Tariq Ali has roused from his stupor on Assad’s gassing of civilians to deny it happened & to claim “sections of the Western Left,,,are besotted with anti-Assad groupings of various sorts of which the CIA funded groups are the largest.”

Betraying not a hint of that prestigious Oxford education, he continues, “For those who see the Assad regime as the main enemy its obvious that they will be publicly or privately backing Trump’s bombing raid & hoping for more.”

Time to retire the old boy as a political authority when he posts from discredited sources like Off-Guardian, Eva Bartlett, Fares Shehabi, & resorts to political idiocy by claiming opponents of Assad are CIA-funded.

Which sections of the “Western Left” is Ali referring to? Which besotted anti-Assad groupings does he mean? When he can locate them–because they don’t exist, there is no “Western left”–then we can investigate those charges of CIA funding.

Let me just add that this political torpor of Tariq Ali is not new. When I heard him speak ten years ago, most of us needed a cattle prod to keep ourselves awake. There isn’t an original thought or a sign of scholarship in his entire repertoire of banalities.
Let me also add as an antiwar activist of over 50 years of actual organizing, not just speaking like Ali, that I am publicly & privately opposed to Trump’s bombing in Syria as I have been for every war the US has conducted in my lifetime.

Unbelievable to see Trump, CIA officials, & US military guys denouncing Assad for war crimes. It’s just like Netanyahu’s denunciations.

What about Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Central America, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine? What about generations of the most monstrous war crimes in all those countries?

What about Mosul?

Assadists are up in arms against the US bombing of the empty airbase. Are they sure it happened? After all, their memes say the US has lied about Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, & Libya, so why would they tell the truth about that airbase? Maybe evil fairies from outer space did it.

Are Assadists more upset about the bombing of empty airplane hangars than they are about the gassing of civilians? Yes.

No one can seriously believe that Trump gives a rat’s ass about the horrors at Khan Sheikhoun–any more than Assad or Putin do. He is the monster who said he’d bomb the shit out of Muslims because they’re all terrorists & the man trying to ban Muslim refugees. He looked like an ass at his press conference just pretending to care because human empathy is no part of his deranged character.

Many believe the US bombing of the airbase last night was an act of deterrence to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. The US Pentagon has the most sophisticated military surveillance equipment in the world & knows exactly what Assad & Putin have been using against Syrian civilians, including chemicals, gases, barrel, thermobaric, cluster, & bunker buster bombs. They could identify where Syria’s hidden sarin & VX gases are stored.

But the US is not at odds with Assad & Putin in destroying the Syrian popular revolution against dictatorship; the Pentagon functions in Syria as part of the counter-revolution, just as they do in Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, Palestine, & elsewhere.

The bombing of that airbase is an assertion of US military power not intended to deter Assad or Putin. Otherwise, why did the US warn Russia of the airstrike who then would have warned Syria? The sole purpose of those airstrikes was to scare the hell out of the Syrian revolution, to show them what they are up against–especially when the international antiwar movement is passive or up the ass of the Syrian regime.

The only response principled antiwar activists can make to this bombing of the airbase is to condemn it–even though Syria & Russia had probably cleared it of personnel & equipment in advance, thanks to the US warning.

But any denunciations of an empty airbase where Assad launches gas attacks cannot overshadow our denunciations of Assad’s gassing of civilians, of Russian, Syrian, & US bombing of civilians in Syria, & of US bombing of civilians in Mosul.

The US just launched 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles ($30 million) from a warship in the Mediterranean at an airbase where they claim the Syrian bombers at Khan Sheikhoun originated. It’s being reported that the airbase is at least partially destroyed. Since there are thousands of Russian ground troops in Syria, striking them is a concern although apparently Russia was warned in advance of the attack.

The White House isn’t talking yet so it’s speculation that the attack is deterrence to Assad for the gas attack. This is however not the first of Assad’s chemical attacks which are frequent. US policy in Syria is intentionally obfuscated. The US has been bombing in Syria for several years.

We don’t have to understand fully what US strategy is; it’s more than Trump grandstanding but it is not decisive action against Assad. It is not regime-change as Assadists will claim. Our sole mandate is to demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of the US & all foreign military forces. US bombers are no more an emancipatory force in Syria than they are in Mosul, Iraq.

When this crazy Assadist crap first emerged not that many months ago, it was a period of grieving, of loss & separation, of fractured personal & political relationships. It seemed a devastation & political wreckage.

You get a closer look at who they are & what they think, the shabby hatreds lurking in their hearts, it isn’t wreckage any more but a recreation on solid foundations of solidarity. Every time you employ the block button to dispatch another, choruses of angels encircle you singing an up tempo rendition of that old classic tune “What the hell took you so long? Let’s boogie.”

Tariq Ali’s sole contribution to the momentous discussion about the gassing of civilians in Syria is a stupid meme from an Assadist denying Assad gassed civilians. The meme said “The government lied about Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, & Libya. And you think they’re telling the truth about Syria?”

One stands in awe of such irresponsible imbecility. Or is it just indifference?

When I was a young working class socialist, a very privileged older socialist said to me that his indignation had waned with age. It seemed incomprehensible to me at 25. It still does at 72. Maybe that’s what happened to Ali. Maybe his indignation flew the coop. But then he should just stfu rather than post memes from trivial minds apologizing for dictatorship & the bombing of civilians.

Just days ago, Assadists thought they were approaching the end-game in Syria & began expressing concern about US partition plans. Partition is the quid pro quo for US involvement in the counter-revolution. Of course it should be opposed–not to protect Assad’s national sovereignty but to protect the revolution against Assad.

Khan Sheikhoun changes things. Assad stands exposed because they can’t even get their damn story straight. Syria says it didn’t gas civilians. Russia said Syria did bomb but gassed accidentally. The hired propagandists are all over the place. They aren’t looking at end-game anymore. They’re looking at a crisis for Assadism.

For those who think debating with Assadists can lead to breakthroughs in their cement heads, I received these two memes today:

Putin flipping me the bird was from an unknown Assadist who took umbrage at my criticisms but was at a loss for words because of diminished capacity.

The gorilla flipping one (or is he looking at his booger?) was from a friend (now former) after I removed an article he posted titled “Swedish Medical Association Says White Helmets Murdered Kids for Fake Gas Attack Videos” by Gordon Duff, a deranged libertarian who writes for SOTT the David Icke publication edited by Eva Bartlett.

See why I’m trigger-happy with the block button?

Netanyahu is shocked & outraged over Syria’s chemical attacks on civilians, especially on children. Does he think we’ve forgotten Gaza? The white phosphorus, the carpet bombing for weeks, the deliberate targeting of children?