Articles on the Syria Conflict
Applying the lessons of Kosovo
The "anti-imperialism" of fools (v. 2.0)
As the conflict in Syria has intensified, we have seen
misinformation, and outright support of the Assad regime, coming
from some Western progressives who ought to know better. Some of the
lessons of Kosovo apply here, namely:
- An enemy of the United States
(in this case, the Assad regime of Syria) is not necessarily a friend of freedom-loving people,
especially in Syria.
- It is not necessary for
Western progressives to construct lies in support of Assad in
order to oppose U.S. military intervention. There are plenty of
valid reasons to question whether U.S.-led bombing would help
anybody. Yet, as discussed in the articles below, numerous
progressives have been misled, and have misled others. They engage in
some of the same dishonest arguments that we heard in support of
the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
Obviously, circumstances in Syria are
different from what they were in the former Yugoslavia, where Western intervention,
half-hearted and self-interested as it was, actually had the
incidental effect of saving Kosovo Albanians from destruction as a
population by the Milosevic regime. In the Middle East, many more
complex factors are at play.
The articles below examine the false
information and misleading arguments of some progressives. While we don't know all of the writers, nor do
we necessarily agree with all their viewpoints, we think they are
making an important contribution by showing the lack of
understanding and integrity in portions of the
Left.
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Syria blog
by Bill Weinberg
Syria
Sources
Syria Diaries
by
Clay Claiborne
Chomsky Is No Friend of the Syrian Revolution A leading
Syrian intellectual and former political prisoner takes on the famous linguist,
arguing that Americantrism blinds Chomsky from the reality of the revolution. By
Yassin al-Haj Saleh, New Lines Magazine, March 15, 2022
Spinning bomb
Thirty years separate the beginnings of conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Syria. Bosnia and Syria are the bookends that encompass the three decades when
we lived in a world where our collective conscience, eventually, recognised we
had a responsibility to protect the innocent, to bring those responsible for war
crimes to justice, and to fight against revisionism and denial. Whereas the
Bosnian tragedy of the 1990s marked the (re)birth of these values, the Syrian
carnage has all but put an end to them. By Nerma Jelacic, Commission for
International Justice and Accountability, July 20, 2021
Syria -
Misinformation and the War for Truth Includes a critique of
the positions of Noam Chomsky (at 25:45 to 34:00, and 55:30 to 57:25), Tariq Ali
(at 42:20), and Robert Fisk (at 47:20 to 50:00), and others. One-hour conversation
with Dr. Idrees Ahmad, April 29, 2021. Audio
Erasing people through disinformation: Syria and the "anti-imperialism" of fools
In an open letter marking ten years since Syria's uprising began, over 300
signatories from Syria and 34 other countries decry the dehumanizing propaganda
and disinformation with which Syrians are too often smeared in the name of
left-wing or "anti-imperialist" politics. March 27, 2021
Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets
Most of Assad’s Western apologists have a presence only on Twitter and obscure
websites like 21st Century Wire (a website founded by a former editor of
American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars),
yet it would be foolish to disregard them. The work of this small group is also
spread by a spectrum of far-left, anti-West conspiracy theorists; anti-Semites;
supporters of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah; libertarians; and far-right groups.
At their core are Vanessa Beeley, the daughter of a British diplomat; a Canadian
activist named Eva Bartlett; the Hezbollah-friendly commentator Sharmine Narwani;
and Max Blumenthal, the son of the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.
By Janine di Giovanni, New York Review of Books, October 16, 2018
A Challenge
to Pseudo-Anti-Imperialism
This book about the lies of so-called
anti-imperialist leftists who defend Bashar al-Assad includes reference
to Robert
Fisk, Seymour Hersch, John Pilger, Patrick Cockburn, and Max Blumenthal,
who deny the Assad regime’s use of chemical warfare on civilians and
label all Syrian revolutionaries as Islamic fundamentalists and
Jihadists.
By Rohini Hensman, reviewed
by Frieda Afary, September 10, 2018
The "anti-imperialism" of idiots The activity of a large part of the Western "anti-war" Left over the war in
Syria had nothing to do with stopping the war. It only opposed Western
interference, while ignoring, or even supporting, the engagement of
Russia and Iran, to say nothing of their attitude to the "legitimately
elected" Assad regime in Syria. A number of anti-war organizations have
justified their silence on Russian and Iranian interventions by arguing
that ‘the main enemy is at home.” This excuses them from undertaking any
serious power analysis to determine who the main actors driving the war
actually are. By Leila Al Shami, April 14, 2018. The writer is a
British-Syrian author and activist.
Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War By Robin
Yassin-Kassab, February 2018 (book)
Dear Assad Apologists: Your Hero is a War Criminal Even If He Didn't Gas Syrians
Bashar al-Assad is not an anti-imperialist of any kind, nor is he
a secular bulwark against jihadism. He is a mass murderer, plain and simple. Is
atrocity denial really necessary? It is the anti-imperialism of fools. By
Mehdi Hasan, April 19, 2018
Chomsky and the Syria revisionists: Regime whitewashing In
denying the Syrian regime's responsibility for recent sarin attacks, Chomsky's
main authority is a scientist with a reputation for dabbling in zany
conspiracism. By Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, May 5, 2017
[Part 1 of 2]
Chomsky and the Syria revisionists:
The Left's moral cul-de-sac In Chomsky's hierarchy of
concerns, it seems a westerner's right to deny genocide is more sacrosanct than
a Syrian's right to life and liberty. By Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, May 5, 2017
[Part 2 of 2]
Interview with Bill Weinberg
The editor of CounterVortex
(formerly World War 4 Report)
discusses the Syria crisis in the context of the Left's responsibility to act in
solidarity with victimized populations. By Andy Heintz, September 2015 (PDF)
A Dangerous Method: Syria, Sy Hersh, and the Art of Mass-Crime Revision
For the London
Review of Books,
it appears, the Syrians are proxies in an ideological battle. Far easier to
entertain a conspiracy theory, however far-fetched, than to accept that Obama
and the intelligence community might be right about the Syrian people’s
tormentor. The magazine has now published four articles laying Assad’s crimes on
his victims. Yet it hasn’t allowed a single Syrian to write about the conflict.
It might, for example, have considered speaking to the first responders; it
could, for instance, have allowed the survivors to tell their stories. But this
might cause cognitive dissonance. Accepting that Assad might be responsible for
his own crimes means questioning, or at least qualifying, the axiom that the
United States is the exclusive font of all evil. By
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, June 1, 2014
Raging with the Machine: Robert Fisk,
Seymour Hersh and Syria
Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer who spent
16 years in the regime's prisons and has been described as the "conscience of Syria." He discusses the
distorted lens through which most people are viewing the conflict. He singles
out journalists Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh for their lack of understanding of
Syria. PULSE, April
25, 2014
Alternative Left Perspectives on Syria
The responses of most leftists to the
Syrian uprising and subsequent war (it’s often
forgotten that it started as an uprising - indeed a
nonviolent and nonsectarian one) have been deeply
disappointing. Disappointing to many Syrian
activists, and to many of us on the Left who support
the Syrian struggle for dignity and justice, which
is now a struggle against both Assad’s killing
machine and
the jihadi counter-revolutionary forces.
The Left’s responses fall into three main categories:
1. explicit support for the Assad regime
2. monochrome opposition to Western intervention, end of discussion (with
either implicit or explicit neutrality on the conflict itself)
3. general silence caused by deep confusion
There is a fourth camp, however: a small but growing
group of progressives who embrace the goals of the
Syrian revolution. There are several shades within
this camp – it includes Marxists, pacifists,
feminists, Third Worldists and leftists of various
sorts. Some support the armed struggle in Syria,
others do not, standing instead with the nonviolence
activists in Syria. But what unites this camp is its
solidarity with the Syrian struggle for dignity,
justice and self-determination.
By Danny Postel, April 13, 2014
Syria's war, 3 years on The
Western left has paid little attention to Syria's
activists. By Molly Crabapple, The Guardian,
March 14, 2014
Bashar al-Jihad: Is ISIS a child of the regime?
Bashar al-Assad
has a history of attacking the Free Syrian Army more
than he attacks jihadist groups, which have a very spotty record of attacking the regime.
Assad also has a practice of bombing Syrian
civilians in schools, hospitals, and breadlines while
leaving the camps and headquarters of jihadist groups
untouched. This strategy is working well for the
regime. It has caused many that claimed to support
the struggle for democracy in Syria to turn their
backs on the revolution in the name of "stability," claiming that the victory of
Assad's
regime is essential for the "war on terror."
It has allowed President Obama to come out
of the closet with
his support for Bashar al-Assad. He is maneuvering to put the United States openly
on Assad's side. Shamefully, it has been used by
much of the US Left to defend the genocidal regime
as better than the only alternative they chose to
recognize. It has been used by much of
the US Left to turn its back on the Syrian
revolution. By
Clay Claiborne, January 5, 2014
Sy Hersh's Chemical Misfire
What
the legendary reporter gets wrong about Syria's
sarin attacks.
Seymour Hersh, the
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, calls into
question who really launched the chemical weapons
attack that brought the United States to the brink
of war in Syria. In particular, Hersh focuses on the
munitions used in the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin strike, widely
blamed on Bashar al-Assad's regime. He raises doubts
about whether the Syrian government would have used
the munitions, which he claims were likely
improvised and manufactured at a local machine shop;
he asks whether they had the range to reach their
targets from a distant military base; and he wonders
aloud whether it could have been al Qaeda-affiliated
rebels who carried out the attack. By Eliot Higgins,
Foreign Policy, December 9, 2013
The Syria scholar
Thomas Pierret
writes on his Facebook page,
Seymour
Hersh's recent piece on the August 21 chemical
attack in Damascus is typical of mass-crime
revisionism:
1. Over-emphasize any
possible weakness in the dominant thesis, even if it doesn't prove that this
thesis is wrong.
2. Minimize/ignore evidences that contradict your own point (Hersh's
analysis of the UN report is very superficial; he doesn't even mention the
Human Rights Watch Report, nor the detailed analyses provided by Brown
Moses; he may disagree with them, but the problem is that he doesn't even
acknowledge and refute them.)
3. (Most important) include a flurry of half-relevant sources and facts in
order to camouflage the fact that you basically have no argument to support
your own point ("Jabhat al-Nusra did it"). We are told of a Nusra member who
used to work with the Iraqi government's chemical program, and that's pretty
much it. For the rest, Hersh essentially mentions "concerns" among US
officials and "reports" whose very existence is controversial. Not a single
(hard) fact to suggest that al-Nusra may have a responsibility in the August
21 attack.
Syria: Is There a Solution?
Review of
The Syria Dilemma, by Mark Danner,
New York Review of
Books, November 7, 2013
On Monsterphilia and Assad The problems with the
"anti-imperialist" position on Syria, by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Guernica
magazine, October 24, 2013
Mission Accomplished? Syria, the
Antiwar Movement, and the Spirit of Internationalism
The American peace
movement has been celebrating what it sees as its
victory on Syria.
But for
progressives,
especially ones who
profess the values
of solidarity and
internationalism,
the story surely
can’t end at
America’s shores.
Struggles around the
world for justice
and dignity matter
to us. We believe
that we have a stake
in them and their
outcomes. We take
sides. What if
progressives devoted
just a fraction of
the energy and
effort that went
into mobilizing
against a US
military strike to
the cause of
bringing Syria’s
nightmare to an end?
By Danny Postel, Critical Inquiry, September 30, 2013
Where Robert Fisk's defense of Assad falls down With the
permission and support of the Assad Regime, Robert Fisk of The Independent has
been reporting on the conflict in Syria from Damascus and it would appear that
he has also adopted the perspective of the regime as well.
By Clay Claiborne, September 25, 2013
Mint Press exposed as Assad apologist; Antiwar.com apologizes
By Clay Claiborne, September 25, 2013
Decades of
Knee-Jerk Vetoes
for Israel Limit
US Options on
Syria at the UN
Once upon a
time, the left
preached
proletarian
internationalism,
workers in unity
across national
boundaries,
sending
volunteers to
Spain, calling
for the opening
of a Second
Front in Europe
and applauding
foreign aid to
the Viet Cong.
In this new era
of what we
should puckishly
call socialist
nationalism, a
country’s
sovereignty is
sacred and
unimpeachable - at
least if
threatened by
any Western
power. So they
come to the same
conclusion as
the right: let
them rot.
By Ian Williams,
Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs,
September 24,
2013
Syrian rebels
and chemical
weapons: a
disinformation
operation?
The strange tale
of an effort to
claim that
Syria's rebels
were responsible
for a chemical
weapons attack
near Damascus.
By Dan Murphy,
Christian
Science Monitor,
September 23,
2013
Syria, savagery,
and
self-determination:
what those
against military
intervention are
missing
Military
intervention, as
regrettable and
complicated as
it may be, is
the only way to
stop Assad’s
killing machine.
This is what
most Syrians are
demanding from
the
international
community. If we
truly believe in
the right to
self-determination,
then we are
morally
obligated to
listen to them.
By Nader Hashemi,
September 20,
2013
(From the recent book of essays
The Syria Dilemma
Left Out? The Syrian Revolution and the Crisis of the Left By
Firas Massouh, September 2013
Dueling Principles: National Sovereignty
Vs. Responsibility to Protect
By Ian Williams, Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs,
September 2013
Russia's foreign minister cites questions raised by nun in Syria
on chemical attacks
The
Russian official was apparently fooled by false information
posted on the lunatic pro-Milosevic website Global Research. By
Robert Mackey, New York Times Blog,
September 17, 2013
The New Truthers: Americans Who Deny Syria Used Chemical Weapons
Syria's president
continues to deny that he used such weapons on civilians in an
Aug. 21 attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. That's less
surprising than the people who believe him, despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary: countless Americans, including public
figures from across the political spectrum who - out of opposition
to war in general, or to President Barack Obama
specifically - eagerly believe and spread misinformation. Call
them chemical-weapons truthers. By Muhammad Idrees Ahmad,
The
New Republic, September 11, 2013
Secret Intel Source of Ray McGovern & VIPS Revealed
Former CIA agent turned activist Ray McGovern, speaking for
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), posted a
memo to his blog that absolved the Assad Regime of
responsibility for the chemical weapons attack that took place
in the Damascus area on 21 August 2013. By Clay Claiborne,
September 11, 2013
Intervention occurs
when the international community is
forced to confront their fear of being dragged into the quagmire
instead of merely financing it. By Jasmina Tesanovic, Women in
Black, September 11, 2013
"Anti-war" movement still betraying Syrian people
by failing to even acknowledge Bashar Assad's
atrocities, and portraying the opposition as all CIA pawns or
al-Qaeda jihadists or both. Now that Assad is apparently
escalating to genocide and the US threatens air-strikes, is
there any sign that the "anti-war" forces have been chastised
into a more honest appraisal? Sadly, no. By Bill Weinberg, World War 4 Report,
August 31, 2013
ANSWER coalition "anti-war" demonstrators support Syria's Assad
Scrolling up, see the photo of Assad, captioned "We are all with you"
in Arabic. August 30, 2013
Shell Shocked and Rouged: Syria Is Not a Disposable Bride
"Hands off Syria" is the mantra. But
one has to wonder where these voices
where when the imprints of Russian
or Iranian or Hezbollah intervention
scarred the Syrian landscape, and
sheltered the Assad dynasty from
diplomatic or military threat. If
the concern is Syrian innocent life,
where were these voices, and their
easy slogans, when he essentially
threw over a million Syrian children
into exile, robbed them of family
and childhood and dignity. The
sudden rush to become active in the
discourse about Syria has revealed
ugly elements of the
anti-interventionist movement; it
has once again proven their tendency
to dictate to peoples from other
countries what is in their best
interests as though Syrians are not
familiar with geopolitical
choreography or lack the intellect
to grasp it. All the while, these
same groups protest against their
own governments for doing the same. It has also showcased how little
many of these outspoken group know
of Syria. By Talal Alyan, August 29,
2012
An open letter on Syria to Western narcissists
If your opinion of Syria is actually an opinion about the United
States, I have no interest in hearing it, and it’s probably safe
to say that most Syrians (or at least all of the ones I know)
who are faced with the business end of the regime’s ordnance
don’t either. I can’t think of a single Syrian who’s willing to
get killed so you can flaunt your anti-imperialist street cred
from the comfort of your local coffee shop. By Sean Lee, August
29, 2013
Bosnia and Syria: Intervention Then and Now
Nearly twenty years
ago, as the intervention in Bosnia came together, the
geo-strategic order looked very different. The Russian state was
near collapse and the Chinese were cautiously edging their way
out into the international arena. Neither stood in the way of
intervention in Bosnia. Today, the Syrian crisis lays bare the
contours of a very different world: divided between
authoritarian crony capitalist oligarchies that have set
themselves against any form of international intervention in
sovereign states and distracted, deficit-ridden democracies that
lack the will or capacity to shape even a region as strategic as
the Middle East. The Syrians huddling under tents in Lebanon,
Jordan and Turkey, the families queuing for bread in free Aleppo
while scanning the sky for planes overhead, the fighters taking
on a dictator’s tanks - they are the ones paying the price for
this divided world. They are the ones now thinking that they
have been abandoned. By Michael
Ignatieff, August 15, 2013
(From the recent book of essays
The Syria Dilemma.)
Why I am renouncing my Project Censored award
On the misguided US leftists who deflect blame from the Assad
regime for the war in Syria. By Bill Weinberg, July 13, 2013
From the Spanish Civil War to Syria: Parceling Out Truth
Subverts Justice George Orwell understood that ignoring obvious horrors for expediency’s sake is a roadblock to
justice. Williams was told that
The Nation had a line, so we could not
write anything about intervention in Kosovo that was
not outright condemnation. It would “aid
imperialism” to say that Slobodan Milosevic built
his power on unleashing genocidal impulses.
The reason that
many of us oppose Assad’s regime is because it is ruthless and murderous, so
there is absolutely no reason not to denounce such behavior when committed by
some of “our” side. Indeed, there is even more reason to do so, since to be
silent implies complicity. The truth is not only an effective
principle, it is also an expedient weapon in the war of public opinion. We
should pillory all who betray it. By Ian Williams, June 12, 2013
Bordering on a new World War I
A discussion
about the plight of the Syrian people. By Mary Kaldor, April 27,
2013 (From the recent book of essays
The Syria Dilemma.)
Syrian leftist sends
devastating reply to Assad
apologist Tariq Ali and
‘Stop The War’
The article criticizes Tariq
Ali for repeating the
falsehoods of the Assad
regime and for not being
supportive of the
opposition. By Syria
Freedom Forever, July
25, 2012
What Kind of
Support Do Syrians Want?
Beneath layers of complexity and political wrangling, we should not forget that
the Syrian revolutionaries are fighting for their basic rights to dignity,
equality and a respectable standard of living. More than a political decision,
supporting them is first and foremost a humanitarian and moral duty. By Mohammad
Al Attar, May 20, 2012
Reporting Syria
How journalists
Robert Fisk, Nir Rosen, and
Joseph Massad have framed
Syria all wrong. By Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guernica,
November 23, 2011
Framing Syria
Fisk's reports from Syria focus on the
brewing, deadly
sectarianism; proving the
existence of an armed
opposition; equalizing the
regime’s force with the
people’s dissent, while
casting the protesters’
narrative in a cloud of
doubt. By Amal Hanano, Jadaliyya, November 20,
2011
For further examination of the
motivations of those progressives who defend or ally with repressive
regimes, click here. That
discussion is about
Kosovo, but Syria could
easily be substituted.