Tuesday, 7 February 2017
Assad and the silence of the left
Although it comes as no surprise the evidence that President Assad has had at least 13,000 people executed through torture and murder is shocking. This comes at a time when Assad with Russian and Iranian backing is gaining an upper hand in the Syrian civil war. A conflict that has seen the deaths of over 400,000 people and the creation of the worst refugee crisis in recent history.
Yet as always the professional protesters of the Stop the War Coalition and it's allies including Jeremy Corbyn remain so silent they are all but complicit in covering for Assad's barbaric regime.
There is plenty on the StWC website about Trump who for all his obvious reactionary faults hasn't actually killed anyone yet. This from an organisation that says it exists "only" to criticise our country.
America, Israel and the rest of the free world are their targets.
Andrew Murray, former long-term member of the Communist Party and now lurking in Labour to please his paymaster Len McCluskey has issued a riposte to the critics of the StWC's "progressive politics. If by progressive they mean brutal dictatorships like Syria, genocidal anti-Semites on Hamas and Iran and aggressive nationalist Russia then frankly their definition of "progressive is different to mine.
Reactionary is actually the word best suited to describe them. Brownshirts, blackshirts, red fascists anything but "progressive". Their slogan that the "enemy is at home" is so far removed from not just the truth but reality itself means that this unholy alliance of "anti-imperialist, Stalinists, Islamists, Trotskyists and many blind feminists and LGBT activists are the enemy at home. Opposed to democracy and free speech.
These people lobbied the West to prevent the arming of the very people who stood as an alternative to both Assad and ISIS. They even told the Kurds not to accept "imperialist weapons" as John Rees tried to argue at one demonstration.
The people of Syria have been let down by the new appeasers.
Assad should be tried not just for war crimes but crimes against humanity, but these activists will never demand this preferring silence to supporting democracy and reason against the savagery of Baathism, itself a bastard child of "socialism".
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In fairness, Howie, you should acknowledge the fact that the AWL has taken this up:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.workersliberty.org/node/27552
I accept the AWL has taken this up as has Andrew Coates on his blog but the problem is this represents a tiny fraction of the left.
DeleteIn fact most of the left attack the AWL for doing so and accusing them of being "imperialists" and "Zionists" from what I've seen.