Syria: New Horror Video.

From Le Monde,

Des insurgés du Front Al-Nosra, lié à Al-Qaida, ont exécuté onze Syriens accusés d’avoir pris part à des massacres imputés aux forces de Bachar Al-Assad, selon une vidéo mise en ligne jeudi 16 mai.

Les onze hommes sont qualifiés de “soldats apostats”, et leur bourreau, le visage couvert d’une cagoule noire, affirme dans cet enregistrement qu’ils ont été condamnés par un tribunal islamique de la province de Daïr Az Zour, dans l’est de la Syrie. Les “condamnés”, agenouillés et les yeux bandés, sont exécutés d’une balle à l’arrière du crâne. A chaque détonation, des islamistes brandissant des drapeaux noirs crient “Allah est grand.

The rebels from the Front Al-Nosra, linked to Al-Qaeda, have executed 11 Syrians accused of taking part in massacres committed by Bachar Al-Assad’s forces – according to a video put on line Thursday the 16th of May.

The 11 men are called “apostate soldiers”, and their butchers, their faces covered with a black hood, claim, in the video-recording, that they have been condemned by an Islamic Tribunal in the province of Daïr Az Zour in the Eastern Syria. The “condemned”, kneeling and blindfolded, are executed with a bullet in the back of the head. At each shot the Islamists wave black flags and shout, “Allah is Great.”

A further  report in English,

Another video from Syria has emerged on YouTube showing jihadists of the rebel al-Nusra Front executing 11 men accused of playing a role in massacres by President Bashar al-Assad.

Earlier this week, footage posted online by a group loyal to the Assad regime showed a man, knife in hand, slicing parts of a dead soldier’s torso before turning to the camera and putting the heart in his mouth.

Here.

Like many, every day we have less and less sympathy for the Syrian Islamists.

Indeed with anybody engaged in killing.

Syrian Intervention: The British Left in Confusion as The Stop the War Coalition Blames Israel.

Kriegsspiel: How British Left Sees Middle East.

The British left has had a hard time adjusting to the post-Soviet international scene.

Dropping Marxism, which is based on the working class and democratic movements, some have adopted  mixture of ‘anti-globalisation’ and an anti-imperialism.

Some have considered  just about any country that opposes US foreign policy, from Iran even to Russia,  to be progressive. Others have become obsessed with Israel, considered the epitome of evil. A few clung to the idea that Islamist movements, like the Moslem Brotherhood, were a repeat of the genuine struggles for liberation that marked 1960s anti-colonialism.

Their politics  resemble a Kriegsspiel played by the cast of the Big Bang Theory.

The position of these ’anti-imperialists on Syria’s unfolding civil war has shown the confusion, political and moral bankruptcy of one of these political currents.

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), to which most of the British left is affiliated (apart from, notably a miniscule openly  pro-Assad band),   must be going through a hard time.

It is opposed, rightly, to Western Intervention in Syria.

But…

At one point it was allied with the Muslim Association of Britain. That is, the British arm of the Moslem Brotherhood, which now makes up a very substantial  part of the Syrian Opposition. Indeed the Syrian National Council (Arabic: المجلس الوطني السوري‎, al-Majlis al-Waṭanī as-Sūri) according to Wikiepdia, includes many members of the exiled Syrian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now the StWC carries prominently on its site an article by Abdel Bari Atwan, which is headlined.

“Reasons why western military intervention in Syria is coming soon: to protect Israel.”

Atwan is a strident Arab nationalist and former sympathiser with Saddam Hussein. He has expressed this view, Atwan opined (Here): “The events of 11 September will be remembered as the end of the US empire. This is because all empires collapse when they pursue the arrogance of power.”

On the  StWC site Atwan discusses the recent furore about Syria’s possible use of chemical weapons.

He makes this peculiar argument,

What concerns the United States first and foremost is Israel. What the United States really fears is the possibility of these weapons being used against Israelis whether by the regime in a state of despair, which cannot be ruled out, or by the currently militarily stronger jihadist groups in the Syrian territories. When jihadist groups fight against a common enemy like the Syrian regime, this fight would be commendable, but after toppling the Syrian regime, as happened in Libya and earlier in Afghanistan, the Americans’ new enemy would be these very groups.

Overthrowing the regime in Syria has absolutely nothing to do with democracy and human rights, but with the Iranian nuclear programme. This does not mean that the Syrian people’s demands for democratic change are not legitimate. These legitimate demands have been and are being exploited and used by the United States, Europe, and Arabs to shatter Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

We assume, though it is difficult to unpick the reasoning from the rants in this piece, that he thinks that Iran’s nuclear weapons are a threat to Israel. That this is why – Syria interposed – the US wants an end to Assad’s regime.

Most would assume that the USA wants to establish allies in a post-Assad regime. The same motive, dressed up with ‘humanitarian’ concerns  go for the French government, and other European states, which are funding the Free Syrian Army.

The former StWC allies, the Moslem Brotherhood, no doubt prefer this, and their Gulf and Turkish  backing, to the mighty British left.

But there you go.

The article  finishes with this even more curious defence of Syrian chemical weapons,

The Syrian chemical weapons were obtained to serve as deterrence against nuclear Israel, not to be used against the Syrian people or any other people. If the Syrian regime really uses such weapons against its people, something we doubt and strongly oppose, it would deserve any potential consequences. These are Syrian Arab weapons and must remain in Syrian hands. Neither the United States nor any other country has a right to seize or destroy them, as happened to Iraqi weapons, unless all weapons of mass destruction –biological and nuclear — in the Israeli military arsenal are destroyed.

The political degeneration of the StWC is clear.

They are unable to clearly ‘defend’ the vicious regime ruling Syria, they are unable to ‘defend’ the, predominantly Islamist (and anti-democratic) Syrian opposition.

They are fearful that the Free Syrian Army will become the US’s cats-paw.

They are in a complete mess.

Those who support Syrian democrats, oppose the Islamists, and are against Western military intervention, are unlikely to look to them to support their cause.

France Recognises National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, Doubts from the Left.

France Officially Backs Syrian Opposition.

France has become the first European country to recognise the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCSROF) as the sole representative of the Syrian people.  (Here) President François Hollande has also announced that France is exploring the question of arming the anti-Assad forces as soon as a provisional government is formed. Six Gulf Arab states took a similar step on Monday.

The NCSROF  elected the cleric Mouaz Alkhatib as its leader.  Riad Seif and Suheir Atassi, both prominent democracy activists and the latter a secular feminist (according to Wikipedia), were elected vice presidents. The Coalition  has “restated its commitment to humanitarian and non-lethal assistance and commended Qatar for its role in the conference” that led to its formation.

It looks probable  that the NCSROF is being shaped up for a final confrontation with Assad. The present level of external support, from Turkey, the Gulf States and, more directly, the West, will rise to the point where it will become open.

Is this to be welcomed?

In May the leader of the Front de Gauche, Jean-Luc Mélenchon stated,

L’utilité d’une intervention militaire est une ”illusion”, a estimé aujourd’hui Jean-Luc Mélenchon, le leader du Front de gauche, interrogé sur les déclarations du président François Hollande évoquant l’éventualité d’une telle opération en Syrie.

The usefulness of a military intervention is an “illusion”, Jean-Luc Mélenchon judged today. The leader of the Front de Gauche, replied when asked about the statements of President  François Hollande regarding the possibility of such an operation in Syria.

The Parti Communiste Français has stated that,

Le PCF réaffirme sa solidarité avec toutes les forces qui agissent pour la démocratie, la souveraineté et la dignité humaine en Syrie, pour la fin d’un régime de dictature incapable d’assurer un avenir à son propre pays.

The PCF reaffirms its solidarity with all the forces that are fighting for democracy, sovereignty and human dignity in Syria, and for the end of the dictatorial regime that is incapable of guaranteeing these for its own country.

In this vein the PCF recently participated (26th October)  in a “MEETING DE SOLIDARITE AVEC LE PEUPLE SYRIEN“.

These positions appear  more reasonable than the blanket opposition to attempts to remove the Syrian regime held by some sections of  the British left.

But is what will effectively become a proxy armed intervention a move that favours democracy, let alone Syrian sovereignty?

The issue of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is a complex one.

It is clear, however, that France’s decision relates to its interests as well as to democracy. At stake are  considerations of political stability and the creation of a regime that is not ‘anti-Western’, even if it is – ‘moderate’ – Islamist.

Qatar, the host for this new alliance,  is not, we note, a democracy itself.

There must be serious doubts about engaging one side in a bloody civil war.

The methods used by the armed opposition are not always examples of  standards of “human dignity”. Their forays into sectarianism weigh heavily.

The outcome is far from certain.

Will their victory will result in a  regime that respects human rights?

Nothing is less sure.

Syria: A Comment.

I have very mixed political feelings about Syria.

Like most of the left I loathe the Baathist regime – in ways too obvious to point out.

But should we back the Syrian National Council (SNC)? 

Is that what the we seriously want:?

Last night  on the Al jazeera (my main source of information apart from Radio France Internationale –  given up on the BBC and Channel Four)  they were trying to suggest that  the Syrian Opposition were ‘democrats’.

I really really do not think so.

Syria: John Rees and Divisions on the Left.

John Ress   observes of Syria that the major issue is, “whether imperial intervention has any significance in determining the course of the Syrian revolution and, by extension, the Arab revolutions as a whole.”

Rees continues, “the Marxist writer and activist Tariq Ali, Guardian columnist Seumus Milne, MP George Galloway, Iraqi exiles and analysts Sami Ramadani and Sabah Jawad, the Deputy President of the Stop the War Coalition Andrew Murray, the convenor of Stop the War Lindsey German and supporters of Counterfire are in broad agreement.”

That is, imperialism matters.

It is the central thing that ‘matters’ in the Syrian crisis.

After some observations about “dialectical interaction” and “the global ordering of power” we get an idea of what this implies.

The USA, and allies, are “imperialism”, their politics are, by definition, “imperialist”, anything they touch is caught up in an “imperialist” web.

The central issue in the Syrian civil war is not the class, ideological and political make-up of the sides. It is not democracy. It is not human rights..

It is “imperialism” and its tentacles.

Rees’ former comrades in the Socialist Workers Party, like Alex Callinicos and Richard Seymour back the Revolution, the anti-Baathist side, in Syria. But even with their reservations, they miss, he alleges, this axial issue.

But the more the US and its allies have been prevented from direct military intervention the more they have relied on indirect intervention, and the more they have sought to buy a stake in the government of a post-Assad Syria. Some of the critics of the anti-war movement talk as if all this is simply the imaginings of conspiracy theorists or as if indirect intervention has no real effect. Many in the Middle East know different. Syrians will recall the CIA coup that ended the country’s brief post war democratic experiment in 1949. Iranians recall the CIA backed coup that deposed elected nationalist leader Mossedegh in 1953. We all now know how much effort the US spent on backing the Afghan Muhajadhin against the Russians. Further afield covert operations from the early days of Vietnam, to the overthrow of Allende, to Iran-Contra come readily to the mind of many.

These are not fantasies. They are one way in which imperial power is exercised. It is being exercised this way in Syria now with the help, as it nearly always is, of some domestic forces.

Imperial ‘power’ is therefore the problem. Or, as a ‘dialectician’ would put it, the “principal contradiction”.

Libya was the turning point. It was

a critical watershed in the history of the Arab revolutions because it marks the full-blown reappearance of the imperial forces in the history of the revolt. After this, the combination of the Gulf States and Turkey as the forward operating units of US, French and UK imperial strategy is a fact of life.

‘Revolt’ is tainted if it gets ‘imperialist’ aid.

Indeed any help that, say, the European Union gave to those trying to get rid of Gaddafi, was “imperialist” and, as a result, bound to be harmful.

It would be easy to cite the example of the Irish Nationalists who appealed to German aid in the First World War, to the Bolshevik (ambiguous) relation with germany in getting Lenin to Russia, or indeed any national liberation movement that has appealed for help from ‘imperial’ powers (let’s begin with the ANC’s calls to change British government policy towards the Apartheid regime). Or indeed any attempt to influence Western state policy – for if they do anything it is surely ‘imperialist’.

Rees concludes,

The best service we in the West can render Syrian revolutionaries is to keep our governments off their back. It is our government that is part of the most powerful imperial bloc on the globe and it is our main political responsibility to deal with it. Some argue that we should be equally critical of the Russian state for arming the Assad regime.

Proud of his ‘service’ phrase he repeats it,

The best service we can do Syrians is to keep them from being realised by directing our fire at our own rulers – and by extension those who are playing into their hands among the Syrian opposition.

The Arab left looks Syria though sometimes similar, sometimes very different  eyes,

 Nicolas Dot-Pouillard in the just published August issue of le Monde Diplomatique notes a crisis that has shaken the Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar on how to respond to the Syrian crisis.

n June an article by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb provoked dissension within the paper’s English online version. The Lebanese commentator placed herself firmly behind the Damascus regime, and criticised supporters of a “third way” — those who denounce the regime while warning against western military intervention on the Libyan model. The same month another Al-Akhbar English journalist, Max Blumenthal, announced he was leaving in an article criticising “Assad apologists” within the editorial staff.

He notes there is a debate,

dividing the Arab left, ideologically and strategically. Some continue to support the Syrian regime in the name of the struggle against Israel and resistance to imperialism. Others stand staunchly with the opposition, in the name of revolution and the defence of democratic rights. Still others support a middle way between showing solidarity (from a distance) with the protestors’ demands for freedom, and rejecting foreign interference: they advocate some kind of national reconciliation. The Syrian crisis is making the Arab left — whether strictly Communist, tending towards Marxist, leftwing nationalist, radical or moderate — seem in disarray.

He concludes,

The position that much of the Arab left takes on Syria reflects its own clash with political Islam. That is why parties that normally claim to be “revolutionary” and “progressive”, even if they are not necessarily Marxist, are, paradoxically, hoping for a negotiated solution and gradual transition in Syria, for fear of disillusionment in the future.

This raises the issue which Rees fails to even look at: the democratic and social credentials (not ‘Western’ funding or arms) of the Opposition. If we oppose the Assad regime  who can we support?

This is the real issue.

Not ‘imperialism’.

Richard Seymour goes in the right direction by beginning from this. He says,

The evidence is that despite attempts at co-optation, this is still very much a popular revolution, and the initiative lies with the citizens organized in the committees and militias. And their victory would be a defeat for everyone who thinks Arabs are incapable of freeing themselves from oppression.

We reserve the right to be sceptical and evidence is mounting that the “outstanding worry is that sectarian forces will come to the fore, and attack minorities” is more than justified.

But this basis is where the left should start from.