getfiscal posted:

discipline posted:

FACT: "Leftists" argue for military intervention in Syria, whine "it's not like Iraq and Afghanistan you WILL HAVE THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS ON YOUR HANDS" (what's a Libya lol)

which major leftist organizations call for US military intervention in syria. in canada none of them do.

the iso are doing their 'against war and assad' thing

discipline posted:

It's a very smarmy trick. The whole "neither Tehran nor DC" is bullshit because that's to assume the two stand on equal footing and have equal causal responsibility for the situation in Syria. It's the same resistance I encountered with Libya - oh well Ghadaffi is a bad guy - "why are you defending him?"

Those people are completely right, Qaddafi and Assad are tyrants and torturers whose misrule was so bad as to provoke full-scale revolts in their countries, (maybe you think it was actually CIA provocateurs? But that's not how this works), and the misdirection/wannabe realpolitik that goes on to justify supporting them is just as bad as the people who uncritically support the rebels.

NoFreeWill posted:

so anything that accelerates US defeat/decline is good, even if it means siding with assholes?

yeah but if that end is your goal then being pro-US involvement is probably the line you'd want to take

discipline posted:

NoFreeWill posted:

IDK why you can't just hold that both Assad and the rebels and the US and Russia and Iran are all pieces of shit. Why do you have to take sides when the "support" of your meaningless leftist org doesn't change anything and you have no actual contact/ties to what's going on there?

US citizens should have an active and forceful role in opposing imperialism abroad and not gum it up with "well both sides are mean" when clearly one country has a far larger body count. I have a feeling the first part of your statement relates quite strongly to the second part.

We wouldn't want to gum up our rhetoric with pesky facts now would we

postposting posted:

maybe the u.s. has something to do with all these swarthy tyrants in the in the first place, just a thought

Hmmm considering Qaddafi was squarely in the West's pocket before 2011 you might be on to something here, all the more reason to uncritically support them no matter what IMO.

Lessons posted:

Hmmm considering Qaddafi was squarely in the West's pocket before 2011

not necessarily true. he made concessions because he thought it would reduce Western hostility to his regime, as a lot of Third World leaders do.

discipline posted:

Lessons posted:

discipline posted:
NoFreeWill posted:
IDK why you can't just hold that both Assad and the rebels and the US and Russia and Iran are all pieces of shit. Why do you have to take sides when the "support" of your meaningless leftist org doesn't change anything and you have no actual contact/ties to what's going on there?
US citizens should have an active and forceful role in opposing imperialism abroad and not gum it up with "well both sides are mean" when clearly one country has a far larger body count. I have a feeling the first part of your statement relates quite strongly to the second part.

We wouldn't want to gum up our rhetoric with pesky facts now would we

Sure man, I have all sorts of facts, but it's pretty bad organizing to think that you (a) know the veracity of facts in the middle of a disinfo propaganda campaign (b) can accurately represent facts divorced of imperialist context, especially as an American.

I don't feel the need to preface my statements of support for the Palestinian people in Gaza with screeds about the corruption and brutality of Hamas or Fatah. Mainly because the Zionists are a way bigger and much more immediate enemy of the people and my country has a very active role in their continued oppression. If the Palestinian people were to overthrow Hamas or Fatah their primary concerns would remain the same. This is very close to victim-blaming to me.

If the Syrian people successfully threw out Assad as the result of a mass movement, my story would be different depending on the circumstances. I'm hesitant to bring this up because it's a defensive point but surely you know the rebels in Syria, if they ever had it in the first place, no longer enjoy mass support of the Syrian people. The reasons for this are pretty clear. It's probably related somewhat to the fact that Syrian rebels are only able to continue the civil war because of foreign aid and arms.

But, well, you HAVE been extremely critical of Fatah in the past, going as far (iirc) to call the PA-administered West Bank a police state. And they absolutely deserve to be criticized, because they're collaborators. I sort of agree with you on Gaza because the difference in power is so vast but this isn't the case at all with Syria and wouldn't be unless it was literally under Western occupation or at the very least the target of Western military action.

As far as support, I'm not so sure you're right there. They did a public opinion poll of Syrians during the early stages of unrest and found overwhelming support for removing Assad. There were also parallel polls of other Arab countries that matched those figures almost exactly. There hasn't (and can't be) any subsequent polling of Syrians but the polls of the Arab public at large has continued and up to now they've continued to oppose Assad by overwhelming majorities in every Arab country polled except Lebanon, most of them going so far as to outright support a rebel victory. If Syrian public opinion has continued to track Arab public opinion they still probably oppose Assad.

NoFreeWill posted:

Palestine is a more obvious case, with Israel clearly the bully. Syria is not, but it is clear that the peaceful protests that kicked it off were a legitimate mass movement. Currently the rebels seem just as bad as Assad and their military victory which now seems less likely, might have gone either way on actually improving the situation for people in Syria.

Well, given that it's not clear what plausible outcome would definitively improve the situation for people in Syria, how about other concerns like which outcome would better check the power of US imperialism and adventurism in places it has no business being?