Then in January 2014, news emerged that a defector had left Syria with tens of thousands of images, many showing the bodies of detainees who died in Syria’s detention centers. A team of international lawyers, as well as Syrian activists, interviewed the defector, code-named “Caesar,” who stated that, as an official forensic photographer for the Military Police, he had personally photographed bodies of dead detainees and helped to archive thousands more similar photographs.

These photographs were taken apparently as part of a bureaucratic effort by the Syrian security apparatus to maintain a photographic record of the thousands who have died in detention since 2011 as well as of members of security forces who died in attacks by armed opposition groups. The exact purpose of the photographs is not clear. In an interview with a journalist, Caesar himself indicated that he “often wondered” about the reason but that in his view, “the regime documents everything so that it will forget nothing. Therefore, it documents these deaths…If one day the judges have to reopen cases, they’ll need them.”

This ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots is one which equates imperialism with the actions of the US alone. They seem unaware that the US has been bombing Syria since 2014. In its campaign to liberate Raqqa from Daesh all international norms of war and considerations of proportionality were abandoned. Over 1,000 civilians were killed and the UN estimates that 80 per cent of the city is now uninhabitable. There were no protests organized by leading ‘anti-war’ organizations against this intervention, no calls to ensure that civilians and civilian infrastructure were protected. Instead they adopted the ‘War on Terror’ discourse, once the preserve of neo-cons, now promulgated by the regime, that all opposition to Assad are jihadi terrorists. They turned a blind eye to Assad filling his gulag with thousands of secular, peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators for death by torture, whilst releasing militant-Islamists from prison. Similarly, the continuing protests held in liberated areas in opposition to extremist and authoritarian groups such as Daesh, Nusra and Ahrar Al Sham have been ignored. Syrians are not seen as possessing the sophistication to hold a diverse range of views. Civil society activists (including many amazing women), citizen journalists, humanitarian workers are irrelevant. The entire opposition is reduced to its most authoritarian elements or seen as mere conduits for foreign interests.

A number of anti-war organizations have justified their silence on Russian and Iranian interventions by arguing that ‘the main enemy is at home’. This excuses them from undertaking any serious power analysis to determine who the main actors driving the war actually are. For Syrians the main enemy is indeed at home – it’s Assad who is engaging in what the UN has termed ‘the crime of extermination’. Without being aware of their own contradictions many of the same voices have been vocally opposed (and rightly so) to Israel’s current assault on peaceful demonstrators in Gaza. Of course, one of the main ways imperialism works is to deny native voices. In this vein, leading western anti-war organizations hold conferences on Syria without inviting any Syrian speakers.

This pro-fascist left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners – only white men have the power to make history. According to the Pentagon there are currently around 2000 American troops in Syria. The US has established a number of military bases in the Kurdish-controlled north for the first time in Syria’s history. This should concern anyone who supports Syrian self-determination yet pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of Iranian troops and Iranian backed Shia militias which are now occupying large parts of the country, or the murderous bombing raids carried out by the Russian air force in support of the fascist dictatorship. Russia has now established permanent military bases in the country, and has been handed exclusive rights over Syria’s oil and gas as a reward for its support. Noam Chomsky once argued that Russia’s intervention could not be considered imperialism because it was invited to bomb the country by the Syrian regime. By that analysis, the US’s intervention in Vietnam was not imperialism either, invited as it was by the South-Vietnamese government.

It tells us that the main problem, which is Assad’s genocide, isn’t even conceived as being a real problem. Assad, the ‘animal’, apparently only becomes worthy of criticism when he uses chemical weapons in a large-scale attack. When he burns children alive with napalm or incinerates and maims them with missiles, the world looks the other way.

The genocide must be stopped.

Any action must be to stop the genocide – not stage-managed limited attacks on single airbases, but a no-fly zone to ensure Syrian blood being spilled is no longer a daily reality. The only reason this is far-fetched is because the world isn’t interested - the logistics of it are perfectly sound.

It’s true that there have been many other post-war genocides, but never has the viciousness been so comprehensively detailed in real time via the internet and social media. The victims tweeting out their helplessness. The murdered leaving behind the ghosts of their lives in the form of Facebook pages and twitter accounts. The endless videos of suffering, torture and destruction.  

These atrocities are apparently not worthy of twitter condemnation by the president of the US, never mind military action.  

Trump may well act against Assad for Douma, but the action will almost certainly be limited and won’t change the daily reality of genocide.

The question used to be: How many Syrians must die before the world acts to stop it? The answer so far is simply and terrifyingly however many Assad, Iran and Russia deem necessary to kill.  

Before you judge the right course of action on Syria here’s 7 things you should know.

1. The regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian and Iranian backers are responsible for 93% of all civilians killed since 2011.

2. The vast majority of these deaths are from attacks from the sky. More than 70,000 “barrel bombs” made of scrap metal and high explosives have been rolled out of regime helicopters onto hospitals, homes and schools. Cluster bombs, missiles, chemical weapons and other banned weapons are also dropped.

3. Aerial attacks are the leading cause of displacement. More than half the country have fled their homes, millions have moved internally and more than 6 million have crossed into neighbouring countries and beyond.

4. The brutality of the Assad regime is a key driver in the growth of extremist groups like ISIS and Nusra which thrive in chaos.

5. Multiple UN Security Council resolutions have been passed banning aerial attacks and chemical weapons use. Russia has vetoed a further 12 resolutions. Yet no real action has been taken to stop these attacks and protect civilians.

6. The international community has a range of tools to enforce these resolutions (sanctions, diplomatic pressure) that it is not using. We all know we need a political solution but that can’t happen without credible pressure being exerted on the Assad regime and Russia.

7. Syria’s heroes like the White Helmets, doctors and peace activists have been demanding real action for years. They know it is the only thing that can save the lives of the more than 4 million living in areas outside the control of the regime and create the conditions for credible peace talks for a Syria where every civilian is protected.

If Western publics were polled today, I think majorities would probably choose Neo-Eurasianist fascist or pro-Kremlin “Alt-Left” candidates, such as Corbyn who, though he formally denies it, is a populist nationalist, he persistently repeats Kremlin propaganda about Syria, and he is in favour of genocidal tyrants as long as they’re anti-Western. If we think of ‘democracy’ now as simply the majoritarian voting procedure, then our continent will totally fall to fascism. ‘Democracy’ in my view is primarily the values and principles of fundamental freedoms, human rights (not just citizens’ rights), and fundamental equality of valuing human beings independently of nationality, race, religion, ethnicity, etc., and the majority voting procedure is a means to implement those values, but it is not an end in itself which justifies whatever the majority will demands. Constitutional constraints on the popular majority will to protect human rights of scapegoated minorities and foreigners are even more fundamentally legitimate in a democratic constitutional system than the majority voting procedure. It is moments like this that motivated the authors of our uncodified constitutional legal system to frame the UK’s form of government as representative not simply direct democracy. Even though it will be unpopular, probably with a majority, you or your successors must at some point choose to act to oppose our nice, quiet, peaceful slide into a fascist international era.

zanabism:

my taxi driver a few days ago was a Syrian-British immigrant originally from Damascus and his fam is currently living under gov controlled areas. 

he was telling me though they don’t support the government and have never **liked** assad, they are religious minorities who would likely be killed or jailed by various members of the “opposition” should they ever leave–members of his fam had been abducted by unknown factions before and they still hadn’t heard from them and were presumed dead. 

but he was telling me that he couldn’t have these convos in canada without immediately being labeled an “assadist” or “pro-syria” lol even though he literally doesn’t like assad. he was telling me about his non-syrian roommate who was chiding him for not immediately supporting the opposition. 

it had already hit me while ago, but definitely in that moment, i realized how thoroughly we’ve taken this conversation away from Syrians. this guy, who doesn’t even support Assad, who is actually syrian, is being condemned by his non-syrian, never-even-been-to-syria canadian roommate for saying “the opposition will hurt my family” 

we need to seriously take a step back and accept we don’t know better than the actual Syrian community, no matter how many ABC News articles we read, and let them lead this conversation. 

aishawarma:

From Letter to a “comrade” who insists on justifying the unjustifiable

• Before telling me that I defend the same positions as the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bernard-Henri Lévy or some other “cumbersome companions”, remember that if you reason in this way you defend on your side the same positions as Russia, Iran, Marshal Sissi, François Fillon or Marine Le Pen, and ask yourself if that’s a good argument.
  
• Before telling me that since 2011 Israel has bombed fifteen times positions of the Assad regime, and that those who are against Assad are therefore with Israel, remember that last June Putin declared, at the end of a meeting with Netanyahu with whom he had just signed several trade agreements, the following: “We have evoked the need for joint efforts in the fight against international terrorism. In this regard, we are allies. Both countries have significant experience in matters of fight against extremism. We will therefore strengthen our contacts with our Israeli partners in this area”. And ask yourself if that’s a good argument.
  
• Before telling me that the Syrian rebellion appealed to the Western countries to receive weapons and to benefit from a substantial, especially aerial, military support and that this necessarily hides something, remember that the Kurdish forces that you admire so much — rightly so — since they rejected Daech in Kobane have done exactly the same thing, and they have obtained this support, to the extent that they publicly thanked the United States for their support, and ask yourself if that’s a good argument.
  
• Before telling me that the Syrian rebellion, even though one might at first have been sympathetic to it, is now confiscated by reactionary forces stemming from political Islam, and that some of these forces do not hesitate to attack civilians or, a variation on the same theme, that it is really tragic to bomb civilians but that it’s because terrorists hide among them when they do not use them as human shields, remember that this is the speech of those who want to justify the campaigns of deadly bombing on Gaza, and ask yourself it that’s a good argument.
  
• Before telling me that the Syrian insurgents are “objective allies” of Daech, remember that Daech was driven out of Aleppo at the beginning of 2014 by those who are now being massacred by Assad, then think about the concept of “objective ally”, and ask yourself if that’s a good argument. You can also reconsider, if you are not convinced, what I mentioned above about the real targets of the coalition bombing, and ask yourself a second time if the blow of the “objective ally” is a good argument.
  
• Finally, before telling me that those who denounce Assad and Putin “forget” to denounce the massacres committed by the great Western powers and their allies, keep in mind that of those who mobilize for Aleppo, we are many who also mobilized for Gaza, against military intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or elsewhere, and that we do not renounce, contrary to you who chose not to be on the street last night to denounce the current butchery [December 14 in Paris], to our political consistency, ideals and anti-imperialism. And ask yourself if that’s a good argument.
  

The more I observe the way in which Western Marxist, trapped into their dogmatic closed minded illusionary bubble, are failing to critically interrogate the fall of Aleppo, the more I realize the way in which they are engaging themselves in an orientalist discriminatory thinking. As Edward Said long ago discussed on the specific political visions that Karl Marx is proposing, he didn’t fail to mention the problems of the “superior” occidental western belief which by destroying Asia and Africa will eventually lead to a real social transformation. This logic is ultimately undermining the suffering of the Others bodies and justify the evil deeds in the name of a postcapitalist world. Well, we can sense how Marx followers cannot shake from his bad influence since they are proclaiming the fall of Aleppo as an act of opposition against imperialism. Not only is it ironic to ignore the Russian and Iranian interventions in Syria, but some believe that this was reactionary to the US one. The blind defiance against US imperialism by western leftist is understandable given the consequences of US intervention in foreign politics and regional problems. 

However, looking and dealing with the question of Syrian revolution just in that oversimplified way is erasing the complexity of the problem and the core of the Syrian revolution itself. This is not just about win for anti-imperialism and sovereignty in Syria, it is a win for Russian and Iranian imperialism, win for a murderous dictatorship of Bashar al’Assad, win for a president who slaughtered and detained millions of civilians. The news in the media about the event are still too shallow to really put our trust on them, however we as spectators of these crimes against millions of people, the huge responsibility fall of us to engage in an never-ending consideration of the situation and re-articulation of every given detail without undermining the core of the Syrian revolution – the Syrian people themselves! This is not merely about oppositions like Russia-USA, capitalism-communism, Saudi-Iran, Turkey-Russia, Assad-ISIS, it is not just about geopolitics and interests of the great powers, it is about the Syrian people on ground who started the whole revolution in 2011 in a peaceful protest against a horrific leader. As the prominent Syrian philosopher Jalal al-Azm who died two days ago said: “In other words, this leftist has no problem with sacrificing Syria if it leads to a victory being handed to their international camp and “geopolitics” that wants a global victory in the “game of nations.” Their first priority is not Syria or its people in revolt to restore the republic, their freedom, and their dignity, but the game of nations at the global level of analysis and the side that they want to win.” Question yourself, question what you see, question your opinion.

The pro-regime forces diverted a massive amount of resources to break through in Aleppo at the expense of other parts of their territories. Even with massive military intervention from Russia and Iran, this is hardly a force that is on the cusp of total victory.

But the same can be said for the rebels – there is no chance of them achieving military victory at this stage. They have extremely limited resources and a shrinking list of dubious allies, if any at all. None of this is about false hope and denial, but neither is it about outside observers calling for the rebels to surrender.

What exactly would they be surrendering to? One must never forget that it is Assad, Iran and Russia who have carried out this genocide and it is they who are pursuing not a solution to the conflict but a counterrevolution = not reconciliation but violent retribution.

During this war, we’ve seen the transformation of these organs of the Baathist state from quietly brutal to outright genocidal – they have become apparatuses of extermination, as attested to by the thousands of photos depicting Auschwitzian images of anti-regime Syrian prisoners starved and tortured to death in Assad’s dungeons.

These are the forces that will seek to erase the very idea of the revolution in Syria – all they know is cruelty and violence, tinged with sectarian malice. The dynamic in Eastern Aleppo is - on the surface - one of surrender to Assad or death, but many of those who surrender are not being spared the wrath of Assad’s fascist forces.

The triumph of counterrevolution in Syria doesn’t mean stability and doesn’t mean “peace” for Syrians. It means an escalation of the terror that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and cleansed millions of others. We must continue stand with these victims and with those who continue to resist this.

aishawarma:

Literally there’s nothing anyone can say at any point in time to make up for the silence to what has been happening in Aleppo

Today there were advancements by the assad and russian forces into the city and aleppo is about to fall. 100,000 people are trapped in. Public executions are reported. Photos and videos from the city are scarce which is only more terrifying. Activists and journalists have all sent their last or farewell messages and there is no way out.

This is genocide and nothing anyone will say will make up for this absolute tragedy which we all watched indifferently