War

[Montuno]

Los estadounidenses que hablan de Europa siempre son divertidos.

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Well, it's the same as the Ukrainian War: I don't like either side, but I dislike one of them even more than the other.
In my language, we would talk about leaving Guatemala, to enter Guatepeor...
What a pride for the French Republic...

 

[Montuno]

i'll give it 24 hours til i see an article calling the Pope a russian asset or something. The far right republicans already think he's a communist lmfao, let's watch the Democrats call him one too.

Jorge Bergoglio a misogynist pope and friend of the Videla dictatorship​

Jorge Bergoglio un papa misógino y amigo de la dictadura de Videla

Las voces de protesta por el nombramiento de Jorge Bergoglio como nuevo papa, con el nombre de Francisco I, no se han hecho esperar. Su acercamiento a la dictadura argentina es un hecho, "su nombramiento es una afrenta a los 30 mil desaparecidos y desaparecidas" leíamos en las redes sociales...

arainfo.org

The shadow of the Argentine dictatorship reaches Pope Francis​

La sombra de la dictadura argentina alcanza al papa Francisco

El nuevo pontífice es acusado de haber denunciado a dos sacerdotes de la Compañía de Jesús ante el régimen militar

elpais.com

Jorge Bergoglio y la sombra del gobierno militar​

Jorge Bergoglio and the shadow of the military government​

Jorge Bergoglio y la sombra del gobierno militar - BBC News Mundo

Algunos acusan a Francisco de no haber hecho lo suficiente para oponerse al régimen militar argentino. Pero en declaraciones a BBC Mundo, el Nobel de Paz Adolfo Pérez Esquivel defendió la conducta del Papa.

www.bbc.com

GENOCIDE AND COMPLICITY. Jorge Bergoglio, the dictatorship and the disappeared​

The current Pope had a close relationship with the genocides, which ranges from endorsing the kidnapping of Jesuit priests to saying "I don't know anything" when he testified as a witness in the ESMA mega-cause in 2010.

GENOCIDIO Y COMPLICIDAD. Jorge Bergoglio, la dictadura y los desaparecidos

El actual Papa tuvo una relación estrecha con los genocidas, que va desde avalar el secuestro de curas jesuitas hasta decir “no sé nada” cuando declaró como testigo en la megacausa ESMA en 2010.

www.laizquierdadiario.com

 

[Montuno]

this is going to be another rehashing of other failed US proxy wars...... arming the Mujihideen in the 1970's against the Russian invasion only for them to turn into Al-Qaeda and ISIS comes to mind.... arming the "moderate rebels" in syria, anyone? lol.

I think Afghanistan and Syria are very different scenarios.
By the way, I find it very interesting from a leftist opponent and fighter against the Assad regime.

Chomsky y Siria

Yassin al-Haj Saleh Imagen: Un barrio de la ciudad siria de Aleppo, destruido por bombas de barril lanzados por el régimen en 2015, tomada de Al Jazeera Apenas tres semanas después de ser liberado,…

mst-rd.org

Chomsky and Syria​

Yassin al-Haj Saleh​

prison in Syria, I started translating a book into Arabic. The book was Perspectives on Power: Reflections on Human Nature and Social Order by Noam Chomsky. It had taken me a while to realize that the leading linguist and the harsh critic of US imperialism were the same person. It struck me as a remarkable and much-needed example of the social and political responsibility of scientists and intellectuals. Your active participation in the civil rights movement and the mobilization against the Vietnam War were impressive, along with his prolific writing on both linguistics and politics. In the book he translated, there were two essays on linguistics, one on intellectual responsibility, and five on politics.

For former communist political prisoners who had spent long years in detention and lived through the fall of communism while in jail, this American benchmark was important. He told us that the fight for justice and freedom was still possible, that we had partners in the world and that we were not alone, and that the fall of the Soviet bloc could be emancipatory, not a heartbreaking loss.

The second book I worked on in translation with another former political prisoner was “A Life of Dissent” by Robert Barsky . It was about Chomsky's life and politics. Even at that early stage , we had some criticism of Chomsky's rigid system of thought, limited by his US - centrism , which only resulted inpartially useful for analyzing many struggles, ours included. We ourselves were dissidents in our country and on two levels: opposing a regime that displayed blatant discriminatory and oppressive tendencies, and expressing critical views on the Soviet Union and its communism. A fundamental principle of the party in which I was a young member was istiklaliyya (independence or autonomy), which meant that it was we, and we alone, who decided the right policies for our country and our people, not any center in the Foreign. So thatWe were not orphans looking for a new father, nor were we moved by the desire to replace Marxism-Leninism with a kind of Chomskian catechism. However, we always thought that our cause was the same : to fight against inequality and oppression everywhere, and on a basis of equality and fraternity.

But time revealed that it was an illusion, for which we are solely responsible . In the 11 years since the start of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, Chomsky has not once written about Syria to inform his many readers about the country's drama . His scattered comments reveal that he sees the Syrian struggle - like all other struggles - solely through the framework of US imperialism. Therefore, he is blind to the specifics of Syrian politics, society, economy and history.

Moreover, his perception of the role of the United States has shifted from parochial American -centrism to a kind of theology, in which the United States takes the place of God: even though he is an evil God , he is the only mover . Understandably , this perspective questions the autonomy of other actors, echoing the free will debates of Islamic theologians some 1,200 years ago. Chomsky seems to be closer to the Jabriyyeen , who totally deny human freedom and affirm the omnipotence of God, than to the Qadariyyeen, who thought that God's justice and human freedom went together.

Today's jihadists primarily adhere to the tradition of the jabriyyah . Chomsky has been persistent in his own jihad for decades, in a way reminiscent of Ibn Hanbal or Ibn Timiyyah , albeit without risking freedom or life as the two fathers of modern Salafism did (save during his brief arrest after a protest ). at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War).

The United States has never been a force for democracy, the rule of law , and human rights in the Middle East. Its destructive role in the region, since at least 1967, is justifiably compared to the role of state tyranny and possibly Islamic nihilism behind the US occupation of Iraq. However, the United States has not been the central protagonist of the Syrian catastrophe, as a declaration that Chomsky himself signed in March 2021 admits . The most that the United States has done is to try for not harming the Assad regime, even after he violated international law prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and crossed then-President Barack Obama's "red line" in 2013, as he did many times before and after it .

Chomsky's American -centric perspective systematically tends to downplay the crimes of states that oppose the United States. In a recent interview published by the DAWN newspaper in January 2022, he said : "Iran can hardly be accused of illegal or criminal behavior for supporting the government recognized [by the United Nations]" in Syria. Supporting a regime that Chomsky himself describes as "monstrous" is neither criminal nor illegal, he insists. He finds nothing illegal in supporting a regime that denies any rights to its subjects, and believes it would be illegal to punish that same regime for killing more than 1,400 of its citizens with chemical weapons in a clear violation of international law.This was expressed to Independent Global News in September 2013.

What Chomsky calls the "recognized government" of Syria is the dynastic regime that has been in power for 52 years, precisely half of the 104 years that comprise the entire history of the modern Syrian state. During these five decades, Syria has twice suffered internal conflicts. There were tens of thousands of victims in the first wave (1979-82) and hundreds of thousands in the second (2011 to present). Both are structurally related to the clique - like and discriminatory configuration of the regime. Commentators such as Chomsky note their qualification of the regime as "brutal" and "monstrous," but hardly as the preface to what they see as the real problem: the role of the United States and its allies in the region. They are wrong.

The monstrous character of the regime is the central fact of this conflict and, even more so, of Syria's history since 1970. It is the key to understanding the country's continuing catastrophe and the root of everything else. But Chomsky's approach has the effect of relativizing the crimes of the regime, which account for 90% of the victims and the destruction. It seems that if the United States cannot be blamed for these crimes, then they do not matter.

It is also quite curious that Chomsky mentions rather blandly and nonchalantly that when Iran extends its influence in the region, it does so mainly in "Shi'a areas or areas close to Shi'a", as if this were somehow a fact neutral without destructive social and political implications. Leftists and nationalists in the region call this sectarianism, a singularly important source of civil conflict and genocidal massacres in many countries. Chomsky seems not to have been familiarnot at all with the work of many Arab intellectuals, mostly leftists, on sectarianism and its destructive effects since the 1970s. So perhaps a Spivakian question should be asked: Can subaltern intellectuals speak? Based on my recent personal experience, the answer is no . My letter to the Progressive International on Syria was not published , and its members stopped contacting me after I sent them the letter, although it had been their initiative to speak to me in April 2020 and invite me to organizea whole dossier on Syria for them. Apparently, there is no place for us Syrian leftists and democrats who oppose the Assad regime in an international progressive coalition.

Since the days when the "Eastern Question" was raised more than a century and a half ago, sectarianism has developed through the nexus between external colonial interventions and internal "interventions," so to speak, when groups National socio-cultural groups are pushed to demand the protection of external powers. French imperialism provided a prime example of this paradigm until the independence of Syria and Lebanon after World War II, and that history is still relevant.

By supervising Shiite militias imported from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, and by coordinating with highly sectarian military formations like the Syrian Army's Fourth Division (led by Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother) and other equally sectarian security agencies, Iran it is not merely a "supposed threat," as Chomsky asserted in the same interview; rather it is another ruthless colonial power, criminally manipulating the social divisions that the Assad regime has been exacerbating for half a century. Iran is guilty of war crimes against Syrians who oppose the regime.

Within Chomsky's theology, none of this is visible. The transformation of the oldest Arab republic into a privatized state with a growing genocidal potential stemmed from pursuing the chimera of permanent, absolute, mobile security that has always led to mass atrocities in Syria and elsewhere, as Dirk Moses argues in "The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression". This reactionary transformation, the largest in post-independence Syrian history, has never received attention from Chomsky's perspective.

Not surprisingly, Syrians are not represented in his comments on Syria. Chomsky never refers to a Syrian, nor does he quote one, nor does he even mention a Westerner who supports the Syrian cause. His sources are people like Patrick Cockburn, who considers the regime a lesser evil, and possibly the late Robert Fisk, the British journalist who gave voice to sectarian killers like Jamil Hassan , the head of notorious air force intelligence, and Suheil Hassan . , the leader of the equally notorious Tiger Forces, but never to people critical of the chemical regime. All three share a "high political" perspective focused on "recognized governments" - Russia, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia - as well as on jihadists and US imperialism.

From Cockburn, Chomsky borrows the notion of " Wahhabization of Sunni Islam ," which is a hasty and irresponsible generalization, and is therefore so useful to those who don't know and want others to think they know. This generalization is not at all unlike Raphael Patai's notoriously racist book, "The Arab Mind," which provided the theoretical basis for torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to Judith Butler in "Frames of War." Cockburn said nothing to Chomsky about the Iranianization of Shia Islam, also a huge generalization, though a little more plausible considering that Shias are a minority group in most Muslim countries and because there is an active imperial center in Tehran.

It is quite revealing, by the way, that DAWN omitted Chomsky's exonerations to Iran and his "acting mainly in Shia or near Shia areas" in the Arabic version of their interview with him. They have a better understanding of the subject, and it seems that they felt embarrassed by what he said.

If the " Wahhabization of Sunni Arabs" is the correct diagnosis of a fundamentalist disease exposed by the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda, then perhaps the correct remedy would be the kind of de-Wahhabization we have seen in Syria's beastly military prison of Sednaya, Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, where " improved interrogation techniques " can be tested and developed . Characters like Cockburn and Chomsky have helped desensitize Western public opinion to what might happen to the "Wahhabized herd," something that increases the precariousness of their lives and legitimizes the very wars that Chomsky opposes.

But why is Cockburn, who doesn't even speak Arabic, "the most serious commentator" on Syria and the region, according to the co-author of "Fabricating Consensus"? Aren't there people in the region who are capable of seriously discussing their own affairs and representing themselves? Is it conceivable today that even mainstream US authors would call a foreign journalist "the most serious commentator" on another foreign country or region? In this unexpectedly colonial practice, Chomsky could benefit from a healthy dose of Edward Said.

Incidentally, there are a few books in Arabic on contemporary Islam, Syria, and groups like the Islamic State, more informative and nuanced than Cockburn's " The Rise of Islamic State : ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution , " whose "analysis" sectarian and knowledge stereotypicallycolonial is uncritically regurgitated by "the world's most quoted living public intellectual." Fisk was even more mechanical in deploying this colonial method of analysis. These three men repeat stale colonial things, rehabilitated by internal colonial regimes like Assad's and by cruel expansionist powers like Iran and Russia for their own benefit.

What both Chomsky and his "most serious commentator" ignore is that Islamism in all its variants is a minority and elitist phenomenon, and that is one of the reasons why it is so violent. Arab Barometer polls in 2018-19 showed that “less than 20% of people in Tunisia and Egypt (as well as in Algeria, Jordan, Iraq and Libya) trusted Islamist parties. More than 76% would be in favor of democracy and civil status. These figures are quoted in Asef Bayat's book "Revolutionary Life: The Day-to-Day of the Arab Spring." In this book, published in 2021, we find a genuinely democratic approach, a subordinate perspective, nuanced analysis, respect forthe facts, a principled anti-racism, unlike Chomsky's theology and its source. Syria is not at all different from the societies that appear in the survey.

In the following paragraphs I will try to show readers just how superficial the Wahhabization thesis is, though without going into too much detail.

Contemporary Islamism is the attempt to generate politics in societies that do not have a true internal politics, in States that do not have true sovereignty at the international level either. It shows the limits of political poverty in societies that have suffered from politicide, such as Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Because the only "assembly" that even the exterminating regimes cannot dissolve is that of believers in places of worship, and the only "opinion" that they cannot silence is that of the holy scriptures. This circumstance is the reason whyIslamists have come to play a relatively important role in the last four decades. Islam allowed many people to meet and talk, and even protest on public issues.

However, Islamism's hierarchical and elitist structure also systematically alienates people from politics since Islamism has moved from protest to power. Even in the case of jihadism, which constitutes an even smaller minority within the Islamist minority, it would be an oversimplification to reduce it to a process of Wahhabization triggered by the Saudi monarchy. Rather, jihadism is a war waged when modern Arab and Muslim states cannot fight foreign invaders (American, Israeli, etc.) and can only wage war against their subjects. The Islam that was formed by the empire (instead of forming it), is responsible for responding to this long-term condition of the deficient sovereignty of thee states. There is definitely an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist component to jihad, but it is not captured by the mythologized imperialist imagination and memory of contemporary Islamism.

In Syria, in particular, the reduction of a sociocultural majority to a political minority—with discrimination, politicide, torture, and massacres as methods of effecting minorization—has considerable explanatory power for a better understanding of Sunni Islam. Unrepresented people, who are denied rights and the ability to organize, tend to find representation in their religious identities. The coincidence with aggressive state tyranny -which looks at the governed with the gorgonian eye of sovereignty (unity, slaughter, exception) and at regional and international powers with the benign eye of politics (plurality, negotiation, rules)- means that the rise of violent Islamism is a historical certainty.

In our upside-down states, where war is within and politics is out (unlike classical Islam and the ideal type of modern nation-states), contemporary jihadism represents sovereignty without politics, wars out and in within. I dwell a bit on this question of fundamentalism because it seems to be an important point in Chomsky's theology and because of the pathetic level of knowledge about Islam in the West. In contemporary analysis, Islamists, and especially jihadis, seem irrational, irresponsible, and mindless. With this as a theory, the solution cannot be other than to send them to Guantanamo, to Abu Ghraib, to the Guantanamo in Europe.(the al-Hol detention camp in northeast Syria, where thousands of women and children, hundreds of them of European origin, are detained indefinitely for being related to some "illegal fighters" of the Islamic State) or Sednaya (and Tadmur in the years of my youth) without any rights, and leave them there indefinitely. They have been made inhuman, and therefore their lives do not matter.



Does the serious study of Islamism in its wide spectrum, from practicing individuals to nihilistic organizations such as the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda, justify and legitimize the latter? Absolutely. But it can certainly help us understand an important global phenomenon and avoid the reactionary battles that these Islamists, along with their powerful counterparts in the West, Russia, India and China, want us to sink into for generations.

Chomsky's "ideas" on the matter are just another expression of the Western humanities' failure to humanize: It takes the dehumanization part for granted, reproduces a poor version of it, and consolidates it. There is a global Islamic issue (Islamism plus Islamophobia, which is actually a mixture of Sunniphobia and Arabophobia), and the way Islam and Islamism are portrayed everywhere only seems to chart a path to ever-increasing carnage. In this, the guru criticized here is as conservative as can be .

The situation in Syria, with five occupying powers , is instructive for anyone who is really interested in improving their understanding of the current world situation. We have the American forces in one part of the country, the Russians and Iranians protecting the "recognized government", the Turks in another part, all four with their local or imported proxies; And before all of that, we have the Israelis, who have occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and have monopolized the skies over Syria in coordination with the Russians.

Syria is a rare situation of "liquid imperialism," to paraphrase the late Zygmunt Baumann; however, the fact that there are five powerful states in one small country, or what may be called "imperialism in one country," does not seem to interest Chomsky. Let us also not forget that "the conquered imperialists", or the imperialists without an empire - I am referring to the Sunni jihadists from all over the world - are still there. This complex situation cannot be explained by relativizing the crimes of the adversaries of the United States and absolutizing those of the Americans .



Chomsky says that Russia's intervention in Syria is "wrong" but " not imperialist ", because "supporting a government is not imperialism". Russia has many military bases in Syria, has leased the port of Tartous for 49 years, and has killed 23,000 Syrian civilians in six years. Putin and his aides have repeatedly boasted that they have successfully tested more than 320 weapons systems in Syria and that 85% of Russian army commanders gained combat experience in Syria. In 2018 and 2019, Russia received $51.1 billion and $55 billion worth of arms orders. These actions do not figure at all in Chomsky's analysis; in response to Syrian physician Taha Bali's question about Russian imperialism, Chomsky denied that an imperialist practice was taking place before rushing into his eternal monologue: “What does the United States do? Support countries that are developing jihadist movements”, referring to the Saudi monarchy.

This view is rather superficial, as I hope is clear by now. In any case, it is the lack of sovereignty of the Saudi state and its need for foreign protectors, rather than their active support, that explains jihadism. Osama bin Laden was quite clear on this point in 1990 when he called for the Saudis not to allow US and other troops to have bases in the kingdom and said that only Muslims should defend Muslim lands. However, US support for the Saudis should not be considered imperialism either, since the Saudi government is also recognized by the UN.

An idea of Chomsky's embarrassing level of knowledge about Syria can be seen in the same video interview in which he states that there was no uprising in Syria in 2012 (to our subordinate knowledge, the uprising started in March 2011) and then gives understand that if there were protesters, they were there alongside the Islamic State and other jihadist groups.

Chomsky 's mindset is just as interestingly glimpsed when, on the issue of humanitarian intervention after the 2013 chemical massacre, he asks the same Syrian doctor and activist: Who should the Americans bomb in Syria? To the regime? Because that, of course, would undermine the "resistance front" to the jihadists. Chomsky 's reduction of the Syrian struggle to this dominant framework is shared by Eric Zammour , the French right-wing presidential candidate , who recently recommended rehabilitating relations with the Syrian regime because the options are on . the status quo or the Islamic State and the caliphate. Another supporter is Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, who declared in 2012 that Russia would not accept Sunni rule in Syria. Chomsky has many fixed ideas, and it seems easier to move mountains than to expect him to revise them or admit error .


Amid all this, Chomsky's critique of the US role in Syria seems wholly superfluous. Given that the United States did exactly what Chomsky likes: It never bombed the regime, it only fought the jihadists, it thought, like him, that it is either Assad or it is jihadism, and it supported the Kurds, whom it wanted the evil American God protect (see his participation in «International Left Dissidents», edited by Andy Heintz, 2019, page 26). doWhy protect them, but not everyone else? The Syrians have been asking for international protection since the fall of 2011, some six months after their entirely peaceful uprising, to no avail. Only after mobilizing their own peaceful collective power and then demanding protection from the world they believed themselves to be a part of, did many people start turning to Allah, which was good for the alacratic groups .

Interestingly, Chomsky speaks in Heintz's book like a military general, telling the US imperialist hegemon that "he should do all he can to protect the Kurds instead of maintaining past policies of habitual treason." For once, humanitarian intervention is possible.

In reality, the Syrians have been Palestinianized while the regime is being Israeliized with Russia playing the role of the United States: vetoing a UN Security Council resolution to shield the regime from finger pointing 16 times . But Chomsky's thought seems to reside in theology rather than history, free of context or position and eternally valid, therefore immutable. This privilege of the system over context and position explains why Chomsky makes reference to the chemical massacre of Saddam Hussein in Halabja in 1988 in his interview with DAWN while mentioning nothing about the numerous chemical massacres perpetrated by the regime in Syria, even though they are much more recent. By now I should beencouragingly clear why: the United States was implicated in the first, so its victims are to be pitied. The US role in the Syrian chemical massacre was more ambiguous: it condemned the attack but strayed from its own red line and went on to negotiate a sordid deal with Russia. The event did not lend itself to Chomsky's deterministic view, so he resolved his cognitive dissonance by resorting to denial.

"It is not so obvious why the Assad regime would have carried out a chemical warfare attack at a time when it is practically winning the war," he said . Well, it's not so obvious why the Nazis would have carried out executions in gas chambers at a time when they were practically winning the war in the East. For at least six months, Hannah Arendt doubted the very existence of the gas chambers because they were not militarily necessary . It didn't work eitherIt is obvious why the US military was humiliating, terrorizing and torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib after successfully overthrowing Saddam 's regime. It is not even obvious why the Assad regime itself would go on torturing people in his dungeon for years, only to execute them in the end.

Substituting primitive logic for facts, Chomsky's comment on the August 2013 massacres is not an expression of knowledge, but of denial based on self-serving reasoning . It was not impossible for him to read reports from Eastern Ghouta, based on field research and activism, by the likes of the great Razan Zeitouneh, translated into English, and published just after the huge massacre of August 2013 (see here and here ). But Chomsky has never allowed facts to complicate his neat schemes. In his analysis, Syrian activists and writers are invisible, non-existent in fact.

Chomsky supported Ted Postol , the conspiracy theorist who denies the Khan Sheikhoun chemical massacre , where 92 people died on April 4, 2017. This "MIT professor" was described by Comrade Noam as "a very serious analyst and credible", certainly comparable to the "most serious commentator." Are there people in Khan Sheikhoun that you can contact and ask about what has happened to your community and who you think was responsible for killing your loved ones? Not in the world of "MIT professors." In our world, the subaltern may have a voice, but they have no audience within America's elite universities.

One concludes that a crime is a crime when it is committed by US imperialism or against those who are not its allies. On the other hand, a crime is not a big deal when the perpetrators are not Americans or the victims are only from "Wahhabized" communities. There is nothing "criminal" or "illegal" about killing those in the latter category. Even support for a monstrous regime cannot be criminal, because that same monster is a government.

The "government" of Syria runs a torture machine; it is extremely corrupt, extremely sectarian, and extremely destructive of the truth. In a sane world this means that it is illegitimate. It is a junta under whose long rule Syria has gone from being an underdeveloped country to a hopeless slaughterhouse. In the Assad family's 52 years of rule, it has legitimized itself using the colonial trope of "protecting minorities." Another legitimizing idea used by the regime after the revolution is the imperialist war on terror, the only " big story "» that remains on our planet, and the base of criminal alliances against popular movements and in favor of criminal boards everywhere. It is therefore extraordinary that Chomsky, a self-proclaimed anarchist, would justify Russian intervention in Syria because it was invited by his "recognized government."

The ossification of Chomsky's system of thought explains the paradox of describing the regime as brutal and monstrous without being able to say a single positive sentence about any of those who have fought against it. Among other things, his system strangles his better judgment. He cannot be blind to the fact that the Assad dynastic regime is one of the worst on the planet. Instead, Chomsky is guided by a dead system, indifferent to people's legitimate desire not to live under violent tyranny, as well as the magnitude of human suffering and pain inflicted on them when they act on that desire. He clings to a reified system because it functions ascommon language that he shares with his fans and followers. That is why it is more difficult for him to dissent from this system than from the US imperialist system. In Islam, they call the first dissent the major jihad. It is always easier to fight against declared enemies than against one 's own speech and imperial self.

Being a lifelong leftist myself, what has struck me in the Western leftist discourse on Syria has not been the unbrotherly, undemocratic and unsympathetic position of many of those involved, but the triviality of the debate, a stultifying combination of ignorance and arrogance. Syria has never been the focus of the debate; rather it has been just a tool to reiterate old dogmas about US imperialism and its intrigues. It is the same solipsistic shell within which Cockburn and Fisk thrive. Chomsky cannot recognize Syrians because we destabilize this system, complicate the language, and insist on our right to represent ourselves.

Some readers may find this criticism harsh and emotional in his rebuttal of a supposed ally. It is. And it is precisely because he was supposed to be an ally. Chomsky is quite influential, and is responsible for spreading misjudgment and apathy about the biggest fight of this century. It is no longer proper conduct to absolve him of criticism, as we Syrian writers and activists have done so far. The problem with Chomsky is not that he knows little about Syria (which is in fact the case); the problem is that he can never say 'I don't know'. From his perspective, he is as omniscient as US imperialism is omnipotent. I am sorry to say that her sensitivity to him is even less than how little he knows, asdemonstrates his unforgivable commentary on the 2013 chemical massacre. He can conduct himself as a debater in a rather dishonorable manner, as a lengthy email exchange between him and Sam Hamad in 2017 shows. What seemed to be at stake for him is his own correctness. , not the fate of millions of people. Such insularity is an insult to any truly leftist and liberating politics, and deserves to be left behind.

If Chomsky has done anything, it is helping to make Syrian activists and writers who fight for democracy and social justice invisible, instead of helping to make us and our cause more visible. Hardly the behavior of an ally.

It is easy to detect a strong imperialist component in Chomsky's top-down anti-imperialism, which simply does not see ordinary people in their struggle for life and dignity; yet he does not shy away from informing us about what genuine struggle is , what threats are real and what are supposed , and who is allowed to make sense of them. Annexing all the struggles to the one that Chomsky and his people decide on is no different from annexing other lands to an imperialist center. The first claims istiklaliyya (independence as a mentality) and the other istiklal(self-government). The imperialist anti - imperialist always knows what is convenient without bothering to study . Prosaic facts are not important.

Chomsky's influence abroad surpasses even American presidents in symbolic power; however, unlike them, he is not subject to even theoretical "checks and balances." It is intimidating to criticize such an authority. It can be dangerously intimidating to criticize political authorities, as it continues to be in my country, in Russia, in Iran and in many parts of the world. But it is our duty as ethical agents in contemporary struggles for freedom and justice to question these authorities and show their limitations. I have tried to show that, in relation to the Syrian cause, this particular authority lacks basic information, nuanced analysis, intellectual curiosity and human empathy. It is fair to say that this is an unconstitutional authority,

Twenty-five years after translating "Powers and Perspectives," I find that its author decisively closes off any prospect of a different future. Chomsky's perspective contradicts democracy in many fundamental respects: high politics, American - centrism , jabriyyah , omniscience, disregard for the contingent and the surprising (which is history), top-down imperialist anti-imperialism , and a total denial of the agency of peoples. who fight for freedom and justice. The thought system of this authority is authoritarian. It is an establishment with which one must dissent as much as with Soviet communism and its derivatives.

*Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer and former political prisoner. Article originally published in English by New Lines Magazine .

Chomsky's America-Centric Prism Distorts Reality

A leading Syrian intellectual takes on the famous linguist, arguing that Americentrism blinds the latter from the reality of the revolution

newlinesmag.com

 

[Montuno]

The Threat of Polish Involvement in Ukraine

Polish military intervention would confront NATO members with the specter of war with Russia, the very development most NATO members oppose.

www.theamericanconservative.com

When the Spanish Civil War ended in March 1939 after three years of brutal fighting that saw Soviet, German, and Italian equipment, advisors, and troops in heavy combat, senior military leaders in London, Paris, and Washington found surprisingly little evidence to suggest a profound change in warfare. In fact, a U.S. Army officer who later became a major general witnessed the fighting and suggested that, “In Spain, the theories proclaimed for the devastating power of Panzer divisions and other massed armored formations used ‘independently’ are apparently refuted by actual events.” Five months later, events in Poland would repudiate these words, but at the time, his views were widely shared in the West.

The war against Russia in Ukraine is different from the Spanish Civil War (..)

Because Franco opposed the German plans: he preferred a slow victory, during which he could kill the entire population affecting the democratic government that he was able to.
This is a well-known historical fact, including Hitler's desperate complaints and insults about it.
(Apart from the voluntary sacrifice of a large part of the civilian population of fighting age, including women, who armed themselves as best they could and formed popular militias)
If the USA, Canada, UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Checoslovaquia (the czechs had good tanks) etc, had sold (not given) us arms, and did not oppose other democratic nations to do so, the history of the world could have been very different: without help, Mussolini and his forces suffered great debacles and massacres, and Hitler saw that if he sent infantry (apart from artillery, tanks, fighters, bombers, ships, submarines...), he could lose it.
There are logical differences, but also similarities. In the case of the Spanish war, today's Russia would be Nazi Germany, today's Belarus would be Mussolini's Italy; on the other hand, the role of the former USSR and Mexico in Spain would be that of NATO and the EU in Ukraine (the URSS would be USA).

 

[Montuno]

'They were shooting directly at the journalists': New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces | CNN

Witness testimony and videos obtained by CNN reveal how the veteran Palestinian-American journalist was shot dead in a targeted attack in the West Bank, while she was covering an Israeli raid with a group of other reporters.

www.cnn.com

'Estaban disparando directamente a los periodistas': nueva evidencia sugiere que Shireen Abu Akleh murió en un ataque dirigido por las fuerzas israelíes​

Maldita sea, cuando sabes que CNN lo está diciendo, es malo. Menos mal que dejamos que nuestros aliados asesinen a los periodistas estadounidenses y no hagan nada al respecto. Estoy seguro de que esto no sentará un precedente ni nada.

Very sad.

I don't know if you know the case of the Spanish journalists killed by the US military at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in 2003.
In this case, contrary to Abu Akleh's case, the journalists were from a nation allied in the war with that of the military assassins.

 

[Three Berries]

All wars are banker wars. And the EU is a CI A enterprise, just as Afghanistan and Syria and Iraq and Ukraine, Vietnam and North Korea

 

[Montuno]

this thread is being viewed because of it's entertainment value.

not information.

no, we are not having a great awakening.

that's impossible with an average IQ in the US of 98. we are 27th in the world in IQ.

that figure might lead some to believe that 50% are over 98 and 50% are under but, sadly, that's not the case.

the really bad news is that 68% of the general population is 98 or under.

that means almost 7 out of every 10 people you see is dumber than a rock.

our society is degenerating into a culture of base reactions, often violent.

monkey sees, monkey doesn't understand because it has trouble discerning what is going on around it, monkey gets pissed off, monkey shoots somebody.

the low IQ group is easily swayed and controlled by those in power. the power elite themselves realize that the low IQ group does more feeling than thinking and so feed them a steady diet of emotional hot topics to keep them stirred up until the next election.

it's not one party or the other, it's all politicians as a breed. that's what they do.

when you listen to any one of them you better have one hand on your wallet and one covering your A-hole.

so i bid you a fond adieu, mr mcnoodle, you are a very entertaining fellow!

Well, but I don't think you have to resort to insulting people of low IQ.
A person with a low IQ may take longer than a person with a high IQ to reach valid and ethical judgments, just as it takes me much longer than an elite athlete to run 100 meters.

The fact that there are people (with high IQ, maybe) who want to manipulate other people, and for them low IQ people are easier and faster targets...is the fault of low IQ people? Is it my fault and do I deserve for being slow in running that a thief or murderer catches up with me?

Come on, I say that you do not have to criminalize us and blame us fools, to remember the old Roman tactic of "bread and circus"...
Only that as this hilarious melody says, now it is "little bread and very bad circus"...



Poco pan, y pésimo circo

Mejor que un adosado, una bodega.
Antes que un Ferrari, una motosierra.
Películas de vísceras en vez de concursos
y sexo en lugar de toros y fútbol.
No queremos más de lo mismo,
ver proliferar a tanto cretino
porque hoy no es el día ni la hora adecuada
para aguantar a tanto bocachancla.
Def Con Dos no estaba equivocado
ni mucho menos, sino todo lo contrario
porque en la estupidez siempre ha estado el enemigo
organizado, sobrio y aburrido.
Y el Gran Hermano aún nos vigila.
Triunfa la memez y la tontería.
Sólo hay Def Con Dos o Def Con Uno
y de ti depende el color del futuro.

Poco pan y pésimo circo.

Aprende a divertirte manteando a funcionarios
y yendo a los museos a rajar los cuadros.
Secuestra a algún presentador
y haz que se trague su televisor.
Quémale la toga al señor decano
y que le corten al torero las orejas y el rabo.
Reparte jeringuillas en preescolar
y lánzale tomates a Su Santidad.

Poco pan y pésimo circo.
(...)

Consoladores en vez de cilicios,
fotos obscenas en los catecismos
y en lugar de tanta novillada
carreras de sacos entre embarazadas.
Hágase la luz, La Tierra es plana
y doctorarse no vale para nada.
El onanismo y la pornografía
son fuentes eternas de sabiduría.
Si estás con nosotros, estás contra ellos.
Te guste o no ya no hay término medio.
Toba, colleja y corte de mangas,
el Escuadrón de las Sombras ataca.
No es necesario asaltar La Bastilla
ni volar coches llenos de dinamita.
Sólo a base de pedos y eructos
Def Con Dos tomaremos el mundo.

Poco pan y pésimo circo.

 

[armedoldhippy]

delta9thx's pointing out the % of low-IQ types is not insulting. facts cannot BE insulting. it may hurt someones feelings to be included in the conversation in this manner, i get that. i don't see him as "criminalizing" the unfortunate either. a person of low IQ may NEVER reach valid and ethical judgements, simply because they do not understand that they were lied to & fooled by someone they thought could be trusted. "fool me once, shame on you. fool me a dozen times...." do you see where this is going?

 

[Montuno]

delta9thx's pointing out the % of low-IQ types is not insulting. facts cannot BE insulting. it may hurt someones feelings to be included in the conversation in this manner, i get that. i don't see him as "criminalizing" the unfortunate either. a person of low IQ may NEVER reach valid and ethical judgements, simply because they do not understand that they were lied to & fooled by someone they thought could be trusted. "fool me once, shame on you. fool me a dozen times...." do you see where this is going?

My comment to delta9 was loaded with irony; perhaps the translation has removed it.

But I think you should rethink what you say. Not only is it false in my opinion, but it also serves as an excuse for endless barbarities.

And I repeat again that in deceiving a fool, there is no fault of the fool. Look better at those who deceive us fools, people probably with greater natural facilities in "arriving at valid and ethical judgments", but who, look what you see, are dedicated to deceive/exploit fools, and in the shitty society that allows it.
If we eliminated the fools, those amoral smart people would look for other ways to satisfy their amorality.
Don't confuse intelligence with morality, ethics and sense of justice.

 

[HempKat]

Why do you need to extrapolate 70 years ago ? The emperor of my ancesters invaded the whole Europe two centuries ago, should Europe fear of a France's invasion ?
Putin did not invade Finland and never showed any signs he wanted to do so, that's the fact that matters here and not what happened 70 or 200 years ago.
And still, i don't understand how the fact that Russia invaded Finland dozen decades ago would mean Putin is willing to do the same. You're just doing a slippery slope fallacy in order to strenghten your false narrative.

Nothing slippery slop fallacy about it. When USSR invaded Finland that's not where they started, they invaded other countries first using the same type of false flags,
Putin did with Ukraine. Had Putin succeeded in overrunning Ukraine as quickly as he had planned what makes you think he would have just stopped there? Putin is on record for saying he would like to re-establish Russia to the full former glory of the USSR which involves him invading an conquering all the territories that broke away when the USSR fell. To achieve the goal of returning Russia to the full glory of the former USSR would also include going after Finland or at least portions of it. So what, do you think upon seeing this activity begin to be played out by Putin Finland should just say, "Oh well it was 70 years ago when the USSR invaded us so we shouldn't worry now." Or is it not smarter of Finland to take preventative measures such as joining NATO since Russia appears for now to be focusing on invading non NATO countries with whom Russia shares a border? Your example of Europe fearing an invasion by France because France invaded Europe 200 years ago is bogus and doesn't compare because no current ruler of France is on record saying they want to return France to the days when it invaded the whole of Europe. Nor has France begun that process by invading any European State the way Russia did with Ukraine.

 

[Three Berries]

Russian MIL’s Bio-Terror Allegations Against the DNC

https://bioclandestine.substack.com/...m_source=email

Russian military recently dropped a new finalized report on the entire US Biological weapons scheme… They claim the the 4 masterminds atop the biological weapons network are Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, and George Soros. As well as 12 other NATO countries knew of and assisted the US in this operation to develop biological weapons. They also include the US pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna, and others.

It’s difficult to find legitimate western sources to share this information, as none of them are addressing this at all. Complete radio silence on Russia accusing the sitting president and past 3 Democrat president families of being responsible for C19 and the US biological weapons network in Ukraine. And the Chinese military are in agreement with Russia and their findings. Complete blackout on Western Media.

 

[armedoldhippy]

My comment to delta9 was loaded with irony; perhaps the translation has removed it.

But I think you should rethink what you say. Not only is it false in my opinion, but it also serves as an excuse for endless barbarities.

And I repeat again that in deceiving a fool, there is no fault of the fool. Look better at those who deceive us fools, people probably with greater natural facilities in "arriving at valid and ethical judgments", but who, look what you see, are dedicated to deceive/exploit fools, and in the shitty society that allows it.
If we eliminated the fools, those amoral smart people would look for other ways to satisfy their amorality.
Don't confuse intelligence with morality, ethics and sense of justice.

your highlighted sentence from my prior post , i think, is true. it is entirely possible that a low-IQ individual may never reach a factual conclusion. look at how many in the US sucked down Trumps bullshit & can't let go of it ? it is because that is what THEY thought, and only needed a "messiah" to convince them that they were, indeed, correct all along. "it is much easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" i am not blaming those who were fooled, but there has to be a stopping point.

 

[Hermanthegerman]

 

[buzzmobile]

All wars are banker wars.

Bankers are fighting each other.

Business Retreats and Sanctions Are Crippling the Russian Economy​

Business Retreats and Sanctions Are Crippling the Russian Economy

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters into its fifth month, a common narrative has emerged that the unity of the world in standing up to Russia has somehow

papers.ssrn.com

From our analysis, it becomes clear: business retreats and sanctions are catastrophically crippling the Russian economy. We tackle a wide range of common misperceptions – and shed light on what is actually going on inside Russia, including:

- Russia’s strategic positioning as a commodities exporter has irrevocably deteriorated, as it now deals from a position of weakness with the loss of its erstwhile main markets, and faces steep challenges executing a “pivot to Asia” with non-fungible exports such as piped gas

- Despite some lingering leakiness, Russian imports have largely collapsed, and the country faces stark challenges securing crucial inputs, parts, and technology from hesitant trade partners, leading to widespread supply shortages within its domestic economy

- Despite Putin’s delusions of self-sufficiency and import substitution, Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill with no capacity to replace lost businesses, products and talent; the hollowing out of Russia’s domestic innovation and production base has led to soaring prices and consumer angst

- As a result of the business retreat, Russia has lost companies representing ~40% of its GDP, reversing nearly all of three decades’ worth of foreign investment and buttressing unprecedented simultaneous capital and population flight in a mass exodus of Russia’s economic base

- Putin is resorting to patently unsustainable, dramatic fiscal and monetary intervention to smooth over these structural economic weaknesses, which has already sent his government budget into deficit for the first time in years and drained his foreign reserves even with high energy prices – and Kremlin finances are in much, much more dire straits than conventionally understood

- Russian domestic financial markets, as an indicator of both present conditions and future outlook, are the worst performing markets in the entire world this year despite strict capital controls, and have priced in sustained, persistent weakness within the economy with liquidity and credit contracting – in addition to Russia being substantively cut off from international financial markets, limiting its ability to tap into pools of capital needed for the revitalization of its crippled economy

Business Retreats and Sanctions Are Crippling the Russian Economy

 

[delta9nxs]

 

[armedoldhippy]

bankers are fighting each other? give them Bowie knives and call "pay per view", quick! i want to watch... "stab him, stab him, gut him like a hog ! "

 

[Three Berries]

Banker wars. They finance both sides (for a small fee) and make arms that get destroyed. What a racket.

 

[Hermanthegerman]

Russias independent justice, they gave Britney Griner 9 years and the whole world knows that´s a joke. Of course not for Griner.

 

[armedoldhippy]

Russias independent justice, they gave Britney Griner 9 years and the whole world knows that´s a joke. Of course not for Griner.

we have people in this country still serving sentences far worse than what Russia gave her, for having LESS weed in possession. can you say "double standard" or pronounce "hypocrisy" correctly ? of COURSE you can. got an idiot former POTUS roaming around babbling and demanding death sentences for dealers. beats hell out of me why anyone would visit Russia, North Korea, China, or any other damn place that basically ignores basic human rights & takes innocent civilians as hostages when things aren't going their way...oh, and before i forget...missionaries, don't take "spare" Bibles with you on trips to authoritarian Islamic countries. you are deliberately putting yourself & others at risk...and don't deserve to be "rescued". JMHO

 

[Hermanthegerman]

Well AOH, I never forget an older black guy from a documentary movie which is lifelong in jail in north-west texas (3 strike rule), for less weed that I had in my fridge, in that moment were i saw the movie. Hundred miles away in Colorado, nothing happened to him. Drug justice and death penalty is/was always class and race justice.