Neocon Max Boot now says it’s better for the Syrian people if Assad stays in power. But we still can’t get the American left to come to its senses about Syria.
Louis Proyect says in Counterpunch that the suffering coming out of East Ghouta is “on a massive scale reminiscent of Leningrad in 1941.”
According to Wiki, a million and a half people died during the Leningrad siege. According to the authoritative-sounding Syrian Observatory for Human Rights -- one anti-Assad guy in a Coventry flat, relying mostly on reports from anti-Assad fighters -- 1,000 people have been killed in East Ghouta, horrible to be sure but not Leningrad. In Leningrad, people were reduced to cannibalism. There was cannibalism in Syria in 2013: a commander for the left's beloved Free Syrian Army cut the lungs out of a Syrian Army soldier and ate them on camera. A “moderate” rebel eminently worthy of CIA dollars -- and spicy recipes.
While bringing up Lou-dicrous comparisons to 1941 Leningrad, Proyect fails to mention the US-destroyed Raqqa and Mosul from which dead bodies are still being found and dragged out of the rubble. Rest assured that the Great Satan will not rebuild those cities as Assad is doing with Palmyra and Aleppo. To the colonized mind of the American left, the crimes of America’s enemies are always worse and more worth talking about than the crimes of America itself. US airstrikes were responsible for most of the 40,000 dead civilians in Mosul and over 3,000 in Raqqa.
Continues below editor's note.
The Jackals' Choir: Western "news" networks gang up to sing the same tune, accusing Syria and Russia of crimes against humanity. Hypocrisy has never strutted around so impudently.
The videos below—the audiovisual counterpart of their radio and newsprint versions—illustrate the uniformity of viewpoint (and even materials presented) in the Western-controlled media, a veritable Ministry of Truth dedicated to systematically upending the truth in regard to the Empire's attacks on Syria and other dangerous flashpoints ignited by Washington and its vassal states. The first video, by an asset known as Euronews shows the pattern used by the disinformers. The main object is to whip up a public furor against Syrian/Russian efforts to liberate East Ghouta from the plague of murderous jihadists planted there and supported by Washington and its accomplices. YouTube and the whole Western media apparatus have produced and disseminated literally thousands of fake news reports about this tragic subject. Frequently, it is children who are used to tug at the clueless audience's heartstrings. Incidentally Euronews is almost certainly controlled or influenced by the CIA and other stealthy intel partners; as originally set up it was supposed to represent the EU's "independent" version of events, separate from America's CNN, etc., but we know where that "independence" went, into abject vassalage to Washington. Now it's formally owned by a shady Egyptian businessman, with a significant equity share by NBC Universal. All of this propaganda noise is supposed to be swallowed whole, on faith, on these presstitutes' say-so. even though a thinking person with a fair knowledge of the facts can easily spot the outrageous lies and cynical biases. But don't take our word for this. Examine the materials and draw your own conclusions.
- By Euronews
2. By ABC News (US)
Published on Feb 23, 2018
Syrian government's offensive has escalated humanitarian crisis, warns U.N. as aid fails to reach people.
3. By Star TV —complete propaganda, using staged material furnished by the notoriously spurious White Helmets organisation. Notice the professional production value, including the Hollywood sound track.
4. By CBS/ Face the Nation
Bombing in eastern Ghouta has killed at least 500 this week
Published on Feb 25, 2018
5. By AlJazeera (owned by the Qatari government, one of the US-affiliated Gulf tyrannies supporting the overthrow of Pres. Assad and Syria's dismemberment.
???????? Syria: Deadly onslaught continues in Idlib, Eastern Ghouta
The Syrian government, backed by its key ally Russia, has been pounding rebel-held areas in Syria. Rescue workers are scrambling to keep up with the onslaught in Idlib and the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. At least 138 people have been killed in the last 48 hours - activists say most of them are civilians. Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports.
6. By Strait Times (Reuters)
Aah, the children, the children. "For God's sake stop all that bombing!"
Syria's Ghouta residents 'wait to die' as more bombs fall
7. The Washington Post (WP)
Published on Feb 8, 2018
The WaPo is literally owned by Jeff Bezos, richest man on earth and heavy contractor with the CIA. Guess how impartial this rag is going to be.
Eight days of airstrikes in Idlib and Eastern Ghouta, Syria
Text by Randy Shields resumes here.
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]y the way, two thirds of the casualties in Syria have been Syrian soldiers and anti-government fighters. The anti-Assad left and the mockingbird media would have us believe that all 345,000 Syrian deaths have been civilians who Assad and Putin deliberately, personally and exclusively killed. The presstitutes tell us how unpopular the Alawite Assad is while the entire world sees a Sunni majority army fighting to the death for him and the rest of Syria by killing off Wahhabist Sunni fanatics. Huh? (Syria has never been a “civil war” or a “sectarian conflict” -- it’s been a pre-planned destruction led by the US, piggy-backing on legitimate grievances of the Syrian working class.)
Interestingly, the anti-Syrian-government left never tells us the names of the armed opposition groups that it supports. Why? Is it because they are al-Qaeda offshoots? Is it because they are so tiny and few in number that they are inconsequential and/or the Syrian working class majority don't support them? Is it because they collaborated with the most regressive fundamentalist groups and/or got wiped out by them? The anti-Assad left seems to live in an ivory tower that got destroyed somewhere around 2012 -- they never say what should be done now.
Then [Louis] Proyect makes a false equivalency between Israel bombing Gaza in response to Hamas’ largely ineffectual rockets and the Syrian government bombing terrorists in East Ghouta who have been shelling Damascus for years with howitzers, mortars and GRAD rockets, killing and wounding thousands of civilians. Gazans are occupied and have legitimate rights under international law to resist, including violently.
Proyect quotes Counterpunch’s Jeffrey St. Clair that aerial bombing of cities is a war crime. I couldn’t agree more and I’ll raise you an aerial bombing of jungles also. And I think shooting a barrage of GRAD rockets into downtown Damascus is a war crime too. (What parts of war aren’t a crime?) So, where does that put us? It puts “us” safely and snugly in the belly of the beast. It puts the Syrian working class majority wanting its government to protect them from a minority of al-Qaeda metastases, funded and armed by the most reactionary regimes on earth, trying to win violently what they can’t win intellectually, socially or politically. The left just won’t cut its intellectual (“moderate” rebels) or political (Russia-gate) losses. And isn’t it interesting how so much of what the left does is in harmony with what the Pentagon, the CIA and the empire wants.
And since Proyect brought up Gaza and the Palestinians… It was the Palestinian Liwaa al-Quds force who stormed the al-Shaaher roundabout in Aleppo on September 24, 2016 which liberated the Handaraat Camp which turned around the battle for Aleppo which turned around the fight for Syria which is turning the American empire upside down with indispensable help from Russia and Iran. On that memorable September day eastern Aleppo residents were cheering on Liwwa al-Quds, Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army as they hunted down and killed the members of the CIA-funded Nour al-Din al-Zenki who beheaded the 12-year-old Palestinian boy on film. The Syrian working class doesn’t actually like the 31 flavors of takfiri terrorists that some western leftists find so sweet.
In fact, during the December 2016 liberation of Aleppo, Syrians who lived for years under the rule of the fanatics were outraged that the Syrian army put the terrorists on buses to Idlib instead of killing them outright. A day later it was discovered that, just before they surrendered, the terrorists had summarily executed over 100 hostages and prisoners in basement prisons, including many Syrian soldiers.
Then Proyect attempts to make a case for the fanatics in East Ghouta by contrasting their poverty-stricken area with wealthier Damascus. A splendid insight. Now, how about you leading the charge of South Central against Beverly Hills? Oh, that’s right -- the impotent defeated American left has been on the run for 40 years and can only mind the business of the Assads, Saddams, Gadaffis and the ayatollahs -- all Israeli enemies and sitting atop large energy resources -- while “our” own government remains the chief engine of destruction in the world. Blessedly, the brown working classes of the world don’t give a flying fuck about what white western leftists think because they know they aren’t going to get any help from us. We’re irrelevant. Ask a Yemeni, ask a Honduran, ask a Congolese.
Christmas and New Years have been celebrated for the last two years in Aleppo and some semblance of normalcy is returning. Right now, in liberated areas of East Ghouta, people are welcoming the return of the Syrian Arab Army and telling the media how they've been used as human shields. In non-liberated areas, civilians are demonstrating against the terrorists and negotiating with them to leave. As with Aleppo in 2016, people in East Ghouta have been telling the SAA the locations of terrorist commanders, ammo dumps, jails and headquarters. Also, as with Aleppo, terrorists are sniping and shelling humanitarian corridors so civilians have difficulty leaving. There are also now civilians rallying in Raqqa for the occupying American monster to GTFO.
The future of the world is being fought for in Syria -- that’s why the propaganda of the mockingbird media has been unrelenting in its lies, hypocrisy, hysteria and demonization for seven years. Tel Aviv and Riyadh are going crazy and they are making sure Mordor-on-the-Potomac goes crazy with them. Putin is killing off America’s regime-changing terrorist mercenary army although, characteristically, he’s been too slow and cautious and Daesh has now set up shop in Afghanistan to harass, delay and destroy China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Assad and Putin are bringing a horrible end to the carnage in Syria as opposed to the Saudi, Israeli and US-preferred endless horror.
One last thing. People have not been paying proper attention to the written transcript of several lines toward the end of Putin’s March 1st address to the Russian Federal Assembly: “I should note that our military doctrine says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons solely in response to a nuclear attack, or an attack with other weapons of mass destruction against the country or its allies, or an act of aggression against us with the use of conventional weapons that threaten the very existence of the state. This all is very clear and specific. As such, I see it is my duty to announce the following. Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant consequences.” (My emphasis.)
An attack with other weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its “allies.” Who does Russia consider allies? China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela? Turkey? The Donbass? Did Putin just tell the criminal neocon filth who rule America to never attack Iran and North Korea -- or ever attack the Syrian government again? No sane person in the world should test that out. Perhaps the previously mentioned neocon Max Boot is one of the first to “listen.”
The last time no one paid careful attention to Putin was his September 28, 2015 address to the United Nations where he condemned the US use of terrorists to further its regime change operations throughout the world, saying “We can no longer tolerate the current state of affairs in the world.” Two days later Russia began bombing hundreds of ISIS oil tankers in Syria that US satellite surveillance had been contentedly watching grow for years. Wake up, Americans. “Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant consequences.” The three horses' asses of the apocalypse -- Trump, Satanyahoo and Saudi Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman -- are leading the world to disaster.
Randy Shields, is a Marxist, vegan, writer and artist who believes that individuals should never stop challenging themselves to lead more compassionate and sustainable lives while working collectively to make those changes easier, faster and more widespread. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Things to ponder
While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.
Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Randy, This article and analysis of the psuedo Counterpunch “leftist” Louis Proyect is brilliant, and an expose of the opportunism of the mainstream white US/UK left, such as Counterpunch. I would hope that more people could read the correspondence between you and CP. It sits high and mighty and refuses to print leftist views it disdains. It stopped publishing my writings years ago without any explanation. By rejecting your intelligence and astute analysis of the most complex geopolitical war conflict in the world today shows how CP feels about censoring righteous views it disagrees with. I think your proposal for… Read more »