idiot left

Syria

As circles close on Ghouta and Afrin, where’s the solidarity?

The Turkish assault on Afrin has forced the enclave’s Kurdish defenders into an alliance with the same Assad regime that is committing war crimes in Eastern Ghouta. This tragically poses an obstacle to any solidarity between the respective defenders of the besieged enclaves. But we in the West are faced with no such grim choices, and should be capable of a consistent position. Yet Noam Chomsky, who signed a statement in support of Afrin, has shamefully abetted Putin’s propaganda portraying the repeated chemical attacks on Ghouta as “fake news.” (Photo of Aleppo ruins from UNHCR)

Planet Watch

Podcast: The countervortex of global resistance

Journalist Dan Young speaks with CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg in an interview for Northern California's KNYO. They discuss the prospects for resisting the global vortex of ecological collapse, totalitarianism and permanent war—and supporting indigenous and autonomy struggles, popular democracy, and peace initiatives. Weinberg traces his own political evolution through the Cold War endgame of the Reagan era, the Lower East Side squatter scene, the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, 9-11 and the "Global War on Terrorism," to the Arab Revolution, the Syrian war and the current dilemma. The discussion touches on the abysmal politics of the contemporary American left, the urgent need for international solidarity across the Great Power "spheres of influence," the contradictions and challenges posed by digital technology, and the possibilities for a decent future for humanity on Planet Earth.

Syria

Turkey attacks Afrin, Great Powers capitulate

Turkish forces, backed by allied factions of the Free Syrian Army, are pursuing their offensive on the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin, and have captured a number of villages—despite stiff resistance from the Kurdish YPG militia. Turkish air-strikes are making the critical difference, and are taking the predictable toll in civilian casualties. In Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would not “step back” in the assault, and claimed to have the support of the Great Powers—including both Russia, which supposedly had troops backing the YPG in Afrin, and the US, which has been backing the YPG against ISIS as part of the Pentagon-directed Syrian Democratic Forces. (Photo: Kurdish militia figher at Afrin, via ANF)

Watching the Shadows

Counterpunch justifies Kremlin propaganda

After the Washington Post cited FBI sources to the effect that at least one recent contributor to Counterpunch was a "probable Russian troll," editor Jeffrey St. Clair responds by defending "pro-Russian" bias, pointing to instances of "bias" in favor of horrible things like torture and nuclear strikes by mainstream wonks. So much for the notion of the "alternative media" actually taking a higher standard than the dreaded "MSM," and actually providing an alternative. Instead the idea seems to be that if they can run sinister propaganda, so can we. (Photo: Wikipedia)

North Africa

Libya slave trade becomes political football

Propagandists of the isolationist right and anti-war “left” alike are exploiting the chilling emergence of a slave trade in abducted Black African migrants in Libya’s remote desert south as evidence that the NATO intervention of 2011 only led to nightmares. The popular uprising that ousted Qaddafi is invisible to them—as is the dictator’s own culpability in the social collapse that followed his rule.

Central America

Perverse ironies of Honduran political crisis

The US "certifies" Honduras for continued military aid exactly as the government declares a state of emergency and unleashes the armed forces on protesters. The crisis was sparked by President Juan Orlando Hernández's apparently fraudulent election to a second term. Yet Hernández and his conservative National Party supported the 2009 coup d'etat that ousted Manuel Zelaya from the presidency for merely broaching a second term in supposed violation of the constitution.

Watching the Shadows

Plame tweet prompts conserva-purge of Giraldi

American Conservative finally gave far-right ex-spook Philip Giraldi the sack over rank anti-Semitism after one of his evil screeds was tweeted by Valerie Plame. Would that some of our supposed allies in the Palestine struggle were as principled as our conservative enemies. Counterpunch, ANSWER, Al-Awda and MondoWeiss continue to promote Giraldi and/or his equally vile sidekick Alison Weir. Image: frgdr.com

New York City

Crypto-fascists exploit anti-fascist struggle

Pseudo-left sectarian outfits in the orbit of Workers World Party, which is actually in league with international fascism, now aggressively seek to exploit the anti-fascist upsurge in the United States for purposes of party-building and spreading their toxic politics. These supporters of genocidal dictators like Bashar Assad also sat down at a Russia-hosted Euro-fascist confab with the very neo-Confederates and white nationalists they now claim to oppose. It is imperative that activists do not take their bait.

North America

Assad’s radical right admirers in Charlottesville

A curious link to Syria was seen at the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville: an admiration for dictator Bashar Assad. James Fields—detained after his car rammed counter-protesters, killing one—featured Assad on his Facebook page. Marchers chanted in support of Assad and wore T-shirts celebrating his barrel-bombs that have killed thousands of Syrians.

The Andes

Trump finally meets a ‘dictator’ he doesn’t like

Donald Trump, the buddy of Putin, Erdogan, Sisi and Duterte, now calls Venezuela a “dictatorship” and slaps sanctions on President Nicolás Maduro. All this proves is that Maduro is more useful to Trump as an external demon. Can we oppose Maduro’s power-grab without legitimizing Trump’s hypocrisy?

The Andes

Venezuela: is the problem really ‘socialism’?

There is an unseemly tone of gloating to conservative commentary on the crisis in Venezuela, with pundits pointing to the current chaos as evidence that "socialism" doesn't work. But a case can be made that, contrary to conservative and mainstream assumptions, the problem is precisely that the Bolivarian Revolution has been insufficiently revolutionary and socialist.

North Africa

Tunisian revolutionaries betray Syrian revolution?

The democratic transition in Tunisia since the 2011 uprising has been the one real success story of the Arab Revolution—and the Tunisian revolution was also the first that served to spark the subsequent wave. So Tunisia’s pro-democracy forces have international responsibilities, seen as keepers of the flame. It is distressing to learn that the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), a pillar of the country’s pro-democracy movement, sent a delegation to Damascus to meet with dictator Bashar Assad and express solidarity with his “war against terrorism.”