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Syria and the western backed opposition
There have been many stories in the media about the 'Atrocities' carried out by the assad regime in syria against so called brave opposition fighters and unfortunately some on the left wing have fallen for it. These fighters are terrorists and murderers, yes there is a measure of genuine opposition to assad but that has been superseded by an armed terror campaign backed by western and saudi/qatari interests. Assad as we know is no angel but i think the armed oppositionists are a lot worse. Check out the following article by charlie skelton from the guardian of all papers about the reality of this opposition www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking?INTCMP=SRCH
The U.N. has confirmed that the Assad government did not create a "massacre" in Hula recently, much less a "genocide" (Turkey), but killed 37 armed combatants.
The west and their regional puppet governments are arming terrorists and backing disgruntled parts of the Syrian bourgeoisie.
"It is necessary for Communists to enter into contradiction with the consciousness of the masses. . . The problem with these Transitional programs and transitional demands, which don't enter into any contradiction with the consciousness of the masses, or try to trick the masses into entering into the class struggle, create soviets - [is that] it winds up as common-or-garden reformism or economism." - Mike Macnair, on the necessity of the Minimum and Maximum communist party Program.
"You're lucky. You have a faith. Even if it's only Karl Marx" - Richard Burton
Skelton's article is garbage. Forget about who is talking on CNN, focus on who is fighting in Damascus. Where is his analysis of the coordinating committees operating in Syria?
What precisely is so garbage about skelton's article? It is a very good piece of investigative journalism far better than the biased rubbish from the mainstream media and some on the left who continue to have wet dreams about a workers and peoples uprising in Syria. This is no popular revolution against the baathist regime there, and any genuine protests there have been like these so called co-ordination commitees have either been co-opted or superseded by terrorists and thugs. I am no advocate of the baathists and President assad but i am cerainly not in favour of a western/saudi backed terror campaign.
Dont be fooled
Dont be manipulated
There was a general strike in Damascus.
Skelton's piece focuses on the exiles, not the revolutionaries in the streets.
I am afraid you are deluded. We must defend syria against these western backed terrorists. If this resistance is progressive why have they not condemmed imperialism and capitalism or offered support to the palestinians. This movement is controlled or has been co-opted by the CIA saudi reactionaries and their free syrian mercenaries in syria. We must give conditional support to syrian government against this western/saud/qatari backed attempt to destroy this state. A defeat for syria and a victory for imperialism would mean a puppet regime doing israel's and the west's bidding and isolating the palestinians.
You really are grossly dishonest. In your trashy article posted in the most recent thread, you yourself downplay the importance of strike action by saying that strikes in themselves cannot serve as a defense against attacks on civilians by the regime, which actually ignores the ways in which successive strike waves in Egypt (particularly over 2006-08) produced networks which proved central to the revolutionary process, including in terms of self-defense. If strikes are so unimportant or ineffective that it is necessary to look to foreign intervention instead, then why cite strikes as evidence popular mobilization? In addition, and more importantly, the forces which have been most important for organizing strikes in Syria, including the dignity strikes, have been the LCCs - and yet it has precisely been the LCCs who have also been the most consistent in opposing foreign intervention in the form of military assistance, which is something you support. So you cannot have it both ways - you cannot point to the strikes as evidence of a popular dynamic whilst at the same time celebrating the prospect of foreign intervention, because in doing so you completely ignore the political arguments of the strike activists themselves.
Despite titanic pressure Syria is holding out against imperialism and its lackeys in saudi arabia and qatar as well as the terrorists and useful idiots in syria itself. I strongly belief that syria must be conditionally defended by all anti imperialists against this barbaric attempt to recolonise syria. The stakes are high victory for this free syrian army is a victory for the imperialists and the tyrants of the gulf states, defeat for syria means defeat for hezbollah and the isolation of the palestinians then the imperialists will move onto the ultimate target IRAN. I do wish that some on the left would see this instead of fantasising about a workers uprising that does not exist!!
Is it inconceivable to completely oppose both Assad and elements of the armed opposition? If some or all of the opposition fighters are agents of imperialism, we cannot support them.
However, we cannot also support a tyrannical regime that suppresses it's citizens ("The authorities arrest democracy and human rights activists, censor websites, detain bloggers, and impose travel bans. Arbitrary detention, torture, and disappearances are widespread. Although Syria's constitution guarantees gender equality, critics say that personal statutes laws and the penal code discriminate against women and girls. Moreover, it also grants leniency for so-called honor crimes" - wiki / human rights watch).
Why does it have to be a 'support Assad or the rebels' arguement? Geniunely curious about this, I'd like to hear your views comrades.
I never said strikes were unimportant. Stop wasting time by creating idiotic strawmen.
In this article you criticized the ISO for looking to the working class by arguing that strikes would not allow the working class to defend itself against the forces of the regime - that doesn't mean you think that strikes are totally unimportant, which I never even implied, but it does involve a neglect of the ways that strike waves do give rise to organizations and networks with the capacity for self-defense and further mobilization, which is exactly what happened in Egypt, both before and during the revolution. In any case, you neglected to answer the key issue, which is that the forces in Syria who are pushing for strikes - the LCCs - are opposed to intervention, such that there is a direct conflict between their politics and your support for foreign military intervention, and you are overriding the politics of the LCCs in support of your own positions.
I would be really surprised if this were true. Could you please provide some links?
Devrim
It doesn't. This is a reasonable position and is not held only by you.
Devrim
The reason is because the genuinely revolutionary momentum was lost at the point that armed militias in Libya made a bid for power and hoisted the flag of the former monarchy.
If revolutionary forces in Syria were anything like Tahrir Square we might be talking differently here, but since Syria is now the epicenter of a new inter-imperialist bourgeois geopolitical Cold War civil war, it's effectively becoming another Palestine.
With no better options it's preferable to counter Western imperialism, at the geopolitical level, by supporting self-determination for the *country* of Syria, regardless of who happens to be running it.
Hold on, the US troops haven't started landing yet, and drones are not yet flying to Syrian targets.
If and when the USA and other imperialists physically attack Syria, then it will be the time to defend Syria. That hasn't happened yet, and meanwhile you have an ugly civil war, in which both sides are equally reactionary.
Just because the imperialists are slipping some aid to the side they prefer doesn't mean that this is an imperialist war against Syria, let's pay some attention to reality.
Syria is not Libya. Yet, anyway.
-M.H.-
So, what, the jury's still out on this one? Not enough millions and military advisors installed into Syria yet -- ?
My understanding is that the only reason the imperialists *aren't* going at a faster clip is that *they themselves* can't seem to find a common basis around what they're doing for purely nationalist separatist reasons. It looks like their standard "humanitarian" propaganda cover has finally worn thin and they can't use *that* tried-and-true bullshit anymore to slip past the public this time around. (This is probably compounded by the particularly intensified nationalist factionalism engendered by the Euro crisis.)
We shouldn't shy away from plainly saying that Syria is the "dark back-alley" of bourgeois geopolitics right now, and that no one is interested in providing better lighting. It really *is* a soft-world-war starting up, due to stalling and declining world GDP and the counter-revolutionary reaction against the Arab Spring.
so your opinion is to support assad, who is in the pockets of russian imperialism? so only choices are support either western or eastern imperialism. sorry im not into the whole "lesser evil" thing.
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
It seems pointless to support a tyrant and a regime whose days are numbered, regardless of your position on resisting imperialism.
Hey, that's real cute, Slick -- you've managed to 'one-up' me by ignoring reality and making your *own* fantasy choices -- ! Can I come and live on whatever planet *you're* on -- ?
This isn't some contrived ritual to demonstrate fealty through voting on a bourgeois sack-race -- it's *what's happening*, and you can "abstain" from it if you like, but the situation nonetheless gets shittier. Again, look at what happened to Libya once NATO was invited in by the locals.
Apart from the ruling religion, that sounds quite a bit like the USA. Women earn a lot less than men which the legal system does no thing about in all the west (in Germany women earn 20% less than men), Guantanamo, i don't think i have to go into the widespread use of US forces' torture techniques all around the world, over 10,000 (Occupy) protesters and union activists have been arrested in the USA this year alone, racist crimes are not penalised, and on top of that the US just used the death penalty on a mentally handicapped person who shot a banker at age 19.
I can most definitely tell you that if the Syrian state is not successful in fighting the armed "rebels", the next regime will most likely be even worse than the USA.
"It is necessary for Communists to enter into contradiction with the consciousness of the masses. . . The problem with these Transitional programs and transitional demands, which don't enter into any contradiction with the consciousness of the masses, or try to trick the masses into entering into the class struggle, create soviets - [is that] it winds up as common-or-garden reformism or economism." - Mike Macnair, on the necessity of the Minimum and Maximum communist party Program.
"You're lucky. You have a faith. Even if it's only Karl Marx" - Richard Burton
