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Monday, April 11, 2016

Code Pink changes a logo, will it now also change its stand on Syria?

Flags have meanings. 
They tell people which side you stand on. 
The Syrian conflict is also defined by flags.
The Assad regime has its flag.The terrorists have their flag.The people have their flag.
While millions of Syrians have rallied behind their flag of liberation...
Urging NATO action | Oct 2011
Friday Freedom Protest | March 2016
End the Regime | 4 March 2016
Some in the US Left have chosen instead to salute the tyrant's colors...
Last August, I criticized Veterans for Peace for marching with Assad's flag and for their pro-Assad convention resolution.

Report on Convention: Veterans for Peace gives Assad & ISIS a new tool
Booth & Banner @ Veterans for Peace National Convention
Critique of Proposed VFP Resolution 2015-3 Stop All Foreign Intervention In Syria
Until recently, Code Pink was also waving Assad's flag on its website, their Syria logo was a broken peace symbol backed by the fascist flag. It looked as though Bashar al-Assad could also count Code Pink as one of his supporters, and the reasons for thinking that went far beyond that logo. What we've heard from most them on Syria is silence and that was just what the doctor ordered. So the question is: How deep is this change?

Code Pink has been one of the leading US peace organizations and progressive women's organizations since in was found by Jodie Evans, Medea Benjamin and other activists near the end of 2002 during the run up to the Iraq war. Since then it has been active in a great many campaigns including justice for Palestine, closing Gitmo, against militarized drones and more recently, breaking ties with Saudi Arabia. This is how it describes itself:
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs. Join us!
For an American group that has joined the fight in places as far away as off the coast of Gaza and in Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring and fancies itself a defender of peace and justice everywhere with a special focus on women, they have been surprisingly quiet about this conflict that has ended a half million lives and up-ended twelve million more, the majority women and children, in the last five years.

Mainly Code Pink has has had very little to say about Syria. They didn't complain about his barrel bombing of civilian housing. Unlike Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, they haven't done much to expose the Assad regime's systematic use of rape as a weapon. Medea Benjamin has sent out over 7,384 tweets but Google can't find the word "sarin" in any on them, but after Assad murdered over 1400 people with sarin, including hundreds of children, in East Ghouta and other Damascus suburbs and the specter of a promised Obama military response was raised, Code Pink jumped into action on Syria.  Its purpose was to oppose Obama keeping his "red-line" promise. They need not have bothered, Obama had no plans to keep this promise, he'd been in Assad's corner all along. Obama was happy to have "Left" cover for his plans, to have Medea Benjamin believe "We forced the president to go to Congress." That's why Medea Benjamin was able to keep sneaking into the hearings and why Obama told the audience "The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to."  He didn't want to see Assad harmed either. He even made the French stand down. Code Pink couldn't take credit for that but they did claim a great victory in "Stopping a War" because Obama reneged on his promise that the US would take military action if Assad used chemical weapons.

Once that danger had passed, Code Pink again turned quiet on Syria. One of the consequences of Obama's reneging on his promise to take action if Assad ever did use "a whole bunch of chemical weapons" was a loss of hope among the Syrian people of ever seeing meaningful support from the West and a great propaganda victory for the anti-western jihadists. Daesh was able to make hay out of this and soon Mosul would fall. Assad saw his way free to greatly step up the terror bombing and even use chemical weapons many more times. But my then Code Pink had moved on to other things.

They did briefly focus on the effects of the Syrian civil war on women at the "Women Lead to Peace Summit" they helped organize in Geneva, Switzerland ahead of the Geneva II Syria peace talks in January 2014. It was a mixed bag with Assad regime apologists such as Mairead Maguire participating.

They have opposed the overthrow of Assad and promoted Assad regime propaganda that the US government is behind the revolt by backing a propaganda bill put forward by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) that is intended to “bring an immediate end to the illegal, counter-productive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad..” As if that is the problem. That's just "Left" cover for Obama's real agenda. They have also promoted the Assad regime view that Daesh, which they call ISIS, is part of the revolutionary opposition:
They only listen to US politicians and continue to be deaf to the demands of the massive Friday protests for a no-fly zone in Syria even though Assad's "Death from Above" campaign has created the biggest refugee crisis since World War Two:
And they don't support the Syrian people's demand for and end to the regime:
Beyond the silence, the absences of comment or protest, one of the things that might make the world think they were in Assad's corner was the logo they used for "Syria" under the "Issues & Campaigns." section of the Code Pink website. You had to click the "Load More" link to see it because the worst humanitarian crises of our time doesn't make the first screen. I first saw the logo less than two weeks ago while researching this piece and immediately launched a twitter campaign against it:




Now I am happy to report that they have since gotten rid of that awful, pro-Assad logo and replaced it with something more neutral. The question is, will the campaign behind it now also change to something less pro-Assad as well? Is this really a change of heart or just a change of face?

They also have a petition you should sign - Obama: Drop Food, Not Bombs, in Syria!, but they should be doing much more..

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria



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1 comment:

  1. Bill the ButcherOctober 7, 2018 at 5:35 AM

    Isn't it a pity for you headchopper terrorist fanscum that the actual flag of the people of Syria is the red and black flag with two stars, and the colonial flag you claim is the "people's" flag is the one that's routinely wagged beside those of al Qaeda and ISIS?

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