Assad’s radical right admirers in Charlottesville

Bill Weinberg

A curious link to Syria was in evidence at the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., in which one person was killed and at least 34 wounded over the weekend: an admiration among some of the marchers for dictator Bashar Assad. James Fields—detained after a car rammed counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 people—featured Assad on his Facebook page. Other marchers shouted, “Assad did nothing wrong,” and wore T-shirts celebrating the regime barrel bombs that have killed thousands of Syrians:

Among the leading promoters of Assad is David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK who was a vocal presence in Charlottesville. Last October—weeks after he went to Syria and proclaimed, “Learn the truth”—he posted a tweet with a lurid image to set up Assad as a defender against menacing extremists:

Duke followed this spring with proclamations such as “President Assad solves problems” and “Civilized world stands with Assad.”

Other activists allied themselves over the weekend with the pro-Assad sentiment. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks—a possible collaborator in Russian propaganda over Syria and Moscow’s interference in the 2016 US election—converted an image of the white supremacists in Charlottesville into a jab at the Syrian opposition and rebels:

Maram Susli, a vocal pro-Assad activist labelling herself as “Partisan Girl,” also tried to tar anti-fascists with responsibility both for Charlottesville and for the Syrian conflict. “The antifa who are also responsible for the violence in #Charlottesville and illegally joined fighting in #Syria,” she tweeted. (EA Worldview Syria Daily, Aug. 14)

  1. Syria and the red-brown alliance

    Neo-Nazi support for Bashar Assad, of course, makes perfect sense. (We hope you caught that open enthusiasm for poison gas in Brandon Wall's tweet: "Assad's the man, brother! Two chemical bombs would have solved this whole ISIS business.")

    What is more surprising is how this ugliness is almost perfectly mirrored on the "left." Leading lights of the American "left" have  joined pro-Assad delegations, and unabashed Assad regime propaganda is now heard regularly from The Nation, (the now ironically named) Democracy Now and (the also ironically named) Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Not to mention the (reliably reactionary) Counterpunch.

    More evidence of the Red-Brown Alliance.

  2. Euro-fascist support for Assad regime

    An in-depth report on Al Jazeera identifies Italy's far-right Forza Nuova and CasaPound, Greece's neo-fascist Golden Dawn, the UK's British National Party (BNP) and Poland's ultranationalist National Rebirth, as constituting "an international front rallying on behalf" of Bashar Assad. CasaPound, which has led far-right demonstrations against refugees and migrants, and mixed it up in the streeets with anti-fascists, has also launched a European Solidarity Front for Syria (ESFS), in support of the Assad regime. Its members have joined delegations to Damascus to meet regime officials. SANA, the regime's official news agency, has publicised the ESFS delegation visits.

    How do these "leftist" Assad fans square it? No really, we want to know.