My Thoughts on The Paris Attacks

On Friday morning, one would have not been mistaken to think that the fight against ISIS had made some positive progress, with the liberation of Shingal by The Peshmerga from ISIS' dominion in northern Iraq and the killing by drone strike of Muhammad Emwazi (Jihadi John). Albeit the killing of Emwazi was more symbolic than catergorical and the liberation of Shingal is not exactly going to speed up the inevitable defeat of ISIS.

However, on Friday night in Paris, we were reminded again that this Jihadist cancer is still alive and well gnawing away at civilisation just like they had done a few days ago with the suicide bombings in Beirut and the beheadings of Shia Hazaras in Afghanistan. In Paris, terrorists launched a series of attacks that have claimed the lives of at least 160 people and 300 people injured. This make it the deadliest terrorist attacks in Europe since the Madrid bombings in 2004. ISIS has released a statement where they claimed responsibility for this and we definetly know it was a Jihadist attack because we have credible reports the gument shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they slayed the innocent.

In the aftermath of these horrific attacks, I have noticed alot of kneejerk finger pointing and simplistic analysis which is often done through a political lense that lacks complexity and nuance. You have the regressive left essentially blaming Western foreign policy and changing the subject to irrelevant topics. While on the other side you have those who want to shoehorn immigration and the refugee issue into this debate because that is their pet issue they want to talk about.

To be honest, I really am not surprised or shocked by the fact that we got the usual deflection, obsfucations and masochism from the regressive left.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks first response to the Paris attacks was to change the subject to Dylan Roof and the Iraq war. Later in the show one of his colleagues claimed that France closing it's borders will potentially "further radicalize muslims".  This clearly bigotry of lower expectations. So muslims will all of a sudden start killing people if they don't get the desired immigration policy they want. How contemptable. The closing of the borders is likely a short term measure as part of the state of emergency France is under right now. However, suppose France did make this a long term policy, it still would not provide an excuse or an "explaination" for radicalization. Despicable.

WOW! I am so glad we have Ayatollah Piers Morgan to be arbiter of who is a "real" muslim and who is not a "real" muslim thereby engaging in takfiri reasoning and Kuffarsplaining. Piers has probably never read the Qu'ran in his life, yet he considers himself an expert in Islam.

Another trait in the regressive state of mind is to dig  for western "hypocrisy" in light of a terrorist attack in the west and engage in fatuous whataboutery. Notice he had to shoehorn Palestine in there as per usual. Don't get me wrong the problems in  Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen are serious issues that definetly should be talked about, but why is Ben excavating for "hypocrisy" now? I'm afraid I find this contemptable.

Then we have the "grievance" argument. Remember when regressives talk about "grievances" in relation to Islamist terrorism what they mean is "this attack happened because of "Western foreign policy" which is what the Latuff cartoon above implies. This a simplistic and wrong analysis of the situation.  The attackers did not target symbols of French militarism or the French state. Rather, they attacked places where young, multi-ethnic and cosmopolitan Parisians hanged out such as cafes, resturaunts and bars like La Belle Equipe, Le Petit Cambodge and the Jewish owned music venue Bataclan.

The other venue attacked was the Stade de France, the home of the French national football team, (Les Bleus) another symbol of multi-racial and multi-cultural France.

For too long now the regressive left has said that these Jihadists are the bullhorn of long forgotten "muslim grievances". I suppose they are, if you want to define a "muslim grievance" as the grievance of seeing an undraped female head or face,  the hatred of cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity embodied in cities like Paris, the presence of a Shia muslim, a Jew and non-muslims on what you claim as "muslim soil". The horror of not having an totalitarian, imperialist super state called the Caliphate which they have now resurrected in Iraq and Syria. Anything can be twisted into a grievance by Jihadists.

Yes they have grievances, but it is nothing like the grievance we have with them. It should be we who they are afraid of, it should be our opinion that they should be worried about. Because we too have unalterable values and we do care about defending The Enlightenment and the values of a civlized world.

While the regressive left tried to play the card of masochism and blame terror attacks on Western foreign policy, some on the right have and will try to ramp up an anti-immigrant agenda, the more extreme elements will go for a more anti-muslim agenda.

As of now we're not sure of the backgrounds of all the attackers. We do know that a Syrian Passport was found next to one of the gunmen belonged to someone who registered as a refugee.They are also checking on the fingerprints of another man at the request of French investigators. However, authorities are not ruling out the possibility that the passport may have been a fake or may have been stolen or bought from a well established black market.

Another question that must be asked is why would a Jihadist who thinks modern notions of citizenship and nationality is haram, all of a sudden take his passport to a suicide mission and make sure it got found? For me this seems too calculated.

A plausible alternative theory could be that they used this passport so that they could tap into the anti-refugee sentiment in Europe in order to further discredit and delegitimize the refugees who are fleeing the nihilistic carnage that is currently engufling Syria of which ISIS has had a part in committing. In fact, ISIS loathes those fleeing to Europe from Syria. They view them as sinners because they are not going to their Caliphate.

I am not saying this is the right one because ultimately we don't know for certain if the Syrian passport found next to the Jihadist is actually his passport or if it's just a fake or if its one that has changed hands.

Let us assume anyways that at least one of them was an imposter refugee (which is possible) then it will raise questions about the extent of the fear of ISIS infiltration into Europe among the refugees and migrants coming into Europe. These fears should not always be dismissed out of hand because as Patrick Kinglsley writes here in The Guardian

"Thousands of refugees arrive on the Greek islands every day. While each has to be registered before they can make it to the Greek mainland, the process is a brief formality rather than a lengthy investigation. In registrations witnessed by the Guardian during the summer, refugees simply presented identification to the Greek authorities, before being allowed to leave minutes later without anything like a background check."

Shows that in theory, if a would be terrorist wanted to reach Europe through Lesbos in Greece, it would be relatively simple to do.

Still, the arguments linking the Paris attacks and Jihadism to the refugee crisis are still questionable and closing the borders completely to Syrian refugees is not an answer. It is just a kneejerk, reactionary policy that will not decrease terrorism. This is because most Jihadist terrorism in Europe has come from people who are homegrown. It is that homegrown Jihadist threat that needs to be tackled, diverting the issue towards refugees is not serious analysis, it is just posturing and unncessary fear mongering.

Again, I must stress that this is not to say that you can't have a debate on the refugee/migrant issue. It is just that linking it as an explaination for the problem of Jihadism is questionable.

If anything this attack should make us a little more empathetic, possibly even sympathetic if we can manage the task towards Syrian refugees who have faced this kind of violence nearly every day for the past four years.

This article sums up why we should be cautious about the Syrian Passport angle for now until we get more evidence.

We must then be very careful not to give the Jihadists what they want which is further polarisation. This is an established part of their strategy, to eliminate the grayzone or in other words make this a "West vs Islam" conflict. We cannot make this into an anti-muslim crusade, we must maintain that moral distinction between criticising ideas and spreading hate about people. Insisting on this is not "moralizing" or being "PC". It is an absoulute fucking necessity.

Sadly, there will be muslims who bare no responsibility for these attacks who will recieve bigotry as a result and possibly may experience hate crimes as "retribution". If and when they occur they must be condemed absoulutely and every action must be taken to prevent and punish such incidents, just like we do with anti-semitic, homophobic and racist hate crimes. We should never enter realms of collective blame as it risks futher tearing apart our civilisation.

In closing, I will say to my ordinary muslim comrades that you don't have anything to apologise for and you don't have any responsibility for attacks committed by Jihadists. However, I would plead to you to not deny that there is a problem, not to obsfucate on the issue of Islamism and Jihadism, or come out with banal platitudes like "this has nothing to do with Islam". That statement is flat out untrue and it does not help in decreasing anti-muslim bigotry because it is so intellectually dishonest and gives the impression that muslims have something to hide.

While it is also true that many muslims and muslim organizations condemn Jihadist attacks. This is obviously good and it should be acknowledged. However, the bar should not be set so low that merely condemning ISIS is enough. What is required in the long term to win this struggle against Islamism is to first, admit that a problem called Islamism exists and not to deny it's connection to Islam. Second, show solidarity with brave muslims reformers like Maajid Nawaz and Iyad El-Baghdadi and non muslims alike in helping the civil society lead, universal values based resistance against Islamism and Jihadism.

I just wish we can have an honest debate about Islamism/Jihadism without the denial, masochism, obsfucation and crass moral equivalences of the regressive left. Ultimately, if reasonable people cannot take control of the debate then the far-right and neo-Fascists are very happy to dictate the terms of the debate. This will not be good for our civilisation because the far-right are not interested in debating bad ideas and trying to save civilisation and culture. They want to tear it apart aswell.

In the end, our love for Paris will outlive and destroy the Jihadist's hatred of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Vive La France, Vive la République and Vive La Enlightenment

The No True Muslim Fallacy

Daylight prepares to return over France as I write this, and the horrifying brutality of the recent murders and bombings in Paris, France - resulting in the death of over 100 people, with approximately 200 more wounded - hasn't desensitized us too strongly yet. Paris is trending on Twitter with over 14 million tweets referring to those keywords, and there are various other hashtags associated with it. That's just Twitter. 

Paris is currently under curfew. 100+ hostages were killed. France was declared to be in a state of emergency. Despite no group having explicitly taken responsibility for the suicide bombing and killings, it is suspected that the perpetrators were almost certainly jihadists, likely directly affiliating with, or supporters of, a radical Islamist group. In particular, ISIS is suspected.

As is often the case, people seemed to be almost playing "hot potato" with whom to blame in this situation. Some people were bemoaning interventionism in the Middle East. Others were adamant it was religiously motivated (it was rumoured that one of the perpetrators was heard shouting "Allahu Akbar"). Perhaps it's a combination of the factors. ISIS, however, is known for killing people for far more reasons than pure American or European interventionism. The motivations for this situation are of yet not certainly known.

Yet another problem resurfaced: the No True Scotsman fallacy (but in this case it's fair to refer to it as the No True Muslim fallacy). It is the fallacy where one employs selective elitism as to what types of people are the true individuals of a certain group, and not phonies. This is often used in cases where someone is to blame or has done something considered reprehensible, and parties look to deflect or deny any legitimate association. In the case of religion, the fallacy is employed almost consistently, and that's a big problem. 

Here's an example of this fallacy in play:

This is a blatant example of the widespread fallacy. I haven't particularly researched the affiliations and religious justifications of the KKK, but Westboro Baptist Church and ISIS are subsets of Christianity and Islam, respectively. Both heavily justify their use of action with scriptural sourcing and interpretation. ISIS and Islam aren't different from each other much more than than a Mustang is different from a Ford. Same goes for Westboro and Christianity. Unfortunately, people posit ridiculous ideas such as:

1. Westboro members are not real Christians
2. ISIS are not real Muslims
3. Shias are not real Muslims

The first two of those three ideas float around a lot in liberal religious apologeticism, but the third of which is a idea enacted (though not created by) ISIS themselves. Certain religious apologists use the violence ISIS commits against other Muslims as evidence that ISIS have no legitimate association with the religion. Ironically, ISIS justifies killing Shias in the same way. 

This comment by Piers Morgan is perhaps the epitomization of delusional ignorance on the subject. The almost 25,000 retweets of a blatant logical fallacy suggests to me that this uninformed bias permeates society. For further reference: the tens of thousands of tweets in the hashtag #TerrorismHasNoReligion on Twitter.

ISIS attacked an area in Beirut recently, heavily populated with Shia Muslims. As written in the New York Times.

 

"

The group portrayed its motives as baldly sectarian, saying it had targeted Shiite Muslims, whom it views as apostates. It mentioned almost as an afterthought that it had targeted Hezbollah, the Shiite militant organization that backs the Syrian government in the civil war raging next door."

Over 40 people were killed, 200+ wounded in the incident. This same dismissive attitude people have toward the legitimacy of ISIS is oppositely polarized to that ISIS has against other Muslims. So then it becomes a war of *will the real Muslim please stand up?* Almost as baffling is that people who dismiss ISIS as real Muslims often tout the diversity of interpretation, and that fundamentalism is the problem. This is silly because when faced with arguing over who is the more legitimate type of Muslim, the only legitimate way of doing so is to cite and compare actions against the religious texts that are the basis for the religion. In the case of Islam, that would be the Qur'an, with the Hadith as a secondary source (despite that the Hadith is generally viewed inconsistently in how valid it is). In this case, it becomes, as I like to call it, the "fundamentalist's advantage." The more strictly and literally a text is viewed, the harder the legitimacy of the association of the individuals seems to dispute. For example, if someone claimed that the Qur'an is a metaphor for human beings' love for toilets, and if that someone believed in the Qur'an in that way, it'd be much harder to make the case that he/she is a Muslim, while he/she rejected any supernatural claims therein. On the grounds of who's a more studious observer of the faith, fundamentalism wins over wildly improbable theories. 

By denying the legitimacy of ISIS, people unintentionally make the situation more damaging or distressing for the future of Islam. People, even hardcore conservatives, can see through this fallacious and irrational assertion that ISIS aren't real Muslims, and these hardcore conservatives and/or true bigots can use this to fuel distrust of Muslims and the people who defend them. If you want to help build a more coexistent, inclusive society for Muslims, denial isn't the way to do so. 

An Intercept Writer References Out-of-Context Drivel and Gets it Wrong... Again

This piece was originally written by Steven Gonder (@sdgblu4ever on Twitter) . His blog is here.

In addition, please forgive the weird black highlight blocks in the text, it must've been some glitch  and I could not get rid of it so I tried to make it so that you could at least see the text, which hopefully you can. Apologies.

Before reading this analysis, I recommend forwarding the video to 5:00 and leaving it for about 10 seconds (thanks to Rapheal Leonardo for finding this).

[For this analysis, I used red text highlight for passage writer quotes, green for Hitchens quotes, and purple for Hitchens being quoted in a passage writer quote.]

This tweet is clearly visible on the Twitter feed of Murtaza Hussain. For reference, this is the same Murtaza Hussain who previously had referred to Maajid Nawaz as both a "talking monkey" and a "porch monkey" in separate but related tweets, and also doxed The Nation writer Aki Muthali. As a writer for The Intercept, headed by the notoriously anti-"New Atheist" Glenn Greenwald, Murtaza Hussain is very much familiar with prominent secular-endorsing writers, and Hitchens is no exception. In predictable form, he seemed to interweave the public disdain towards Columbus Day with building animosity towards and taking cheap shots at Hitchens. I admit that when I read this tweet, the passage seemed convincing, that perhaps Hussain may have been on to something. Unfortunately for Hussain, this was not the case; the passage is severely out-of-context and integrated with strawmen. 

An accurate representation of the original context can be seen here. It's almost immediately apparent the passage excludes that Hitchens took issue with the revisionist nature of the anti-Columbus movement: "It is risible in the same way that all movements of conservative anachronism are risible, and reminds me of Evelyn Waugh's complaint that he could never find a politician who would promise to put the clock back."

The passage, of course, neglects to mentions that, with the writer instead resting on the laurels of providing a narrative degrading Hitchens. Hitchens further substantiates his dislike for anachronistic narratives, referencing that territorial conquering was by no means exclusive to European settlers: "This details the long courtroom battle fought by various factions of the Sioux to reclaim their rights in the mountains of South Dakota. You can guess the story: treaties broken, lands filched, settlements put to the torch, women and children vilely abused. And all of it done by the Sioux to the Kiowa Indians, who had controlled the Black Hills before the Sioux got there in 1814. Actually, the book deals mainly with the greed and depredation of the palefaces, which is no doubt as it should be. But it is honest enough to say that the Sioux did drive off the Kiowa, and it quotes Chief Black Hawk saying candidly, 'These lands once belonged to the Kiowas and the Crows, but we whipped these nations out of them, and in this we did what the white men do when they want the lands of the Indians.'" It's also worth noting here that Hitchens considered addressing the abuses of the "palefaces" as being the correct course of action. 

Hitchens continued: "This is only a micro-illustration of the absurdity of founding a claim of right or justice on the idea of the indigenous. The Arawaks who were done in by Columbus's sailors, the Inca, the Comanche and the rest were not the original but only the most recent inhabitants." 

The second major contention he had with the anti-Columbus movement was the element of pessimism: "They can think of the Western expansion of the United States only in terms of plague blankets, bootleg booze and dead buffalo, never in terms of the medicine chest, the wheel and the railway." This is by no means a settled moral fact, but it's a far cry from the ludicrous statement that Murtaza Hussain provides that claims Hitchens thought genocide was great. 

The passage writer rearranges and strawmans Hitchens quotes "Those 'who view the history of North America as a narrative of genocide and slavery' fail to understand that this is 'the way that history is made, and to complain about it is as empty as complaint about climatic, geological or tectonic shift.'" by neglecting to note that genocide and slavery is not the antecedent, but rather the actual antecedent is taking the good with the bad of progressive civilization: "They can think of the Western expansion of the United States only in terms of plague blankets, bootleg booze and dead buffalo, never in terms of the medicine chest, the wheel and the railway."

Hitchens also supported Sioux getting what was their due, but again felt they had disputable rights to the land they inhabited: "Reapportioning Andalusia according to "precedent" would be as futile an idea as restoring Sioux rights that are only "ancestral" as far back as 1814. The Sioux should be able to claim the same rights and titles as any other citizen, and should be compensated for past injury. That goes without saying. But the anti-Columbus movement is bored by concepts of this kind..." 

The passage writer so ignorantly or disingenuously suggests that "The annihilation of the Native Americans was an instance that left humanity 'humanity on a slightly higher plane than it knew before,'" but again shoehorned the statement out of context. The original context wasn't referring to Native American genocide but advancement of civilization by various means (which don't by default mandate the extermination of native settlers): "But it is sometimes unambiguously the case that a certain coincidence of ideas, technologies, population movements and politico-military victories leaves humanity on a slightly higher plane than it knew before. The transformation of part of the northern part of this continent into "America" inaugurated a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation, and thus deserves to be celebrated with great vim and gusto..."

Whether you agree with what Hitchens actually said or not, Hussain and this mysterious passage writer (Hussain didn't link the article he got it from) both severely distorted what Hitchens actually wrote. The passage writer is more to blame here, but Hussain is not a Good Samaritan when it comes to ethics of discourse. It would be a relief if this were the last time we'd see vile misinformation created by, endorsed by, or propagated by The Intercept, but it's most likely not the last time, given the precedents and morals of the associated individuals.

     

Why #IStandWithBaharMustafa

Bahar Mustafa a student "diversity officer" of Goldsmiths University is now meant to appear at Bromley magistrates court on 5th November on the charge of sending a "threatening communication".

According to this article from The Guardian she specifically faces two charges:

"One is sending a communication conveying a threatening message between 10 November 2014 and 31 May 2015. The second is for sending a grossly offensive message via a public communication network between 10 November 2014 and 31 May 2015."

In addition, the article states that a spokesman from The Metropolitan police in London said in a statement:

“A woman interviewed under caution regarding a complaint of racially motivated malicious communication made on a social media network has been summonsed to court.”

 She came into notoriety earlier this year, where she barred white people and men from attending a student protest against racism and inequality (ironic, I know), explaining the event was only for "BME woman and non-binary people". However she really got her into controversy when she posted the hashtag #KillAllWhiteMen on social media which lead her to being accused of racism. (by the way she posted another tweet calling someone "white trash")

After she got a backlash for this ludicurous and patronising policy she then tried to justify it by stating; "I can't be racist if I'm an ethnic minority" because "racism and sexism describes structures of privilege based on race and gender" therfore "women of colour and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist because we do not stand to benefit from such a system".

This excuse is obviously piffle, especially as she is a white woman of Turkish extraction, a postgraduate and a a full-time student union officer at the quite bourgeois Goldsmith’s College in London. I really doubt Bahar hasn't benefited from the system or that she is high on the oppressed minority food chain.

Bahar belongs to a very censorious, authoritarian and regressive part of the left, who seek to act like the thought police and enforce the ordinances of political correctness on student campuses in the name of "equality and diversity". Let us not forget, Goldsmith University whom she works for, is the same place where feminist comedian Kate Smurthwaite had a gig cancelled after members from the Feminist society threatened to disrupt the event over disagreements with her views on decriminalising prostitution.

It would be too easy for me to gloat and laugh at the irony of this. Though, truthfully it is very tempting. "Justice has been served", "Karma is a bitch", "What goes around, comes around". Pick your favourite cliche comrades!

However this reminds me of a quote by Christopher Hitchens in his famous speech on Freedom of Expression where he said of those who seek to restrict Free speech that they "in potentia make a rod for their own back". Since ultimately we have no Sanhedrin or divine will that can definitively tell us what ideas we can or cannot think or express.

I'm not a lawyer (yet) so I can't speak to the exact details of the case or cast a definitive judgement as to whether she is innocent or guilty of breaking the specific law.

However, I am very worried that there is this precedent of people being taken to the courts and even put in prison by the state for simply making comments that are deemed to be "offensive", "obscene" or "indecent". I personally do not believe it is a matter for the law to deal with the intellectual excrement that occasionally reveals itself on Twitter and other forms of social media.

This is an opportunity for Free speech advocates to really grab the moral high ground and defend freedom of speech, even for racialist, authoritarian cranks like Bahar Mustafa. Firstly, because freedom of speech is so vital for a free society and we should always be skeptical of attempts to limit freedom of speech especially when it's done in the name of "niceness" or "decency". It is also more crucial in this year of 2015 which has been a disaster for freedom of speech on all fronts worldwide.

Secondly, it would reveal to Bahar and her ideological allies that freedom of speech is not a left or right issue. It is simply a core universal value you are either for or against and there is no compromise on it. If Bahar can be hurled before a judge and potentially go to prison for tweets she posted, then I could be in that same situation aswell.

I stand with Bahar Mustafa and defend her express her wrong opinions freely. I doubt she would do the same for me but I hope this does teach her a very valuable lesson in reciprocation.

So, comrades I invite you also to stand with Bahar Mustafa. Even reluctantly so.

"Anti-Imperialist" hypocrisy on Russian intervention in Syria

The already bloody conflict in Syria has now become more awkward, complicated and horrific. Since September 30th Russia has stepped up its intervention in Syria and has begun airstrikes in what it claims are operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) and other forces of "International Terrorism". In reality these bombings are more about embarrassing President Obama and bolstering the Assad regime, in order to maintain a Russian sphere of influence in the Middle East, than fighting ISIS. For instance there have been reports of bombings hitting US backed rebels aswell as hitting other non-ISIS rebel groups like Jaysh al-Fatah and Jabhat al-Nusra, whilst there has only been a few token strikes at ISIS held areas. This graphic better illustrates the point that most of the airstrikes on October 3rd were mainly focused in the north-west of the country where the more moderate rebels are based,while almost none on that day hit ISIS controlled areas to the East of the country.

There is a section of people who's view of Russia's intervention in Syria ranges from apathy to even support in some cases. They are the "anti imperialist" left. What I mean by "anti-imperialists" in quotes are those designated to be on the "radical left" (I'm being generous by calling them radicals) who claim to be against interventionism, imperialism and oppression, but in fact are very inconsistent or confused in applying these principles. In other words; if it's The United States that's doing the intervention then expect strong condemnations from these people, but if it's another power doing the intervention then you can't always be certain you will hear any strong condemnation, if anything at all.

First up we have our good friend Murtaza Hussain from The Intercept.

Although Murtaza's first tweet is one I find flat out untrue because only 5% of the bombs so far have actually targeted ISIS while the U.S bombings in Syria since last October has mostly focused on ISIS and Al-Nusra. It is one that he could possibly mount a defense for if challenged. However the second one is really weird to me. He says; "didn't seem like U.S had any will to actually defeat Islamic State, serves as useful bogeyman and zone for weapons testing". I really find this tweet very bizarre, he seems to be claiming that the U.S isn't serious about fighting ISIS but using them as an excuse to "test weapons". I don't quite know what he means by this and I have seen no evidence that the U.S is testing weapons in Syria.

Contrast this sentiment towards Russia's intervention to this article he co-authored with Glenn Greenwald in September 2014. Wherein the United States announced it was bombing ISIS positions in Syria. He also echoes the "ISIS is America's bogeyman" slogan." The Fake Terror Used To Justify Bombing Syria" was the hysterical headline that lead the piece. It pretty much makes the argument that the U.S concucted a bogeyman in ISIS and more importantly "Khorosan", in order for the supposed U.S empire to bomb another muslim country. In addition to that, if you have observed their website recently The Intercept has not written one article that directly addresses Russia's intervention in Syria.

Now onto Glenn's tweet.

What is Glenn's point here? Is this really all he can muster on the subject of Putin butressing the Assad regime? Is he saying that Russia's intervention is more legitimate than the U.S intervention
because the Duma authorized and Assad apparently "invited" them into Syria, while Congress didn't approve of U.S airstrikes in Syria? Would it be better for him if Congress did approve U.S bombings and would he find it as legitimate?

Next up we have political cartoonist Carlos Latuff who drew a very weird cartoon on this issue.

I know that because this is a cartoon so he can use the "interpretation" defence on this, but this does seem like a glorification of Russian militarism in Syria. Look at the big, proud and powerful Russian bear imposing itself on Syria with ISIS, CIA and FSA looking so scared hiding behind a rock.I really doubt he would portray Israel in this way. See this twitter exchange when he was challenged on it.

Oh Good grief!. Doesn't he understand? Russia is imposing a brutal regime against the will of the Syrian people through it's intervention, it may not be an "occupation" exactly but it is clear that Russia wants to re-establish its position in the Middle East. It is so distressing to see so called "radical leftists" basically advocating for the status-quo instead of getting rid of it.


Abby Martin, former presenter at RT (Putin's propaganda network) and current presenter of The Empire Files (clever name isn't it?) also weighed in on this,

Abby diverts attention from the issue and essentially plays the "blame America" card. First she suggests that America really is the aggressor with it's "crimes of arming, bombing & regime change attempts" while Russia is the victim, which therfore must mean that Russia's intervention is a reasonable form of self-defence. She seems to forget that the Syrian revolution against Assad was not something that the U.S engineered but rather that it was an authentic and real popular revolt against tyranny in favour of democracy and freedom.

In fact it has been Assad, supported by Iran and Putin, that has been more aggressive and contributed more to the violence through, the barrel bombing of civillians, instigating vicious sectarian killings through sabiha militias and using chemical weapons. To put it simply, as Charles Lister brilliantly explains here, Assad is the root cause of the crisis in Syria.

She then tries to cover herself by saying the vague platitude "I condemn all bombs". That's the closest she gets in all her tweets on this issue to condeming Russia's actions in Syria. Why can't these "anti imperialists" condemn and criticise non-US militarism in isolation and exclusively for once? If she really is against "all bombs" why can't she explicitly criticise Russia?

Her last tweet mentions people who; "lack the moral compass to condemn their own country's imperial projects and atrocities". Implied in this is the meme, popularised by Glenn Greenwald and other disciples of Noam Chomsky that we should only criticise the crimes of "our countries" and not "spend the bulk of our time focusing on the crimes of the other" to quote Greenwald. This silly idea has been debunked succintly by Alex Rowell of NOW Lebanon here.

It reminds me of Stop The War's position on this topic. They issued a statement after Russian airstrikes started in which (in all fairness) they did express a soft opposition to Russian intervention by saying "Just as Stop the War has criticised US bombing...so too we cannot support Russian military action." However last week on their website they also ran an op-ed by Simon Jenkins, originally published on The Guardian, which criticised U.S and U.K bombings in Syria against ISIS but weirdly approved of Hizbollah and Russia's war in Syria by claiming "The only intervention likely to work in Syria just now is from Moscow." It is strange that a self-proclaimed "anti-war" and "anti-imperialist" organisation would run a piece like that isn't it? But let's assume they are as they claim to be not supportive of Russian actions in Syria, why then have they not organised a protest outside the Russian embassy against Russia's intervention to support the Assad regime and its deployment of Russian personnal ? The fact they haven't done this reveals to me that they're not really serious about their opposition to war or intervention and that it only matters when the west does it, but if a non-western state does the same action then all you get from them is just apathy whilst attempting not to seem apathetic.


If you ever wanted a clearer example of the sheer hypocrisy of this "anti imperialist" mentality then look no further than George Galloway, who has a history of campaigning against all forms of western interventionism and prides himself on being an "anti-imperialist", this time however he is praising Russian airstrikes in Syria as seen in the tweet below.

What makes this even more damning. As this video shows is that, not that long ago he argued against western intervention against ISIS, on the grounds that it would be "counterproductive", that it will cause "the rise of extremism around the world" and "increase terrorism". The video shows him in another context saying "Russia has every right, indeed obligation to act". It is so clear that Galloway's intentions do not come from a principled "anti-imperialism" but from anti-western hatred, as Galloway himself puts it in the linked video "I'm not against airstrikes, I'm against western airstikes".

The irony of this is, that it is more likely that Russian airstrikes will be counter-productive and fuel the rise of extremism in Syria. First of all, most of the strikes haven't even touched ISIS so instead of it being counter-productive, it's non-productive. Second of all, we have reports of rebel factions joining with Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham and other Jihadist groups joining with Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra to fight the Russian "infidels", echoing the legends of the Jihad of the 1980s during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (which Galloway supported). In addition The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, which participates in the insurrection against Assad, issued a statement declaring Jihad obligatory on every able bodied muslim.

It's so clear and obvious that Galloway is not an "anti-imperialist" or even a neutral observer, but a shill and propagandist for the Assad-Iran-Putin troika. Christopher Hitchens once had a brilliant saying for Galloway when he described him as in "search for a tyrannical fatherland"that will always continue. Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin and the list continues of despots and thugs Galloway has prostitued himself towards in order to get money, fame and a sense of purpose.

Lastly, but by no means least we had Socialist Unity publish an absolutely vile apologia for Assad and Russia's intervention on his behalf. There is so much wrong with their defence that I'm going to keep my response as short as I can so that I don't waste your time.

Their argument is that it is right for Russia to support the Assad regime because Assad is "opposed" to ISIS and other forces of Jihadism as well as being a vanguard for "secular modernity" in the Middle East.

"Russia’s decision to provide military support for Syria can only be considered controversial or wrong if you believe that a moral equivalence exists between ISIS and the Assad government."

Well actually a moral equivalence does exist. Assad's forces have been responsible for the majority of the civilian deaths in the civil war because of its deliberate targeting of civilians, using chemical weapons and barrel bombs. Assad is also a hideous dictator who uses state terror and torture to repress opposition and is known state sponsor of terrorism. If there is a moral difference between Assad and ISIS then that difference is slim and marginal because he is not a Liberal Democrat by any means of the imagination.

" In contradistinction to ISIS the Assad government is secular, believes in modernity, and upholds the rights of minorities, both Muslim and non-Muslim. More crucially, regardless of the huge campaign of demonisation that has been unleashed against it in the West, it retains the significant support of a large section of the Syrian people, who understand more than any Western diplomat, politician, or ideologue the nature of the struggle they have been engulfed in these past four and half years."

This statement is just outstanding and so comical that it boggles the mind how people can write and publish such blatant nonsense as Assad is being "demonised" with a straight face is beyond me. Also the usual babble about him being a modern secularist who defends the rights of minorities which has been addressed so many times. Despite this the real blatant falsehood about the Assad regime is that "it retains the significant support of a large section of the Syrian people". This is just pure propaganda. I think anyone who has done any bit of research on Syria will know that each one of the claims made in the extract is pure bullshit.

Throughout this awful piece it describes Russia as "principled" and "courageous" for resisting a "foreign invasion by thousands of foreign extremists and jihadists" (notice the implicit generalisation of all rebel groups as Jihadists). And to top it all off Socialist Unity concludes with Russia is defending "civilisation itself".

Let me be clear by stating that I am not necessarily attacking people who are principled anti-interventionists, neither am I saying that because Russia has started bombing Syria that I am absolving the U.S of any responsibility for its wrongs it has done in history. I am specifically attacking the hypocritical "anti-imperialist left" response to Russia's intervention in support of the Assad regime, thats has ranged from complete apathy to explicit support for Russia. Nowadays, so much of the radical left has been so immersed in its own virulent and bordering masochistic anti-western rhetoric and opposition to western intervention that it either ignores or even tacitly allies itself with authoritarian thugs like Putin and Assad in their actions just because they're anti-western.

I'm still waiting for that protest outside the Russian embassy Stop the War...still waiting.