Assad supporters bray their outrage at being exposed by Guardian-UK

Assad supporters are braying like jackasses over the Guardian exposé of their scurrilous campaign to vilify the White Helmet rescue workers in Syria. They remind you of none so much as those troubled groupies who fall in love with incarcerated serial killers. For the longest while, they’ve been triumphal over all the bombing of civilians, choosing to call it “liberation from head-choppers.” Now, this exposé has them showing their true nature as something of a mesmerized cult around Assad & Putin.

The great tragedy of Syria is that supporters of the revolution against Assad’s dictatorship are so weak against such a confused & anti-intellectual cult who not only worship Putin & Assad; they worship militarism & glorify the Syrian army. What weakens the political forces who oppose Assad & support the revolution is that many support US military intervention under the misguided belief that US bombers & special forces will switch sides from their alliance with the counter-revolution & save the revolution. No one should oppose the revolution arming itself in self-defense. By any means necessary applies to revolution against dictatorship as it does to any struggle against oppression. But that’s a very different thing than calling on the US Pentagon, the epicenter of barbarism, to save the revolution–especially since the US played such a central role in defeating all of the Arab uprisings.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed with the massive suffering in the world because of war, occupation, & genocide & to become defeatist & misanthropic. Is it too late to turn the counter-revolution in Syria back & defeat it? Have the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Tunisia been decisively defeated? Is it all over but the crying? Those who have ever participated in massive struggle–from union strikes to antiwar mobilizations to social revolutions–never lose the vision of possibilities after they have witnessed the political power of united mass action in the cause of justice & freedom–even if they have been temporarily defeated. In that regard, Kashmiris & Palestinians stand as a model of how to stand ground against tyranny & that’s just one of the things that makes their struggles so important to all of humanity.