@DemocracyNow on the Libyan Model: Who killed Gaddafi?

Much of the Left has a great deal of unity with alt-right warmongers in their understanding of recent Libyan history. As you know, Donald Trump and other prominent members of his administration have been threatening North Korea with something they call the “Libyan model.” This is a view of Libyan history that leaves the Libyans out of it. It ignores their suffering under the 42 years of Gaddafi's dictatorship, including the hundred of thousands of Libyans, and other Africans, he murdered. It ignores their equally long fight against his brutal regime, and it especially ignores the heroic struggle by the Libyan thuwar [freedom fighters] that began in January 2011, and after the cost of thousands of Libyan lives by October 2011, finally put that regime out of their misery.

After a bit of hesitation, and a UN authorization that even Russia voted for, not to mention the need of certain French refineries for Libya's irreplaceable light-sweet crude on the heels of a European economic crisis, NATO intervened in the civil war. This “Libyan model” uses the fact that NATO protected the civilian population with a no-fly zone, and gave the revolution air support, to take the Libyan people out of the picture. This “Libyan model” is based on the idea that it was the omnipotent US imperialists that took out Muammar Gaddafi. The story is that they treacherously did this even though he had yielded to their demands, and he gave up his nuclear weapons eight years earlier.

While Trump and company use this “Libyan model” as a threat of what might happen to Kim Jong-un, 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea, if he doesn't play ball (or even if he does!), the white-Left condemns this use of the “Libyan model,” but they don't dispute its core assumption, which is that the US imperialist made a decision to conduct a “regime change” operation in Libya, and then they just made it happen. The whole history of the uprising; its connection to the Arab Spring; the unarmed protesters that braved Gaddafi regime bullets; the patriotic soldiers that defected to the revolution rather than fire on their own people; Gaddafi's merciless siege Misrata; are all washed away in this unified American version of what went down in Libya in 2011.

“Anti-imperialist” support for this vision of US imperialist omnipotence, as embodied in Trump's definition of the “Libyan model,” was on full display on Democracy Now, Friday, 25 May 2018. Amy Goodman first touched upon it in the headlines:

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s withdrawal came after North Korea blasted recent comments by Vice President Mike Pence, who suggested Kim Jong-un will end up like slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi if he doesn’t denuclearize North Korea.

She went into greater detail later in the show with investigative journalist Tim Shorrock:

AMY GOODMAN: NBC reports Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has privately blamed National Security Adviser John Bolton for torpedoing the talks. North Korea first threatened to pull out of the talks after Bolton said the U.S. should use the Libyan model for denuclearization. In 2003, Libya negotiated sanctions relief from the United States in exchange for renouncing its nuclear program and welcoming international inspectors to verify the dismantlement. Eight years later, the U.S. and other nations attacked Libya, toppling and killing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Vice President Mike Pence and President Trump have also talked about the Libyan model in recent weeks.

That's the white supremacist short story on the revolutionary struggle to end a 42-year fascist dictatorship, and the 30,000 Libyan lives that were lost in that struggle. U.S. and other nations attacked Libya and killed Gaddafi. End of story. Finis. She continues:

AMY GOODMAN: Last week—last week, President Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could suffer the same fate as former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, if he refuses to give up his nuclear weapons:

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The model, if you look at that model with Gaddafi, that was a total decimation. We went in there to beat him. Now, that model would take place if we don’t make a deal, most likely. But if we make a deal, I think Kim Jong-un is going to be very, very happy.

It should be noted that Amy Goodman cut short the Trump quote before he made it clear that he was offering US imperial protection to yet another dictator [i.e. “leader” in DN parlance.] as long as he plays ball. The Guardian continued its coverage to include this clarification from Trump:

“This with Kim Jong-un would be something where he would be there. He would be running his country. His country would be very rich.”
...
“We’re willing to do a lot, and he’s willing … to do a lot also, and I think we’ll actually have a good relationship, assuming we have the meeting and assuming something comes of it. And he’ll get protections that will be very strong.”

Democracy Now would just as soon as not have to question this side of the deal. Trump is interested in control, not democracy, so he is willing to offer the Kim dynasty “protections” provided they “have a good relationship.” Gone is even the suggestion that the dictator step down and allow for free elections. No threat of “regime change” here, so long as he plays ball. DN should be pleased; they like some dictators  —  like Kim and Gaddafi. One thing they have in common with Trump, Putin, and Kim, is that they can't afford to actually admit that it was the Libyan people that took Gaddafi out, and it is the Korean people that pose the greatest threat to the Kim dynasty, the Russian people to Putin, and so on. Instead, she side-steps that issue and continues her objections to the use of the Libyan model as a threat. Then she introduces Tim Shorrock. Amy Goodman likes to bring subject matter experts onto the show:

AMY GOODMAN: So, Tim Shorrock, the issue of Mike Pence, the vice president, reiterating what John Bolton said about the Libyan model—again, if people remember, after the denuclearization deal, U.S. allies attacked Libya, and Muammar Gaddafi was not only overthrown, he was murdered in the streets of Libya by U.S.-backed rebels.

She wouldn't say “JFK was murdered in the streets of America.” What's up with this language?

On the screen she shows images of the slain Brother Leader. Of all the 30,000 Libyans, on both sides, that died in the civil war, the one most mourned by the white-Left, one might say, the only one mourned by them, is Muammar Gaddafi. Tim Shorrock joins in:

TIM SHORROCK: And, you know, clearly, Bolton understands, when he talks about the Libya solution, there’s two parts to it. You know, Libya gave up its nuclear weapons without making—you know, gave up its nuclear weapons before receiving any kind of economic aid or support. So that was one part of it. And then, of course, after he did give them up, his regime was overthrown by the U.S. and NATO.

Now their Libya myth has been stretched to the point where they are claiming Muammar Gaddafi even gave up nuclear weapons into the bargain. They've been spreading his propaganda for years. To hear them tell it, under Gaddafi, Libya had the best of everything! The best schools, a tremendous healthcare system, free housing and income for all, a great man-made river, even marvelous nuclear weapons! It was all a lie. As I reported just days ago, Gaddafi's “nuclear program” consisted of some unprocessed and unenriched uranium, a handful of centrifuges that they couldn't get to work, and purchased bomb plans they couldn't understand. The only enriching it ever did was accomplished by putting more Libyan oil money into the pockets of Gaddafi-connected contractors. It probably also added to the mercenary violence in Africa, as he sought to illegally import thousands of tons of uranium ore concentrate from neighboring Niger. Now, through the magic of time and corruption, this nothing has miraculously morphed into nuclear weapons! Who knew it could be so easy?

Given the terminal confusion this concept of the “Libyan model” embodies about who is responsible for the death of Libyan “Brother Leader” Muammar Gaddafi, I thought it might be useful to review some known facts surrounding his death. I like having those stubborn things on my side. Facts are a real problem for proponents of the “Libyan model” like John Bolton and Amy Goodman. But before we get to that, since the thesis of Bolton and Goodman is that it was just a US led regime change operation, it would be useful to review some lesser known facts about the Libyan revolt before NATO came in.

The Libyan Revolution before NATO

Neither the US imperialists or “Anti-imperialist” want to remember that there was a time when NATO supported Gaddafi, before it opposed him. That gets in the way of everybody's narrative that what happened to Gaddafi was the result of a US driven “regime change” plot. Allow me to refresh their memories. From my piece “NATO's Game Plan in Libya,” 3 July 2011:

NATO countries had little more than words to show for their “humanitarian concerns” after Qaddafi killed 700 protesters in Tripoli on February 21, some of them bombed with jet aircraft, and maybe 2000 in Benghazi days before. When President Obama spoke of this on February 23, he condemned the Libyan government, saying “suffering and bloodshed is outrageous, and it is unacceptable,” but he did not call for Qaddafi to step down nor did he announce any new sanctions the US would support to punish the leader that he said “violate international norms and every standard of common decency.”
...
Qaddafi started using military violence against protest rallies as early as Feb. 20, yet UN/NATO did not act militarily until March 19. They were willing to give Qaddafi almost a month to put down the rebellion with tanks, artillery and aircraft.

As Qaddafi's violent repression was taking thousands of lives in Libya, NATO was taking a wait and see attitude. On February 25, the NATO Secretary General made an official statement, “I do not consider the situation in Libya a direct threat to NATO or NATO Allies ...I would like to stress that NATO as such has no plans to intervene.” The next day he elaborated NATO's plan to deal with the Libyan crisis, “priority must be given to evacuation and possibly, also, humanitarian assistance.”

Here is a little more detail on how those 700 protesters died. It has a new relevance today, now that we are all more aware of the nefarious side of social media: while both Putin and Trump have put it to evil intent, Gaddafi topped them both years ago. On 21 February 2011, a date that will forever be remembered as Tripoli's “Long Night,” Gaddafi first used tweets to convince people that he had fled to Venezuela; then he used fake-activist accounts to call for a “celebration rally” in Green Square. The real activists in Tripoli, like the Free Generation Movement, tried to get the word out that it was a trap. Still, hundreds showed up. Then Gaddafi brought out the machine guns and worst, and slaughtered them. He killed 700 that night, mostly young people.

In this 29 June 2011, Al Jazeera video we hear from an eyewitness to this massacre. He also tells us of some measures NATO took to minimize civilian casualties. After the first few air strikes, the people of Tripoli saw how precise they were, and learned to stop worrying and love the bombing. They knew only Gaddafi's compounds were being targeted, so all over Tripoli, people could be heard cheering from the rooftops as NATO hit those targets.



An orderly in the hospital that night was interviewed by the BBC’s Pascale Harter in Tunisia, 17 June 2011, about what happened:

Many young people went to protest in Green Square that day, and I believe almost no-one came back alive that night.

Between 600 and 700 people were killed. I know this because I carried the bodies into my hospital.

Each ambulance brought three or four dead people. And the ambulances just kept coming and going, like delivery vans dropping off goods.
...
I think Col Gaddafi’s forces were using anti-aircraft guns on people.

The people had gunshot wounds to their heads or chests. The bullets had exploded and some of the people had their heads blown open. I tried to pick up the pieces.

This history is conveniently forgotten by believers in the “Libyan model” on both sides because that white chauvinist position holds that it was the autonomous decision of the US imperialists to take Gaddafi out even though he gave up his imaginary nuclear weapons eight years earlier.

While NATO air support stopped Gaddafi from using his air force and heavy armor against both the people and their freedom fighters, mostly; it didn't stop him from using his artillery or superior firepower on the ground. The National Transitional Council [NTC] very wisely forbid NATO ground troops, something NATO always strove for, but never achieved; the fighting on the ground was done by Libyans. Some thuwar had come over from the army and had some military training, most were citizen-soldiers, activists that formed themselves into brigades and found weapons, after Gaddafi made it clear a peaceful transition was off the table. Unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, there were never US boots on the ground in Libya. So while the NATO air cover prevented Gaddafi from doing to Libya what Assad has been allowed to do to Syria, it was still a hard slogging eight months of fighting by the revolutionary brigades before Gaddafi was finally run to ground in his last stronghold of Sirte.

The Death of Muammar Gaddafi

A National Transitional Council (NTC) fighter points a gun at Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte in this still image taken from video shot on October 20, 2011 and released on October 22, 2011. REUTERS/Reuters TV/Files

Muammar Gaddafi, was captured and killed on 20 October 2011. He was found hiding in a culvert west of Sirte and captured by NTC forces. He was dead shortly afterwards. This is how it happened.

Gaddafi and his mob had been hunkered down in a makeshift bunker for ten days as the seige of Sirte closed in on them. On that day, they made a desperate break for it in a 100 vehicle convoy that included Gaddafi and his closest cohorts in five cars at its heart. As the convoy left Sirte, it split up, but a large contingent stayed with Gaddafi.

In a Trump-like move, Gaddafi ignored the advice of his security people, and used his satellite phone. He did this knowing that when they had earlier fled from Tripoli to Sirte, his son, Mo’tassim, had traveled separately because he was still using his satellite phone to command what was left of their collapsing military effort. He suspected it could be tracked, and didn't want to endanger his father.

Once Gaddafi's voice was recognized by a NATO electronic warfare aircraft, most likely a French C160 Gabriel, it was “Game On!” The focus shifted to that contingent, and a pair of RAF Tornado GR4s aerial surveillance jets started tracking him. NATO command notified the NTC, which already had forces on the ground looking for Gaddafi, and hit the convoy with either $800,000 AASM smart munitions or 500lb Paveway smart bombs from a French Rafales jet, and Hellfire missiles from a US drone piloted from Las Vegas.

NATO used smart ordinances overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, in Libya. This kept civilian loses, and infrastructure damage lower than your average war. This limitation was used by the “anti-imperialists” for a propaganda advantage. There were times went NATO would announce a pause in airstrikes, citing a shortage of smart munitions as the reason. Without ever mentioning the smart bomb limitation, the “anti-imperialists” would say that showed NATO was dropping so many bombs on Libya that they were running out of bombs!

It's very likely that even with that limitation, this excuse for these pauses was a lie. Close observers noticed how they always seemed to coincide with NATO attempts to wrangle concessions from the NTC on one question or another. The “anti-imperialist” protests actually supported NATO's public relations efforts to look like they were trying as hard as they could, when they were actually holding back.

Anyway, remember those airstrikes on Gaddafi's column? Those airstrikes left 15 pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns burnt out, smashed and smouldering next to an electricity substation 20 yards from the main road, about two miles west of Sirte. See below:

The picture above is from the Daily Mail on the day after Gaddafi was killed. It clearly shows how Gaddafi's escape convoy was devastated by NATO air strikes. It is easy to see the violence of NATO's assault on Libya in this picture, but it also shows something else, it shows the extremely unusual delicacy and precision with which NATO carried out its war against Gaddafi, not Libya. While that is also clearly shown in this picture, it is easy to miss, if it's not pointed out.

Notice the high voltage towers and electrical transmission facility in the background? What's unusual about that picture? This is near the very end of the war, in fact one of NATO's last strike missions. This is also an electrical substation outside of Sirte, which the NTC, with NATO air support, has had under siege for months. Clearly that power substation would be an easy target, easier than a moving convoy, and yet there it stands, apparently unscathed. That is because in its air campaign over Libya, unlike the way the US made war in Iraq, Afghanistan and just about everywhere else, NATO took serious pains to avoid damaging the infrastructure. The NTC had other ways to turn the lights out in Sirte during the siege. As a result, while Libya had many problems after the war ended, replacing a bomb-damaged electrical grid wasn't one of them. Bashar al-Assad didn't even take such care in bombing his own cities. That is why where some see in this picture the results of a vicious NATO air attack on “Brother Leader,” I see airwar done right.

This may be because it was the European allies that carried out the overwhelming majority of the strike missions, and they used a care and precision that is foreign to the US Air Force. The US carried out less than 17% of the NATO strike sorties over Libya, less than half as many as France, and the US actual “dropped ordinances” in less than 17% of those “strike sorties.” ; no doubt Libya is better off for that. I guess they didn't like only using expensive bombs, but that doesn't stop the joint US imperialist/anti-imperialist project from complaining that the US is responsible for these bad things that happened to Libya.

After the airstrike, which destroyed the vehicle in front of Muammar Gaddafi's car, he and his son Mo’tassim, and defense minister Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, took shelter in a nearby house, which was then shelled by NTC forces.

Mo’tassim then took 20 fighters and went to look for undamaged cars, having persuaded his father to come too. “The group belly-crawled to a sand berm,” a UN report, released in March 2012 said, and then through two drainage pipes and set up a defensive position. One of Gaddafi's guards threw a grenade at advancing thuwar on the road above, but it bounced off the concrete wall above the pipes and fell in front of Gaddafi. The guard tried to pick it up, but it exploded, killing both the guard and Yunis Jabr.

Did this bounced grenade cause most of the bloody injuries we see in the pictures of the dead Gaddafi, or was it just beatings by a mob, as we are led to believe? The 2012 UN report says he was wounded by grenade fragmentation, which shredded his flak jacket, and left him on the floor, dazed and in shock, bleeding from a wound in the left temple. Gaddafi next took refuge in a large drainage pipe with several bodyguards. A nearby group of NTC fighters opened fire, wounding Gaddafi with gunshots to his leg and back. According to one unnamed NTC fighter, one of Gaddafi's bodyguards also shot him, apparently to spare him from being captured.

A senior NTC official said that no order was given to execute Gaddafi. According to another NTC source, “they captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and, then they killed him.” Mahmoud Jibril, leader of the NTC, gave an alternative account, stating that “when the car was moving it was caught in crossfire between the revolutionaries and Gaddafi forces in which he was hit by a bullet in the head.” The UN commission was unable to determine exactly how Gaddafi died, or whether it was an unlawful killing.

If the NATO air strikes had taken out Gaddafi directly, this joint imperialist/anti-imperialist claim that NATO killed Gaddafi would be much easier to make, but they didn't. By all accounts, he was taken out by the thuwar, if he wasn't killed by his own people. This is a real problem for this most basic claim of the “Libyan model.” Nowadays this is being dealt with by not even mentioning the role of the thuwar, or when forced to recognize their role they are the “US-backed rebels.” In their thesaurus “backed” is a synonym for “controlled,” meaning the thuwar were agents of US imperialism, so their role can be zeroed out anyway.

Could the NTC have taken out Gaddafi without NATO support? There is no doubt that NATO played an indispensable role in locating and stopping Gaddafi so soon after he abandoned his human shield in Sirte and got out in the open, just as it was indispensable in bringing the whole conflict to this point so quickly. However, it's not clear how long Gaddafi could have evaded capture in any case. It's not even clear where they thought they were going. They were fleeing their last stronghold. They were like the Jefferson Davis train fleeing South at the end of the US Civil War, hoping some foreign country might take them in.

The claim that the US overthrew and killed Gaddafi is really twice chauvinist vanity. It is the Libyan revolutionaries, under the leadership of the NTC, not NATO, that deserves the main credit, or blame, if you are a Gaddafi fan, for these accomplishments. It started and ended with them. NATO just reduced the cost in lives, and accelerated the same outcome that would probably have been reached anyway; unless Gaddafi was able to obtain the type of massive foreign support, including armies, that allowed Assad to turn the tide, kill hundreds of thousands, and hang on for another round.

NATO's role was a secondary one, but no matter how you view NATO's role, it is a big mistake to give the US all the credit (or blame) for it. The US flew a lot of missions because it provided the bulk of the air reconnaissance and refueling, but when it came to strike missions, not so much. The US had “dropped ordinances” only 132 times in the first 92 days of flight operations! The US was a laggard in Libya. As compared to most NATO operations, this was a European led show. That is why I say that this united white-Left/alt-Right shorthand for the Libyan revolution, “the U.S. and other nations attacked Libya, toppling and killing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi” is doubly chauvinistic.

I mean, honestly, since it was French warplanes that hit Gaddafi first, as his tanks approached Benghazi on 19 March 2011; a French plane that hit him last, as he was fleeing Sirte on 20 October 2011; French aircraft that air-dropped arms to thuwar stuck in a tight spot, and French planes that flew 33% of the strike sorties, twice as many as US planes, shouldn't Amy Goodman be saying “France and other nations attacked Libya, toppling and killing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi,” even if she insists on leaving the Libyans out of it? No! That won't do either. The Libyan Model requires the mythology of US dominance.

There were also a few other features from the Friday Headlines on Democracy Now that relate to these matters, such as this report on Syria:

Government Seizes ISIS-Held Refugee Camp Outside Damascus
In Syria, government forces have recaptured the Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees outside Damascus, after a brutal month-long campaign drove ISIS from the area. The assault reportedly killed scores of civilians and left most of the camp in ruins. With its capture, Syria’s military now controls all the areas around Damascus for the first time in seven years.

ISIS hasn't held the camp for seven years; it hasn't been around that long, so what history are we missing? The Free Syrian Army, and its Palestinian ally Liwa al-Asifa, freed much of it from Assad regime control in 2012. ISIS didn't overrun the camp until April 2015. Here are some screenshots from the DN video report:

As you can see, they recaptured it with indiscriminate artillery and barrel-bomb attacks. Yarmouk was once of the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. The silence of the white-Left, as the Assad regime treated it worse than Israel treats Gaza, did much to reveal the capricious nature of their support for the Palestinian people.

That was the last anti-Assad stronghold in Damascus. After seven years of unrestricted air assault by the Assad regime and its allies, bomb ravaged cityscapes like this are all too common in Syria. These pictures could have just as easily come from Aleppo, East Ghouta, Homs, Idlib, or Hama. This damage represents the triumph of the policy positions championed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. There was no UN sanctioned no-fly zone in Syria, and no countries, not even France, stepped forward to offer a shield to the civilians under the bombs. Code Pink would protest the thought!

That was followed by a report from Libya:

Car Bomb Explodes in Benghazi, Killing Seven and Injuring 20
In Benghazi, Libya, a car bomb exploded outside a hotel on a busy road in the city’s center late Thursday, killing at least seven people and injuring 20 others. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the latest in a series of bombings in Libya that followed the 2011 NATO bombing campaign that helped U.S.-backed rebels overthrow and kill Muammar Gaddafi.

Notice how they have adopted the Trump policy of repeating lies so often they start being taken as the truth? Its like they can't even mention Libya without reminding us of “the 2011 NATO bombing campaign that helped U.S.-backed rebels overthrow and kill Muammar Gaddafi.”

Below are a series of screenshots from that report. We can see from the damaged cars and destruction in the street that it was a terrible blast. In addition to seven people killed, 20 were injured. Sadly, it is a sign of these times. This could have happened in any major city in Africa, or in London or Paris, for that matter, and if it had happened in any other city in Africa, its chances of being covered by Democracy Now would have been a lot slimmer, but Democracy Now has a point to make about Libya, about how Libya was destroyed by NATO intervention, and even today is still dealing with the consequence.

Again, if you look at the background, rather than what is given to you in the foreground, these pictures tell a different story. If you look beyond the carnage in the street, you will see that the city of Benghazi is still standing proudly. While it's a little hard to be make out, because it is a night scene, none of the visible buildings appear to be bombed-out or war-damaged. Fortunately these night pictures do show us quite a bit because Benghazi appears to be a city of lights. This indicates that the NATO assault didn't take out the electrical infrastructure, and Gaddafi's air force wasn't allowed to do that either. It also indicates that the electrical grid has somehow “miraculously” been maintained these past seven years amidst all the Libyan chaos we keep hearing about.

There are a lot of people on the street. Does that mean things aren't so bad in Benghazi that people can't get on with their lives, meaning its not still the war zone many would have us believe? It also looks like they have a functioning emergency response system amidst all the anarchy and chaos.



People are not afraid to come out at night, in large numbers, even after there has been a terrorist attack. There is another thing about these terror attacks in Libya that gets little notice. Remnants of the Gaddafi regime are behind many of them. This isn't just random violence that has sprung up as a result of a poorly-conceived “regime-change” operation, as the Right/Left fusion would have you believe. That is another part of the myth. Although Gaddafi was killed, other leading members of his cabal went into hiding. They have been funding counter-revolutionary chaos as part of what they fancy is the “Green Resistance,” and they still have a lot of stolen Libyan money to do it with. It's no coincidence that Sirte, Gaddafi's home and last stronghold, became the center of ISIS in Libya before it was thrown out.

Even when they are reporting on the terrorist murder of seven Libyans just the day before, they can't help but mourn Gaddafi, and call him out by name. That's all Libya is to them; it's a place US/NATO bombed and killed Gaddafi. This report is not because they are in the habit of giving much coverage to recent happenings in Libya. This report is meant as an object lesson.

Back to Yarmouk:

Does anybody at Democracy Now really think these bombed out Syrian cities will look as good as Benghazi in a few years? This is what Benghazi would have looked like if Democracy Now had prevailed against the French jets that stopped Gaddafi from doing to Benghazi what he had just done to the much smaller Ajdabiya.



My current favorite “what if fantasy” begins with: What if the Left had given both material and ideological support to the Libyan thuwar from the very beginning? I know that there were significant elements within their revolutionary struggle that were open to that. Could that have helped in any way to move their struggle in a more cohesive and progressive direction? In my opinion, the main problem with the Libyan revolution has been the lack of a strong internal Left leadership, not the lack of revolutionary energy from the masses. That leadership can be simulated externally [Consider the French influence on Ho Chi Minh.], but that is most unlikely in an environment in which what is passing itself off as the international “Left” is so hostile to their revolution.

If things had went a little better in Libya, might the outcome in Syria have been different? There are many cascading effects to consider. Revolutionary Libya was already one of the strongest material and moral supports the Syrian people had. The new Libyan General National Congress voted hundreds of millions of dollars to support the uprising. Many Libyan thuwar, in the spirit of Che Guevara, joined the struggle in Syria as the one in Libya wound down. Many of Gaddafi weapons joined the fight on the other side. If Obama's CIA hadn't stopped them from getting his best anti-aircraft weapons [SA-7 MANPADS], much of Syria could have been spared being barrel-bombed into rumble.

A Left in the US and Europe that came to understand and support the Libyan revolution, probably would have supported the one in Syria too. What difference could that had made? If organizations like Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, and Democracy Now had come into this struggle on the side of the Syrian people, rather than seeing in their struggle an opportunity to score points against “neoliberalism,” could that had helped move things in the right direction? If they had spent the years protesting Assad's daily barrel-bombing of civilians, rather than hitting the streets only to defend his occasional use of chemical weapons, would that have changed things? Would ISIS still have been able to take Mosul if Obama had not reneged on his “red-line” promise? Would ISIS, and other reactionary Islamists, even have the mass appeal they now enjoy, if the “Left” alternative hadn't been shown to be so bankrupt? And finally, if these things had been handled differently by the Left, would Trump even be president now?

That is all water under the bridge. The question of the day is: Shall we have a Left that has humanity's best interest at heart and can learn from its mistakes, or one that is an appendage to white fascism? There is another Libyan model that is being quite purposely obscured by this revised definition; it is the example of a people who took their destiny into their own hands and threw off a fascist dictatorship that had ruled most of them all their lives. In that, I see hope for all of us.

Libyan government fighters celebrated after routing the last remaining forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from the coastal town of Surt on Thursday. Credit Mauricio Lima for The New York Times. [Please allow me one last observation on background. We are told that the rebels who fought Gaddafi were all Islamic extremists, yet few of the men in this picture are sporting the type of beard that many consider mandatory for a devout Muslim man.]

These are the people who killed Gaddafi, and no amount of white-Left/alt-Right unity, around a so-called “Libyan model” that leaves them out of the picture, will change this truth.

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

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Since Khan Sheikhoun: Murders holocaust enablers don't argue about

Thousands of Syrian civilians have been murdered by the Assad Regime since the sarin attack that killed 92 in Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017. While a debate has raged in the West over the responsibility for those sarin murders on that particular day, the regime and its Russian masters have continued their grisly work of suppressing the freedom struggle of the Syrian people through the application of maximum violence.

Linux Beach has been very involved in this debate around the responsibility for those 92 deaths. Even today we are introducing a new page, Linux Beach Goes Postol, to bring together our most recent posts on that subject. But also today, we would like to take a step back from the technical discussions surrounding the facts of what happened on the morning of 4 April 2017 in Khan Sheikhoun, to take in the broader picture and better explain why we call those on the other side of this debate holocaust enablers.

Leading Veterans for Peace member Ray McGovern is one such holocaust enabler. My his own account he has "been working with Russia for the past 55 years." Through the good times and bad, you might say. He also heads a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity [VIPS] which has generally been quiet on Syrian atrocities, but did come out strongly questioning Assad's responsibility for the sarin murders in Ghouta on 21 August 2013, and again for the sarin murders of 4 April 2017. Both now and then they have relied on Postol's proofs in their defense of Assad.

Before I started writing in support of the Syrian Revolution, I produced and directed a documentary film, Vietnam: American Holocaust. I even got Martin Sheen involved with the project. I got a lot of flack for calling it a holocaust. So did he. It came from those that would recognize only one holocaust, and they capitalize [on] it. I called it a holocaust because more than three million people were brutally slaughtered. With a half-million dead and counting, I call the Syrian conflict a holocaust in the making for the same reason.

I didn't call it "South Vietnamese holocaust" because I didn't buy the US government mythology that they were just helping the government of a small third world country besieged by powerful outside forces at that lawful government's invitation. I knew damn well it was America that was calling the shots, and responsible for the bulk of the killing. Moscow claimed to have all of Syria's chemical weapons under control in December 2012. For years now, they have been the most powerful military force operating in Syria, and have had command and control of all pro-Assad forces. This is Putin's holocaust. It is extremely unlikely that this most recent sarin attack, and even the ones that took place in 2013, took place without his authorization.

In the "It's a Small World Afterall" Department, below we have Ray McGovern questioning ex-General Mike Flynn in Moscow about the Ghouta attack of 21 August 2013:

VFP member Ray McGovern questions Mike Flynn in Moscow about Ghouta Attack

Published on Apr 16, 2017
Gen. Michael Flynn answering a question about Syria in December, 2015 prior to joining the Trump team.

Although this wasn't published until after the Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack, this discussion took place in December 2015. It must have been at the gala RT.com 10th Anniversary event to which saw so many connected to Putin and last years US election make an appearance. In addition to those at the table with him, apparently Ray McGovern was there. Julian Assange even made a video appearance. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was getting Jill Stein to run for president.



One of the things I find most interesting about Ray McGovern's and Mike Flynn's discussion is how they just referred to it as "the Ghouta attack" when they are referring exclusively to the sarin attack of 21 August 2013, as if the Damascus opposition suburb wasn't bombed before that, or since. This is central to their role as holocaust enablers. By focusing on Assad's guilt or innocence in the case of a few chemical attacks, they obscure the day-to-day barrel bombing that is doing much more of the killing, and for which Putin is decidedly responsible, or the bodies being cremated in Assad's death camps. Because if they were to speak accurately about "the Ghouta attack" as a singularity, they could only be referring to the state of siege that community has been under since 2012, and continues to this day, as the videos below makes clear, even while we continue to argue about who was responsible for the 92 deaths on 4 April by sarin:

These air strikes on Ghouta two weeks after the latest sarin massacre have not been the subject of debate with regards to causality in the US. This is the way it goes for the day to day killing carried on by the regime and Russia. Since no one in the West cares about barrel bombs, the holocaust enablers don't need to try to peddle stories about rebels setting off barrel-bombs in the street just when helicopters fly by.

Airstrikes on Harasta in Eastern Ghouta, Damascus a month ago

Published on Apr 18, 2017
bombardamenti dell'esercito siriano ai danni dei ribelli a Damasco

As this video makes clear, this community has been under siege since 2012. Many thousands have died and still the people refuse to submit to the regime:

Eastern Ghouta Under Siege الغوطة حصار الموت

Published on Apr 29, 2017
Eastern Ghouta left to die

A month after the latest sarin attack, the people attacked with sarin in 2013, are still under siege and their situation is desperate. Did those who defended Assad in the case of that chemical weapons attack, and then went silent with regards to his hundreds of conventional attacks on the same community, contribute to this slaughter?

Residents of besieged Ghouta fear it is time to flee

Published on May 4, 2017
The humanitarian situation on the outskirts of the Syrian capital is worsening. The opposition stronghold of Ghouta has been repeatedly targeted by government forces, and residents now fear they may be forced to leave. Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbara reports from Gaziantep, on the Turkey-Syrian border.

The Syrian revolutionaries in Ghouta have had to fight a war on two fronts for years now. Here they are demonstrating against the jihadists, even while the Assad regime and its western contributors claim there are no revolutionaries, only jihadists:

Large scale protests against Hayyat Tahrir al Sham in Ghouta

Published on May 8, 2017
Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda in the Levant have come among us and are intruding into the Syrian Revolution.

And like the Regime, the jihadists attack the Syrian Revolution with armed violence:

Protesters shot at during demonstration in Ghouta, Syria

Published on Apr 30, 2017
Eastern Ghouta, Syria. Jaish al-Islam did the shooting according to sources. Demonstrators were protesting recent infighting between Tahrir al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam. Uploaded from Liveleak.

One problem with the Syrian Revolution has always been that although it has been a true people's revolution, there has been no central leadership. Both fighting and civil organizations have developed at the local level and the struggle for unity has been a constant one.

Homs: Syrian Opposition Calls To End The Conflict In Damascus's Ghouta

Published on May 5, 2017
Syrian opposition forces in Homs countryside read a statement and called the Syrian opposition forces in Eastern Ghouta area, Rif Dimashq province to halt the fight among its groups and unite against the Syrian regime forces

Here are a couple more blog posts we have published about the brave people of Ghouta:

01/27/2015 With Left support, Assad continues to kill in East Ghouta 10/07/2013 The Courage of Ghouta in a Craven World

Sadly, the situations under Assad's control is looking more like a holocaust everyday. The Washington Post reported yesterday:

U.S. says Syria built crematorium to handle mass prisoner killings
Karen DeYoung
15 May 2017
The Syrian government has constructed and is using a crematorium at its notorious Sednaya military prison near Damascus to clandestinely dispose of the bodies of prisoners it continues to execute inside the facility, the State Department said Monday.

Thousands of executed detainees have been dumped in mass graves in recent years, said acting assistant secretary of state Stuart Jones. “What we’re assessing is that if you have that level of production of mass murder, then ­using the crematorium would . . . allow the regime to manage that number of corpses . . . without evidence.”

“We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Sednaya prison,” he said in a briefing for reporters. More...

#Sednaya & the int. media: this is the satellite image from March 2, 2013 showing the crematorium is already there for 4 years pic.twitter.com/ZJo1YhG9Du

— Ruud Wedding (@RuudWedding) May 16, 2017

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for my posts on the 2016 US Election Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya

Dr. Ted Postol misreads the HRW Report on Khan Sheikhoun

On the heels of the French Report on the sarin massacre at Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2016, Human Rights Watch came out with their own report on May Day, Death by Chemicals: The Syrian Government’s Widespread and Systematic Use of Chemical Weapons. While the HRW report agrees with the basic findings of the White House Report, the French Report, and Syrians on the ground at Khan Sheikhoun, that in the early morning hours of 4 April 2016, a single Syrian air force Su-22 bomber dropped a chemical bomb in a civilian area and a lot of people died, it went further because it documented a pattern of chemical weapons use by the regime that involved at least four chemical attacks in the last six months.

The HRW Report does go into detail about the Khan Sheikhoun attack, and provides some important new information. In summary it says:

Human Rights Watch interviewed 60 people with first-hand knowledge of the chemical attacks and their immediate aftermath, and reviewed dozens of photos and videos of impact sites and victims that were posted online and provided directly by local residents, but was unable to conduct ground investigations of the attack sites.

Information from local residents in Khan Sheikhoun indicates that a warplane flew over the town twice around 6:45 a.m. on April 4, 2017. One resident said he saw the plane drop a bomb near the town’s central bakery in the northern neighborhood during the first fly-over. Several people, including the person who saw the bomb falling, said they heard no explosion but saw smoke and dust rising from the area, consistent with the relatively small explosive charge in a chemical bomb. Several people also confirmed that they saw people injured or heard reports of injuries immediately after the first fly-over. A few minutes later, they said, a warplane dropped three or four high-explosive bombs on the town.

Human Rights Watch identified 92 people, including 30 children, whom local residents and activists said died due to chemical exposure from this attack. Medical personnel said the attack injured hundreds more.

Human Rights Watch reviewed dozens of photos and videos provided by residents of a crater from the impact of the first bomb. Local residents believed this site was the source of the chemical exposure because those who died lived nearby and people who came near it, including first responders, exhibited the strongest symptoms of chemical exposure. One of the first photos of the crater, taken by first responders, shows what appears to be liquid on the asphalt. That would be consistent with the use of a bomb containing sarin, which is in liquid form at room temperature.

Doctor Theodore A. Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes these local residents don't know what they are talking about, or worst, they are part of a deep state conspiracy that involves obviously the White House, as usual, the French, a couple of guys in England, and now apparently also Human Rights Watch.  In spite of those odds, his Syrian Sister can rest assured that Dr. Ted is as yet undaunted in his defense of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He maintains staunchly that Assad wouldn't hurt a fly, at least not with chemicals, so fresh on the heels of his attack on the French Report, which I critiqued here, he has penned a new attack on the HRW report dated 8 May 2017 and titled The HRW Evidence Disaffirms Its Own Conclusions in Its Report of May 1, 2017

In the best journalistic and humanistic traditions, HRW takes upon itself the task of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Now, Dr. Ted can't say that, because when he writes about human rights atrocities it is to comfort the afflicter. He earlier made a name for himself for his pseudo-scientific defense of Assad in the case of the 21 August 2013 sarin murders. In the present case, he is attempting to get Assad off the hook for the sarin murders of 4 April 2017. I believe this is his sixth attempt. There were those first three attacks on the easiest target, the White House Report, the first pdf, the addendum, and the Truthdig article, all that claimed the evidence pointed to terrorists setting off a sarin pipe bomb in the street, and not an air strike. Then there was the second Truthdig article that said the Russians might be right about bombing a terrorists arms depot that stored chemical weapons. Then there was the attack on the French Report, and now this attack on the HRW Report. That makes six. If we were to include the Scott Horton show in which Postol attacks Bellingcat, Elliot Higgins, and Dan Kaszeta, that would make seven.

In examining Dr. Postol's critique in some of these earlier works, I noted that they seem to come from issues the good doctor has with reading comprehension. As we shall see, that is also at the heart of his problem with the HRW report. His reading error with the HRW Report is similar to the one he made with the French Report. In that case he read "a sign of" as meaning "a unique indicator," and then he used his confusion to "prove" the French Report didn't prove what he thought it said. With the HRW Report he misreads it as saying a certain model of Soviet era weapon was definitely used, and then bases his critique on that, whereas it only referenced it as an example, and not the weapon that was definitely used to the exclusion of all others, that is Postol's mis-reading.

In his critique, Dr. Ted speaks as though the HRW Report had identified the specific weapon used [my emphasis]:

The KhAB-250 and KhAB-500 airdropped munitions identified by HRW are designed to dispense sarin by bursting at low altitude in the air, creating an aerosol cloud of nerve agent-droplets that are carried downwind as they fall from the point of the airburst (see diagrams and photos on page 5 of 13 pages). A properly functioning “250” or “500” munition would not create the crater that is the focus of the HRW analytical conclusion that there is evidence that this munition was used

.@hrw Here we have Postol incorrectly identifying OFAB 250-270s as FAB-250s, which is like Baby's First Weapon ID 2/? pic.twitter.com/SE1XgVHjtj

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) May 9, 2017

.@hrw Postol also appears to think FAB-250s and FAB-500s are cluster bombs, which they are most certainly not 3/? pic.twitter.com/qAVzgO89IZ

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) May 9, 2017

.@hrw I suspect Postol got RBKs and OFABs mixed up, and thought OFABs are called FABs. Real amateur hour stuff 4/4

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) May 9, 2017

In addition his misreading of the weapons type, his whole critique discounts any of the eye-witness reports or sarin tests done by multiple agencies. It is almost entirely based on his view that the HRW report is talking about this weapon. But does the HRW Report say that? [again my emphasis]:

The photos and videos of the crater show two remnants from the chemical weapon used: a twisted thin metal fragment with green paint and a smaller circular metal object. Green coloring is widely used on factory-produced weapons to signify that they are chemical weapons. The KhAB-250, for example, one of two Soviet-produced bombs specifically designed to deploy sarin from a warplane, has two green bands. The circular object seen in photos of the crater appears similar to the cap covering the filling hole on the KhAB-250.

These remnants, combined with witness observations, the victims’ symptoms, and the identification of sarin as the chemical used in the attack by the French[1] and Turkish[2] governments and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,[3] suggest that the Syrian warplane dropped a factory-made sarin bomb. According to open source material, the only Soviet-produced bombs designed specifically to deliver sarin are the KhAB-250 bomb, and its bigger version, the KhAB-500.

You will notice that HRW never says that a KhAB-250 or KhAB-500 was dropped on Khan Sheikhoun. They did use those for purpose of comparison, "similar" - their word, because both have the green markings for chemical weapons, but not the same, because the green markings are different. They definitely say that the available evidence "suggest that the Syrian warplane dropped a factory-made sarin bomb," and they do point to KhAB-250 and KhAB-500 as publicly known examples of such weapons from this very secret world. Of course we have no way of knowing what variants of these old designs, or even completely new designs for "a factory-made sarin bomb," the Assad regime may have come up with. The North Vietnamese became famous for re-engineering the Soviet and Chinese anti-aircraft rockets to get more range out of them than anyone thought possible. That is something else Postol should consider when he is promoting his 2km limit as the reason Assad couldn't possibly have done the people in Ghouta with sarin in 2013. 

Reading comprehension is thus the core problem with Postol's critique of the HRW report. He says:

The HRW claim that their analysis shows that this “standard” Russian munition was the source of the sarin release is therefore unsupported by the observed evidence they put forward. Put in other words, the HRW report does not contain any basic forensic evidence to support its claim that a standard Russian munition was the source of a sarin release at the crater.

But the HRW Report does not claim that "a standard Russian munition" was used. It only cites those as examples. The HRW report did conclude "a factory-made sarin bomb," was used. Since the focus of Postol's critique is that HRW never proved claims it never made, all his charts and diagrams miss the point. He could have better spent his time improving his reading skills.

There is one place where he tries to clean up a bent position that I must address, however. In a number of his previous defense briefs on the Khan Sheikhoun sarin massacre, Dr. Postol referenced a video that show workers taking samples from the crater some 30 hrs. after the attack, and said that if it was really sarin, they would be dead. A number of his critics, including me, pointed out that sarin was a low persistence nerve agent. It would be gone in 60 minutes or less. His obvious ignorance on this point must have been an embarrassment to him, so in this latest piece he tries to clean that up a bit. In this new piece he says:

Since the evaporation rate from the saturated soil would be slow relative to sarin deposited on the flat surrounding road surface, the area in and around the crater could have easily been highly toxic for 5 to 10 or more hours after the impact. During this period it would have not been possible for “White Hats” without hazmat protective equipment to dig inside the crater or linger in the immediate area around the crater, as observed in videos.

Since he had previously identified the videos as being taken 30 hrs. after the attack, there is little point in arguing his thesis that soil under the road surface could have "easily been highly toxic for 5 or 10 or more hours" to people that "linger in the immediate area." Although he had previously correctly identified the sample collectors in the video as being from the Idlib Health Directorate, now he calls them "White Hats." This smells like an attempt to get extra strokes out of the tar brush that has been used against a different group, the White Helmets. Denigrating anyone who comes to the aid of the victims is central to the work of the holocaust enabler.

While Postol demands exacting evidence that meets his high standards from those he is criticizing, he offers wild statements without anything like a shred of evidence as the premise for his conclusions. For example he says:

Given that there is substantial evidence that groups other than the Syrian government possess sarin precursors, indications of sarin poisoning do not alone indicate that the Syrian government was the source of the sarin, assuming the observed medical effects were from sarin.

Yes, assuming the French, the Turkish and the OPCW, weren't all conspiring together to "independently" find that samples tested positively for sarin, what proof is there that groups other than the Syrian government has sarin precursors beyond rubbing alcohol, or that even if in possession of all the necessary precursors, could formulate sarin? None is offered. Afterall, I can get plenty of coal but I can't make diamonds.

Postol offers this assertion about the widespread possession of sarin precursors, again without proof in this "Summary and Conclusions," and it is there that we find out what he really thinks. He starts out by acknowledging that whatever happened was a crime against humanity, and then immediately jumps into what I would call the "who didn't do it mode," in which you work to exonerate the most obvious killer. This is another thing that shows Postol and others of his ilk act like defense council for Assad rather than prosecutors for the people. If they were representing the people, and believed Assad didn't do it, they still should have pursued the "case of 2013" until the "real killer" was convicted or at least identified. That is how prosecutors prevent crimes from recurring. Defense counsels don't worry about that. After their guy gets off, they go home. Recurring crime is only their problem if their guy is being charged again.

This is why we are again hearing Postol et al speak out in Assad's defense. Bear in mind that Assad is most certainly a mass murderer many times over even if he can be acquitted in this particular case: 

There can be no doubt that using any form of murderous weapon, chemicals or otherwise, against innocent civilians and children constitute crimes against humanity.

It is also clear that there are multiple groups in Syria who have, or who have had access to the precursor chemicals needed to produce sarin. There is substantial evidence that the nerve agent attack of August 21, 2017 in Damascus might not have been executed by the Syrian government.

The future date of "August 21, 2017" is obviously a mistake, but it is Postol's mistake. Maybe Dr. Ted has problems with proofreading comprehension as well? He means 2013. Even after the United Nations said the sarin used in Damascus on 21 August 2013 came from "the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military," he is still arguing Assad's innocent. His thesis would mean that opposition groups possess sarin and have used it twice against their own civilians, in 2013 and now in 2017, but never once used it in battle against Assad's forces.

In the case of the 2013 attack, Assad and most of his supporters, including Postol, argued that the opposition had a motive for gassing its own people. They said that because Obama had made this "red-line" pledge to intervene militarily if CW was used; they faked this attack so that he would intervene. It wasn't a very good "motive" then. Now it is a terrible one, but that doesn't stop Dr. Ted from raising it:

Human Rights Watch should have considered the possibility that at least some of these attacks could be perpetrated by groups who are interested in manipulating the United States into taking military actions that would support their political and military objectives against the Syrian government.

Really? Most of those attacks were done by aircrafts and those groups don't have them. Does HRW have a duty to entertain Dr. Ted's fantasies? Because if that was a thin thread in 2013, it is a gossamer one in 2017. Why would anyone stage a false flag attack that killed less than a hundred in the hopes of getting Trump to intervene against Assad right after he has announced a new more pro-Assad US policy, when the sarin deaths of over a thousand didn't prompt Obama to enforce his own red-line four years ago?

The French Report actually had a section on "the presence of armed groups in Hama and of their capabilities," but Dr. Ted chose to ignore it. He said the French Report didn't have any "details" like this:

Neither do the French services assess that the theory of a staged attack or manipulation by the opposition is credible, particularly because of the massive influx in a very limited time towards hospitals in Syria and Turkey, and the simultaneous, massive uploading of videos showing symptoms of the use of neurotoxic agents. 

Postol accuses HRW of encouraging groups to continue murdering innocent civilians and children in pursuit of US military intervention:

If this is the case, Human Rights Watch could be inadvertently encouraging these groups to continue murdering innocent civilians and children in pursuit of this objective.

I appreciate his logic, because even if Assad were somehow innocent of one or more chemical attacks, he clearly is guilty of the majority of the carnage in Syria. So what should we call those who come out to defend Assad whenever his mass murders get media attention, but holocaust enablers?

The next paragraph gives us his bottom line on the Syrian conflict. There is no just and moral side. There is no people's side in Syria. They are all bad people committing atrocities. No reason to single out the Assad Regime:

It is not foreseeable that when multiple groups are all engaged in routine wartime atrocities that one of the groups will suddenly transform itself into a moral and just winner while all the others would surely continue their monstrous behavior.

Clearly, he knows nothing of the history of Syria, its people, or this revolution. One of the groups is still the millions of Syrians that started this upheaval in 2011 by demanding an end to the fascist 40+ year old Assad dictatorship, and refusing to take "no" for an answer. They are still refusing to take "no" for an answer. That is the reason Assad is dropping sarin bombs on them. Those that still argue, as they did in 2013, that "Assad has almost won," don't understand the fight, because after all this carnage, Assad has still not forced them to accept his "no" for an answer. They didn't have to suddenly transform themselves into a moral and just cause, they have been that all along. Dr. Postol just can't see that from his perch on the other side. He probably can't read these banners either, so let me simplify them for him:

The People Demand an End to the Regime!

Bonus Feature...
Scott Lucas on sarin gas attack disinformation

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for my posts on the 2016 US Election Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya

The "Left's" Crime Against Humanity

Another Left is Possible...

Sunday, 19 April 2015, CBS News' 60 Minutes did its first segment about the sarin attack that killed more than 1400 people in the Damascus suburbs of East Ghouta and Moadarniyah on the morning of 21 August 2013. It failed to mention the strongest evidence of responsibility for this crime, that the sarin used came from the military stockpiles of Bashar al-Assad, according to the UN. It did report that the rockets were of a type used only by the Assad regime and that they came from an area controlled by the Assad regime, as had many conventional rockets aimed at the same targets, and it squarely fixed the blame for these criminal murders with the Assad regime, mass murders which it called "A Crime Against Humanity."


In an interview done before the broadcast, Scott Pelley explained why he thought it so important to present the images of this horror:

"If you don't see it, I don't believe the impact truly hits you. Even though people will be disturbed by what they see, it has to be seen."

Eyewitness cellphone videos, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, show the aftermath of the 2013 sarin gas attack and the horror that victims of all ages suffered -- including seizures, vomiting, and respiratory failure.
...
Pelley first reported on the attack for the CBS Evening News in 2013. As images of the attack were arriving in the newsroom, he decided then to embark on a more detailed investigation of what happened for 60 Minutes.

"That's not the kind of thing you want to report on for a couple of days and then walk away and never remember again."

But that pretty much describes how the "Left" handled it. While most did nothing about the chemical murders, what the "Left" did was worst than nothing, it rushed to the defense of the killers.

First Responders...

The first response of the Assad regime and its Russian backers to the reports of the nerve agent attack in East Ghouta was a flat denial that the attack had even taken place. For three days while the regime refused the UN inspectors access to East Ghouta, Syrian State TV claimed there was "no truth whatsoever" to the reports of a chemical attack.

Democracy Now has long been a leading force on the "Left" and the way it handled this crime against humanity was typical of the way the mainstream "Left" handled it, occasional voices of dissent, like mine, excepted. Democracy Now's first reports on the "unverified Syria chemical attack," was its first report on the bombardment of Ghouta ever, even though the Assad regime had been murdering civilians there with conventional rockets for close to a year. Host and producer Amy Goodman allowed that the attack, "if confirmed," would "be the most violent incident...," noted the Syrian government denial of "the reported chemical weapons attack" and pointed out that while video of hundreds of dead and dying children had already been uploaded to YouTube, that there "has been no independent verification so far," thereby reaping propaganda value from the Assad regime's first refusal to allow independent UN access to the sites, even as it ended this brief second report by saying "The Syrian regime is reportedly continuing its bombing of Ghouta today, making any immediate visit by U.N. inspectors highly unlikely."

The Democracy Now show format is headline news followed by two or three main show segments. Two weeks would past before it dedicated one of these segments to this massive sarin attack. Two days after the attack, Democracy Now started its Syria paragraph with "The Syrian government is facing growing pressure to allow an international probe of an alleged chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus." Belittling the eye-witness testimony and video evidence that was starting to pile up, it was still the "alleged attack" and "if confirmed." She ended this doubtful Syrian paragraph two days after the chemical murder of over 1400 civilians by quoting Patrick Cockburn of The Independent, "The evidence of chemical attack seems compelling — but remember — there’s a propaganda war on." And indeed there was. Sadly, Democracy Now and most of the "Left" played the despicable role of supporting and promoting the propaganda of a fascist dictatorship and a criminal regime. That was the "Left's" crime against Humanity.

Monday, August 26 Democracy Now reported "Syria has agreed to allow a U.N. inspection of the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people near Damascus last week," and used a Doctors Without Borders report to falsely make it sound like they were saying only 355 people had died. The next day Democracy Now did three headlines on Syria, leading with "The Obama administration is reportedly weighing a military attack on Syria following last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus."

Wednesday, Democracy Now reported that the UK was proposing a UN resolution to condemn "the Syrian government for allegedly using chemical weapons in Ghouta last week." It goes on to state that "Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem categorically denied the regime used chemical weapons." We know this must be true because Moualem also said "there is no country in the world that will use weapons of mass destruction against its people." This speaks volumes about his knowledge of history. Democracy Now also brought on "Left" commentator Phyllis Bennis, who told us "So far, no evidence has been presented as to who carried out this attack." Phyllis Bennis elaborated:

Anything is possible. It’s certainly possible the regime used these weapons. It’s also possible that part of the rebels did. We know that some of the rebel armed forces came from defectors. We have no idea whether those defectors included some defectors that might have been involved in Syria’s long-standing chemical weapons program. We also know that some of the rebels are close to al-Qaeda organizations. The Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Nusra Front, has claimed its alliance with al-Qaeda. And the idea that al-Qaeda forces may have access to these weapons is certainly a frightening but very realistic possibility. The problem is, we don’t know.

If it hadn't been born already, a whole new cottage industry in conspiracy theoryland was born with her words, and soon Democracy Now would be playing host to a great variety of theories, all designed to prove anybody but Assad was responsible for the chemical attacks against the people he had been bombing for months. Amy Goodman never fell for the 9/11 conspiracy theories but she would grow to like anything, no matter how bizarre, that let Bashar off the hook.

Thursday, 29 August Democracy Now ran three headlines related to "last week’s alleged chemical attack in Ghouta," one saying "U.S. Faces New Hurdles to Military Intervention in Syria." The main topic of the show that day was the rhetorical question "Does U.S. Have the Evidence and Authority to Hit Assad for Alleged Chemical Attack?" In this segment it had Tariq Ali on and he made the claim that Obama's evidence for the chemical attack had come from Israel. Ignoring all the Syrian voices saying otherwise, Ali goes on to tell the Democracy Now audience "virtually no one who knows the region believes that these attacks were carried out by the Syrian government." He compared it to how we "were lied to in the run-up to the Iraq War." Just ignore the dead children.

That same day Mint Press publish one of the most outlandish claims of the now budding anybody-but-Assad industry in the form of an article titled Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack by Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh. They claim to have interviewed some rebel fighters who said they caused the sarin deaths [in 8 locations??] when they had an accident in a tunnel with a tank of sarin given to them by Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. As ridiculous as it sounds, its amazing how much traction this story had on the "Left." AntiWar.com, FAIR, Global Research, Counterpunch, World Socialist Web Site, Occupy.com and many more gave it play, but as soon as the critics got hold of it, it began to unravel. I took it apart in my blog, a few others did the same. Soon the AP reporter on the story, Dale Gavlak, was claiming she had nothing to do with it. Retractions started rolling in, starting with AntiWar.com and FAIR. Mint Press turned out to have some very mysterious financing and family ties to Iran, and practiced what PJ Tatler called Shia 'advocacy journalism,' Upon further investigation, it appeared that this story originated from a Russian.

Friday, 30 August 2013, Democracy Now brought reports of anti-war rallies against proposed US military action in Syria. In many of these actions, important "Left" organizations like Veterans for Peace and Code Pink made common cause with Assad Regime supporters and marched with the flag of the fascist regime flying over their heads. In the main discussion on Democracy Now that day, the argument was advanced that "the United States is not qualified to do what it claims it wants to do, as a result of its own record in violating international law for a very long time and supporting dictators and rogue regimes and the apartheid state of Israel in opposition to all manners of international law." It would seem that any reason to not attack Assad was good enough for Democracy Now. The further argument was made that if there was an airstrike, "the situation can spin out of control in a very, very quick manner," as opposed to what has happened since there was no airstrike then.

The "Left" responds to the chemical murders in Damascus | 31 August 2013

Continuing with Democracy Now as our example, it wouldn't be until 3 September 2013 that they would refer to the sarin attack without questioning if it had even happened, as it finally the dropped the "alleged" and simply and accurately stated "A report presented to the French Parliament Monday concluded the chemical attack was carried out by the Syrian government." That day Democracy Now ran its first segment related to the chemical attack. It was not a report on the attack itself. Democracy Now never paid much attention to that, never ran the YouTube images like 60 Minutes. It was the first of many segments dedicated to opposing US military action against the Assad regime or attempting to exonerate Assad of responsibility.

More Smoke & Mirrors...

Whereas previous to this Amy Goodman's Syria coverage had been sparse, now it was coming non-stop and most of it was designed to cast doubt on Assad's responsibility for the attacks. 4 September 2013 saw three headlines related to the Syria chemical attack, including an interview with McClatch journalist Mark Seibel who had just penned "To Some, U.S. Case for Syrian Gas Attack, Strike Has Too Many Holes." The rest of the show was two segments, "As U.S. Pushes For Syria Strike, Questions Loom over Obama Claims in Chemical Attack," in which they interviewed Mark Seibel who questioned the figure of 1,429 people killed in what no one would dare continue to refer to as an "alleged attack," although he thought it "quite likely that there were more than 281 people killed" and "With Focus on U.S.-Led Strikes, Global Failure to Meet Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis Goes Unnoticed" which is an ironic title given how little attention Democracy Now paid to Syria's humanitarian crisis before the need to go to bat for Bashar arose. This show also highlighted Code Pink's opposition to any military response to the chemical massacres. "We don’t want another war!" I'm sure the residents of East Ghouta would agree. Unfortunately, they weren't granted the option, and while they were pleading with Obama not to renege on his promise, Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin sought to silent their voices, telling the world "Nobody wants this war!" Then they brought up Colin Powell and the false charges that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, as if by inference, this cast suspicious on anybody who said Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons, and ignoring the 1400+ dead people that marked the distance between weapons possession and weapons use, they demanded the same high standards and time consuming scrutiny be used in this case too and argued that nothing should be done to stop or punish these murders because how could we ever be 100% sure of anything?

The next day's Democracy Now headlines included four about Syria, including one that put the number at "502 Killed in Ghouta Chemical Attack." While the attack was no longer "alleged", the counting of the dead was being hotly disputed by Democracy Now, as was the responsibility for the crime. The bulk of the show was two segments about Syria, both of which argued against any military response to the chemical attacks. First, Democracy Now revealed it true internationalist spirit by embracing Rep. Alan Grayson's [I'm not my brother's keeper] opposition to any response to the chemical attacks because we can't take action "every time we see something bad in the world," never mind the promise the president made in our name. [To those who say he should have never made that promise, I say the time to have objected strongly was when he made it {I did}, not when it was time to pay up.] Grayson was on Democracy Now to promote the website he had just set up, DontAttackSyria.com. Now that Obama is attacking Assad's opposition in Syria, that site has gone dead. The second segment was an interview with Rim Turkmani, a well known regime apologist that had earlier co-chaired the "British Syrian Society" with Bashar al-Assad's father-in-law, Dr Fawaz Akhras, but for the purposes of this Democracy Now interview she was introduced as a "member of the Syrian political opposition group Building the Syrian State Current."

Friday, 6 September 2013 saw three Democracy Now headlines in opposition to Obama's "plan to strike Syria in retaliation for a chemical attack last month in Ghouta during which the administration claims the Syrian government killed more than 1,400 people." That bodycount came from the Free Syrian Army in Ghouta before it was validated by the White House, but Amy knows that "administration claims" are easier to deny than those of the people Assad has been slaughtering. The Syria segment of the show was "about how Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud — Saudi’s former ambassador to the United States — is leading the effort to prop up the Syrian rebels." To hear Adam Entous of the Wall St. Journal tell it on Democracy Now, the Syrian fighters are dupes of others:

The Saudis and the Jordanians draw on defectors, largely, from the Syrian military, which already have a good degree of military training. And they’re brought to this base, where different intel agencies train them. And the Americans are there. The Brits are there. The French are there. The Saudis, UAE is there. And they train them, and then they send them into the fight.

It is also in this segment that the role of Prince Bandar in gathering evidence of earlier Assad uses of sarin in Syria is first discussed in a sinister light. After Mint Press made Saudi Prince Bandar the man responsible for the chemical deaths in Ghouta, there was a lot of elaboration.

With a Congressional vote on striking Assad just days away, the following Monday saw six Democracy Now headlines about the Syria situation including "Report: Assad May Not Have Authorized Ghouta Attack." Truly acting like the devil's advocate, it advanced this latest defense: Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this "alleged" attack took place, and say, it can be proven that the Syrian military carried out this attack; How are you going to prove my client, the Syrian Commander and Chief, actually personally ordered the attack?

The next day a group with close ties to Veterans for Peace, Ray McGovern and his Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) presented their theory that blamed this chemical attack on "senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials." They claimed to have gotten this intel from old buddies still in The Company. Later, it was proven that much of the VIPS material came verbatim from Yossef Bodansky, an ally of Bashar's uncle, Rifaat al-Assad.

Robert Fisk, writing from Damascus with a press pass from Assad, publish his own version of Assad-didn't-do-it with "Gas missiles 'were not sold to Syria'" on 22 September. Fisk tells us that according to his Russian sources, they have identified the sarin rockets as ones they sold to Qaddafi, leading to the conclusion that the dirty deed was done by rebels who must have brought them in from Libya. Too bad his Russian sources didn't tell him sarin is not a gas and saved him that embarrassment. Co-incidentally, this new theory came just days after the UN issued a report in which they identified the rockets used in the attack as Russian. I critiqued the Fisk piece in detail here.

Los Angeles "Left" icon Blase Bopane even had Assad's nun, Mother Agnes-Mariam, on his Sunday morning  KPFK Pacificia Radio show, 10 Nov 2013. Her theory was that the kids in the photos weren't from Ghouta, they had been kidnapped by jihadists and smuggled 300 miles to the chemical site. Furthermore they weren't even dead. They were faking, pretending to sleep. She said:

I am not saying that no chemical agent was used in the area – it certainly was. But I insist that the footage that is now being peddled as evidence had been fabricated in advance. I have studied it meticulously, and I will submit my report to the UN Human Rights Commission based in Geneva.

Theories about how someone other than Assad did it were popping up on the "Left" like mushrooms after a Spring rain, few even shared common culprits, none have proved their case or stood the test of time, but then they didn't have to. With the mission of defending Assad in mind, it was only necessary to create "reasonable doubt" among people who didn't want to face the truth anyway. The goal was merely to create smoke and confusion during this critical period when it looked like serious action might be taken against Assad. That was the one thing that did what the deaths of two hundred thousand ordinary Syrians couldn't do. It forced the "Left" off the fence and into the fight.

But irregardless of who the "Left" may think have done it, where is the sympathy for the people? Where are the protests against the inhumanity? Where are the relief campaigns for the refugee? Sadly, they are not to be found on the "Left" where the main task emerging from the August chemical murders was a rush to the defense of those almost certainly responsible for this horror.

Deal of the Century...

Tuesday, 10 September 2013, the first Democracy Now headline was "Syria Accepts Russian Proposal to Surrender Chemical Weapons," and with that even the pretense that Obama might strike Assad could be dropped. The Syrian National Coalition charged that this accommodation would only "allow the regime to cause more death and destruction in Syria."  Looking at all that Assad has done with the likes of barrel-bombs and chlorine gas since he gave up his stockpiles of sarin, that prediction has been proven sadly prophetic. With the "Axis of Resistance" Regime safe, Democracy Now could again throttle back its attention to Syria. But the campaign to muddy the waters over who was responsible for these chemical attacks would continue on Democracy Now and on the "Left" for many months to come.

After President Obama threw his promise to the Syria people under the Congressional bus and it was clear that Assad would not face US air strikes for what he did, the mood turned celebratory on the "Left" as everybody had a party and congratulated each other over having stopped a war. The Syrians didn't attend. They were still too busy being bombed when Katrina Vanden Heuvel, publisher of The Nation, went on Amy's show and mused "It’s very good to see the drumbeat of diplomacy and not the drumbeat of war." 16 September 2013. The Violation Documentation Project reported 95 Syrian's killed that day.

Norm Chomsky was on Democracy Now for 9/11 and he had his own way of obfuscating the very big gap between weapons use and weapons possession. He argued that if Syria was agreeing to give up its chemical weapons in the wake of 1400+ chemical deaths, then Israel should be made to give up its stockpiles of chemical weapons too, because they are in the same region, adding "Of course, chemical weapons should be eliminated everywhere, but certainly in that region."

He talked a lot about how the "United States is a rogue state" that "doesn’t pay any attention to international law," but he leveled no such charges against the Syrian government or its Russian backers. The carnage caused by Assad, both with and without chemical weapons didn't get discussed. The main point of this Syria segment was that Norm Chomsky thought that instead of making threats against Syria in response to the chemical murders, Obama should go after Israel's chemical weapons.

A month later, Amy was still beating the "make Israel disarm too" drum when she had Stephen Zunes on to tell us "the United States blocked an effort by Syria to create a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone throughout the region" while he spoke of "the recent tragedy that took place in Syria." as if no crime had been committed. More Smoke & Mirrors, all designed so we don't see that a Crime Against Humanity had been committed and act accordingly.

Democracy Now would not visit Syria again in one of its segments until December, and again it was for the purpose of raising questions about who was really behind the 21 August sarin attack. In all this time, just as before the attack, Democracy Now never did a segment on the daily horror of regime barrel-bomb and artillery attacks that so many Syrians live under, or the squalid refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan that they have been forced into in their millions just to escape this "Death from Above." This has never been worth a segment on Democracy Now just as it has never been worth a protest to the US "Left."

Seymour Hersh, who won the Pulitzer Prize for publicizing the Pentagon press release on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, appeared on Amy's show twice to defend Assad. Sy Hersh first appeared on Democracy Now, 9 December 2013 after a hit piece he'd written finally found a home in the London Review of Books. It was titled "Whose Sarin?" and said Obama "cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad." As scandalized as that sounds, it is undoubtedly true; if you allow that "cherry-picked" is just a colorful synonym for "selected," then that's what you do, you select evidence to make a case. But the heart of Hersh's story was that the Obama administration had secret evidence that showed the rebels may have used chemical weapons against their own people. In the article and on Amy's show, Sy Hersh made the dramatic claim that the jihadist group al Nusra "had not only the capacity and potential and the know-how, how to produce sarin, but also had done some production of sarin." His most important claim was that the Obama administration knew about this and all this intelligence meant we really couldn't know who used sarin in Ghouta. Maybe al Nusra, a rebel group, did it to other opposition Syrians?

I picked it apart then, but now a time has passed since Sy Hersh has made his claims, 17 months ago, and al Nusra has been in some pitch battles all over Syria, against the Assad regime, against the Islamic State, and against other rebel groups. If they had mastered the production and use of this terrible weapon, why would they have refrained from using it in any of these subsequent battles? Why use it just once in a failed attempt to frame Assad, as many on the "Left" then claimed, and then put it back on the shelf even as they lose territory to rivals?

18 December 2013 it was Patrick Cockburn's turn to come on Democracy Now and tell the people "It is clearly a proxy war. This might have started off as a popular uprising in Syria, but by now [you have] an opposition that is fragmented and really proxies for foreign powers, notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey." The Assad regime is barrel-bombing schools, dropping sarin on neighborhoods, disappearing thousands into a horrendous gulag and Patrick Cockburn is here to talk about "the criminalization of the military forces of the Syrian opposition." It's not that there's not some truth to what he is saying, its that there is a whole 'nother side to what he is saying. He also told us the Free Syrian Army "never really controlled much on the ground." There is no truth in that, in fact they were part of the opposition coalition that just freed Idlib from regime control. The problem with Patrick Cockburn's near-Left coverage of the Syrian conflict is that it is one-sided, Assad's side.

In spite of an on-going murder rate that at times was reaching 5000/month, Democracy Now wouldn't revisit Syria again until 17 March 2014. Again it was with Patrick Cockburn, but before he is introduced, Amy quickly summarizes all the news they didn't think worth covering earlier in greater detail:

More than 146,000 people have been killed since the conflict began March 15, 2011, roughly half of them civilians. The conflict has displaced more than nine million people, with two-and-a-half million refugees living outside Syria and six-and-a-half million displaced within the country.

Last week, Save the Children reported several thousand Syrian kids have died because of a drastic reduction in access to health services, losing their lives to diseases and conditions including cancer, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, hypertension and kidney failure. Overall, at least 10,000 children have died in violence.

Cockburn's message was a defeatist one for anyone wishing to see the end of the regime that had caused all this misery, "Well, it’s very bad for Syria and very bad for Syrians, as you’ve just been describing. There’s a stalemate on the ground, but it’s a stalemate somewhat in favor of the government."

Sy Hersh came back on Amy's show 7 April 2014 with a new theory: Turkey was behind the chemical strikes in Syria. Whereas before he said the Syrian rebels were quite capable of making their own sarin, when his claims of "kitchen sarin" were shown to be ridiculous, he now claimed Turkey gave it to them. He flat out contradicted the UN report by saying "the sarin that was recovered wasn’t the kind of sarin that exists in the Syrian arsenal," without giving the scientific basis for his claim. Sy Hersh then when on to lie about the known facts, saying sarin was easy to produce and the rockets were homemade, when sarin can not be produced outside of a major facility and the rockets were a known element of the Syrian military that had already been used many times loaded with conventional explosives. Which brings us to another important point. The murderous brutality the Assad regime has shown with conventional bombs and artillery never got discussed. This was all about defending Assad from charges that he killed with chemicals and it was clear that Sy Hersh was rooting for him. In fact Sy Hersh told us, with his great knowledge of the region, that Assad was winning and "the war is essentially over." That was over a year ago, but the fat lady hasn't sung yet. The Assad regime just lost a second provincial capital last month!

Syria in the news again...

This year Syria is making headlines again but not because of the on-going carnage caused by Assad. That would be yesterday's news if it ever was news. Syria is making headlines this year because of the role it has played and continues to play in the rise of the Islamic State or Da'ish. That's what concerns the West. It even has some now arguing for Assad as the lesser of two evils. This year Obama had no problem bombing Syria without congressional approval, and with little in the way of protest from the "Left," but the target has not been bases from which barrel-bomb attacks are launched or any part of the Assad regime, it has been primarily the IS. It has also been against some forces fighting the Assad regime.

The irony of this situation is that Obama's failure to bomb Syria in the Fall of 2013 is one of the reasons why he felt forced to bomb Syria in the Fall of 2014 and the decision that the "Left" campaigned so hard for, not to respond as promised to the chemical attack, was one of the important factors feeding the dramatic rise of Da'ish in the year after the chemical attack.

Obama's decision not to act after his "red-line" had been crossed more than 1400 times may have brought relief and celebration on the "Left," but it brought outrage and disillusionment to Syrians. Many felt neglected by the world; now they felt betrayed by the United States. The Free Syrian Army lost creditability, as did all west-leaning rebel groups. The jihadist groups that had always preached distrust of the West gained influence and membership.

My friends in the Syrian American Council told me that it is hard to over-estimate the negative effect on the morale of the opposition of Obama's failure to take military action. Jamie Dettmer, of the Daily Beast, wrote about how the "already high skepticism over American policy toward the war in Syria" among rebel groups "skyrocketed when the Obama administration failed to enforce in 2013 its “red line” against Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons."

It was not a complete coincidence that Raqqa, the first provincial capital to be liberated from regime control, it was freed by a coalition of rebel groups headed by the FSA in March 2013, fell to ISIS in mid-October after Obama reneged on his promise in September, or that 14 chiefs of the largest clans gave an oath of allegiance to ISIS Emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a short time later. 5 October 2013 Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi writes of "the recent ascendancy in the Syrian jihad of ISIS and its much-vaunted emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi." 21 November 2013 EAWorldView reported "many Jabhat al-Nusra fighters left to join ISIS." Along with Bashar al-Assad, Baghdadi and Da'ish gained greatly from Obama's decision not to bomb.

Actually, a good argument could be made that it was the combination of the political shift among opposition forces caused by Obama's betrayal, together with the safe haven in Raqqa provided by Assad, that allowed Da'ish to grow into the monster it has become. Now it has so threatened to gain ground in Iraq and Syria that Obama has felt forced to carry out air strikes in both those countries of the better part of a year now.

Both the Assad Regime and the Islamic State have benefited from the "me?-no?-never-mind?" attitude of the "Left" to the struggle of the Syrian people. This "Syrian Lives Don't Matter" attitude has almost certainly repelled any young person with humanitarian concerns and that has been a boon to the Right, especially to Islamic-fascists like Da'ish and al Qaeda among Muslim youth.

This "Left" of my generation has no appeal for them. It has grown fat and senile, resting on its laurels. It longs for the simplicity of the Vietnam War when the United States was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. That wasn't the case in 2014, but they missed the changes and they just don't know how to act when an enemy of the people pretends to be an enemy of western imperialism.  

Its not that everyone on the Left supports Assad, far from it, but there is so little opposition from those that don't, that the the casual observer should be forgiven for thinking the mainstream "Left" is in Assad's corner. Perhaps the "Left's" greatest crime against humanity has been how it has shared in the media coverup, failed even to publicize the daily horror a people are being subjected to by its government because that government claims opposition to Israel. The Left is suppose to be the champions of the people internationally, and instead it denied the people's struggle,  participated in the cover up, and gave comfort to the oppressor.

Not only is another Left possible, another Left is necessary!

A huge humanitarian crisis...

A huge humanitarian crisis that has made news recently, because it affects Europe, has been the drowning disasters that have taken the lives of hundreds of refugees fleeing war and persecution in Africa and the Middle East in rickety, over-crowded boats that capsize in the Mediterranean Sea.

The EU use to pay Libyan dictator Mummar Qaddafi billions to keep the African migrants at bay. He used the most brutal methods to do so, as documented in this 92-page HRW report, keeping them in detention camps or dumping them in the desert. Now that arrangement is gone and the biggest headlines of the recent crisis have been made by the big boats filled with Africans like the 900 migrants that died off the Libyan coast a week ago, but the largest group risking this "trip of death" are Syrians attempting to cross the Aegean in smaller boats like the 100 Syrian refugees rescued off the coast of Sicily on 20 April 2015, or the three Syrians killed the next day when their boat ran aground on the Greek holiday island of Rhodes. On 21 April Turkey's coastguard rescued 30 Syrians after their boat began taking on water in the Aegean Sea. On 17 April 414 migrants landed on Greece's Aegean shores. That same day, a vessel carrying four women, a man, and newborn twins.

These are people fleeing Assad's bombs and blockades. Will the world response be to help him enforce this blockade? For despicable "Left" groups like the UK-based Stop the War Coalition, the apparent answer is "Yes."  They refused to let the Syrian Solidarity Movement speak about Syria refugees at the Migrant Lives Matter protest last Saturday in London. In other news on Saturday, Angelina Jolie was joined by her brother and son Maddox as she arrived at LAX after urging world powers to aid Syrian refugees. During her powerful United Nations speech on Friday, she told them "We cannot look at Syria, and the evil that has arisen from the ashes of indecision, and think this is not the lowest point in the world's inability to protect and defend the innocent."

Two Syrian babies are carried to safety after being rescued from a boat on the coast of Italy. All 100 of the people on board survived

A big part of this humanitarian crisis has its roots in the world's willingness to look the other way while a fascist dictator and his allies bring death and destruction to the people under them. We often discuss these things in Geo-political terms but it is humans who are affected. This poem has been shared widely in Arabic in recent days and now it has been translated into English. No one knows its true source or author. Some are saying it was written by a Syrian refugee before he drowned, but nobody knows for sure. This is brought to us by The Syria Campaign, which you should support:

I am sorry mother that the ship sunk and that I couldn’t get there and pay off the debts from the journey,

Don’t be sad mother that they didn’t find my body, for what use could it be to you now, except for the cost of transport, the funeral and burial,

I’m sorry mother that war came to us and I had to leave like the others, although my dreams were not big like theirs,

As you know, all my dreams were the size of a box of medicine for your colon, and the cost of fixing your teeth. On that note, my teeth are now green from the colour of the moss clinging to them,

Despite that, they are still more beautiful than the dictator’s teeth,

I am sorry my dear for building you a house of illusions. A wooden cottage like the ones we saw in movies. A humble cottage far away from the barrel bombs, far away from sectarianism, ethnic loyalties and the rumours of our neighbours,

I am sorry brother that I couldn’t send you the fifty Euros that I promised you at the beginning of every month so you could have a good time ahead of your graduation,

I am sorry sister that I didn’t send you the new mobile phone that has wi-fi like the one your better-off friend has,

I am sorry my beautiful home that I will never hang my coat behind your door,

I am sorry dear divers and search and rescue workers, for I don’t know the name of the sea I drowned in,

Rest easy immigration department, for I won’t be a heavy burden on you,

Thank you dear sea for welcoming us without a visa or a passport. Thank you to the fish who will share me without asking about my religion or political beliefs,

Thank you to the news channels who will report the news of our deaths for five minutes every hour for two days,

And thank you for grieving us when you hear the news… I’m sorry I drowned.

---

My blogs on Assad's use of CW in Syria:

• Whose Seymour Hersh?
• How Obama has supported Assad's gas murder always
• Why the return of chemical weapons is a big deal
• The Courage of Ghouta in a Craven World
• Where Robert Fisk's defense of Assad falls down
• More on ex-journalist Robert Fisk's defense of Assad
• Mint Press exposed as Assad apologist, AntiWar.com apologizes
• UN hints Assad used Russian rockets in sarin gas attack
• BREAKING: New Chemical Attack reported in Syria
• Secret Intel Source of Ray McGovern & VIPS Revealed!
• Why did Assad Regime first Deny CW Attack if Blameless?
• Witness to CW Attack: When Paradise turned to Hell.
• Media Body Count Games: Less than 500 or 110,000?
• Dr. Zaher Sahloul on the CW Attacks in Syria
• Why would Assad use CW with UN Inspectors in Syria?
• My dare to Ray McGovern & VIPS on Syria CW attack
• Who Used Sarin in Syria?
• Assad Knows: Chemical Attacks Kill Children First! 
• 1300+ Dead after Obama "Green-lights" new CW attack in Syria 

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria