2018 had a lot of awful films. One of the worst?
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY. Not only did it straight-wash Freddie Mercury, it also promoted homophobia with the whole mythical 'cruel homo' who led Freddie astray.
It got everything in the world wrong, every fact. Freddie had not quit the group. Freddie did not go into LIVE AID knowing he had AIDS. It was one lie after another and, in the end, you have to ask what the hell was the point?
Then you get bug eye Rami who seems to think that doing an imitation is creating a character.
No.
No, it's not, Rami.
He was a robot in the role, that's all he was.
Freddie deserved a lot better.
Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, December 27, 2018. There is a robust discussion taking place
about ending wars -- it's just taking place outside the restricted and
pro-war media.
For those who missed it, we're through the looking glass. All the more so since US President Donald Trump said he'd remove US troops from Syria. Will he follow through? I have no idea. But I do know that the crazy's come out to play in response.
On CNN, you can see Barbara Starr, the odor of death just wafting off her rotting flesh, as she whines about the possibility. When you've spent your whole life selling death and destruction, even the though of peace -- no matter how nebulous -- strikes fear in your heart facsimile. 'Brave' Barbara has endured war and enjoyed every moment of it. Peace? That's scary to her.
What @realDonaldTrump, commander in chief, said visiting troops in Iraq. Military families will also hear his views. “We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven’t even heard about. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.”
Oh, the horror! Families of troop members might hear, "We are spread
out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even
heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
The horror!
Barbara, come up from under whatever DoD official you're under and grasp that the thought is not shocking to most military families. Have you even spoken to any? They are among the groups we speak to and have been speaking to for years now. Again, stop fondling the balls of the brass and you might realize how unshocking -- and true -- those remarks are.
Maybe Babs had her latest death rattle due to the "We are in countries most people haven't even heard about"? Because that's a media critique, isn't it, Babs.
Safe in the toilets of the Pentagon, Babs isn't in Iraq. In fact, pretty much no one is there for CNN. Mohammed Tawfeeq's not. THE NEW YORK TIMES can't cover police shooting at peaceful protesters in Basra two weeks in a row -- they 'cover' it by running a REUTERS article -- but they can waste all of our time with a December 23rd 'report' that was 21 paragraphs long and dealt with -- as they admitted -- rumors (gags, actually) about Santa being arrested in Iraq.
Did they think they'd earned the right to be 'cute'? Because they hadn't. They are the paper that sold the illegal war. They have never come to terms with that. They think because uneducated idiots like Meryl Streep praise them (drama's not a major, dear, get a life and if you'd studied at The Actors Studio, you might actually be able to inhabit a character, to make them real and not do your hollow impersonations). There's nothing to praise about THE NEW YORK TIMES. And it's not protecting anyone except maybe War Criminals.
As for 'cute,' it was about as 'cute' as Dana Milibank was when he thought it was funny to go on and on about how if each Democratic Party presidential candidate -- in 2008 -- had their own beers, Hillary Clinton's beer would be "Mad Bitch beer." Remember that? And he didn't just say it offhand, let's be clear, he said it for a video for THE WASHINGTON POST. They all thought it was 'cute' but it wasn't. (They eventually pulled it as the complaints mounted.)
The press wants to be something -- anything but themselves.
And I understand that. If I was a cheap, pathetic whore, I would wants to pretend I was someone else as well. So they envy a Jon Stewart and think they can do comedy too -- they can't. But all these attempts to be something else do allow them to justify their refusal to do actual reporting.
And they don't report on Iraq. Unless they can be 'cute' and write 21 paragraphs about a 'story' they know is false. They think they are so clever. They think they are.
Away from the whoring, adults have real conversations. For example, from Veterans For Peace:
David Swanson (WORLD BEYOND WARS) has pointed out:
Black Alliance for Peace issued the following:
A real panic exists among the militarists and flunkeys of the military-industrial complex: They are concerned the U.S. president has gone completely off the ruling-class imperialist script. We find that hard to believe, since a move away from militarism and violence would indicate a fundamental departure from the very essence of the methods and strategy that created the United States. We are on land violently stolen from Indigenous peoples that was then used to execute a brutal super-exploitation of enslaved African labor to amass imperialist wealth. That wealth was used to elevate the United States to a world power after the second imperialist war in 1945.
But with Trump announcing U.S. troops will be pulled out of Syria and troop strength will be reduced in the never-ending war in Afghanistan, the ruling-class propagandists pretending to be journalists at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest, have sounded the alarm of pending doom for the empire. These hacks feign concern that the president is abandoning the bipartisan commitment to international gangsterism.
We in the Black Alliance for Peace don’t praise a U.S. president for ending the illegal subversion, invasion and occupation of a sovereign state that should have never been allowed in the first place by the theoretical representatives of the people who now sit in the U.S. Congress. If the Trump administration is serious about the “full and rapid” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, we say it’s about time. We demand a full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, including the mercenary components referred to as “contractors.” We also say troop reduction is not enough—end the war in Afghanistan with a complete and total withdrawal of U.S. forces.
We denounce those elements in the corporate press, the establishment voices in the duopoly, and liberal and left acolytes of the warmongering ruling class who have taken upon themselves to confuse and manipulate the public into believing that permanent war is both rational and inevitable. The $6 trillion of public resources transferred from the pockets of the people to the military-industrial complex over the last two decades to execute wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, have also caused the destruction of ancient cities, unspeakable misery for millions of people that includes but is not limited to the displacement of millions of people and the so-called “refugee crisis”—not to mention the millions of lives that have been eliminated by U.S. bombs, missiles, chemicals and bullets. All who have remained silent or have given direct or even indirect support to these bipartisan war policies are morally culpable.
We are extremely skeptical about the administration’s announcement—we know from painful experience and from our understanding of the history of this state, that the United States has never voluntarily withdrawn from one of its imperialist adventures. Therefore, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to demand that the United States withdraw from Syria until every U.S. asset is out of the country.
The final resolution of the U.S.-led war in Syria must be determined by Syrians themselves. All foreign forces must recognize and respect the sovereignty of the Syrian people and their legal representatives.
If peace is a real possibility for the people of Syria, it is only the most cynical who would undermine that possibility for partisan political purposes. But we know that the lives of people of color mean nothing for some of the loudest critics of Trump’s decision. Many of those same critics don’t see any contradiction in condemning Putin and the Russians while embracing Netanyahu and the Israeli apartheid state that fires live ammunition into the bodies of unarmed Palestinians.
But in the tradition of our ancestors who understood the infinite connection of all of humanity and who resisted systematic degradation, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to raise our voice in support of peace. Yet, we know that without justice there can be no peace. We must struggle to obtain justice.
U.S. out of Syria!
U.S. out of Africa!
Shut down AFRICOM and all NATO bases!
Reallocate the people’s resources from funding war to realizing the human rights of all people, not just the 1 percent!
Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com
Medea Benjamin (at ANTIWAR.COM) observes:
Nancy Pelosi called the withdrawal from Syria “a decision that is dangerous.” But the status quo was really dangerous, as it threatened to drag us into a confrontation with Russia, Iran or even Turkey. The US withdrawal from Syria eases those tensions. Trump’s order to pull out 7,000 of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan is also positive.
Send a message to Democratic leaders Pelosi and Schumer that you support this de-escalation and that instead of criticizing the withdrawal, you want the Democrats to come up with a bold peace plan that emphasizes diplomacy, not endless war.
It’s not just troops. Since the ‘war on terror’ began, the US and its allies have dropped a staggering 291,880 bombs and missiles on other countries. We need Democratic leaders to propose a broad, visionary peace plan that includes troop withdrawal, an end to airstrikes, re-entry into the Iran nuclear deal, and a cut-off of weapons supplies to repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia.
Like many of Trump’s critics, we, too, are concerned about the Kurds in Syria, who are at high risk of an attack by Turkey. The US should be actively involved, including through the United Nations, in thwarting an attack and promoting negotiations. And the US must take responsibility for rebuilding and assistance to both the Syrian and Afghan people, including the refugees.
Tell Democrat leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, that resistance to Trump should not equate to promoting war. Tell them to support Trump’s call to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, and to propose an even broader plan to demilitarize our foreign policy.
Danny Sjursen (FFF) explains:
If Afghanistan is America’s longest war, and Iraq it’s dumbest, well then Syria must rank as the nation’s forgotten, and, potentially most treacherous war. Only you’d never know it. The big three television news networks hardly mention the U.S. military’s continued involvement there and national newspapers relegate the Syrian campaign to the deep recesses of their foreign policy sections. President Trump – his alleged affairs, latest gaffes, and overall personality – dominate the front pages and generate the real profits.
All the while, ever so quietly, the nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers in Syria that President Trump has now ordered to withdraw from the country, have continued to advise, assist, fight, bomb, and build in that war-torn mess of a country. Furthermore, under the radar, American servicemen continue to die in this conflict – 67 so far, plus another 74 wounded – which no one in Washington wants to label a “war.” Well, call it what you will, but when U.S. military members kill and die on some patch of lonely desert it most certainly qualifies as war.
What’s most distressing – besides the public apathy about this deployment – is the unchecked and unquestioned expansion of the U.S. military mission in Syria. Bottom line: the United States Armed Forces lack a sufficient legal foundation for the intervention, regularly find their mission sets enlarged, and have yet to receive a distinct exit strategy. This all amounts to a formula for what the post-9/11 U.S. government seems best at – getting mired in perpetual foreign wars that are manifestly not in the nation’s vital strategic interest.
To understand just what the U.S. military is doing in Syria, one must dig deep in mainstream and alternative publications, piece together information, and then attempt to craft a coherent narrative. This isn’t easy to do and it’s designed not to be. That’s because America’s mess in Syria would wither under the light of public transparency or meaningful congressional oversight.
America’s ongoing war in Syria drags along with a peculiar, if familiar, inertia. The conflict is underreported – by the media and the administration – because that is how the Washington establishment prefers it. Real transparency and oversight would expose this mission for what it is: a dubiously legal, indecisive, and potentially never-ending quagmire. The powers that be hope to keep American casualties just low enough to avoid public scrutiny whilst continually expanding the scope of American occupation and involvement in Syria. It is a formula followed with precision by Democratic and Republican administrations alike after the brief 2006 congressional midterm election refutation of George W. Bush’s “go-big,” high casualty, nation-building strategy. After the folly of the Iraq invasion and occupation, American interventionism didn’t disappear – it just cleverly changed stripes.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation issued the following:
World Can't Wait Tweets:
A real conversation is taking place. And the above are a wide variety of viewpoints. I'd hoped to include more. US SOCIALIST WORKER is a fake ass that confuses personality with politics (and that's the mildest of their mistakes) but I was going to include them -- for a full and wide conversation -- only to discover that they'd once again sat this one out. Oh, you cheap little whores. And, yes, silence is a position as Lee Camp has observed. Note who is being silent, they are just as complicit as those fighting to continue these eternal wars.
For those who missed it, we're through the looking glass. All the more so since US President Donald Trump said he'd remove US troops from Syria. Will he follow through? I have no idea. But I do know that the crazy's come out to play in response.
On CNN, you can see Barbara Starr, the odor of death just wafting off her rotting flesh, as she whines about the possibility. When you've spent your whole life selling death and destruction, even the though of peace -- no matter how nebulous -- strikes fear in your heart facsimile. 'Brave' Barbara has endured war and enjoyed every moment of it. Peace? That's scary to her.
What @realDonaldTrump, commander in chief, said visiting troops in Iraq. Military families will also hear his views. “We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven’t even heard about. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.”
The horror!
Barbara, come up from under whatever DoD official you're under and grasp that the thought is not shocking to most military families. Have you even spoken to any? They are among the groups we speak to and have been speaking to for years now. Again, stop fondling the balls of the brass and you might realize how unshocking -- and true -- those remarks are.
Maybe Babs had her latest death rattle due to the "We are in countries most people haven't even heard about"? Because that's a media critique, isn't it, Babs.
Safe in the toilets of the Pentagon, Babs isn't in Iraq. In fact, pretty much no one is there for CNN. Mohammed Tawfeeq's not. THE NEW YORK TIMES can't cover police shooting at peaceful protesters in Basra two weeks in a row -- they 'cover' it by running a REUTERS article -- but they can waste all of our time with a December 23rd 'report' that was 21 paragraphs long and dealt with -- as they admitted -- rumors (gags, actually) about Santa being arrested in Iraq.
Did they think they'd earned the right to be 'cute'? Because they hadn't. They are the paper that sold the illegal war. They have never come to terms with that. They think because uneducated idiots like Meryl Streep praise them (drama's not a major, dear, get a life and if you'd studied at The Actors Studio, you might actually be able to inhabit a character, to make them real and not do your hollow impersonations). There's nothing to praise about THE NEW YORK TIMES. And it's not protecting anyone except maybe War Criminals.
As for 'cute,' it was about as 'cute' as Dana Milibank was when he thought it was funny to go on and on about how if each Democratic Party presidential candidate -- in 2008 -- had their own beers, Hillary Clinton's beer would be "Mad Bitch beer." Remember that? And he didn't just say it offhand, let's be clear, he said it for a video for THE WASHINGTON POST. They all thought it was 'cute' but it wasn't. (They eventually pulled it as the complaints mounted.)
The press wants to be something -- anything but themselves.
And I understand that. If I was a cheap, pathetic whore, I would wants to pretend I was someone else as well. So they envy a Jon Stewart and think they can do comedy too -- they can't. But all these attempts to be something else do allow them to justify their refusal to do actual reporting.
And they don't report on Iraq. Unless they can be 'cute' and write 21 paragraphs about a 'story' they know is false. They think they are so clever. They think they are.
Away from the whoring, adults have real conversations. For example, from Veterans For Peace:
Veterans For Peace is pleased to hear that President Trump has ordered a
total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, where they had no legal
right to be in the first place. Whatever the reasoning, withdrawing U.S.
troops is the right thing to do.
It is incorrect to characterize the U.S. military intervention in Syria
as “fighting terrorism,” as much of the media is doing. Although the
U.S. fought against the ISIL Caliphate (aka “ISIS”), it also armed and
trained Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda aligned forces, who are
seeking to destroy the secular, multi-religious Syrian state and
establish a harsh fundamentalist order of their own.
Furthermore, the U.S. aerial bombardment of the city of Raqqa, Syria,
similar to its bombardment of Mosul, Iraq, was itself terror in the
extreme, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. These are
huge war crimes.
A continued U.S. presence in Syria would only prolong a policy that has
been disastrous for all the peoples of the region, who have already
suffered way too much as a result of years of U.S. intervention and
occupation on their soil. It would also be a disaster for the troops
who are being asked to carry out this impossible burden.
In these moments when those in power advocate for remaining at war,
Veterans For Peace will continue holding true to our mission and
understanding that war is not the answer. We sincerely hope that the
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria will be total, and will be soon. We
hope this will also lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from
Afghanistan, where the U.S. government is currently in talks with the
Taliban and an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen,
which is causing the death by starvation of tens of thousands of
innocent children.
Veterans For Peace knows that the U.S. is a nation addicted to war. At
this time of uncertainty, it is critically important that we, as
veterans, continue to be clear and concise that our nation must turn
from war to diplomacy and peace. It is high time to unwind all these
tragic, failed and unnecessary wars of aggression, domination and
plunder. It is time to turn a page in history and to build a new world
based on human rights, equality and mutual respect for all. We must
build momentum toward real and lasting peace. Nothing less than the
survival of human civilization is at stake.
David Swanson (WORLD BEYOND WARS) has pointed out:
Opposition to this withdrawal of troops is coming from a variety of disturbing quarters for a range of unconvincing reasons.
“If Trump does it, it’s wrong.” This is simply
nonsense. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Trump hasn’t
done this yet — we need to raise a public demand for actual
follow-through.
“If Putin approves it, it’s wrong.” This is a recipe
for ongoing and escalating hostility between two governments sitting on
huge supplies of nuclear weapons. Russia has been scaling back both its
presence in Syria and its overall military spending. The United States
has been dramatically increasing its military spending and its NATO
presence on Russia’s border, while tearing up disarmament treaties,
shipping weapons to Ukraine, abandoning a Russia-backed agreement with
Iran, and opposing Russian energy deals. Doing something for once that
Russia agrees with is a mark in favor of the troop withdrawal.
“The U.S. military should decide, not the President.” That’s
a recipe for a military government lacking representative or democratic
control, diametrically opposed to the values the U.S. government often
claims to support. In fact, Congress should decide, as it may finally do
on Yemen. And, if we’re going to be legal about this, war is actually a
crime under the UN Charter (with limited exceptions not met by any
current wars) and under the Kellogg-Briand Pact, meaning that neither
Congress, nor the President, nor the military can legally choose to
launch or continue a war.
“Trump is doing this to distract from something else or for various other bizarre reasons.”Nobody
knows why Trump does anything. Trump probably doesn’t know why he does
anything. Nobody knows what diplomatic and business deals, if any, are
involved. What we know is that massive violence never gets us closer to a
solution and cannot be justified.
“Trump is declaring victory while admitting there’s no victory; are you going to let him get away with that?” The
incoherence of his remarks is available equally to all to observe. If
he would end each war and declare victory, and even have a celebratory
weapons-marketing parade on Pennsylvania Avenue, the lives spared would
more than outweigh the harm.
“It will make matters worse for those on the ground in that part of Syria.” Things
have been getting worse for years all over Syria, without that ever
being understood as a reason to halt the militarism. Things may get
worse during the process of ending the violence. But major steps can be
taken to help avoid that. Such steps, again, include unarmed
peaceworkers, a weapons ban for the region, a disarmament program, major
actual humanitarian aid, and diplomacy. Sanctions now imposed on Syria
generally target ordinary citizens much more than the government. They
have that in common with the bombs, and they must be ended.
Black Alliance for Peace issued the following:
A real panic exists among the militarists and flunkeys of the military-industrial complex: They are concerned the U.S. president has gone completely off the ruling-class imperialist script. We find that hard to believe, since a move away from militarism and violence would indicate a fundamental departure from the very essence of the methods and strategy that created the United States. We are on land violently stolen from Indigenous peoples that was then used to execute a brutal super-exploitation of enslaved African labor to amass imperialist wealth. That wealth was used to elevate the United States to a world power after the second imperialist war in 1945.
But with Trump announcing U.S. troops will be pulled out of Syria and troop strength will be reduced in the never-ending war in Afghanistan, the ruling-class propagandists pretending to be journalists at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest, have sounded the alarm of pending doom for the empire. These hacks feign concern that the president is abandoning the bipartisan commitment to international gangsterism.
We in the Black Alliance for Peace don’t praise a U.S. president for ending the illegal subversion, invasion and occupation of a sovereign state that should have never been allowed in the first place by the theoretical representatives of the people who now sit in the U.S. Congress. If the Trump administration is serious about the “full and rapid” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, we say it’s about time. We demand a full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, including the mercenary components referred to as “contractors.” We also say troop reduction is not enough—end the war in Afghanistan with a complete and total withdrawal of U.S. forces.
We denounce those elements in the corporate press, the establishment voices in the duopoly, and liberal and left acolytes of the warmongering ruling class who have taken upon themselves to confuse and manipulate the public into believing that permanent war is both rational and inevitable. The $6 trillion of public resources transferred from the pockets of the people to the military-industrial complex over the last two decades to execute wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, have also caused the destruction of ancient cities, unspeakable misery for millions of people that includes but is not limited to the displacement of millions of people and the so-called “refugee crisis”—not to mention the millions of lives that have been eliminated by U.S. bombs, missiles, chemicals and bullets. All who have remained silent or have given direct or even indirect support to these bipartisan war policies are morally culpable.
We are extremely skeptical about the administration’s announcement—we know from painful experience and from our understanding of the history of this state, that the United States has never voluntarily withdrawn from one of its imperialist adventures. Therefore, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to demand that the United States withdraw from Syria until every U.S. asset is out of the country.
The final resolution of the U.S.-led war in Syria must be determined by Syrians themselves. All foreign forces must recognize and respect the sovereignty of the Syrian people and their legal representatives.
If peace is a real possibility for the people of Syria, it is only the most cynical who would undermine that possibility for partisan political purposes. But we know that the lives of people of color mean nothing for some of the loudest critics of Trump’s decision. Many of those same critics don’t see any contradiction in condemning Putin and the Russians while embracing Netanyahu and the Israeli apartheid state that fires live ammunition into the bodies of unarmed Palestinians.
But in the tradition of our ancestors who understood the infinite connection of all of humanity and who resisted systematic degradation, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to raise our voice in support of peace. Yet, we know that without justice there can be no peace. We must struggle to obtain justice.
U.S. out of Syria!
U.S. out of Africa!
Shut down AFRICOM and all NATO bases!
Reallocate the people’s resources from funding war to realizing the human rights of all people, not just the 1 percent!
Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com
Medea Benjamin (at ANTIWAR.COM) observes:
Nancy Pelosi called the withdrawal from Syria “a decision that is dangerous.” But the status quo was really dangerous, as it threatened to drag us into a confrontation with Russia, Iran or even Turkey. The US withdrawal from Syria eases those tensions. Trump’s order to pull out 7,000 of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan is also positive.
Send a message to Democratic leaders Pelosi and Schumer that you support this de-escalation and that instead of criticizing the withdrawal, you want the Democrats to come up with a bold peace plan that emphasizes diplomacy, not endless war.
It’s not just troops. Since the ‘war on terror’ began, the US and its allies have dropped a staggering 291,880 bombs and missiles on other countries. We need Democratic leaders to propose a broad, visionary peace plan that includes troop withdrawal, an end to airstrikes, re-entry into the Iran nuclear deal, and a cut-off of weapons supplies to repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia.
Like many of Trump’s critics, we, too, are concerned about the Kurds in Syria, who are at high risk of an attack by Turkey. The US should be actively involved, including through the United Nations, in thwarting an attack and promoting negotiations. And the US must take responsibility for rebuilding and assistance to both the Syrian and Afghan people, including the refugees.
Tell Democrat leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, that resistance to Trump should not equate to promoting war. Tell them to support Trump’s call to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, and to propose an even broader plan to demilitarize our foreign policy.
Danny Sjursen (FFF) explains:
If Afghanistan is America’s longest war, and Iraq it’s dumbest, well then Syria must rank as the nation’s forgotten, and, potentially most treacherous war. Only you’d never know it. The big three television news networks hardly mention the U.S. military’s continued involvement there and national newspapers relegate the Syrian campaign to the deep recesses of their foreign policy sections. President Trump – his alleged affairs, latest gaffes, and overall personality – dominate the front pages and generate the real profits.
All the while, ever so quietly, the nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers in Syria that President Trump has now ordered to withdraw from the country, have continued to advise, assist, fight, bomb, and build in that war-torn mess of a country. Furthermore, under the radar, American servicemen continue to die in this conflict – 67 so far, plus another 74 wounded – which no one in Washington wants to label a “war.” Well, call it what you will, but when U.S. military members kill and die on some patch of lonely desert it most certainly qualifies as war.
What’s most distressing – besides the public apathy about this deployment – is the unchecked and unquestioned expansion of the U.S. military mission in Syria. Bottom line: the United States Armed Forces lack a sufficient legal foundation for the intervention, regularly find their mission sets enlarged, and have yet to receive a distinct exit strategy. This all amounts to a formula for what the post-9/11 U.S. government seems best at – getting mired in perpetual foreign wars that are manifestly not in the nation’s vital strategic interest.
To understand just what the U.S. military is doing in Syria, one must dig deep in mainstream and alternative publications, piece together information, and then attempt to craft a coherent narrative. This isn’t easy to do and it’s designed not to be. That’s because America’s mess in Syria would wither under the light of public transparency or meaningful congressional oversight.
America’s ongoing war in Syria drags along with a peculiar, if familiar, inertia. The conflict is underreported – by the media and the administration – because that is how the Washington establishment prefers it. Real transparency and oversight would expose this mission for what it is: a dubiously legal, indecisive, and potentially never-ending quagmire. The powers that be hope to keep American casualties just low enough to avoid public scrutiny whilst continually expanding the scope of American occupation and involvement in Syria. It is a formula followed with precision by Democratic and Republican administrations alike after the brief 2006 congressional midterm election refutation of George W. Bush’s “go-big,” high casualty, nation-building strategy. After the folly of the Iraq invasion and occupation, American interventionism didn’t disappear – it just cleverly changed stripes.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation issued the following:
The slogan “U.S. Out of the Middle East”
should not be controversial for any leftist or class-conscious worker.
The decision to remove 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria must be extended to
include the over 5,000 estimated “contractors” — i.e. mercenaries — in
Syria. U.S. bombing anywhere in Syria is a violation of the country’s
sovereignty and of international law. The retreat and departure of U.S.
forces confirms Western imperialism’s defeat in Syria, after seven years
of catastrophic war. That is why the U.S. ruling class — from liberal
to conservative — is up in arms about Trump’s decision, and why the
corporate media howls as if the sky is falling.
It also creates a new grave political crisis for the Trump administration. Although Trump is technically the “commander-in-chief,” the president functions primarily as a manager for the collective interests of the bourgeoisie. Those collective interests are primarily safeguarded through the permanent bureaucracy of the institutions of the state, and for U.S. imperialism chief among those institutions is the military high command. The resignation of Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis signals that this sector of the ruling class has begun to rebel against him as well and that Trump’s destabilization of the Empire is intolerable for them; whether he can survive this struggle within the ruling class amid a plummeting stock market, a likely government shutdown and multiple corruption investigations, is an open question.
Regarding the situation of the Kurds in northeastern Syria, the PYD/YPG are not political novices. They knew this day was coming — even if the precise day was a surprise. The U.S. complicity in the Turkish invasion of Afrin earlier this year, the contradictory statements of leading White House officials, against the backdrop of a century of imperialist back-stabbing of Kurdish forces, have made it clear that no Western power can be counted on to protect the Kurdish people. A considerable faction within the Kurdish forces in Syria have long been calling for a reorientation towards an alliance with the Syrian government — as has happened on multiple occasions during the war, such as in the battle for Aleppo. An agreement of this sort, which would be based on preserving the territorial integrity of the Syrian state, was not made in time to prevent the catastrophe in Afrin, leading to the loss of the city and 100,000 displaced Kurdish residents, but this time there will be considerable momentum to do so.
The PSL opposes any Turkish invasion of Syria and its genocidal war on the Kurdish people inside and outside of Turkey. We support the Syrian and Kurdish forces in the defense of their homeland against Erdogan’s dream of creating a neo-Ottoman empire. We oppose any calls, however, for U.S. troops to remain in Syria as if Trump has not already quietly agreed to Erdogan’s war, and as if one section of NATO will somehow be a benign force against another. The only road to national liberation and self-determination is based on the alliance of Arab, Kurdish and all peoples of the region against the NATO powers that have divided and invaded it for over a century.
U.S. out of the Middle East!
It also creates a new grave political crisis for the Trump administration. Although Trump is technically the “commander-in-chief,” the president functions primarily as a manager for the collective interests of the bourgeoisie. Those collective interests are primarily safeguarded through the permanent bureaucracy of the institutions of the state, and for U.S. imperialism chief among those institutions is the military high command. The resignation of Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis signals that this sector of the ruling class has begun to rebel against him as well and that Trump’s destabilization of the Empire is intolerable for them; whether he can survive this struggle within the ruling class amid a plummeting stock market, a likely government shutdown and multiple corruption investigations, is an open question.
Regarding the situation of the Kurds in northeastern Syria, the PYD/YPG are not political novices. They knew this day was coming — even if the precise day was a surprise. The U.S. complicity in the Turkish invasion of Afrin earlier this year, the contradictory statements of leading White House officials, against the backdrop of a century of imperialist back-stabbing of Kurdish forces, have made it clear that no Western power can be counted on to protect the Kurdish people. A considerable faction within the Kurdish forces in Syria have long been calling for a reorientation towards an alliance with the Syrian government — as has happened on multiple occasions during the war, such as in the battle for Aleppo. An agreement of this sort, which would be based on preserving the territorial integrity of the Syrian state, was not made in time to prevent the catastrophe in Afrin, leading to the loss of the city and 100,000 displaced Kurdish residents, but this time there will be considerable momentum to do so.
The PSL opposes any Turkish invasion of Syria and its genocidal war on the Kurdish people inside and outside of Turkey. We support the Syrian and Kurdish forces in the defense of their homeland against Erdogan’s dream of creating a neo-Ottoman empire. We oppose any calls, however, for U.S. troops to remain in Syria as if Trump has not already quietly agreed to Erdogan’s war, and as if one section of NATO will somehow be a benign force against another. The only road to national liberation and self-determination is based on the alliance of Arab, Kurdish and all peoples of the region against the NATO powers that have divided and invaded it for over a century.
U.S. out of the Middle East!
World Can't Wait Tweets:
Pull the troops out.
Ground the drones.
Free the detainees.
End this endless war!
#mattis
A real conversation is taking place. And the above are a wide variety of viewpoints. I'd hoped to include more. US SOCIALIST WORKER is a fake ass that confuses personality with politics (and that's the mildest of their mistakes) but I was going to include them -- for a full and wide conversation -- only to discover that they'd once again sat this one out. Oh, you cheap little whores. And, yes, silence is a position as Lee Camp has observed. Note who is being silent, they are just as complicit as those fighting to continue these eternal wars.
Is there ever this much outrage in D.C. when U.S. troops invade another country as there is when they end their occupation?
And it's not just DC -- it's the hacks in the media as well.
These people know absolutely NOTHING about Syria
MSNBC. Our 'left' channel. They don't call out the ongoing wars. They really don't even cover them. And when they do, it's to pat themselves on the back. (Randi Rhodes nailed Rachel Maddow to the wall in her critique of Maddow's insipid Iraq War special.)
What about our other great 'antiwar' outlet? DEMOCRACY NOW! Of course, Goody Whore has already made clear she's a tool of empire. She did that with her bombastic and deceitful coverage of the war on Libya (a war she actively promoted). She's still doing her damage as a 'friend' and 'trusted voice.'
Jimmy Dore Retweeted
Hey @DemocracyNow. Not sure why Amy implied that the peace movement was not “cheering” the #SyriaWithdrawal. CODEPINK is. Perhaps this is the time to see which groups put peace over partisan politics.
Yesterday, US President Donald Trump and the First Lady visited Iraq.
.@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!
In a mature world, the takeaway would be: What the hell are US troops still doing in Iraq?
Instead, NEWSWEEK has launched a smear that Donald may have revealed covert identities in his Twitter feed. The maybe was dropped by losers like VoteVets (whose slogan, no doubt, remains "We never met a Democratic dick we wouldn't suck") and John Aravosis who still hasn't recovered from his public embarrassments (or that face, did he have work done? on the cheap?). They run with a rumor. NEWSWEEK's always been so good about rumors. Remember when they lied about Jean Seberg and caused her miscarriage? They destroyed her. And it was a CIA plot. It wasn't journalism. A married woman who is pregnant? You don't print that her baby is by another man. But they did, didn't they? Violating every journalism tradition. They also lied that the father was a Black Panther. That was part of a concentrated attack on the left by the CIA (overseas) and the FBI and military intelligence in the US.
It's a real shame so many don't know their history.
Even the recent history. What's going on right now? It's exactly what we saw in the lead up to the Iraq War. Gatekeepers are trying to control the conversation and present war as rationale. The voices of peace are yet again drowned out by corporations. We can accept that or we can fight it.
The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights -- updated:
Bernie
9 hours ago
The Kurds?
9 hours ago
Shame on Michelle Obama
10 hours ago
Mediterranean Veggie Tacos in the Kitchen
10 hours ago
Medicare For All
10 hours ago
Eric Holder got served
11 hours ago
