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On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - shakur420 - 03-03-2012 04:23 PM
On Syria: Where the Left is right and the Right is wrong
![[Image: 201222765243299734_20.jpg]](http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2012/2/27/201222765243299734_20.jpg)
Both the Left and the Right in Syria are "statists" - power hungry, reaching to gain control of the state apparatus.
New York, NY - When the Green Movement started in Iran in June 2009, there was a recalcitrant fraction of the Left (taken in a very generic sense) that went on a rampage against it and denounced the civil rights uprising as a Saudi-US plot to dismantle the Islamic Republic and appease Israel and pave the way for neoliberal imperialism. "I am only for revolutions that make Israel angry," one such sophomoric detractor of the Green Movement famously said at the time. "If Israel is happy with an uprising I am not happy."
More than two years after the Green Movement and a year into the Arab Spring, the selfsame segment of the Left faces an even more crippling dilemma trying to formulate a sensible position vis-à-vis the bloody drama in Syria.
The dilemma that this component of the Left faces in Syria is rooted in a more fundamental failure to read the Arab Spring in general - for if they denounced the Green Movement because the US had allocated some millions of dollars for "regime change" in Iran, that sum was peanuts compared with the money that the US had invested in the Egyptian army, and that the Saudis had in ensuring the Islamists had the upper hand in post-Mubarak Egyptian elections. So what to do with the Egyptian revolution? Dismiss the whole thing just because the US and the Saudis were trying to control its outcome?
To be fair and to understand the predicament of the Left vis-à-vis the Arab Spring in general and the Syrian uprising in particular, we must first have a clear conception of the Right (understood equally in a generic sense) - to which the Left is in part reacting.
No left turn
The position of the Right is now self-evident: the Syrian regime is a murderous tyranny, it is butchering its own citizens, and "the international community" (by which they mean the US, its European and regional allies, through their machinations at the UN, the GCC and the Arab League) must intervene to prevent the bloodbath, and any one raising the slightest question about that narrative is an accomplice in the murderous acts of Bashar al-Assad. That the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia are actively involved in dismantling the Syrian regime for and to their own advantage either does not enter the calculations of the Right, or if it does, it is a plus.
Anyone critical of the US-Saudi design for the region in general, or for Syria in particular, the Right accuses of being in cahoots with the ruling regime in Syria and/or Iran. People are risking their lives against tyranny, they charge on their high moral horses, and the Left is not allowed to assume a "puritanical position" and pass judgment on what is right or wrong for these uprisings. The UN and the bomber of NATO and the US must be encouraged to do the job and get rid of these tyrants. For them, NATO and US forces are forces of good, and these local tyrants are evil. The US must liberate these people and set them free.
The distinguished post-colonial feminist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak used to have a phrase quite befitting these folks and their politics: "White Men saving Brown Women from Brown Men."
To be sure - the self-serving chicanery of this position of the Right that is either morally blind or intellectually challenged is incapable of seeing the hypocrisy of the US/NATO position, cherry picking their "humanitarian intervention" - a fact which boils people's blood - and thus encouraging the rush to the position that the Left now assumes.
But that tit for tat is a useless tautology and will not help clarify the fault lines of the Left beyond its current dilemma.
The centre cannot hold
There can be little doubt that US, European, Israeli, Saudi and other Gulf states' special forces and financing are at work in covert operations in Syria, pulling and pushing the uprising in their own directions and for their own advantages. The gloves are now in fact completely off and the Saudis have come out clean that they must arm (meaning they have been arming) the Syrian rebels.
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," the colloquial American saying goes in the realm of economics - and in politics too, there ain’t no such thing as a free Uzi. The hand that giveth the Uzi today, taketh back a share of post-Assad politics tomorrow.
But the Right is not only silent about such manipulations of a revolutionary uprising, but in fact, approves and endorses it - for them, the Libyan episode has been quite appetising, entirely oblivious or even dismissive of the post-Gaddafi atrocities that has prompted the critical intervention of (among others) Trinity College professor, Vijay Prashad, who has recently observed:
Quote:There is a serious need to evaluate what has happened in Libya as a result not only of the Gaddafi atrocities, of the rise of a rebellion, but also significantly of the nature of the NATO intervention. And that evaluation has not happened ... I'm afraid that is really calling into question the use of human rights as a lubricant for intervention. If we can’t go back and evaluate what has happened, I think a lot of people around the world are afraid of going forward into another intervention, where the lessons of Libya have not been learned.
The Right dismisses all this as leftist hogwash, and in response to this outright hypocrisy or blatant imperialism of the Right, the position of the Left becomes even more entrenched, and thus morally ambivalent and intellectually challenged: Yes, the Syrian regime might be corrupt and murderous, they consent, but the real danger to the Syrian revolution comes from the US and Saudi Arabia - so they remain at best ambivalent and at worst silent on the criminal Syrian regime. If anyone dares to point to Assad's murderous spectacle, they accuse him/her of complacency with the US and Saudi Arabia, or else a mere simpleton manipulated by "the Western media".
The Left contends that what started as genuine protests has now been hijacked by "extremist Sunni groups" inside Syria and by outside forces that extend from the US to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and by extension, the Gulf states - all lining up against Iran and Hezbollah, which, for them, is evidently the forefront of resistance against imperialism. Some on the Left who approve of the Arab Spring even suggest that the Arab revolutionaries ought to develop a strategic alliance with the ruling regime in the Islamic Republic. Yes, they say, the regime in Iran might be murderous towards its own citizens, but it is standing up to imperialism. Again: the moral depravity of the position is informed by its political illiteracy.
Now even al-Qaeda (whatever that means) has entered the scene and wants to have a piece of the action. Ayman al-Zawahiri recently issued a video, denouncing Assad and urging Muslims to revolt against him - which fact has given even more reason to the Left to denounce the Syrian uprising altogether. Now that even Hamas has dissociated itself from the murderous Assad regime and sided with the Syrian revolutionaries, the Left is left hanging out to dry, wondering what to do or say about a world that is changing so fast that has left them chasing after their own tail.
Beyond the clichés
The problem with both these positions - Left and Right - is that they speak from a position of power or counter-power - from a statist position, a 100-metre spree to grab hold of the state apparatus and replace it as it falls. The Right speaks from behind the US-Israeli guns and from behind the Saudi bank accounts, and the Left speaks from a position of resisting that power and wishing to support an existing, evolving or emerging state apparatus that can ensure that resistance. The Assad regime is falling, and now we have a rush to get hold of the state apparatus, the military in particular. What the Left and the Right share is their identical statism, because, for them, these entire Arab revolutions are about taking control of the state apparatus, of state power, of steering (or more accurately trying to steer) the falling regimes of power to their own direction.
Categorically absent from the calculations of both the Left and the Right are the people, the real people, ordinary people, those who occupy the public space, people it, own it. For the Left and the Right, these people are mere puppets that are either used, abused for facilitating the US-Saudi machinations, or else duped into revolutionary uprising that has been hijacked from them. Neither the Left nor the Right has the slightest trust, confidence, or even a politically potent conception of the public space that ordinary people physically and normatively occupy.
Suppose Bashar al-Assad falls tomorrow, the Saudi and the Americans succeed in establishing a puppet regime and resume business as usual - is that the end of Syrians' uprising? Is that what the Arab Spring and Tahrir Square are all about? Now, suppose Russia, China and the Islamic Republic manage to keep Assad in power, is that the end of the Syrian uprising?
No: the revolutions have just started.
The fundamental flaw of both the Left and the Right is that - one from intellectual limitation and the other out of moral deprivation - they have no ground-up conception of what it is that is unfolding in front of their eyes and we call the Arab Spring. They are both statists - power hungry, reaching to gain control of the state apparatus, or what Max Weber called "external means" of any state, its violent means of domination, forgetting what in the same sentence Weber called the necessity of "inner justification" on part of the people subject to those external means. Syrians, like all other Arabs from Morocco to Bahrain and down to Yemen, as indeed Iranians before and along with them in the rest of the Muslim world, have lost that "inner justification" and no "external means" - provided by the US/Saudis or by Russia/Islamic Republic - can force them into obedience.
Open-ended revolutions are what we are witnessing in the Arab world - and open-ended revolutions mean people matter, mean the Egyptians are still out in Tahrir Square, and they mean that these states, however they turn out and are manufactured by external machinations, need a populace to rule - and that populace will never be subject to one or another sort of tyranny or treachery.
The Saudis and the Islamic Republic, as with the US and the Russians/Chinese, can perform all their machinations - but resistant and defiant will remain the Syrian people - and their open-ended revolution, which is integral to the Arab Spring.
They say you can conquer a land on horse, but you must descend in order to rule it - the same is true about Syria: From the US and Israel to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and then from Russia and China to the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah, there certainly are many machinations at work to conquer Syria. But when all the dust is settled and these mighty machinations end, the new conquerors must come down to rule it - and when they do, they will find themselves facing the indomitable spirit of the people that have left their inner dungeons of fear - and who will never ever again be subject of either domestic tyranny or external treachery. Syrians have already won their revolution - for the next tyrants now wishing to conquer Syria will come down from their horses, facing a nation refusing to be frightened or fooled into obedience.
The Arab Spring has unleashed the power of ordinary people and staged the public space they occupy and the civic associations they will eventually and inevitably form on that space. The Arab Spring has already given birth to a robust revolutionary gemeinschaft that will stay with these societies no matter who and what is in power. Unbeknown to the political machinations that have divided the Left and the Right, people of Syria - as indeed people from across the Arab and Muslim world - are dispelling their agoraphobia and realising the power of their communal gatherings.
February 28, 2012
Hamid Dabashi
Al Jazeera
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - Rebel Assault - 03-03-2012 04:56 PM
"Of course the greatest similarity is that the so-called opposition movement or the rebel insurgents on the ground in Syria like in Libya are also supported with arms and logistical and financial support by the NATO and GCC states mostly Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
And we have seen, yesterday, the defeat of the rebels in Homs was declared and we have seen reports that hundreds of fighters from Libya, now that they have succeeded in destroying Libya, have traveled to Syria to do basically the same thing there.
if you want to see what will happen in Syria if NATO gets their way with destabilizing the country, you only need to look at the thousands of people, the hundreds of thousands of people that have had to flee Libya, the tens of thousands of people that have been killed, the tens of thousands of people that are in prison and tortured; the complete destruction of the economy and a really complete anarchy. There is no government in Libya and if the trend continues, if the aggression against Syria continues, it will be exactly the same for Syria and it will be a very explosive situation for the region. "
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - Rebel Assault - 03-03-2012 11:35 PM
Mossad, Blackwater, CIA Led Operations in Homs
Arabic version http://www.almanar.com.lb/adetails.php?eid=194149&cid=21&fromval=1&frid=21&seccatid=23&s1=1
“The crisis is at its end” is no longer a relieving statement made by some political analysts, as the crisis is really close to its end. Baba Amro is now under the control of the Syrian army… and so are the armed groups of which a big number escaped to the Lebanese borders dubbing their retreat “tactical”.
Around 700 Arab and Western gunmen surrendered in Baba Amro, well-informed sources told Al-Manar website, adding that “huge and critical surprises will be uncovered in the coming few days… such as the kinds of arms seized, as well as the military tactics the armed groups followed, and the sides that supervised the operations.”
The sources further assured to the news website that the security operation in Homs will be over in a maximum of five to eight days.
Weapons from Israel used for First Time in Baba Amro
For his part, Syrian expert is strategic affairs Salim Harba pointed out that Baba Amro neighborhood and the areas surrounding it were emptied from the armed groups’ organizational as well as command structures with minimum army and civilian casualties, as the area was mainly concentrated by gunmen.
Speaking to Al-Manar website, Harba said that “the captured gunmen held Arab nationalities, including Gulf, Iraqi, and Lebanese… among them were also Qatari intelligence agents and non-Arab fighters from Afghanistan, Turkey, and some European countries like France.
“The Syrian army also uncovered tunnels and equipments there,” he added, pointing out that “advanced Israeli, European, and American arms that have not yet been tested in the countries of manufacture, in addition to Israeli grenades, night binoculars, and communication systems were confiscated by the security forces.”
Harba went on saying that “communication stations where established on the Lebanese borders to oversee the military operations in Baba Amro, and to ensure contact between field commanders and a coordination office led by members of information in the Qatari capital Doha.”
He clarified that “the escape of British journalists from Homs through the Lebanese-Syrian borders was the result of this coordination.”
In parallel, the Syrian strategic expert revealed that “the communication stations were being operated by Lebanese figures; some of them were members of the Future parliamentary bloc,” and considered that “these figures worked on transforming Wadi Khaled region into a strategic depth for Baba Amro.”
Mossad, Blackwater Directed from Qatar Operations in Homs
Additionally, Salim Harba revealed to Al-Manar website that “a coordination office was established in Qatar under American-Gulf sponsorship. The office includes American, French, and Gulf –specifically from Qatar and Saudi Arabia- intelligence agents, as well as CIA, Mossad, and Blackwater agents and members of the Syrian Transitional Council.”
“Qatar has also made deals with Israeli and American companies to arm the armed groups, and Gulf countries have been financing the agreements,” he added.
The Syrian expert pointed out that “the significance of the security operation in Homs is due to the high expectations that regional and international sides had from the armed gangs in Baba Amro … they wanted Homs to be turned into a new Benghazi.”
Indicating that the operation was implemented with high professionalism and accuracy, Harba reassured that documents will be exposed at the right time.
“The authority will not reveal everything it has now… the Syrian security forces have documents and confessions that could harm everyone who conspired against Syria, and could make a security and political change, not just on the internal Syrian level, but also on the regional level,” he assured.
In the same context, Harba considered that all the conferences and meetings by what he referred to as the “enemies of Syria” were aimed at paving the way for an American initiative under a “humanitarian” title.
He concluded: “At the end, the US will submit to the Russian initiative after it realized that confrontations will only result in its defeat, and that the Syrian regime is still strong enough to deal with any conspiracy.”
Translated by Sara Taha Moughnieh
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=47719&cid=23&fromval=1&frid=23&seccatid=20&s1=1
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - 1871 - 03-04-2012 12:29 AM
Wow.Rebel Assault. Support for Assad ^ ! 'Well informed sources' ie; Assads forces. Do you have a poster of Hitler on your wall? And you believe that shit ?
Syria is not Iraq. Syria is not Afghanistan. Interesting how 'humanitarian' initiatives = American initiatives ? This was a call from the UN and also one that China is calling for also for red cross to get into Homs specifically. A NATO -ie; military- intervention , (even on humanitarian grounds,) would be a catastrophe in the present circumstances - even a safe area is dubious as it could escalate the support for Assad, not diminish it.It wouldnt work. I dont think that the west doesnt see the danger of this. Id like to see a situation where it would be possible, to get rid of the tyrant, but it isnt immediately - yet. Eventually it will be as opposition increase - by that time anyway the Syrians will have done it themselves. There is a lot more fighting to be done.That has to be done by the Syrians - and it will be - its up to them and that tipping point to occur - and hopefully it will occur. Assad isnt fit to rule. Whether some of the opposition factions are is also a point, but Assad should go. The recent referendum was completely crooked. A dictator who only gave himself and his thugs more time in power. Assad needs only to further his oppression and opposition will increase. Thats what he has done so far. His days are numbered. The civil war in Syria will drag on for some time - most likely developing into a sectarian conflict - but eventually Assads regime will fall - and all this is Assads doing.
And that these people;
are 'armed gangs'.?! And that the 7.000 dead are all conspiracists....
Oh, thats right, I suppose anyone calling for democracry in Syria is either Mossad or pro SNC. Lock the lot of them up or shoot them dead.
I wonder what kind of 'rebellion' you support when you support Assad.
Quote:Indicating that the operation was implemented with high professionalism and accuracy, Harba reassured that documents will be exposed at the right time.
This is the fascists 'high professionalism' and 'accuracy';
Quote:“The crisis is at its end” is no longer a relieving statement made by some political analysts, as the crisis is really close to its end. Baba Amro is now under the control of the Syrian army… and so are the armed groups of which a big number escaped to the Lebanese borders dubbing their retreat “tactical”.
(Not a Syrian among them.....)
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - NWOkiller - 03-04-2012 10:32 PM
IMO this is a shit sandwich and that's putting it nicely. A brutal dictator or western back intervention? I'd rather have none of the above or enjoy the hell I already know. When it comes to the accuracy of reporting, IMO that just depends on what side of the line your on.
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - 1871 - 03-05-2012 01:35 AM
What western intervention ? A brutal dictator supported by Eastern Intervention. The use of force, imprisonment and torture of pro democracy supporters. Yeah sure - you can choose your side. One side has disproportionate force with tanks, the other was massacred in Homs and Deraa. Theres no 'enjoyment' of hell - only torture and murder.
I mean this isnt the first time.
Last time the west didnt seem to mind but iff Assad gets arms from Russia the opposition will get arms from Qatar.
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - shakur420 - 03-05-2012 04:52 AM
Don't forget how Assad's been a good little boy, arresting and torturing people for the "police" chief of the world to do his part for the "war on terror" and keeping silent on the Golan Heights to appease the precinct captain. "Eastern" intervention is only the whole story for people living in a bubble.
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - NWOkiller - 03-05-2012 07:43 AM
The point of my post was to point out that for the people there was no real side to take.
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - 1871 - 03-05-2012 12:26 PM
Quote:Don't forget how Assad's been a good little boy, arresting and torturing people for the "police" chief of the world to do his part for the "war on terror"
Assad wasnt allied with the States. Pretty much a thorn in their side given his previous support of Hezbollah until their recent falling out. Hes allied with Russia who supply him with his tanks and armoury -
Quote:The Syrian port city of Tartus hosts a Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance base, under a 1971 agreement with Syria. The base was established during the Cold War to support the Soviet Navy's fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. Since Russia forgave Syria of three-fourths, or $9.8 billion, of its $13.4 billion Soviet-era debt and became its main arms supplier, Russia and Syria have conducted talks about allowing Russia to develop and enlarge its naval base, so that Russia can strengthen its naval presence in the Mediterranean. Amid Russia's deteriorating relations with the West, because of the 2008 South Ossetia War and plans to deploy a US missile defense shield in Poland, President Assad agreed to the port’s conversion into a permanent Middle East base for Russia’s nuclear-armed warships. Since 2009, Russia has been renovating the Tartus naval base and dredging the port to allow access for its larger naval vessels.
Syria for the past few years has reached out to Russia to obtain modern weapons that included many modern anti-tank and anti-air missile systems that will further improve its combat capabilities. In 2008, Syria agreed to purchase MiG-29SMT fighters, Pantsir S1E air-defense systems, Iskander tactical missile systems, Yak-130 aircraft, and two Amur-1650 submarines from Russia. Russia's foreign minister said his country's sale of weapons to Syria would not upset the balance of power in the Middle East. The sales he stated are "in line with the international law" and "in the interests of strengthening stability and maintaining security" in regions close to Russian borders, Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to the United Nations in New York.As of 2011, Syria's arms contracts with Russia were worth at least $4 billion..
those sent back to Syria for rendition by the US and Canada (how many?) were tortured by Assad and in Syria. Sure,the US/Canada/Syria were bastards for such actions. Pointing out the reality of Eastern support for the despotic Assad = 'living in a bubble' ?,hahahahahaha - as if. mind you, the facile nature of that default position wasnt pointed out a while ago ;
http://www.immortaltechnique.co.uk/Thread-Taliban-Justice?page=13
Dont forget to observe the fact of other - eastern - nations oppressing their people and assisting dictators (as though its only the US that does this lol). Only you said it was 'the whole story' - but then, as Ive said before, its a tactic of yours to state a view then ascribe it to other people as though it is what they are saying or implying. A pretty desperate tactic. Weak argument too that one tyranny negates another, and that when Russia facilitates the Assad regime this should be ignored because of the crimes of the US. One doesnt negate the other, but it seems you want to concentrate/focus on the US to the exclusion of anyone else. You say you dont, but whenever other nations crimes are mentioned as well you straight away flip it all on to a discussion on the States with another rant about how pointing out such crimes becomes somehow tantamount to ignoring the crimes of the US -(????!!!!) which is an unjustified and spurious argument. Shouldnt we be condemning all tyranny from wherever it comes ? (no, dont bother to answer that - you already have with your accountants hat - and your 'gangster analogies' many times)
(03-05-2012 07:43 AM)NWOkiller Wrote: The point of my post was to point out that for the people there was no real side to take.
There is - its with the pro democracy movement (more than the SNC) and Assad had already determined this with his frequent areests and clampdowns of democracy protests and demonstrations in Syria. btw - do you get these videos in the US?
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - NWOkiller - 03-05-2012 08:25 PM
the videos you are posting I am able to watch. Keep them coming
RE: On Syria: Where the Left is Right and the Right is Wrong - shakur420 - 03-06-2012 04:02 AM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/19/syria-us-ally-human-rights
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0514/p01s04-wome.html
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,IWPR,,SYR,,4959de1e1e,0.html
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing3/witness_jouejati.htm
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/house-international-relations-committee-set-to-pass-syria-sanctions-bill/
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33600.pdf
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JK01Ak04.html
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32727.pdf
http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/us-foreign-policy-toward-syria-balancing-ideology-and-national-interests
http://tcf.org/events/pdfs/ev197/lesch_syria.pdf
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/10/is-the-us-best-off-sticking-with-syrias-assad/246117/
http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/02/14/12710
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/30/world/la-fg-israel-syria-20110331
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/world/middleeast/16golan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0209_israel_byman.aspx
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/09/20119217332358108.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/unholy-alliance-how-syria-is-bringing-israel-iran-and-saudi-arabia-together/238084/
"After decades of selling arms to dictators in the Middle East, the west's talk of humanitarian intervention rings hollow"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/western-intervention-syria