi8b68DevBNqQb5KOQ5v57TnfU9) Twitter button (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=26bfB385rwNDtv55zbt3GOQ5v57TnfU9)

Click here to unsubscribe and stop ALL email from RootsAction.

empowered by Salsa

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.investigaction.net/en/state-dept-bad-guy-did-bad-things-we-saw-it-from-space/


State Dept.: “Bad guy did bad things, we saw it from space”

22 May 2017 RICARDO VAZ (http://www.investigaction.net/en/author/ricardo-vaz/)

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/saydnaya-cover-640x373.jpg (http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/saydnaya-cover.jpg)

After the previous hit singles, “Russia hack 2016: take our word for it” and “Assad used sarin: bomb first, never ask questions”, US government agencies are at it again with their new chart-topping release “Bad guy did bad things, we saw it from space”. With journalism standards in the mainstream media at an all-time low, this is a sure bet to become a fake news hit!


On May 15th all the mainstream media screamed more or less the same bombshell headline, “State Dept. says Assad is burning people in a crematorium”. The source was a State Department press briefing which was then uncritically plastered everywhere. Assistant Secretary Stuart Jones claimed that the Syrian government had built a crematorium next to Saydnaya prison (more on this later), which was being used to burn 50 bodies of hung prisoners a day.

Then came the “evidence”, in the form of satellite pictures. The earliest indictment that this evidence was on the embarrassing side of the scale came from the fact that many outlets did not even publish the pictures, inviting the readers to follow their lead and take the State Department at their word. Nobody tried as hard as Fox News to assign credibility to the latest revelation, writing:

“The photographs […] do not definitely prove the building is a crematorium, but they show construction consistent with such use.”

This is a very low standard that we could apply to almost anything. So what is the evidence in the photographs provided by the State Department? (I hope the reader is sitting down for this)

HVACs (Heating, ventilation and air conditioning) – because only a crematorium would have use for this. We would never find it in a kitchen, a laundromat, Breaking Bad’s crystal meth lab, or every building in Manhattan
a “probable firewall” – one truly wonders how a satellite photo suggests this is a firewall, as opposed to… a regular wall
melted snow on part of the roof – once again, only having a crematorium underneath it would explain this! There is no chance of this room being heated or more exposed to sunlight.


http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/satellite-640x483.png
HVACs and a “probable firewall”

Case closed! It is hard to imagine any serious journalist reporting this as anything other than some ludicrous fabrications, but this is coming from the same people who will listen and report with a straight face that, according to some official, the world looks to the US as a beacon of freedom, or that Saudi Arabia is committed to fighting terrorism in the Middle East.



Fake news built on previous fake news


There is a reason why the imagined crematorium is at Saydnaya and not at the Presidential Palace in Damascus or the Russian embassy (satellite photographs would also be consistent with these scenarios and any others). A few months ago, Amnesty International released an explosive report called “Human slaughterhouse” which alleged that the Syrian army was hanging 50 people a day at Saydnaya prison. This would add up to over 13.000 executions over the course of the war.

What was the problem with this report? It was a collection of fabrications. It is purely based on unverified testimony from anonymous sources. There are no pictures, no records, nothing, despite several “sources” being former judges or prison guards. This is not to say that the Syrian government has not committed human rights abuses, but even someone who was a political prisoner and a victim of torture dismissed the Amnesty report as ridiculous. Even the 13.000 figure is just an extrapolation (there were only 375 allegedly verified deaths).

This is how the Empire and its propaganda machine work. A (fake news) story is presented with dubious or non-existent evidence and uncritically spread by all the main media outlets to support western intervention. And later on when a new and equally questionable story is released, it is deemed more credible because it is built on the previous fake-news background.

So the media assured us that Assad was guilty of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun because after all he had already done it in Eastern Ghouta in 2013, despite the fact that the evidence, not to mention motive, both then and now, strongly suggests otherwise. The goal is never to prove anything, merely to whip up a public frenzy that justifies more bombing and allows al-Qaeda to slip out of the list of terrorist organisations.

The same applies to the new Saydnaya story. Assad surely needed a crematorium to get rid of those 13.000 bodies! And if testimony from al-Qaeda’s PR wing, also known as the White Helmets, is all the media needs to decide whether Assad is guilty of this or that, why is a satellite photo of melted snow and a ventilation system not good enough to assert the existence of a crematorium?

The previous Amnesty “report” was accompanied by a video of a 3D model of the prison. This was not based on any actual footage or photos, but fabricated by “forensic architecture”, based on the accounts of supposed witnesses. Just like a video game. Government officials and their close friends at NGOs like Amnesty International would make great horror fiction writers or video game designers. But because the mainstream media has decided to become just a propaganda vehicle, they are actually writing news.



Source: Investig’Action



Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/InvestigactionENG/)


A lire aussi :
Our sons-of-*****es: western media and the Syrian rebels Controlling the Narrative on Syria Israel and Saudi Arabia: a match made in heaven (or in Washington) Behind the attack on Syria
Derniers articles d'Investig'Action :
STEFANO MAURO
«La grève de la faim est un combat pour la dignité et la liberté de tous les Palestiniens»
ALAA TARTIR
The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security?
MATEO GRILLE
Elias Jaua: “Ne nous laissez pas seuls comme une bonne partie de la gauche a laissé seul Allende”
RANIA KHALEK
Ignored By Western Media, Syrians Describe the Nightmare the Armed Opposition Brought Them
RICARDO VAZ
State Dept.: “Bad guy did bad things, we saw it from space”
ANDRE VLTCHEK
Love vs Pornography, Revolution vs Passivity
Latest videos :
ALEX ANFRUNS
Constituent Assembly in Venezuela, an opportunity for peace
TELESUR
Global Empire – Turkey After The Referendum
1 MINUTE!
French Presidential Election – Stick or Twist?
1 MINUTE!
Chilean muralists in 1 Minute
BOOKS AND DVD’S
MICHEL COLLON’S COLUMN
SAID BOUAMAMA’S COLUMN
ANDRÉ VLTCHEK’S COLUMN
ARCHIVES


NEWSLETTER
Subscribe / Unsubscribe


OUR AUTHORS
Ricardo Vaz
Ricardo Vaz
State Dept.: “Bad guy did bad things, we saw it from space”

Grégoire Lalieu
Grégoire Lalieu
Why we lost the battle against terrorism and how we can win it

Alex Anfruns
Alex Anfruns
Constituent Assembly in Venezuela, an opportunity for peace

SEE THE AUTHOR'S INDEX
©Copyright investig'action 2015
-
ShareThis Copy and Paste - See more at: http://www.investigaction.net/en/state-dept-bad-guy-did-bad-things-we-saw-it-from-space/#sthash.z3UqmLJz.dpuf

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.investigaction.net/en/whats-in-a-name-u-s-takes-syrias-al-qaeda-off-terror-watchlists/

[see source for links in text]


5/29/2017 What’s In A Name? U.S. Takes Syria’s Al-Qaeda Off Terror Watchlists | Investig'Action

http://www.investigaction.net/en/whats-in-a-name-u-s-takes-syrias-al-qaeda-off-terror-watchlists/ 1/2

What’s In A Name? U.S. Takes Syria’s Al-Qaeda Off Terror Watchlists

25 May 2017 WHITNEY WEBB (http://www.investigaction.net/en/author/whitney-webb/)

http://www.investigaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/nusra-front-001-640x361.jpg
By changing its name to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian branch of alQaeda has managed to secure its removal from the U.S. and Canadian terror watchlists, allowing citizens of those countries to donate money and travel to fight with them.

It turns out that getting off the U.S.’ and Canada’s terror watchlist is as simple as changing your name. While the terror watchlist in the U.S. has long been both secretive and controversial – as “reasonable suspicion” is enough to label any individual a “terrorist” – terrorist groups tied to al-Qaeda have found that getting off the watchlist only requires minor rebranding.

The terror group, long known to most as Jabhat al-Nusra or the al-Nusra Front, has continued to function as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria long after Daesh (ISIS) renounced its allegiance to the group in 2014. It was first placed on the U.S. and Canadian terror watchlists in 2012.

But by changing its name to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group has managed to secure its removal from terror watchlists in both the U.S. and Canada, allowing citizens of those countries to donate money to the group, travel to fight with them and disseminate the group’s propaganda without incident.

In response, Nicole Thompson of the U.S. State Department told CBC News last Monday that while “we believe these actions are an al-Qaeda play to bring as much of the Syrian opposition under its operational control as possible, […] we are still studying the issue carefully.”

But the State Department is likely hesitant to label HTS a terror group, even despite the group’s link to al-Qaeda, as the U.S. government has directly funded and armed the Zenki brigade, a group that joined forces with al-Nusra under the HTS banner, with sophisticated weaponry.

As CBC noted, “For the U.S. to designate HTS now would mean acknowledging that it supplied sophisticated weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles, to ‘terrorists,’ and draw attention to the fact that the U.S. continues to arm Islamist militias in Syria.”

This is just the latest attempt by al-Nusra to rebrand itself as a “moderate” group, as it has used its commitment to being “anti-ISIS” and “anti-Assad” in order to convince the U.S. and its allies to arm them. Al-Nusra has been described by mainstream media as a “moderate opposition” group fighting against the embattled government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Their efforts have paid off, as the group is being supported to various degrees by foreign governments seeking to overthrow the Assad government. For example, take the words of Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah, who told the French publication Le Monde in 2015:

“we are clearly against all extremism, but, apart from Daesh [ISIS], all [sic] these groups are fighting to overthrow the [Assad] regime. The moderates cannot say to the Nusra Front … ‘We won’t work with you.’ You have to look at the situation and be realistic.”

The U.S. government has also accepted the rebranding of al-Nusra in recent years. The U.S. effort to do so began in earnest when former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated in 2015 that “moderate rebels” were “anyone who is not affiliated with ISIL [Daesh, ISIS].”

Since then, al-Nusra’s top commanders have asserted that they have received U.S.-made weapons, such as TOW missiles and tanks, directly from foreign governments supported by the U.S. In a 2016 interview with the newspaper Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger, al-Nusra unit commander Abu Al Ezz stated that when al-Nusra was “besieged, we had officers from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel and America here…Experts in the use of satellites, rockets, reconnaissance and thermal security cameras.”

When asked specifically if US officers were present, Al Ezz replied: “The Americans are on our side.” This assertion has been bolstered by evidence that the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrikes in Syria have only focused on Daesh and intentionally avoided al-Nusra positions.

With al-Nusra now officially removed from Western terror watchlists, foreign governments that are opposed to the Assad regime – particularly the U.S. – will be free to fund and arm al-Qaeda as they see fit, making the West’s alleged goal of creating a post-Assad “secular Syria” a remote possibility at best.

INVESTIG'ACTION
L'info n’est pas un luxe, c’est un droit

5/29/2017 What’s In A Name? U.S. Takes Syria’s Al-Qaeda Off Terror Watchlists | Investig'Action

http://www.investigaction.net/en/whats-in-a-name-u-s-takes-syrias-al-qaeda-off-terror-watchlists/ 2/2

Cover photo: Members of al-Nusra Front gesture as they drive in a convoy touring villages in the southern countryside of Syria’s Idlib province, Decembe, 2014. (Photo: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

Source: MintPress News (http://www.mintpressnews.com/whats-name-u-s-takes-syrias-al-qaeda-off-terror-watchlists/228026/)

Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/InvestigactionENG/)

Investig'Action ENG
Like Page 264 likes

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/07/isis-j07.html


US-backed forces enter Syrian city of Raqqa

By Bill Van Auken

7 June 2017

Backed by intense US airstrikes and accompanied by beefed-up contingents of US special operations troops, an armed force dominated by the YPG (People’s Protection Force) Kurdish militia crossed into the eastern sector of the Syrian city of Raqqa Tuesday.

The offensive against the so-called capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria represents a major escalation of the US military intervention in Syria. Ostensibly aimed at crushing ISIS and countering terrorism, the American escalation is bound up with the broader strategic aims of US imperialism, principally, confronting Iran, which is seen as an obstacle to US hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East.

While declining to specify the precise number of US troops now on the ground in Syria, the Pentagon has acknowledged that the number of US “advisers” deployed with the YPG has been increased substantially in the wake of last month’s decision by the Trump administration to directly arm the Kurdish militia.

Thousands of assault rifles, heavy machine guns and antitank weapons along with armored vehicles have been delivered to the YPG. A Pentagon spokesman told the US military newspaper “Stars and Stripes” that part of the mission of the special operations troops deployed with the Kurdish militia is to “closely monitor the equipment provided to the Syrian Kurds,” and “ensure it’s not going to be pointed in any different direction other than ISIS.”

Turkey, Washington’s NATO ally, has bitterly denounced the arming of the Kurdish militia, which Ankara regards as a “terrorist” force and a branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with which it has been in armed conflict for decades.

The Turkish government has threatened to intervene in Syria if it perceives the Kurdish offensive in Raqqa posing a threat to its interests. At the same time, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim reported that Washington had assured Ankara that its support for the YPG would end once the Raqqa offensive was completed. A senior State Department official recently described the US relation to the Syrian Kurds as “temporary, transactional and tactical,” signaling that Washington will betray the Kurds as soon as they have served their purpose.

While officially, the number of American troops deployed in Syria had been capped at 500, they are now believed to number well over 1,000. In addition to the special operations troops fighting alongside the YPG, A US Marine artillery unit is pouring howitzer fire into the besieged city, and US Apache attack helicopters are providing close air support.

The main factor in the steady advance of the YPG on Raqqa, however, has been an intense US bombing campaign that has exacted a growing toll in terms of civilian lives. The monitoring group Airwars has conservatively estimated over 3,800 killed since the US first launched its airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Over 60 percent of these casualties have been inflicted since the beginning of this year.

US and allied warplanes have dropped leaflets over Raqqa telling residents to leave their homes. Those who attempt to do so, however, face the prospect of being killed by US warplanes, being shot by ISIS militants or being blown up by mines planted around the city.

On Tuesday there were reports from both the Syrian government media and opposition sources that a US strike killed at least 12 civilians, including women and children, as they attempted to flee the city by boarding boats to cross the Euphrates River. A total of 21 civilians were killed Monday night in airstrikes on Raqqa, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Also on Tuesday, a school housing civilians displaced by the fighting was hit by US bombs in the eastern Mashlab district of Raqqa, causing an unknown number of civilian casualties.

Last Saturday, a US airstrike hit a residential building in Raqqa, killing 43 civilians, most of them women and children. The al-Mawasah hospital in the city was also reported hit by warplanes from the US-led coalition with a number of civilians, including women and children killed and wounded.

The assault on Raqqa comes barely one week after US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the media that the Pentagon has adopted “annihilation tactics” in its anti-ISIS campaign, centered on the parallel sieges against the Syrian city of some 300,000 and Mosul, the Iraqi city some 230 miles to the east which previously had a population of 1.6 million people. “Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation,” Mattis, a former Marine general, said of the ongoing US-led offensives. The comments, it is now undeniably clear, represented a green light to US commanders to carry out mass slaughter.

Media reports and statements from the Pentagon and the YPG have all indicated that Raqqa is besieged from the north, east and west. Reports from both the Russian and Iranian media, however, have suggested that the US and its proxy forces have deliberately left an escape route for ISIS fighters to the south, allowing them to flee to the city of Deir al-Zour, about 85 miles down the Euphrates, where the Islamist militia has launched an offensive against Syrian army forces. The surrounding province of Deir al-Zour is almost entirely controlled by the Islamist militias that have served as proxy forces in the six-year-old US-backed war to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. Heavy fighting has also taken place between ISIS and government forces around the ancient city of Palmyra, 100 miles south of Raqqa.

Even as government forces were fighting ISIS in Deir al-Zour and Palmyra, further south, in the al-Tanf area near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, the US carried out an airstrike against pro-government forces, attacking a column that the Pentagon claimed included a tank, artillery, antiaircraft weapons, vehicles and more than 60 soldiers. It was not clear how many were killed and wounded in the US bombing. The US military has illegally established a base on Syrian territory there to train so-called “rebels,” allegedly to fight ISIS. The US military carried out a similar attack on pro-government militia forces in the same area last month.

In reality, the Pentagon is training these forces as part of the regime-change operation against Damascus that Washington has orchestrated since 2011, with Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militias serving as its proxy forces.

The simultaneous combat in Deir al-Zour, Palmyra and al-Tanf make clear that Washington is in a de facto military alliance with ISIS, so long as it is attacking government forces.

US military aims in Syria are driven not by a determination to crush ISIS, which is itself the product of US interventions in the region and the CIA’s support for Islamist militias in both Libya and Syria, but rather to overthrow the Syrian regime and militarily confront its principal regional ally, Iran.

The duplicity of US policy in the region has only been underscored by the ongoing crisis in the Persian Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a blockade that falls just short of a state of war against Qatar. US President Donald Trump signaled his support for Riyadh in the conflict Tuesday, using his Twitter account to portray the move against Qatar as driven by concern over the Qatari regime’s funding of “Radical Ideology.”

This is patent nonsense. The Saudi regime is itself the principal ideological font of outfits like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have provided billions of dollars worth of support to the Islamist militias that have laid waste to Syria.

Qatar, meanwhile, hosts the forward operating headquarters of the US Central Command along with over 8,000 US troops and the main American airbase in the region from which most of the US airstrikes are being launched.

The show of support from the Trump White House for the anti-Qatar campaign is driven by the centrality of war preparations against Iran, with which the Qatari regime has failed to align itself unequivocally.

The episode has served to expose the threat of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria rapidly exploding into a region-wide war drawing in not only Iran but potentially nuclear-armed Russia.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

---





[...]

[T]he most destabilizing factor is US imperialism, which is in the midst of an escalation of its military drive to secure geo-strategic hegemony over the energy-rich Middle East. In Syria, Washington has intervened under the pretext of combating ISIS terrorism to wage a war for regime-change so as to weaken its two main rivals in the region, Iran and Russia.

[...]

In Syria, the US has begun over recent weeks effectively to begin the partitioning of the country. An air strike on military vehicles and the shooting down of a Syrian government drone Thursday near the al-Tanf base in the southeast of the country marked the third time in as many weeks that the US military has attacked forces loyal to the Assad regime in Damascus. On May 18, Washington bombed a pro-government militia some 20 miles from al-Tanf and a similar strike was launched against Assad’s forces on Tuesday.

The US has justified these attacks on the grounds that the pro-government forces have allegedly violated a “deconfliction zone” proclaimed unilaterally by Washington in Syria’s south near the borders with Jordan and Iraq. The al-Tanf base, where Special Forces have been training local militias for many months, is a key part of a strategy to prevent Assad’s forces and Iranian-backed militias from gaining control of territory in eastern Syria currently held by ISIS and thus opening up a ground supply route from Tehran through Syria to the Mediterranean coast and Lebanon. These US-led efforts are assuming increased urgency as Kurdish-dominated fighters organized in the Syrian Democratic Forces advance into Raqqa in Syria’s northeast.

US imperialism’s aggressive moves to form a Sunni alliance to push back Iranian and Russian influence in Syria and the broader region is creating the conditions for a much larger military clash that could rapidly draw in the major powers.

Indicating the deepening tensions over the al-Tanf area, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov labeled Tuesday’s attack on pro-government forces as “an aggressive act that violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and—deliberately or not—targeted the forces which are most effective in fighting terrorists on the ground.” According to Iranian TV, Lavrov described the “deconfliction zone” as illegitimate and said Moscow would refuse to recognize it.

Lavrov pointed out that the Syrian troops that came under attack were defending a route connecting Syria and Iraq that ISIS fighters were trying to destroy. The foreign minister went on to allege that the attack had resulted in ISIS gaining its objective.

Moscow, which intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015 to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, continues to fly aircraft close to the “deconfliction zone” in support of pro-government forces fighting ISIS. This raises the immediate danger that future US strikes on Assad’s forces like those carried out this week could trigger a direct clash between the two nuclear-armed powers.




http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/10/qata-j10.html

[ckaihatsu]

---





[...]

Washington’s goal is to block the establishment by the Assad regime of a land bridge using territory recaptured from ISIS that would stretch from Teheran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. To this end, it is arming and training proxy Islamist forces at the al-Tanf base near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders with the aim of establishing control over territory in eastern Syria.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) currently engaged in retaking Raqqa are tacitly allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south, shifting the battle with the j ihadis to areas where pro-Assad forces are currently advancing. A consequence of this could be the inflaming of tensions between Kurdish and Arab populations, since the Kurdish militias will be occupying Arab-controlled areas during their pursuit of ISIS further south.

Pro-government troops, backed by Russian air power, struck a blow at Washington’s plan of pushing north to retake ISIS territory from al-Tanf by reaching the Iraqi border Friday in battles with ISIS.

Regional and global powers stand behind all of these forces. Iranian fighters and Russian air power are backing the Syrian government, including by carrying out air strikes close to the US’s unilaterally declared “deconfliction zone.” US Special Forces are being assisted at al-Tanf by British and Norwegian military personnel and will be relying on the so-called international anti-ISIS coalition, which includes all of NATO’s members. The Times described the emerging battle as “even more decisive” with “far more geopolitical import and risk” than that going on in Raqqa.




http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/12/gulf-j12.html

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/19/syri-j19.html


US shoots down Syrian government aircraft

By Peter Symonds

19 June 2017

In a marked escalation of the war in Syria, a US F-18 fighter jet yesterday shot down a Syrian government fighter bomber for the first time, claiming that it had been attacking pro-US rebel forces on the ground near Raqqa. While nominally fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces, the US shoot-down makes clear that the real target of American-led operations is the ousting of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The US military justified the provocative act by claiming that the Syrian SU-22 had been bombing near so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops. It cited fighting that had taken place hours earlier between the Syrian military and SDF forces holding the town of Ja’Din as showing “hostile intent” and declared that attacks on “legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.” The statement absurdly declared that it was not seeking “to fight Syrian regime, Russian or pro-regime forces partnered with them.”

There is nothing legitimate about the military activities of the US and its allies inside Syria, which, under the guise of the “war on terror,” are seeking to carve out areas that can be used to mount operations against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. As ISIS militias in both Syria and Iraq are in retreat, the US preparations to move against Assad are coming increasingly into the open.

The Syrian army issued a statement saying that its aircraft had been on a mission against ISIS when it came under fire, accused the US of “coordinating” with ISIS and warned that the incident would have “dangerous repercussions.” The pilot has not been found and is presumed dead.

The US attack follows its shooting down of an unmanned pro-Syrian government drone earlier in June after it allegedly fired on US-backed troops in southern Syria near the border with Iraq. The US military has unilaterally declared “a deconfliction zone” with a radius of 55 kilometres around a training base at al-Tanf—a key border crossing between the two countries.

In effect, Washington has carved out an area of Syria where US and British special forces train so-called rebels—supposedly to fight ISIS, but in reality for its proxy war against the Assad regime. The US has already conducted air strikes against pro-Syrian government forces that have sought to regain control of the vital border area.

Last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov phoned US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and demanded that the US stop attacking Syrian government forces as they seek to drive ISIS militias out of the border areas. “Lavrov expressed his categorical disagreement with the US strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in the future,” the Russian foreign ministry reported.

The situation throughout Syria remains extremely fraught with the Assad regime accusing the US-led forces besieging Raqqa of allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south where government troops are battling ISIS for control of the city of Deir es-Zor.

Over the weekend, Iran’s military fired ground-to-ground missiles for the first time from Iranian territory against ISIS positions inside Syria. While claiming that they were in retaliation for the June 7 ISIS attacks in Tehran, the missile attacks into the Deir es-Zor area were clearly aimed at bolstering the Syrian government forces.

The US proxy war in Syria is part of a broader confrontation which is not just aimed at the Assad regime but more broadly against its backers—Iran and Russia. Trump’s trip to the Middle East last month was above all aimed at forging an alliance with Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf States against Iran and its allies in the region.

The immediate outcome was the imposition of an all-out, Saudi-led economic blockade against Qatar—itself an act of war. Riyadh accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism, but the real reason lies in Qatar’s relations with Iran and its reluctance to join Saudi Arabia in its anti-Iranian war drive.

The Saudi monarchy, which has long regarded Iran as its chief regional rival, is deeply hostile to the Assad regime in Damascus, which it regards as part of a Shiite crescent that includes Shiite parties and militias in Iraq and Lebanon. Backed to the hilt by the US, Saudi Arabia is waging its own war in Yemen against Houthi rebels, who, it claims, are being supported by Iran and who ousted the US-Saudi puppet government in 2014.

The Trump regime signalled its determination to ramp up the war in Syria in April when it launched a barrage of cruise missile strikes against a Syrian government air base on the pretext of unsubstantiated claims the regime had carried out a gas attack. The US military is determined to rebuild anti-Assad forces after the devastating blow suffered by these pro-US militias in being driven out of Aleppo.

The shooting down of the Syrian SU-22 is another demonstration that the US is prepared to resort to the most reckless means to defend its footholds in Syria and lay the basis for the broader war that is being prepared.

While proclaiming its own “deconfliction zones” or no-go areas, the US military reiterated last month that it will operate at will throughout Syria. “We don’t recognise any specific zone in itself that we preclude ourselves from operating in,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan, commander of the US air forces in the region, declared.

As a result the stage is set for a dramatic escalation of the Middle East conflict where a relatively minor incident or clash involving US forces and their Syrian, Iranian or Russian counterparts could erupt into a war that draws in major regional and world powers.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/19/syri-j19.html


US shoots down Syrian government aircraft

By Peter Symonds

19 June 2017

In a marked escalation of the war in Syria, a US F-18 fighter jet yesterday shot down a Syrian government fighter bomber for the first time, claiming that it had been attacking pro-US rebel forces on the ground near Raqqa. While nominally fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces, the US shoot-down makes clear that the real target of American-led operations is the ousting of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The US military justified the provocative act by claiming that the Syrian SU-22 had been bombing near so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops. It cited fighting that had taken place hours earlier between the Syrian military and SDF forces holding the town of Ja’Din as showing “hostile intent” and declared that attacks on “legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.” The statement absurdly declared that it was not seeking “to fight Syrian regime, Russian or pro-regime forces partnered with them.”

There is nothing legitimate about the military activities of the US and its allies inside Syria, which, under the guise of the “war on terror,” are seeking to carve out areas that can be used to mount operations against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. As ISIS militias in both Syria and Iraq are in retreat, the US preparations to move against Assad are coming increasingly into the open.

The Syrian army issued a statement saying that its aircraft had been on a mission against ISIS when it came under fire, accused the US of “coordinating” with ISIS and warned that the incident would have “dangerous repercussions.” The pilot has not been found and is presumed dead.

The US attack follows its shooting down of an unmanned pro-Syrian government drone earlier in June after it allegedly fired on US-backed troops in southern Syria near the border with Iraq. The US military has unilaterally declared “a deconfliction zone” with a radius of 55 kilometres around a training base at al-Tanf—a key border crossing between the two countries.

In effect, Washington has carved out an area of Syria where US and British special forces train so-called rebels—supposedly to fight ISIS, but in reality for its proxy war against the Assad regime. The US has already conducted air strikes against pro-Syrian government forces that have sought to regain control of the vital border area.

Last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov phoned US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and demanded that the US stop attacking Syrian government forces as they seek to drive ISIS militias out of the border areas. “Lavrov expressed his categorical disagreement with the US strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in the future,” the Russian foreign ministry reported.

The situation throughout Syria remains extremely fraught with the Assad regime accusing the US-led forces besieging Raqqa of allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south where government troops are battling ISIS for control of the city of Deir es-Zor.

Over the weekend, Iran’s military fired ground-to-ground missiles for the first time from Iranian territory against ISIS positions inside Syria. While claiming that they were in retaliation for the June 7 ISIS attacks in Tehran, the missile attacks into the Deir es-Zor area were clearly aimed at bolstering the Syrian government forces.

The US proxy war in Syria is part of a broader confrontation which is not just aimed at the Assad regime but more broadly against its backers—Iran and Russia. Trump’s trip to the Middle East last month was above all aimed at forging an alliance with Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf States against Iran and its allies in the region.

The immediate outcome was the imposition of an all-out, Saudi-led economic blockade against Qatar—itself an act of war. Riyadh accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism, but the real reason lies in Qatar’s relations with Iran and its reluctance to join Saudi Arabia in its anti-Iranian war drive.

The Saudi monarchy, which has long regarded Iran as its chief regional rival, is deeply hostile to the Assad regime in Damascus, which it regards as part of a Shiite crescent that includes Shiite parties and militias in Iraq and Lebanon. Backed to the hilt by the US, Saudi Arabia is waging its own war in Yemen against Houthi rebels, who, it claims, are being supported by Iran and who ousted the US-Saudi puppet government in 2014.

The Trump regime signalled its determination to ramp up the war in Syria in April when it launched a barrage of cruise missile strikes against a Syrian government air base on the pretext of unsubstantiated claims the regime had carried out a gas attack. The US military is determined to rebuild anti-Assad forces after the devastating blow suffered by these pro-US militias in being driven out of Aleppo.

The shooting down of the Syrian SU-22 is another demonstration that the US is prepared to resort to the most reckless means to defend its footholds in Syria and lay the basis for the broader war that is being prepared.

While proclaiming its own “deconfliction zones” or no-go areas, the US military reiterated last month that it will operate at will throughout Syria. “We don’t recognise any specific zone in itself that we preclude ourselves from operating in,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan, commander of the US air forces in the region, declared.

As a result the stage is set for a dramatic escalation of the Middle East conflict where a relatively minor incident or clash involving US forces and their Syrian, Iranian or Russian counterparts could erupt into a war that draws in major regional and world powers.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

German troops will now be even closer to the war zones in Syria and Iraq.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/24/jord-j24.html)

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

The deadly strike on Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zour province Monday is bound up with Washington’s increasingly aggressive military intervention in the region.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/28/kill-j28.html)

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

The spurious White House claims that the Syrian government is preparing to use chemical weapons have yet again gone unquestioned in the US media.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/28/pers-j28.html)

[ckaihatsu]

via investigaction.net (http://www.investigaction.net/en/)

President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin […]

More... (http://www.investigaction.net/en/trumps-red-line/)

[ckaihatsu]

Stand with Cicilline: Demand Trump stop escalating in Syria


Just Foreign Policy


Dear Chris,

Urge your Rep. to sign the Cicilline letter.

Take Action. (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=epHTW7Q3K5OQy3vnif%2B5JxehedHMpr1%2B)


The Trump Administration has escalated U.S. military attacks against forces associated with the Syrian government - without Congressional authorization. Under the Constitution, such military actions should not happen if they have not been authorized by Congress.

The U.S. military engaged in strikes against pro-government forces on May 18, June 6, and June 8, and shot down armed Iranian-made drones in Southern Syria on June 8 and June 20. On June 18 a U.S. fighter aircraft shot down a Syrian SU-22 bomber, marking the first time the U.S. has downed a manned Syrian aircraft in the course of the Syrian conflict. On June 26, the White House released a statement threatening further military action against the Syrian government. [1]

The key to preventing U.S. military escalation in Syria is getting Members of Congress to speak up in writing against it. In 2013, U.S. military escalation in Syria was prevented because Members of Congress signed letters insisting that President Obama come to Congress for authorization before taking military action. [2]

Congressional Progressive Caucus Vice Chair Rep. David Cicilline [D-RI] is circulating a letter to President Trump demanding that Trump stop escalating in Syria without Congressional authorization.

Urge your Representative to join the Cicilline letter by signing our petition. (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yEz5an9iKa4J44C5lVZ12RehedHMpr1%2B)

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns
Just Foreign Policy

If you think our work is important, support us with a $17 donation.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate

References:
1. https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/assert-war-powers-to?r_by=1135580
2. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/8/29/1234850/-162-Reps-Including-64-Democrats-Call-for-Debate-Vote-Before-War-With-Syria

Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy

© 2016 Just Foreign Policy

Click here to unsubscribe

empowered by Salsa

[ckaihatsu]

via justforeignpolicy.org (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/)

The Trump Administration has escalated U.S. military attacks against forces associated with the Syrian government - without Congressional authorization. Under the Constitution, such military actions should not happen if they have not been authorized by Congress.
The U.S. military engaged in strikes against pro-government forces on May 18, June 6, and June 8, and shot down armed Iranian-made drones in Southern Syria on June 8 and June 20. On June 18 a U.S. fighter aircraft shot down a Syrian SU-22 bomber, marking the first time the U.S. has downed a manned Syrian aircraft in the course of the Syrian conflict. On June 26, the White House released a statement threatening further military action (https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/assert-war-powers-to?r_by=1135580) against the Syrian government.
The key to preventing U.S. military escalation in Syria is getting Members of Congress to speak up in writing against it. In 2013, U.S. military escalation in Syria was prevented because Members of Congress signed letters (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/8/29/1234850/-162-Reps-Including-64-Democrats-Call-for-Debate-Vote-Before-War-With-Syria) insisting that President Obama come to Congress for authorization before taking military action.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Vice Chair Rep. David Cicilline [D-RI] is circulating a letter to President Trump demanding that Trump stop escalating in Syria without Congressional authorization.
Urge your Representative to join the Cicilline letter by signing our petition (https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/join-repcicilline-demand?r_by=1135580).


More... (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/alert-cicilline-syria--war-authorization)

[ckaihatsu]

via justforeignpolicy.org (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/)

Saudi Arabia's extremist monarchy is out of control, and the Trump Administration has proved unwilling or unable to rein it in.
This week, Saudi Arabia's monarchy elevated as its heir Mohammed bin Salman (http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/analysis-how-has-saudi-policy-under-new-crown-prince-impacted-yemen-1912105646) - the man most responsible for the Saudi war and blockade in Yemen that has deliberately pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and ignited a deadly cholera outbreak across the country. [1]
Then, when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Saudi Arabia to articulate "reasonable and actionable" demands for ending its blockade of U.S. ally Qatar - which hosts the largest U.S. base in the Middle East - Saudi Arabia responded by demanding (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40378221) that Qatar shut down broadcaster Al Jazeera, expel non-Qataris from Qatar, stop funding other news outlets including Middle East Eye, and shut down Qatari diplomatic posts in Iran.
Left to its own devices, the Trump Administration is not going to save millions of Yemenis from Saudi-imposed famine. Saudi Arabia has defied the UN Security Council's call for ceasefire (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/un-urges-yemen-cease-fire-and-open-ports-to-confront-cholera/2017/06/15/ec92b4b8-5219-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html). Congress must act.
Urge your Representative to force a House vote on withdrawing U.S. backing from Saudi Arabia's war by signing our petition at MoveOn. (https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/house-back-un-call-for?r_by=1135580)


More... (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/alert-mbs-saudi-yemen-ceasefire)

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

Baghdad’s Pyrrhic victory in conquering the demolished al-Nuri mosque has not ended the fighting in Mosul, much less the armed conflict across Iraq, Syria and beyond.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/30/iraq-j30.html)

[ckaihatsu]

via investigaction.net (http://www.investigaction.net/en/)

The aggressive move elevating Mohammed bin Salman as the next in line to the Saudi throne should send warning signs to Washington and London over a prince who wages wars […]

More... (http://www.investigaction.net/en/the-rise-of-mohammed-bin-salman-alarm-bells-should-be-ringing/)

[willowtooth]

They announced the Islamic states defeat the other day (in the most quiet way imaginable) Al-baghdadi is dead too after 20 or so governments confirmed it, I think US still doesn't want to admit he's dead. I wonder who will be the next boogeyman? Turkey, Iran, I hear Venezuela looks nice this time of year?

[ckaihatsu]

They announced the Islamic states defeat the other day (in the most quiet way imaginable) Al-baghdadi is dead too after 20 or so governments confirmed it, I think US still doesn't want to admit he's dead. I wonder who will be the next boogeyman? Turkey, Iran, I hear Venezuela looks nice this time of year?


We have a link to a good in-depth analysis of this....


Iraqi government claims fall of ISIS as war goes on

https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/197692-Iraqi-government-claims-fall-of-ISIS-as-war-goes-on


---


The WSWS has been saying that this past presidential election was all about a Trump-versus-the-security-establishment *factional* battle over which major country to attack next, China or Russia, respectively.

[ckaihatsu]

Assad regime and Moscow claim Washington said Syria is preparing another chemical attack to justify an 'aggression'.


More... (http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.798566)

[ckaihatsu]

In April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.


More... (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47324.htm)

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

The same corporate media that praised the US missile strike against Syria has blacked out Hersh’s exposure that its pretext, an alleged chemical weapons attack, is a lie.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/03/pers-j03.html)

[willowtooth]

Some one named Abu Qutaiba who I've never heard of, but is apparently one of Baghdadi's best friends has been burnt alive for suggesting he's dead, according to "thebaghdadpost" and anonymous sources

http://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/story/13836/ISIS-burns-senior-leader-to-death-for-hinting-at-Baghdadi-s-death

Has anyone ever heard of the baghdad post before? what about iraqinews.com?

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

In the week and a half since Hersh’s article appeared in Die Welt, neither the International Socialist Organization, Socialist Alternative, International Viewpoint or nor Jacobin has commented on his exposure of US lies and war crimes.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/05/hers-j05.html)

[ckaihatsu]

On the night of June 26, the White House Press Secretary released a statement, via Twitter, that, 'the United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.'


More... (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/ex-weapons-inspector-trumps-sarin-claims-built-on-lie)

[ckaihatsu]

via investigaction.net (http://www.investigaction.net/en/)

If you wish to understand the degree to which a supposedly free western media are constructing a world of half-truths and deceptions to manipulate their audiences, keeping us uninformed and […]

More... (http://www.investigaction.net/en/medias-propaganda-war-on-syria-in-full-flow/)

[ckaihatsu]

via justforeignpolicy.org (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/)

There is an apparent split in the foreign policy establishment over diplomacy with Russia to resolve the war in Syria. We want to help the pro-diplomacy faction of the establishment defeat the anti-diplomacy faction of the establishment so we can have less war. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is a "liberal insider," someone considered "close to the U.S. foreign policy establishment" and he is now advocating for diplomacy with Russia, an “official U.S. adversary”, as the “best path to peace in Syria".
Urge President Trump & Congress to back David Ignatius' call to work with Russia for peace in Syria by signing our petition at MoveOn (https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/potus-seek-peace-with?r_by=1135580).
As David Ignatius reported in the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/working-with-russia-might-be-the-best-path-to-peace-in-syria/2017/07/04/c2589c9e-6029-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html), the United States and Russia successfully negotiated agreement on a buffer zone and "deconfliction line" in Syria. The agreement allows the United States and its allies to clear the Islamic State’s capital, Raqqa, while Russia and the Syrian government take the city of Deir al-Zour. The agreement on the line keeps the combatants focused on fighting the Islamic State, rather than fighting each other.
read more (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/alert-syria-russia-diplomacy-ignatius)


More... (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/alert-syria-russia-diplomacy-ignatius)

[ckaihatsu]

There has been much disingenuous criticism of those, like me, who question why the western corporate media have studiously ignored the latest investigation by renowned journalist Seymour Hersh on Syria. Hersh had to publish his piece in a German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag, after the entire US and UK media rejected his article.


More... (http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-07-03/useful-idiots-who-undermine-dissent-on-syria)

[ckaihatsu]

As the U.S. and Russia reach a new ceasefire in Syria, Max Blumenthal of Alternet's Grayzone Project and TRNN's Aaron Mate discuss foreign involvement in the Syrian war and how Western media across the political spectrum has covered it


More... (http://therealnews.com/t2/?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&jumival=19506)

[ckaihatsu]

As President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare to meet in Hamburg on Friday, we speak to journalist Rami Khouri about what's at stake in the Syrian conflict.


More... (https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/6/rami_g_khouri_syria_s_proxy)

[ckaihatsu]

News Updates from CLG
19 July 2017
http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Trump ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad 'rebels' in Syria (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-ends-covert-cia-program-to-arm-anti-assad-rebels-in-syria-a-move-sought-by-moscow/2017/07/19/b6821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html) | 19 July 2017 | President Trump has decided to end the CIA's covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels [terrorists] battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials. The program was a central plank of a [disastrous] policy begun by the Obama administration in 2013 to put pressure on Assad to step aside, but even its backers have questioned its efficacy since Russia deployed forces in Syria two years later. Officials said the phasing out of the secret program reflects Trump's interest in finding ways to work with Russia, which saw the anti-Assad program as an assault on its interests. The shuttering of the program is also an acknowledgment of Washington's limited leverage and desire to remove Assad from power.

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

The ending of the CIA’s arming and funding of Al Qaeda-linked “rebels” signals not an end to conflict or rapprochement with Moscow, but is part of the preparations for wider war.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/22/pers-j22.html)

[ckaihatsu]

Stephen Gowans' Speech in New York — July 14, 2017

July 18, 2017

Dear Members and Friends of Hands Off Syria Coalition,

Video recording of Stephen Gowans' speech on Syria, presented at the Solidarity Center in New York City on July 14, has been uploaded to the HOSC web site.

To watch the video please click on the following link:

https://handsoffsyriacoalition.net/
Hands Off Syria Coalition

Twitter (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=a9036fd7e2&e=2ac94fdcfc) Facebook (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=4a28904360&e=2ac94fdcfc) Website (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=8cb40046d8&e=2ac94fdcfc)

Copyright © 2017 Hands Off Syria Coalition, All rights reserved.
You are on this list because you signed HOSC's Points of Unity Statement.

Our mailing address is:
Hands Off Syria Coalition
P.O. Box 8693
Haledon, NJ 07538

Add us to your address book (http://handsoffsyriacoalition.us14.list-manage.com/vcard?u=9f038e29534ade0a68035bbde&id=6410155ff3)


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list






This email was sent to [email protected]
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
Hands Off Syria Coalition · P.O. Box 8693 · Haledon, NJ 07538 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp

[ckaihatsu]

PETITION: Keep up the Pressure! No Attacks on Syria – Stop Endless War!


US Peace Council is a co-sponsor of this petition from United For Peace and Justice calling for an end to U.S. intervention in Syria. Please sing, and share it far and wide.

Facebook (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=676d09556f&e=786f83a96f) Donate (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=436e81f9de&e=786f83a96f)

[...]

The devastating war in Syria rages on. While the New York Times recently reported (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=7d6821c3da&e=786f83a96f) that the Trump administration has quietly ended the covert program to supply Syrian rebel groups with arms and supplies, the Los Angeles Times (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=a207505ea3&e=786f83a96f), just a few days later, reported that U.S. trained Syrian opposition fighters hope to take a fresh stand against President Assad, with U.S. backing, “potentially drawing the U.S. into a long and costly conflict.”

We must step up our efforts to stop our government from expanding its war in Syria and to stop Endless War.

https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/data/000/105/542/original/Petition_Syria.jpg (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=9e8861452a&e=786f83a96f)

Please read and sign UFPJ’s new Petition: “No Attacks on Syria – Stop Endless War! (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=1e7c9268f9&e=786f83a96f)

The Syria Petition (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=7b64a036b8&e=786f83a96f), directed to Congress, is being co-sponsored by these outstanding organizations:

• AFSC Peace and Economic Security Program
• Catholic Conference of Superiors of Men Religious
• Code Pink
• Military Families Speak Out
• Out of Syria-Boston
• People Demanding Action
• Veterans For Peace
• US Peace Council
• Western States Legal Foundation
• September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows


Sign the Petition today, calling on Congress to Recognize that there is no military solution to terrorism; stop widening the conflict in Syria and instead try to end it. (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=69cf1a996e&e=786f83a96f)

• End all bombing missions and aerial strikes; bring home U.S. troops and special operations teams; stop supplying arms and revoke the 2001 AUMF.

• Increase humanitarian aid and help resettle more Syrian refugees in the United States.

• Abide by international laws, treaties, diplomatic norms, and our Constitution.

• Reverse current escalations of military action and instead work to de-escalate and demilitarize conflicts around the world.


https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/data/000/105/545/original/Screen_Shot_2017-07-26_at_5.11.08_AM.png (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=1cedd7dd11&e=786f83a96f)


The unimaginable brutality of the war in Syria must end. This war, as with all other wars, kills, injures, poisons the water and land, creates refugees and crushes the hopes and dreams of millions of people.

“This Madness Must Cease”. (MLK)

United for Peace & Justice
Coordinating Committee


Help us continue to do this critical work and more-- make a donation to UFPJ today (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=bf257ba2fa&e=786f83a96f).

Sent via ActionNetwork.org (http://uspeacecouncil.us14.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=090bb12a9ccf856210dc6105b&id=77d7a7851b&e=786f83a96f). To update your email address or to stop receiving emails from United for Peace & Justice, please click here.








This email was sent to [email protected]
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
U.S. Peace Council · P.O. Box 3105 · New Haven, CT 06515-0205 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp

[ckaihatsu]

Turkey is bombing northern Iraq


http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/mailings/2708/attachments/original/DontBombIraqKurdistan.jpg?1501450731


Dear Chris,

Tell Turkey’s Government to Stop the Aerial Bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan! (http://www.codepink.org/stop_bombing_iraqi_kurdistan?e=247b6f0c69174ee7dfa 25e341c4eedfe&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=turkey&n=2)

Kurds, numbering around 30 million people, are the largest stateless national group in the world, spread over eastern Turkey, northern Syria, Iraq, and western Iran. Since 2007, the government of Turkey has been bombing the Pishdar region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Innocent Iraqi Kurds are victims of these bombings — twenty people have been killed and more than a hundred civilian homes destroyed. The people of this area have been displaced, which has taken a mental toll. They struggle with the loss of their livelihoods (livestock, beekeeping, agriculture). The constant bombardment has resulted in a lack of schools, since teachers are afraid to travel to the area.

The US government could take immediate steps to pressure the Turkish government to stop the bombing. Sign the petition. (http://www.codepink.org/stop_bombing_iraqi_kurdistan?e=247b6f0c69174ee7dfa 25e341c4eedfe&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=turkey&n=3)

In May, Donald Trump stated President Erdogan of Turkey would receive a quick order of military equipment. The United States supports Turkey’s continuous bombing of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). However, these bombings are hurting innocent people (http://www.codepink.org/r?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2017 %2F04%2F25%2Fturkey-says-bombed-kurdish-terrorists-syria-iraq-us-kurdish%2F&e=247b6f0c69174ee7dfa25e341c4eedfe&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=turkey&n=4).

Turkey's bombardments continue to date. On Friday, July 28, 2017, as part of their cross-border bombing campaign, the Turkish army shelled areas around Zakho district of Iraqi Kurdistan. As a result, four civilians have been injured. The Turkish officials claimed that they shelled the area due to the presence of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). However, the civilians have rejected the Turkish government's claim.

Let's listen to the innocent civilians! Sign the petition to stop the bombing in Iraqi Kurdistan. (http://www.codepink.org/stop_bombing_iraqi_kurdistan?e=247b6f0c69174ee7dfa 25e341c4eedfe&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=turkey&n=5)

With hope and solidarity,
Ann, Ariel, Brienne, Haley, Jodie, Katie, Mariana, Mark, Mary, Medea, Nancy, Paki, Paula, Taylor and Tighe

PS: Learn more about Iraqi Kurdistan!
Join Iraqi Kurdistan Report-Back live with CODEPINK's Nancy Mancias, August 5 @ 12pm PT/3pm ET (http://www.codepink.org/iraqi_kurdistan_report_back_august?e=247b6f0c69174 ee7dfa25e341c4eedfe&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=turkey&n=6)

Donate Now (http://www.codepink.org/donate_to_codepink?e=247b6f0c69174ee7dfa25e341c4ee dfe&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=turkey&n=7)

CODEPINK
This email was sent to [email protected]
To stop receiving emails, click here.
Created with NationBuilder

Unsubscribe