“The fact is that there was no secular, moderate force worthy of the name operating inside Syria; virtually the entire anti-Assad effort is dominated by Islamist extremists who, if Assad was overthrown, would probably replace a secular dictator with something far worse. The Obama policy of regime change in Syria, like the Bush policy in Iraq, has done little more than unleash forces which the U.S. was unable to control, costing American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and the blood of American military personnel who lost their lives in its implementation.”
A left publication? No the American Conservative!!
Those of us who said from the beginning that Syria was never about some simplistic pro or anti-Assad but was about U.S. imperialism and needed to be opposed were viciously maligned by the soft, objectively pro-U.S. imperialist latte left.
I would add to the U.S centric lens from the piece above that in the clumsy, incoherent process of attempting to realize full spectrum dominance after their blunder with the invasion and occupation and defeat in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of innocents have lost their lives and ancient cities from civilizations much older and developed than those of Europe were destroyed.
But I don’t expect any of those who supported this barbarism from a left position to change position, they are much too invested and beyond the politics, the moral implications of their collaboration is quite obvious, that is why they would never bring themselves to admit that they were wrong.
But it is imperialist privilege that allows you in the safety of your gentrified communities to allow U.S. imperialism to destroy peoples and nations while you pontificate about authoritarianism and the mistakes being made in revolutionary processes when you haven’t made shit.
The putative ‘anti-Assad effort’ was not ever political. It was an armed insurrection by terrorists, inflicting random atrocities on random innocents to traumatize Syrian society. How is this Left politics, or any politics at all? And why no mention of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (too Nazi-like?) which even has its own armed militias, and like its brothers in the Syrian Arab Army, has acted heroically and with great sacrifice in fighting American-backed terrorists? Is not the S.S.N.P. a Left party? Also, Assad ran against a Communist presidential candidate in 2014, while his state security protected that candidate.
The most clear indictment of the fake Syrian National Coalition hotel-dwellers in Istanbul was that not one of them ever ran for political office in Syria, preferring to lounge about in five-star hotels in Western capitals, swanning about at Bilderberg and smooging imperialist reactionaries like William Hague, Laurent Fabius and John McCain.
Further evidence of the American Left’s and Ajamu Baraka’s Louis Quatorze-like ignorance and fecklessness, is that Bashar al-Assad is NOT a dictator, never was, and that the crime of the Pentagon homos was NOT to unleash forces beyond their control – but to be IN CONTROL of feral cannibal scum, and to aid and abet their savagery in full cognizance. Viz. the White House press officer vehemently affirming American support for Noureddine al-Zinki AFTER they were filmed beheading a 12-year-old boy, or the intercepted cables from one ‘Macdonald’, a DIA operative who liaised with the Jaish al-Islam as they launched sarin gas-laden mortars over The Ghouta in August 2013. I could cite more…
"virtually the entire anti-Assad effort is dominated by Islamist extremists who, if Assad was overthrown, would probably replace a secular dictator with something far worse." There are no other words for this but chauvinistic, Eurocentric bigoted Islamophovia. What Baraka is doiong is channeling the reactionary, misogenistic Putin, who in turn is channeling the reactionary, misogenistic Roman Otrhodox Church.
“The US should focus on defeating the Islamic State, and find common ground with the Syrians (Assad) and their Russian backers.” Donald Trump
"virtually the entire anti-Assad effort is dominated by Islamist extremists who, if Assad was overthrown, would probably replace a secular dictator with something far worse." Ajamu Baraka
“We should fight the enemy at home.” Ajamu Baraka.
Will somebody please explain to me how Baraka proposes to fight the enemy at home when he sounds just like the enemy at home?
Breaking: I am writing from the safety of my gentrified community where I can pontificate on Twitter and casually sip latte, shamelessly wallowing in imperialist privilege, collaborating with others among the soft, objectively pro-U.S. imperialist latte left.