Assad propagandists are out in force

As credible reports pour out of east Aleppo about violent retributions inflicted on civilians by the Syrian Army, the chorus of Assad propagandists are out in force. That’s probably why Assad official Fares Shehabi wined & dined the most venal of them in Aleppo. He expects them to sing for their supper.

Their mantra now crescendos to fever pitch: “Don’t trust mainstream media. It’s all lies” & they post photos of happy little children in east Aleppo giving the victory sign as if they hadn’t just survived several years of carpet bombing & seen people die before their eyes. It’s called war crime propaganda.

For the popular Syrian movement against the Assad dictatorship, the fall of east Aleppo is a defeat which weakens but does not destroy the movement. For international antiwar forces, for the Palestinian solidarity movement, & for socialists, east Aleppo is a watershed moment. Either you choose to stand with the oppressed in east Aleppo or you choose to side with bombers & the Assad dictatorship. There is no middle ground & no zone where ignorance is a worthy plea.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, & humanity is at last compelled to face with sober senses their real conditions of life & their relations with their kind.”

There will be time to grieve for our brothers & sisters in east Aleppo but our sorrow must be channeled into organizing & rebuilding the international antiwar movement to demand:

–the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians; the immediate cessation of US bombing;
–the immediate end of funding, arming, training of militias by Syria, the US, Russia, Iran, & other foreign agents;
–the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces in Syria–overt & covert, by land, sea, & air.