Why I am renouncing my Project Censored award

The latest statement from the poorly named United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is entitled "No more wars—US out of the Middle East!" The very first line reads: "The White House's June 13th announcement that it would begin directly supplying arms to the opposition in Syria is a dramatic escalation of the US/NATO war against that country." Anyone with a modicum of sophistication should see the problems with this formulation right off the bat. Let's put aside the fact that the White House promise of arms to the insurgents is a completely empty one, since the shipments have been held up by Congressional fears that war material could find its way into jihadist hands, as Reuters reports. The more important point is the assumption that Syrians' most pressing problem is the hypothetical threat of the US arming the rebels—while for two years the Bashar Assad dictatorship has been vigorously waging war against its own people, with a death toll topping 60,000, with reports of "cleansing" of Sunnis by forces loyal to the regime, and the UN Security Council urging the International Criminal Court to open a war crimes investigation.

The statement has its obvious appeal. There is lots of verbiage about US imperial motives, which are obvious, and this will be eagerly received by activists wary of a replay of the Iraq nightmare. But then comes the sneaky little sucker-punch: "[T]he now-escalating war in Syria and the growing threats against Iran are part of a coordinated regional effort by the United States, Britain and France to dominate this oil-rich and strategic region." In other words, the entire uprising is a charade created by the US, Britain and France. The Syrian people have no right to rebel, and Assad bears no responsibility for his own endless atrocities. How many of the signatories are even aware that the Syrian uprising began two years ago when security forces in the city of Deraa detained children painting a mural depicting scenes and slogans from the recent revolutions in other Arab countries? That the situation escalated to an armed insurgency only after regime troops opened fire on peaceful protesters—again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again?

It is, of course, superfluous to mention that a lot of unseemly jihadist types are now exploiting the Syrian insurgency, hoping to enflame a sectarian war, as they did in Iraq. Ironically, some prominent signatories to the statement were avidly rooting for those same jihadists in Iraq just a few years ago! And the US, contrary to the widespread propaganda of those now rooting for the Assad dictatorship, is not sponsoring the jihadists; the most prominent such group, the Nusra Front, has been added to the State Department "foreign terrorist organizations" list.

It is also superfluous to mention that the US has its own imperial interests in Syria and the region, which are ultimately inimical to those of the Syrian people. But being quick to judge those who will seek allies where they can find them in a desperate situation—under relentless attack from an utterly ruthless regime—is beneath contempt. And, contrary to the impression conveyed by the statement, there persists even now a civil unarmed resistance in Syria with secular and progressive politics. We have noted the Local Coordination Committees, the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, the National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change, even Syrian anarchists. These are the people in Syria who demand our solidarity—our natural allies as progressives in the West. By failing to even mention them, and by implciitly apologizing for the regime that oppresses them, the UNAC statement constitutes a shameful betrayal of these forces. No "anti-war" movement that would engage in such a betrayal is worthy of the name. 

The signatories to the UNAC statement include several groups and individuals who should really know better. These include, most painfully, my (former?) comrades at the Socialist Party USA. Also disappointing are the inclusion of Veterans For Peace; the Green Party USA and their presidential candidate Jill SteinVoices for Creative Nonviolence and their foremost spokesperson Kathy KellyGlen Ford of Black Agenda ReportHeidi Elizabeth Boghosian of the National Lawyers GuildKevin Zeese; Honduras Resistencia USA (what, Lobo bad, Assad good?); SOA Watch-LA; the Nicaragua Network (also very painful); Voices for Justice in Palestine (except the Palestinians getting bombed by Assad, eh?); Women Against Military Madness (except Assad's military madness, eh?); Anarchy in Action, Buffalo (How dare you call yourselves "anarchists"?), et cetera.

These signatories allow their names to appear on the same list as ANSWER and Workers World Party, entities that enthusiastically support any brutal regime that happens to find itself on the outs with Washington—whether it is Serbia, China, North Korea or now the Assad dictatorship. UNAC appears to be a creation these entities, which always seek new front groups to keep neophytes confused. We noted in the early days of the Arab Spring that these groups were cynically cheering on the protesters in US-backed Egypt, but would be quick to cheer on the dictators if the protests spread to Qaddafi's Libya and Assad's Syria. Now this has come to pass, and this contradiction has happily cost these odious formations some international prestige. Cynthia McKinney, another signatory to the UNAC statement, was called out by some of her erstwhile Palestinian comrades for her support for the Qaddafi dictatorship two years ago.

But large swaths of the left in the US continue to be either naive or cynical enough to loan their names to such propaganda. "No more wars"? As if Syria were not already at war, with its own ruler the ugliest party to the conflict. This recalls George Orwell's observation: "Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that…violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough."

Finally, there is one signatory to the UNAC statement with which I am, if unintentionally, associated. In 2007, I won an award from Project Censored for my reportage  for Yes magazine on the civil resistance movement in Iraq—trade unionists, socialists, feminists and secularists who opposed both the US occupation and the jihadist insurgency. Project Censored's endorsement of the UNAC statement constitutes a betrayal of precisely this kind of civil resistance in Syria. I have expressed my problems with Project Censored before. But this time the irony is too bitter. I must officially renounce the award in protest of this egregious error of judgment.

I challenge Project Censored to run this statement on their website, and also call upon them to run a disclaimer linking to it where-ever my name appears in their online material.

A last word. If progressives are looking for a statement to sign on Syria, try this one: "Solidarity With the Syrian Struggle for Dignity and Freedom."

Please support our fund drive.
 

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  1. Did Project Censored endorse UNAC statement on Syria?
    Well, the full text of the offending statement has been moved from the front page of the UNAC website, replaced by a headline and link from that page to this one, on the site of the Northeast Peace and Justice Action Coalition. The endorsers’ list now does not include Project Censored or the Socialist Party, although it still includes most of the others who are called out above.

    We call upon both UNAC and the signatories (current and former) to provide some clarity as to what is going on here. If Project Censored and the Socialist Party thought better and removed their endorsements, that is to be applauded. But they should do so publicly, not in craven silence. Even if only for a matter of weeks, they loaned legitimacy to the statement, and implicitly encouraged others to sign on. They should now state their reasons for withdrawing.

    We’ll be waiting.

    Note: Thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine, the fact they signed on is preserved for posterity. This isn’t going down the Memory Hole, folks. We want a response.

  2. Still no statement from Project Censored…
    This is hilariously ironic. They apparently wish to censor their own endorsement of the UNAC statement… “censor” in the same imprecise sense that they use the term, meaning ignore it and hope noone notices…

    The silence is deafening, guys…

  3. The silence is deafening, Project Censored…
    We take it as a victory if we have shamed them into withdrawaing their endorsement of the UNAC statement, but they still evidently wish to “censor” (as they use the term, meaning ignore and hope nobody notices) the affair. Beneath contempt.

  4. The silence is deafening, Project Censored…
    We want to know why the name of your organization appeared on the endorsement list of the UNAC statement on Syria, and then disappeared. Do you wish to “censor” this fact, Project Censored?

    We’re waiting.

  5. The silence is deafening, Project Censored…
    We want to know why the name of your organization appeared on the endorsement list of the UNAC statement on Syria, and then disappeared. Do you wish to “censor” this fact, Project Censored?

    We’re waiting.

  6. The silence is deafening, Project Censored…
    We want to know why the name of your organization appeared on the endorsement list of the UNAC statement on Syria, and then disappeared. Do you wish to “censor” this fact, Project Censored?

    We’re waiting.

  7. Semi-response from Project Censored…

    I did have a brief exchange with a representative of Project Censored today, after I again posted the link to this page on Facebook in response to a friend's post of their latest awards. I was informed that as my story was not on their "Top 25" list, I am actually not a Project Censored award recipient; my work appears to have been merely cited by them. This is certainly fine with me, as I have no wish to be tainted by association with Project Censored. I was also told that they had received no communication from me, which I find highly improbable; it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. I made every effort to reach them through their website, and tweeted this link to them multiple times. In response to the actual substance of my criticisms, I was offered only the predictable equivocation about how the Syrian conflict is "complex." Project Censored continues to owe us an accounting on this affair. I await more serious communication from them.
     

  8. Project Censored spreads lies on Syria chemical attacks

    It seems that as late as April 2014, Project Censored was still running embarrassing headlines like "Syria Not Guilty: The Truth Concerning the Assad Government's Alleged Sarin Gas Attack." Note, first, that "Syria" is taken to be synonymous with the "Assad government." But far worse is that the "truth" portrayed here is actually a bunch of lies—most prominently Seymour Hersh's baseless speculation (now utterly discredited) that anyone other than the Assad regime was behind the chemical attack.

    Why does Project Censored still have a shred of credibility in "progressive" circles? Alas, to ask such questions is to answer them…