Wars of convenience in Syria

 'There is a full-fledged war in Syria that requires attention and while extremists in Daesh must and can be confronted, US credibility is on the line. Under the circumstances, writing a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamanei to seek his assistance in fighting Daesh will not accomplish much of anything, save to further alienate Arab allies. But more importantly, it backstabs pro-American, yes pro-American, moderate Syrian revolutionaries.'

Iran’s Policy In Syria and Iraq

 'In 2011 when protests started in Syria Iran came to the aid of Bashar al-Assad’s government. It didn’t trust the armed forces so it helped create paramilitary groups to break up the protests and then battle the rebels. As the war intensified Iran brought in militias from Iraq, took over military strategy, and sent in not only its own advisers and fighters, but also those from Lebanon’s Hezbollah.'

Syria's War

 "We're talking to the people of the Syrian conflict."

 My low hopes that the BBC's couple of days on Syria would spread anything but confusion
were lowered hearing Jeremy Bowen interviewing a volunteer for the Red Crescent in Damascus.

 No mention that she is working on the government side, that rather than facing occasional casualties from mortars, those civilians targeted by Assad face the most horrific injuries and death from his barrel bombs, just comments like, "The people there are crazy sometimes."

 I thought the item on Syria's disappeared* might avoid this false equivalence by pointing out that it is Assad who has arrested tortured and murdered tens of thousands, not the opposition; instead we get, "Held incommunicado by the regime or militant groups" and "Yet many more Syrians are also suffering at the hands of kidnappers from violent rebel groups
or government security forces."
*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29653526]

How Bashar al-Assad created the feared shabiha militia

 It is a sign of the jihadi obsession of the British liberal media that its readers are more likely to be familiar with Jabhat al-Nusra than the shabiha.

 ' "They told us they were worried that the army, in front of the world's media, couldn't use the necessary force to stop the protests. They couldn't be seen to be shooting the protestors. So their idea was: 'Let's keep our hands clean and create a paramilitary group to do the dirty work.'

 "They wanted to put each of us in charge of the shabiha militia in different parts of the country. They briefed us that the shabiha should set out to terrify protesters. They really believed they could scare the opposition into submission and that soon everyone would go home."

 Syrian officials have consistently denied using pro-regime militiamen to intensify the crackdown on protesters and commit atrocities on its behalf.

 However, Mr Salam said the order he was given in that meeting were "specific". "They told us to kill protesters, armed or unarmed, and top 'torture those you capture'," he said.'

Iran in Syria

 There were Ashura celebrations in Damascus recently. There didn't used to be. It's a Shia festival and there didn't used to be many Shia in Syria. There are now, because the Iranian government has stolen thousands, maybe tens of thousands of homes from Sunni Muslim Syrians, and given them to Iranian settlers. This is why Iran and Hezbollah are in no sense a resistance to imperialism, in Syria they are the imperialist genocidal force that is killing Syrians, stealing their homes and their country, and are the Syrian people's number one foreign enemy.

Obama is doubling down on an Isis war with no end in sight

 I don't know who this idiot Trevor Timm is, but he's fairly typical of left-wing people who think they know what is going on in Syria, but don't. The phrase "so-called moderate rebels" sounds increasingly orientalist in the hands of people who have no idea of the politics or religion of the people they dismiss. And if the Americans were providing 'millions in weapons' (slightly bad phrasing, is that millions of guns or millions of dollars worth?), the FSA wouldn't be losing. That's the big lie here.

 'The so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels receiving millions in weapons are now being defeated.'

The militants will remain until the region's Sunnis feel safe

 'The US problem is that it has never had a credible partner on the ground in Syria in three years of war.'

 If you pretend there never was a Free Syrian Army like Cockburn has, or that it was being funded and armed by the Americans when clearly it was not. The gall of the man.

What does Isis look like from the air?

 Western journalist runs out of Arab taxi drivers, and has to resort to airline pilots for his story.
Fisk is still pretending that the Syrian airforce is bombing al-Qaida when it's only going after Syrian civilians.

 'A smiling colonel greeted me with a handshake that almost broke my fingers, and a soldier asked him casually whether the local Syrian fighter jets should be re-armed. Yes, said the colonel casually. Another mission was to be operational the same day. In Syria, you can’t forget the war. Why, you can even look down from the heavens with a cyclopean eye on Syria’s enemies.'

America’s Mideast policy after the midterms

 'Washington has all but adopted the Russo–Iranian perspective on the Syrian crisis, whereby the whole crisis is now limited to confronting the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) - despite ISIS appearing on the scene two years after the initially peaceful popular uprising was answered by the Assad regime with brutal force.

 Washington’s refusal to adequately arm the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with advanced weapons, and its rejection of the creation of no-fly zones and safe havens to protect liberated areas and displaced civilians, have made the FSA the weakest fighting force on Syrian soil. This has allowed ISIS to seize control of considerable swathes of territory in eastern and northeastern Syria to make gains in the southwest of the country while advancing on the northwest.'

'I Am Another Syrian Doctor Killed During Duty'

 "I was killed when my car was targeted with a heat-seeking missile by a Syrian fighter jet
I bled to death. No emergency crew was able to reach me on time. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN are not allowed by the government in my hometown behind rebel lines. They stay away safe in the capital. They have to abide by the system's bureaucracy. The system does not protect me or my patients. There were no news reports of my death."

Eamon Bradley in court to face weapons charges

 Not a terrorist.

 'Mr Bradley spent two months attending camp run by the Army of Islam group, learning to use various guns, mortars and explosives.

 He claimed he was involved in battles against ISIS forces and the army of the Assad regime, however, he added he did not use his weapons during the fighting.'

The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War

 ' "The Boy from Aleppo who Painted the War" presents the Syrian conflict through the eyes of Adam, a teenage boy with Asperger's syndrome, who can only speak the truth. As the war creeps ever closer to home, it devastates and disrupts the life of his family. Struggling to make sense of the conflict, as he and his family try to survive in an impossibly brutal world, Adam paints as a way to record and cope with the horrors he witnesses.'

Towards Syrian safe havens?

 'The regime has gone on besieging villages and towns, firing powerful but imprecise rockets at residential areas and using artillery to pulverise any area suspected of sympathising with the revolution. Hospitals and marketplaces have not been spared, and in some cases have been bombed during the medical evacuation of the victims of earlier raids.

 Before the conflict in Syria started, the Syrian army was one of the strongest in the region, with over 320,000 men under arms and an air force of 450 planes. Now it is down to perhaps one fourth of its personnel and one fifth of its planes.

 The Syrian regime is now left only with the crude power of missiles and barrel bombs, which it is using to kill innocent people in an attempt to hold on to power.

 Without safe havens to tip the balance in favour of the opposition, it is unlikely that the regime will be forced out of power, that the revolutionary combatants will win, or that an interim government will be able to put the country back together.'

What led to the battle for Kobanê?

 There's stuff in here the emphasis of which I don't agree with - I don't think that seeing Assad as the major evil in Syria means desiring US intervention - but mostly I agree with it.

 'Faced with the heavy-handed military response of the Assad regime, the Syrian revolution was forced to arm itself. The regime's militarization of the conflict is what invited international intervention--not just by the U.S. and Gulf monarchies, who were looking for a way to interfere with the revolutionary wave, but Russia and Iran, which provided Assad with weapons, ammunition and boots on the ground.

 In this context, the U.S. attempted to strike a delicate balance. It didn't want the Syrian regime to win because that would strengthen Russia and Iran, but it also didn't want the Syrian Revolution to wipe out the regime and inspire similar uprisings in other countries, especially the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf.

 So the U.S. limited the kinds of weapons it allowed to into Syria from Turkey. It interfered with arms supplies to the Free Syrian Army, blocking heavy weapons like anti-aircraft missiles and heavy guns.'

What Went Wrong in Idlib?

 'For weeks, US actions and statements telegraphed to JAN that its best interests lie in moving quickly against its moderate rivals, before they received enough US support to pose an actual threat. In addition to ISIS and the regime, our ostensible allies can now count among their rivals one of Syria’s most formidable militant groups. Had the United States seriously and meaningfully supported the mainstream rebels, this would not necessarily be a bad thing. As it stands, the United States appears to have done everything in its power to condemn Syria’s moderate opposition to failure, while ensuring its jihadist opponents succeed.'

Hearts, Minds, and Missiles

 'Coalition airstrikes in Syria, though temporarily offsetting groups like IS and JN, come at a high price. As airstrikes have evidently come with little to no coordination with rebel groups, US and coalition governments appear not so much as saviors, but as self-interested Assad allies weakening the Syrians' revolution.'

Social media did not create ISIS

 'Whilst the U.S. is bombing ISIS, Assad’s warplanes are still barrel bombing Aleppo and other cities. The English-speaking media went into overdrive in covering the executions of American and British hostages held by ISIS but all too frequently Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese victims were just footnotes. For Arabs, Muslims and indeed many others across the globe the contradictions are massive.'

Life in Raqqa under IS

 'The first battle against IS was on Aug. 1, 2013. The Free Syrian Army [FSA] felt the danger of IS and tried to throw them out of the city, but it didn’t have enough weapons and the international community didn’t care. The FSA lost after 13 days of fighting, and then on Jan. 4, 2014, it tried once again. But this time, IS won full control over the city. Today, it enjoys the support of only 10% of the population, along with chiefs of some clans who are benefiting from the current situation.'

Inside al-Waer, safe haven under siege

 While Fisk is using the Independent to give Assad's story (with a thin cover of putting the other point of view, and listening sagely while Assad's propagandists tell their lies), it's down to the right-wing press to report the actual savagery.

 'In al-Waer, a satellite town on the periphery of Homs city, thousands who fled the earlier violence are once again trapped, with little food and under constant shellfire.

 For the past eight months government forces have blocked the entrances to the district, limiting the entry of food and medical supplies.

 "There is some food but not enough to eat every day," Waleed al-Fares, an activist speaking from inside the besieged district told the Telegraph. "The soldiers have stopped the food lorries."

 There is electricity for only a few hours every day. Winter is closing in and there is no heating, residents said.

 Video footage, filmed this week, shows the scale of damage in the district that had until recently had a newly built feel. Every window of every apartment in the high rise blocks is shattered from shell blasts. Fire rages through apartments hit by the artillery strikes. There are so many that no one bothers trying to put them out.'

US plan for proxy army to fight Isis in Syria suffers attack

 Sad that it has come to this.

 “It is obvious that the US is supporting Assad,” he said. “Don’t bother trying to argue with me or anyone else about it. They are aiding the war against us. Their leaders are weak and they are liars.”

From Sheikh Miskeen today

 'Civilians shot at by regime snipers as they try to flee the town.'

Western fascination with 'badass' Kurdish women

 I've seen this posted a few times. One of the idiot parties is Flying Rodent on his blog. More the problem seems to be that it is OK for Kurds to defend themselves, but if Syrian Arabs do it, they are jihadis and/or proxies for America and Saudi Arabia. See past articles by David Wearing in the Guardian culminating in the conclusion that all the opposition are no better than ISIS, so we have to ally with Assad. Whether this is due to racism against Arabs isn't the way I tend to think of things, but there are people who logically put it together that way.

Those hoary old allegations that the US has armed the FSA since 2012

 Michael Karadjis:

 'I think he means that by arming the FSA, which he alleges (but fails to demonstrate) the US was doing “since 2012,” this led to the rise of ISIS, because he is too stupid to be able to tell the difference between the secular FSA, the moderate Islamist groups, harder Islamists, al-Qaida and ISIS. He believes, like most imperialist media by the way, everyone fighting in Syria against the regime is a “jihadist”, some more open than others, that anti-Assad Syrians are by definition all “extremists,” that there cannot be such a thing as an anti-Assad “moderate,” that if you give a gun to an Arab moderate he will automatically give it to a jihadist, and other such breathtakingly racist and orientalist filth.

The allegation is all the more disgusting given that it has only actually been the FSA and its allies that have fought ISIS, and earlier this year valiantly pushed ISIS out of large parts of Syria, at a cost of thousands of fighters’ lives. If only they did have the weapons Sinclair falsely alleges they have they could have even done a better job.'

Critique of Patrick Cockburn’s ‘Whose Side is Turkey on?’

 Michael Karadjis:

 'It is only in the imagination of those leftists who don’t view things through the angle of class that Biden is being truthful in his description of the entire revolution as nothing but a bunch of jihadis or that all the arms the Gulf sent to the uprising leadership ended up in the hands of “al-Qaida” etc – in fact, this is just US code for the entire revolution, from the most democratic and secular through the mildly Islamist through the harder Islamist through jihadist sections. But slandering it all as “al-Qaida” (like “the left” does) sounds better propaganda.

 By pretending that it would like to support the secular or “moderate” rebels, those the media continually calls “western-backed rebels”, while for years explaining that it could give them nothing because anything it might give them would go to the jihadists, the US was just using code for its hostility to the secular FSA, while offering the pretence that of course it “would like to” back democratic, secular forces if it could.

 The “left” then gets it all wrong and criticises the US not for the pretence, but because the left has fallen for the pretence, and then goes on to explain to US imperialism what the latter already agrees with “the left” on – that there can be no such thing as a Syrian “moderate,” if you give a gun to an Arab “moderate” he will inevitably give it to a jihadist, because such oriental folk are not to be trusted.'

Syrian rebels demand better weapons to fight ISIL

 Now there's a sentence you don't see very often.

 'The Free Syrian Army is the main opposition militia in Syria and has been battling President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for three and a half years in a brutal civil war.'

General reveals the lack of communication with the US

 

 So this is where Fisk gets all his news. The idea that Assad's forces let go or reintegrated all those who defected to the FSA would be laughable to any actual reporter. As would the idea that the US are putting any faith in them whatsoever. As Scott Lucas* put it, what happened to Robert Fisk?

 'As for the FSA into which the US put so much faith, he laughs. "There may be some in Idlib and near Deraa. There were soldiers and some officers who defected from the Syrian army,” he said. “Some asked to come back and are in our army again. Others returned and we sent them home.” '

*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcHYfWVWiXI]

U.S-Backed Syrian Rebels' Pleas For Help Likely To Go Unanswered

 Not really 'US-backed' then, are they?

 'Free Syrian Army rebels have told the U.S. their chief goal is toppling Assad, who is presently pushing to take over Aleppo. Over the weekend, they were outraged when White House envoy Gen. John Allen told an Arab newspaper the U.S. goal in Syria was not to help rebels end Assad's rule but to make them part of a negotiated political end to the civil war.

Those sympathetic to the rebels believe U.S. policymakers, long wary of toppling Assad, are loath to aid rebels in regions targeted by Assad because of Assad's support from Iran. At a time when U.S. relations with Iran are better than ever before and a deal over Tehran's nuclear program seems within reach, they say, Washington does not want to be responsible for undermining Iran's chief client -- or empowering U.S. allies in Syria to do so.'

Grisly video shows aftermath of airstrike on Syrian camp

 'Reuters news agency cited State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki as calling the strike “nothing short of barbaric.”

 "Unfortunately, if it is confirmed to be the work of the (Assad) regime, it is only the latest act of brutality by the regime against its own people." '

 And condemnation is still pretty much all we get from the US administration, who know as much as anyone that this sort of attack takes place every day, without any doubt that it is the Assad régime doing it. Still that's better than the silence from much of the world, and the fairytales from some about how the real problem in Syria is the US and its allies in the Gulf.

Review of Reese Erlich’s ‘Inside Syria’

 This arsehole is endorsed by a Noam Chomsky foreword, which doesn't give much hope for the latter's understanding of what's going on.

 'Erlich carefully unpacks the evidence that the Assad regime used Sarin gas and finds that some of it has been exaggerated or even possibly fabricated. Which doesn’t mean the Damascus regime is innocent. His discussion weighs the charges on all sides and concludes that we really don’t know.'

These Posters Tell The Story Of The Syrian Revolution

 'In one poster, a bird represents a musician who wrote protest songs against President Assad, and was later murdered. Another, showing a citizen struggling to carry a Syria-shaped boulder up a flight of stairs, represents the struggle in Cachoux's hometown of Homs.

 "Everyday, the Syrian revolution produces very strong moments and scenes, some are horrific and bloody, while others are full of heroism and tender, surrealism and craziness," Cachoux says. "Generally, the idea comes from the emotional shock generated by the event in the mind and soul. It’s something the person can’t ignore." '

At least 30 regime soldiers killed

 'The Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) said in a statement that the Free Syrian Army, Soldiers of Al-Aqsa and the Nusra Front launched a joint operation and gained the control of several regime-controlled areas in Idlib, in northwestern Syria.'

 The BBC has, 'Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants and other Syrian rebel groups have attacked the government-held city of Idlib.'*

 Robert Fisk has gone full loon, and is ascribing the attack to ISIS.**

*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29796134]
** With some illogic twisted to breaking point. "Although the attackers were identified as Jabhat al-Nusra rebels – the Syrian army regards all of its opponents as “terrorists” and part of Isis – the assault was obviously intended to crown another shattering victory for the so-called Islamic caliphate which now stretches from eastern Aleppo to the outskirts of Baghdad in Iraq." You might say that The ferocity of the attack shows just how hard-pressed the Syrian regime is in its battle against the same enemy that the US President, Barack Obama, has described as farmers and dentists.[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-attack-on-idlib-assads-army-leaders-slaughtered-as-jihadists-storm-syrias-second-city-9822023.html]

Dr Abbas Khan 'unlawfully killed' in Syria jail

 "His family claims he was murdered. The Syrian government maintains he was found hanging in a jail cell."

 Who are you going to believe? It's a choice of competing narratives. Either he went to help the people being maimed and killed by the Assad government, which tortured and killed him as it has tens of thousands of others, or we can't really know what's going on in Syria because there are so many complexities to this confusing situation.

 When people ask where the Syrian revolution has gone, one answer is that it is being starved and tortured in Assad's dungeon's. One might help in a better world that fellow revolutionaries would be out on the streets of other countries demanding their release, and justice.

Life in Aleppo’s ruins

 This is typical of what passes for reporting on Syria. The governor is lying, the reason there are nine million displaced Syrians is that depopulating areas through bombing has been Assad's major tactic for two years. It appears Lindsey Hilsum is giving balance by putting the other side, but when nobody from the rebel side is heard, it is the supporters of Assad's genocide who seem like the credible ones. And thus is a media narrative created that is pro-Assad while having the appearance of balance.

 'Government forces have relentlessly bombarded rebel areas, forcing out civilians, but the governor claimed that the people were coming to the regime’s side because the rebels had forced them out. “War is war, but we use bombs only in the area where rebels and Islamic State terrorists are, not where there are civilians,” he said. “There are no longer any civilians in rebel areas, because the rebels forced them to flee to safer places.” '

 Much the way Israel claims that the Arab countries forced the Palestinians to flee in 1948. There are civilians left in the rebel-held areas, not everyone can get out, and for them the régime has created a Hell not like the government-held area the Guardian reports from.

The Progressive Syrian Opposition Is Not Dead

 "After three years of demonstrating, nothing changed, even when the situation in Syria has been widely publicized and the world now knows of the Syrians' suffering. The world didn't lift a finger."

Russia's Vested Interests in Supporting Assad

 How many times are we told that we must oppose military interventions because they are a conspiracy to take control of Middle East oil? Now the Russians are doing it in Syria, where are the No Blood For Oil placards?

 Actually the naval base at Tartus may be strategically more important to them. The billions of dollars of weaponry they have sold to Assad of course dwarf all the shipments all the rebel factions have received, but still it is the latter that "anti-war" activists focus on stopping.

 'From Mig-29 fighters to Yak-130 training jets, armored vehicles, drones and guided bombs, the total value of Syrian contracts with the Russian defense industry likely exceeds $4 billion as of 2013.

 Likewise, Russian state-owned firm Soyuzneftegaz recently signed a $100 million exploration deal with Damascus to explore offshore drilling opportunities in the Levant basin. While a $100 million contract is small by oil and gas standards, the recent massive gas finds in the Israeli and Cypriot sections of the Eastern Mediterranean shelf hint at the potential that Russia wants to cash in on. Russia has long been keen to protect Gazprom's lucrative gas sales to the European market, and the Soyuzneftegaz-Syria deal is one way for Russia to hedge its bets regarding the sources of gas it can sell to Europe.'

Syria’s invisible mainstream rebel groups

 'Those who dismiss “mainstream” rebel groups as being either too fragmented or too weak should note that they have spent much of 2014 battling both ISIS and the regime, and that they continue to control significant chunks of half a dozen provinces – namely Deraa, Qunaitra, Rural Damascus, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo.

 “It’s very ironic that we’ve arrived at such a stage, in which the discussion of the Syrian opposition takes place the way it does. It’s as if the White House forgets how it’s systematically withheld support.”

 He said the Obama administration’s repeated, dismissive references to the capabilities of the rebels – a “bunch of farmers and dentists,” as the president recently put it – would only end up working to do away with the moderate rebels for good, “so that Syria is divided between ISIS and Assad.”

 “And even today, there are still [rebel] groups that haven’t abandoned the demands of the revolution, for a civil, democratic state.” '

Winning Kobane, Losing Syria

 'At this point, Sunni Arabs in Syria might consider shopping for a new faith or ethnicity if they want America’s attention. Barrel bombs, Scud missiles, gang-rapes, electrocutions, genital mutilations, chlorine and sarin gas attacks, all Holocaust-invoking revelations of systematic torture in Assad’s dungeons — sorry, but this is all quite boring. Where’s the symbolic importance? The strategic vitality? Yes, we know Syrian rebels fought and routed ISIS as well as the Kurds have, but that was in January and ISIS came back. And while it may be true that rebels have a better track record with keeping American-made weaponry out of the hands of ISIS than the US or Iraqi militaries have, we’re still not impressed. What have you done for us lately?'

Right and Left against the revolution

 'The Syrian revolution today is not just fighting a brutal regime like the Assad regime, but it is also fighting this regime’s allies - Russia and Iran especially - and furthermore it is dealing with the putrid concepts, alternately racist, indifferent and immoral, bandied about by many Leftists and “anti-imperialists”. Until now, and for many reasons that should be looked into, it has not possessed a political leadership or media office responding regularly to all its enemies and their arguments. To make up for this lack so far, it is counting on bravery and perseverance, on exceptionally courageous and creative intellectuals, artists and activists, and on a great store of patience and hope which has allowed it to soldier on; a store not likely to be exhausted even as the pressure grows and difficulties mount, both within Syria and around it.'

Take No Heroes

 This is about Syria, and how any article that lays its problems at the feet of US and Gulf support for Sunni militias is a betrayal of socialist principles.

 I found myself thinking about pandas this morning. I was looking at the scaffolding on the next block, and remembered how bamboo rather than steel is used to scaffold in the Far East. Then I started to wonder if the Chinese government does enough to protect bamboo forests, the pandas only habitat, or if was happy with the situation that most of the pandas left were in its own hands in captivity, and could be used as tools in its diplomacy*. Not to create peace and friendship between the Chinese and other peoples, but to reward those countries that did as the Chinese Communist Party wants, and to punish those that might treat with its enemies, like the Dalai Lama. There's an analogous situation whereby most of the remaining lions and tigers are in the hands of rich individuals in the US, but we're talking about pandas here, where the problem is not that all governments are as bad as each other, but specifically the Chinese government uses them as a tool to ensure that its own exploitation and oppression can occur more smoothly. It isn't a situation where the US is equally to blame, they haven't got any pandas as far as I know.**

 There is a tradition in left-wing politics of saying that the state capitalist regimes of Russia, China and the like, and certainly their very capitalist successors, are no better, and no worse, in essence, than the straightforwardly capitalist powers of the West. This is a tradition most associated with Tony Cliff, who founded the International Socialist tendency with the slogan Neither Washington, Nor Moscow, But International Socialism. When the Korean War broke out, a battle between the proxy and actual forces of the imperialist rivals, Cliff was condemned by other socialists because he was equally critical of each side.*** When people rose in revolt, whether in French Algeria or El Salvador in the West, or Hungary or Poland in the east, he would try to act as Lenin suggested, that to be a revolutionary is to be a tribune of the oppressed, condemning the ruling class of that country and their own imperialist backers; offering solidarity to those in struggle, not writing them off as agents of imperialism if they rose in the East, just as those fighting for freedom in the West were not a foreign Communist plot.

 Syria is not an American colony. It is not Americans, or Saudis and Qataris, who have been committing genocide. It is the Assad monarchy, supported by a billion dollars of weaponry a month by Russia, plus the diplomatic cover which enables them to carry out an illegal war on civilians without even condemnation from the international community. A régime that would have fallen in 2012 despite the paucity of support to its opponents, if it had not been for the thousands of soldiers sent by Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah to enable Assad to continue his massacres and cling on the to the vestiges of power. So if you want to give voice to the aspirations of the Syrian people, those are the enemies you need to identify as being arrayed against them. It is not enough to say that the demonstrations in 2011 were great, but that no good can come out of the militarisation of the opposition that has occurred since. It was precisely to defend the demonstrations that the Free Syrian Army emerged, it was to prevent, and because of refusing to participate in, the massacres with which Assad tried to stop the protests, that the FSA swelled in numbers, as soldiers defected who refused to support the dictator any more.

 These forces are the same forces of liberation fighting today. There aren't so many demonstrations, but what is the point of protesting to a government that drops barrel bombs on you? That Kafranbel continues to demonstrate weekly is a symbol of the revolution that still is the struggle against Assad, not an outlier. The Local Coordinating Committees haven't felt the need to broadcast that they are on the same side as the Free Syrian Army, because it should be blatantly obvious, and would invite extra bombing from Assad. That there has been a growth of other, more Islamist forces isn't due to them being bussed in by Gulf states, but because there hasn't been any Western support for the Free Syrian Army, and people have gravitated towards those who might better fight Assad, like Jabhat al-Nusra, who have benefited from their anti-Americanism when there was no US support for the FSA (and gatekeepers in Jordan, preventing anti-aircraft weapons getting through to the FSA, which which they could have stopped the aerial bombardment by Assad); the lack of support led to the chaos in Northern Syria which meant that ISIS could move in, and in alliance with Assad try to crush the revolution entirely.

 This isn't a view you'll have got from the mainstream media. Partly because of technical reasons, with the spread of ISIS (and to a lesser extent JaN, who partly get confused, but also it's their own fault for allying with al-Qaida is they get mixed up with Caliphate types) it became dangerous to report from "opposition" held areas (the use of the word "opposition" conflating ISIS with the actual rebels), and so it became easier for the BBC to send Jeremy Bowen to Damascus to report the régime's perspective, with a few platitudes or lies about the unseen "Western-backed opposition." The perspective that Assad was supported by most Syrians, that they Americans and Israelis were threatening him, that the rebels were foreign terrorists supported by the Saudis. The same lies that ignore the torture, rape and murder with which he has tried to crush the uprising. Torture, rape and murder that is the daily reality for Syrians, a nightmare from which they are trying to awake, and the reality that any international socialist should be trying to address.

 The other reason the mainstream media has been more full of Owen Jones denouncing Turkey for supporting al-Nusra (untrue, but he did it a number of times on the BBC News press preview), than it has of any "demonisation" of Assad (reporting of his actual crimes) is that the leaders of the West aren't trying to overthrow him, and so there is no reason for a flow of What A Bastard He Is stories as there was with Saddam Hussein. When Robert Fisk says we are told we have to hate Assad, he's just lying. A defector called Caesar went to Congress a few weeks ago with 11,000 photos he'd taken of torture, quite horrific torture, in Assad's prisons. There was no outcry that Assad must be taken from his palace and taken to a War Crimes trial. Just as when Assad used chemical weapons last year there was no chance the US was ever going to go to war over it. Syria is not an American colony, and there is no chance of them making it one. So they have found it much more profitable to use the situation to denounce Assad and damage the Russians credibility, while doing nothing to support the opposition. When people are dying because the US acts as a gatekeeper preventing the flow of defensive heavy weapons to the FSA, that is what the left should spend its time denouncing, not the imaginary threat of a rerun of the Iraq invasion, the demonstrators against which fantasy last year, insulted the Syrian people by claiming that as a greater problem than the chemical attacks.

 So that's what I think the international socialist position is on Syria, that you support the insurrection against Assad wholeheartedly, not worry in an orientalist and racist way that they all sound a bit too Muslim. That military aid to the rebels should be demanded from any country that can provide it, that a US invasion isn't the answer, but neither is the the real threat here, which are Assad and his imperialist backers.**** There are supporters of the Syrian revolution who think differently, some who think Russia is much worse all round the world than the US, some who think that the US is in alliance with Iran. I don't agree with either (or at least think it is more complicated than that), but at least their views come out of a good place, wanting the Syrian revolution to succeed. One that isn't likely to produce a socialist anti-imperialist republic any time soon, because the socialist tradition has been so compromised my accommodating with the likes of Assad for one thing, but a democratic republic where the torture stops would not just be exchanging one oppressor for another.

 There might need to be an ongoing struggle to stop it going back that way, but that's true of all states at some time, and it is to treat Syrians as Other to ignore the value that getting rid of Assad, and his régime would do them, and the region which has been massively destabilised by Assad's war. Hezbollah have happily gone to Syria to kill thousands of Syrians and drive millions more out of the country, the opposition has resisted the temptation to retaliate against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

 That's about all I can think of for the moment. I was a member of the SWP for seven years, and although I find it unlikely that I'll be actively involved in politics again, especially on this I feel the international socialist tradition to be my tradition, and am disappointed to find so many of those who have come out of the SWP think it means something different, that when it comes to Syria the main enemy is in Washington, or even that Washington and Moscow are equal threats to Syria, when clearly they are not. If anything, in a more globalised world, any support for the Syrian revolution is more effective, and more important to demonstrate. But people are funny sometimes.

 * "In his book The Last Panda, George Schaller, the scientific director of the Bronx Zoo, says zoos are actually contributing to the near-extinction of giant pandas by constantly shuttling the animals from one zoo to another for display." [https://www.peta.org/faq/dont-zoos-help-to-preserve-endangered-species/#ixzz3GxHJU0Cu]

** Articles about CIA breeding programmes in Antarctica that originate from globalresearch.ca should be treated with a degree of skepticism.

*** "The motive force of American imperialist expansion is the greed for wealth of the big US corporations...In the USSR itself the state-capitalist exploitation of the oppressed nations – Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, etc. (making up more than half the population of the USSR) – by Russian imperialism, calls forth a struggle for national and social liberation, even if for a time it is successfully suppressed by the iron hand of the MVD."
[https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1950/11/powers.html]

**** I wrote a piece in September 2013 that goes into this some more.

 "If the Left claims that thousands will die in carpet bombing, that depleted uranium will be scattered across Syria, that American soldiers will be dying to help al-Qaida, and none of these things turn out to be true, it will discredit the Left, and because the Left does not control the media, that impression will stay for a long time, and when the US does want to intervene, the pendulum will have swung back to it being easy again for the US to do what it wants. And if the situation in Syria takes another step towards Hell, then there is a greater likelihood that American, French or British power will be brought to bear on Syria, rather than the empowerment of those rebels that we just don’t know about from what we’ve read in the press." [http://notris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/dominoes.html]

This Is Why You Can’t Have Nice Guns

 After the intro, which treats the difficulties of fighting a war against genocide as the reason not to help overcome them, some voices supporting Syria are heard.

 "Look, Syria and Syrians were coming out of a 50-plus-year political coma [when the opposition bodies were formed]," said Fred Hof, a former special advisor on Syria at the State Department and currently a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

 Did we really expect opposition politics to be characterized by trust, openness, loyalty, and selfless teamwork?"

Try as He May, John McCain Can’t Shake Falsehoods About Ties to ISIS

 'Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a Washington-based group that helped to arrange the senator’s visit, said all of the people who appeared in those photographs were at risk. When ISIS published the first issue of its magazine, Mr. Moustafa said, it featured one of the photographs and proclaimed, “We have to cut all these people’s heads off.” '

'Return to Homs': Cycles in Syria

 “Even in my darkest nightmares, I couldn’t have imagined the city as it is today. Nothing interrupts this silence, but the chirping of birds and the roaring of bombardment.”

We plan to form a “Syrian national army”

 "We appreciate all the efforts of the brigades which are taking part in the fight against the [Assad] regime, whether they are affiliated with the FSA or not. But our relationship with all of them derives from the necessity of working to establish a free, civil, democratic Syria; we do not accept any other goals for our revolution. For this reason we have asked all groups to abandon their different slogans and to join the Syrian national army [which the Coalition plans to form], which will form the core of Syria’s next [standing] army."

Doubling Down on Disaster in Syria

 'A glance at the same maps demonstrates that Syria’s non-jihadist rebels — including the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, Harakat al-Hazm, the Southern Front and Division 13 – control more of Syria than “5 percent.” '

Syria's 'Moderate Rebels' Say They Need Weapons

 ' "If we start with a few thousand men on these three fronts, with real weapons, you would soon see success," he says. "Because there are also a lot of fighters inside ISIS-controlled territory, they're waiting for a reason to get into the fight against ISIS."

 Askar says in his opinion the unpopular decision by the Turkish government to oppose arming the Kurds is absolutely right, not just for Turkey, but for Syria as well.

 "That's right, because the (Kurds) want their own state, they don't think about Syria as one state," he says. "If we win against ISIS, the Kurds will be no help in fighting the regime." '

Syrian opposition report encircling foreign fighters

 'The Syrian opposition said on Friday that their forces are encircling "50 Iranian fighters" in the northern city of Aleppo.'

 When people talk about stopping foreign intervention in Syria, they should concentrate on those killing the Syrian people and arming those who do: the Iranians, Hezbollah and the Russians.

Britain's Syrian diaspora unites to build peace in their homeland

 'I see the conflict in Syria in the same context that Guernica came out of. Politically speaking and artistically speaking. I see the Spanish Civil War as similar to the Syrian Civil War now. When the Republicans got elected into government it was met with silence from the international community and basically the Spanish people were slaughtered, especially in Guernica. I think it was one of the first aerial bombardments in history.'

US congressman Adam Kinzinger calls for Syria no-fly zone

 'Mr Kinzinger said a no-fly zone would "equal the playing field" for the Free Syrian Army and stop the use of barrel bombs. "If they disappear, it's only going to be bad actors in Syria." '

Syria's nine-year-old YouTube storyteller

 'My dream is to wake up in the morning
and water the plants on my balcony,
and look up at the sky,
and see only birds and pigeons.'

Why ISIS Is Gaining Ground – and So Hard to Beat

 "The Syrian opposition" here means the civilian population Assad is bombing, and so is at one with 'rebels' in needing to get rid of him.

 'The rebels can’t divert resources from the fight against the regime to go fight ISIS. By doing so they would enable the regime to make additional gains, which in the case of Aleppo would be particularly devastating for the rebel militants and the Syrian opposition in general.'

Now ISIS is under attack from guerrillas itself

 'Ultra-secret White Shroud group strike fear into terrorists by picking off fighters one by one.'

 I remember the Free Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor appealing for help when they were under attack from ISIS, and nobody but the supporters of the Syrian revolution noticed.

Exiles say they are key to crushing the Islamic State

 ' “There’s talk that support is on the way. We haven’t seen it,” said Assad Al Zuobi, a former brigadier general in the regular Syrian army who is a leader of the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, the loosely affiliated non-Islamist rebel factions. The Obama administration has said it will arm the moderate rebels; instead they have received non­lethal aid, such as night-vision goggles and communications equipment.

 “Everything is much worse than it was 18 months ago, when the United States began promising to help,” he said.

 FSA commanders here say plans being floated to take their fighters out of the battle and train them — not in Jordan or Syria, as the commanders would like, but in Saudi Arabia — is another delaying tactic.

 “Our troops do not require training,” said Abulhadi Sari, a former brigadier general in the Syrian air force who is now an FSA commander. “What we require are weapons, weapons, weapons.” '

The struggle of memory against forgetting

 'VETO is a short film which sheds light on the current Syrian Revolution and the circumstances behind the transformation from peaceful movement to an armed revolution. VETO takes you through the last two years of this unbearable suffering with over 100,000 Syrian victims and more than 5 million displaced people, and a clueless world about how to stop this horrendous crime!'

Why the US will be forced to join the fight against Assad

 'The Turkish reaction to an American policy that is clear that ISIL must go, but highly ambivalent about the future of Mr Al Assad, will be shared by most American allies in the region and all serious potential local forces that could emerge as the ground troop vanguard against ISIL in Syria.

 Like it or not – and the Obama administration is not going to like it much – one way or another, and sooner rather than later, the United States is going to have to make the replacement of Mr Al Assad an explicit goal of its intervention in Syria. Otherwise, not only will Turkey stay out of the fight, no plausible local forces will sign up for the task either. And the entire enterprise will fail.'

We Who Call Ourselves Internationalists

 'The Syrian opposition has not raised the red flag of socialism; they have not made strident attacks on US imperialism—their badly wounded limbs will not fit our ideologically perfect glass adornments. On the country, the Syrian revolution challenges the left to respond positively to the most basic revolutionary demands: the right to live free from state-terror, the right to live at all. If our ideological constructions cannot fit these demands then we cannot call ourselves revolutionaries.'