[skinster]

[skinster]

[Zionist Nationalist]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEW5VFMWEpc

lol RT are talking about propaganda

they should check themselves first

[pikachu]

OOPS! CNN Caught In Blatant Propaganda Using Young Girl

I think by far the best Syria article of the week is this:
Bashar al-Assad’s Son Flunked a Math Competition in Brazil Last Week

This gem is published in the Foreign Policy Magazine. Situation Report is FP's daily national security news brief.

Like this article? Read an unlimited amount of articles, plus access to our entire 46-year printed archive, the FP App, and the FP Insights Tool when you subscribe to FP Premium for 20% off! $119.99 $95.99

[Rich]

https://twitter.com/GowansStephen/status/863066429897285632
Bashar al-Assad on West's Nazi mentality. http://sana.sy/en

Certainly Israel should show a lot more humility and deference towards Assad. Assad shows us the proper way to deal with the Sunni Arab community. Israel must attempt to match Assad when it comes to giving human rights to Sunni Arabs.

You see that's the funny thing about far leftie Islamophiles. On the one hand they say we should flood our country with Sunni Muslims. They are wonderful people. Who but a racist Nazi wouldn't want more of them? On the other hand they tell us that in their own countries Sunni Muslims must be ruled by the most ruthless, psychopathic leaders like Saddam, Hafez Assad, the Algerian military and Mummar Gadaffi.

[skinster]

Socialists in America:

[pikachu]

Socialists in America:

As opposed to what socialists, the socialists who are stuck in the cold war? Is that what truly separates the "old left" from the new?

I think a good case can be made for the fundamental ideological continuity between the "old left" and the movements which consider themselves as left-wing today, and that includes the international and social justice/missionary/crusader movements. The basic premise for all of them is that any inequality is unlawful and illegitimate, and that is the (often unspoken) implication of all their beliefs. Whereas the Liberals at least recognize some forms of inequality as legitimate, such as voluntary inequality (but you have to sign up for it individually), or deserved inequality through some measure of earned merit, "the left" is basically defined by not recognizing either. And I know one can say that this isn't really what Marx and Engels had in mind, still I think that the very method by which they reached the conclusion that the proletariat as a whole is oppressed by the bourgeoisie implied as much, it's the same philosophy in action. They could not have reached this conclusion in good faith without that fundamental assumption.

Another important aspect that the traditional and the new left have in common is that they are both internationalist, and as such they (at least try to) not really care about which nation is on top and which is on the bottom, but rather to oppose all forms of nationalism and patriotism. They are mostly concerned with inequality horizontally, not geographically. Geographical inequality only interests them insomuch as it is an extension of horizontal, not on its own, for whatever reason. Though that does strike me as a little bizarre, that's just how it is, and that's true both for the traditional Marxist left and for the "new left" or "LGBTBBQ+" hipster left as it exists today. Being very concerned with equality internationally and balance of power is almost more of the right's traditional prerogative, though they don't necessarily think of it that way.

So given this, when the left looks at Syria, what is it more likely to see? Who is it more likely to side with, if truly trying to stay true to its principles?

The Sunnis who revolted in Syria come primarily from the lower classes of society - the suburbs, the inner countryside, etc. They revolted because they felt the government didn't represent them, which can largely be attributed to their tribe/religious affiliation, but also at least partly to the socioeconomic reality as well, since the middle class and urban Sunnis largely did not revolt. Either way, the rebels were clearly closer to the bottom side of the Syrian equation - before they rose up, after, and now. It is the government that has the tanks, missiles, and airplanes, while the rebels largely do not. The government loyalists have the unmistakable attributes of power on their side, the rebels don't. Power means inequality, inequality which the left cannot stand, for the left believes that oppression is the essence of power. For anyone who considers themselves to be left-wing to completely close their eyes to this obvious inequality would have to mean at least some type of cognitive dissonance. They'd rather throw their full support behind HTS if it comes down to it. Or if you can't stomach what the rebels stand for then perhaps you can support a third party like Rojava, but certainly not the Syrian government.

Also keep in mind that it is the left which sees itself as revolutionary and likes to think that the change it seeks will come through revolutionary, "activist", or otherwise extra-democratic means - and that is exactly what the rebels represent in Syria.

As for the international aspect of it, who cares? The left has no real reason to give a damn if the rebels may have been supported from the start by countries much more powerful than Syria, like Turkey, France, or United States. If the US or Turkey gains as a result of the rebel victory in Syria, then so be it, internationalists are usually fine with that. Hell, more than that, the US is the closest thing we have today to an international government, so the more powerful it gets, the closer we are to abolishing all sovereign nations, no? Why be opposed to that then?

The only thing that drives some lefties to support the Syrian regime is their cold war instinct - their habitual opposition to the United States as the "enemy of the left" and their memory of the Syrian Ba'athist regime having come from their own ranks. But that's about it. And what is this but a form of developed tribal loyalty, which, after all, has nothing to do with what the left originally stood for?

Basically, all this is to say that if you are expecting the left to oppose the rebellion in Syria, then you're looking in the wrong place. There are still tankies driven by their cold war habits and willing to support anyone who is on bad terms with the US, but there are not a lot of them and there will be only fewer and fewer of them as time goes on.

[Decky]

That is total nonsense Pikachu, the left are far more likely to support the Syrian government than the right. Why would left want some far right religious Jihad nuts to destroy a functioning modern state and drag is as far to the right as possible? The victory of ISIS over the government in Syria would be a huge defeat for the working class there, a Syrian equivalent of Thatchers victory over Callaghan in '79.

Where have you got the idea the left would support ISIS? They are just Tories/ Republicans with beards, they hate socialism, they hate women, they hate gays they love religion, they love tradition, they love family values. There is no reason whatsoever the left would support them. There is only a tiny section of the rebels (the Kurdish peshmerga) who have any support at all on the left.

[Zionist Nationalist]

^

[pikachu]

Why would left want some far right religious Jihad nuts to destroy a functioning modern state and drag is as far to the right as possible?

Well they make all kinds of excuses, and I'm sure you've heard all of them before so I don't need to repeat them. But you are right of course that this is also a source of some cognitive dissonance, so that's why I think most western lefties as well as liberals have merrily migrated their support to SDF when the US and Turkey gave up on regime change.

However, it's easier to make excuses for the opposition due to how supposedly diverse it is and due to how little actual power it has. The opposition consists of literally hundreds of factions, none of which have had a history of governance either before the rebellion, or after - due to the need to share power with one another and wartime conditions. And remember, traditional marxism is absolutely in favor of working together with non-leftist forces in order to achieve revolutionary change. At the very least the leftists can delude themselves into thinking that in the post-revolutionary chaos that would inevitably engulf Syria in the event of rebel victory, the leftist forces would have a chance and eventually triumph. But if the loyalists triumph, then the "fascist regime" will have won and there will be no such opening even in theory.

Overall, staying consistent to left-wing tradition, I think there are definitely more arguments for supporting the rebellion than for counter-revolution.

In other news,

I know this guy is close to the opposition, but now there seems no doubt that he must be directly on Turkish payroll, because I just don't understand how someone could write an article on the recent evolution of HTS without once mentioning the change in Turkish policy.
https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/the-story-of-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-s-rise-to-prominence-and-what-it-means-for-syria-1.614506

Seriously, he wrote over 800 words, but in effect said absolutely nothing. There is no explanation in the article for why Nusra was perfectly fine with having informal leadership over the rebellion in 2012-2016, but in 2017 it suddenly decided that this is no longer good enough and started to establish itself formally. What made Al Qaeda think that in 2017, with the rebels clearly losing, there is no better time than now for an "advanced phase" of crushing potential opposition? But the answer becomes so obvious once you consider the regional environment and the evolution of Turkish policy towards Syria which happened at the exact the same time as when Nusra decided to re-brand itself. As soon as Turkey and company gave up on regime change in Syria, Nusra immediately became a liability and not an asset. Knowing that, it is obvious why Nusra's strategy had changed and why it's doing what it's doing.

[Decky]

Well they make all kinds of excuses, and I'm sure you've heard all of them before so I don't need to repeat them.

I have literally never heard one of them, no one I know on the left wants the Syrian government to fall to the clerical reactionaries. Why are you pretending that the left is on ISISs side exactly, who's payroll are you on?

[pikachu]

I have literally never heard one of them, no one I know on the left wants the Syrian government to fall to the clerical reactionaries.

Well uh.. you can literally just scroll up on this page, skinster had posted an op-ed by a leftist who is against the Syrian government, so if you were paying any attention then you should know at least one such person. Also, I think this article was posted in this same thread before. Generally, it's a fairly trivial matter to prove that the overwhelming majority of self-described leftists in the West are against the Syrian regime.

As for the list of excuses, again if you paid any attention to this thread, I'm sure you've heard of them all:
"The majority of the rebels are moderates and want democracy, the jihadists are a minority. Assad is a reactionary dictator."
"Whatever crimes the Islamists have committed pale in comparison to Bashar Assad who murdered over 6 billion Syrian civilians with his bare hands. They are clearly the lesser evil."
"Islamists are only winning because there wasn't enough support for the moderates, if we support them, they will win"
"The jihadists are only useful to defeat Assad, after Assad is overthrown, it will be a trivial matter to defeat the jihadists."
"The jihadists are only there because Assad is creating them. Assad created and supported the Islamists to undermine the revolution. As long as Assad exists, jihadists will exist."

etc.

who's payroll are you on?

:) i guess whichever side has become disillusioned with the leftist ideology and the kind of behaviors that it breeds.

[MememyselfandIJK]

For all of you saying that the left doesn't care about Syria:

SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES

People's Protection Units




Women's Protection Units



Anti-Terror Units



ALLIED GROUPS

Kurdistan Workers' Party (including People's defense forces and Free Women's units)



International Freedom Battalion (very large, has over a dozen major subgroups)




The Queer Insurrection (Newly formed)

[Decky]

Ah the usual nonsense then Pikachu, taking the positions of centrist liberals (the enemies of the left, you might have heard of the cold war) and pretending left wingers hold those positions as the real positions left wingers hold are too difficult to argue against.

[pikachu]

no true scotsman

[Decky]

Nonsense, you are pointing at liberals, people who are clearly not on the left, I used the example of the cold war, a conflict between socialists on the left and liberals on the right. Or do you think both sides of the cold war were on the left? This is everything that is wrong with this forum, right wingers just pointing at liberals and whinging about socialists. You people have more in common with the people you are moaning about than anyone on the left does.

[pikachu]

Nonsense, you are pointing at liberals, people who are clearly not on the left, I used the example of the cold war, a conflict between socialists on the left and liberals on the right. Or do you think both sides of the cold war were on the left?

I dunno, if you have to ask that question then it doesn't sound like you're really reading anything that I (or anyone else in this thread) wrote. Should I bother writing any more or you're not going to read it anyway?

"As democratic socialists we find it very important to consider..." (from skinster's linked op-ed)
"...disempowers people like us. It disempowers leftist, democratic, and feminist Syrian organizations and activists, while empowering the regime and the extremists." (from the op-ed i linked)
here's a few more:
"the global left, the antiwar movement in the West and beyond, should oppose the Russian bombing of Syria." (link)
"...obligations of the Revolutionary Socialists in our country now include..." (link)
"...Marxists who opposed, ignored or abandoned the Syrian revolution have in fact abandoned Marx’s humanist and dialectical method." (link)

The list could go on. Obviously, these people don't see themselves as liberals, they see themselves as leftists of various shades. In my original post on this page, i did my best to show how the conflict looks specifically from a traditionally leftist perspective, differentiating it from liberalism. It's not liberalism that I'm talking about here.

[Decky]

Democratic socialists. Liberalism by any other name smells just a shit. Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is suit wearers being shot in the street, it is gulags teeming with bankers and landlords learning the joys of working for the first time in their life. It is workers grasping their own future in the own two hands labouring to make life better for themselves and their children under the watchful eye of the NKVD to make sure they don't stray from the one true path into darkness.

[Rich]

The remarkable thing about the left right spectrum is just how well it works. The defining issues change with time and place. The French Right in 1789 looks very different from the British Right of 2017, but the crude one dimensional spectrum as a surprisingly effective model of political reality endures.

Of course there will always be special Snowflakes who say the only true Leftists are me and my five mates, or I'm right wing, Hitler was a bit nasty therefore Hitler must have been left wing. So take the British electorate, 32 million voted in the last election, means roughly ten million left, ten million centre, ten million left. The left as a whole don not back Assad although I'd say many are very sceptical about western intervention. The hard left do on the whole support Assad though. Assad's base as Pikachu right said is non Muslims and the middle and upper class. The lower Arab Muslim classes are overwhelmingly opposed to Assad.

For the hard left, and actually for much of the soft left Israel Palestine is the absolutely number one issue. Assad is, or the flag waver of the anti Israel cause, he's backed by Hezbollah, Israel's most effective opponent, its inevitable that the hard left support Assad.

[ingliz]

The lower Arab Muslim classes are overwhelmingly opposed to Assad.

Wrong!

A NATO study shows that 70% of Syrians support President Bashar al-Assad, 20% adopt a neutral position and 10% support the "rebels."