If it has to be repeated till the cows come home, then so be it: calling on the US or Saudi Arabia to intervene on behalf of the Syrian revolution against Assad is the height of political imbecility. It betrays profound confusion about the character of the US Pentagon, about Saudi & US bombing in Yemen, about the US role in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan. Worst of all, it undermines defense of Syrians, Yemenis, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Libyans, Somalis & hands Assadists a weapon to justify their US regime change crap.

The sophisticates who justify US or Saudi humanitarian intervention into Syria think a principled antiwar position is just so naive & stuck in yesterday. It would be a pleasure to debate any one of them & make chopped liver of their support for militarism.

Assad supporters have no idea how deranged & corrupt they sound when they claim civilian victims of aerial & artillery attacks in Eastern Ghouta are terrorists, actors, & now human shields for terrorists & that a ceasefire is only to allow the terrorists to regroup. When you think like that, you have become politically unhinged beyond the possibility of persuasion. You have gone beyond Islamophobia to outright fascism.

Judging from social media, Assadist political forces significantly outnumber those who stand with the Syrian revolution against Assad’s dictatorship. Imagine how it seems to Syrians under aerial & artillery bombardment now for seven years against an alliance of some of the most barbaric military forces in the world with relatively small international antiwar response & shouted down on social media by Assadists. Palestinians, Rohingya, Kashmiris, Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Libyans, & others sustain the same barbarisms & vilifications.

There is no hope for social change if we spiral into cynicism, demoralization, & hopelessness. We never toy with the odds but stand steadfast against war, occupation, persecution, genocide, knowing that the majority of human beings agree with us & reach out to them with confidence & commitment. The problem of popular passivity is the problem of confusion & hopelessness. Our mission is to trust in the good will of most human beings & challenge the propagandists, trolls, & Islamophobic fellow travelers who make up the lion’s share of Assadism on social media. If we want a world suitable for children to come of age in, to live & love in, we have no other choice.

Denouncing Russiagate rather than protesting Russian warplanes bombing Eastern Ghouta is even more deranged than Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

After nearly a week of the current aerial & artillery siege of Eastern Ghouta (it has sustained bombardment since 2013), Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders report that as of last Saturday over 520 people have been killed & countless thousands more injured. According to MSF, medical buildings are directly targeted by Russian & Syrian bombers using barrel bombs & missiles, making it dangerous to treat the injured & increasing their chances of death.

US coalition bombers are not directly involved in this siege of unarmed civilians so it is impossible for the corrupted antiwar movement to maintain this is a US regime change operation. Still they remain silent in the interests of defending Assad’s dictatorship. Those who do not speak out against this slaughter of civilians have reached the nadir of their betrayals & political degeneration. There’s no place lower for them to go so they are advised to skulk off quietly to a place where they can rot in peace.

Stand with the people of Eastern Ghouta & demand the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo of bombed out hospital in Eastern Ghouta from Guardian)

One of the reasons for the weakness in organizing defense of the Syrian revolution against Assad’s dictatorship & against the bombing & artillery assaults on civilians is that so many of the leading anti-Assad writers are elitist & deeply conservative, do not understand the counterrevolutionary role of the US military in Syria, foster delusions about US militarism by calling on it for a humanitarian intervention against Assad, & hand Assadists a weapon to support their US regime change scenario. Such credulity at this time in history amounts to war mongering, if not criminality. One wishes they would at least play straight instead of talking in evasions like “forcibly stopping” Syria & Russia & couching it in humanitarian terms.

There is no end run around principles. Demand Syria, Russia, & the US coalition stop the bombing of civilians & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces, including covert & mercenaries, from Syria. Confronted by a massive revolution, Assad will be brought down.

(Photo of injured girl from Eastern Ghouta on February 21st from Telegraph)

When Assad officials & their stable of propagandists & fellow travelers claim bombing victims (like this child partially buried in rubble) & rescuers in Eastern Ghouta are only terrorists or Hollywood actors: keep in mind that they also claim the Arab Spring uprisings involving millions of working people in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, with reverberations in Jordan, Morocco, & occupied Iraq were also street theater orchestrated by the CIA & Mossad. Partially, it’s their fascism doing the talking–a fascism rooted in a deep-seated orientalist & racist attitude toward Arabs who have long been portrayed in films as dirty & squalid or as terrorists; a fascism rooted in Islamophobia which is the war mongering of our generation; & a fascism rooted in hatred for the working class who they consider too stupid to rise above their state in life.

Stand with the Syrian people in their struggle against dictatorship & war by participating in or organizing a rally to demand: stop Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians; immediate access for relief aid agencies; release of political detainees; immediate & unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo of child from the Telegraph, February 21, 2018)