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Libya and Syria: When Anti-Imperialism Goes Wrong

by Pham Binh Friday, Aug. 03, 2012 at 11:30 PM

Reflexive opposition to Uncle Sam’s machinations abroad is generally a good thing. It is a progressive instinct that progressively declined in the 1990s, as presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton deftly deployed the U.S. military to execute “humanitarian” missions in Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans and progressively increased in the 2000s, as Bush Jr. lurched from quagmire to disaster in transparent empire-building exercises in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Libya and Syria: Whe...
0-libya-syria-moammar_gadhafi-bashar_al_assad.jpg, image/jpeg, 420x282

However, what is generally good is not good in every case. The progressive instinct to oppose anything the U.S. government does abroad became anything but progressive once the Arab Spring sprang up in Libya and Syria, countries ruled by dictatorships on Uncle Sam’s hit list. When American imperialism’s hostility to the Arab Spring took a back seat to its hostility to the Ghadafi and Assad regimes (their collaboration with Bush Jr.’s international torture ring notwithstanding), the Western left’s support for the Arab Spring took a back seat to its hostility to American imperialism.

The moment the Syrian and Libyan revolutions demanded imperialist airstrikes and arms to neutralize the military advantage enjoyed by governments over revolutionary peoples, anti-interventionism became counter-revolutionary because it meant opposing aid to the revolution. Equivocal positions such as “revolution yes, intervention no” (the one I defended) were rendered utopian, abstract, and useless as a guide to action by this turn of events.

“Libyan Winter” Heats Up

To say that the Libyans were fortunate that anti-interventionists were too weak to block, disrupt, or affect NATO’s military campaign would be an understatement. Libya would look like Syria today if the anti-interventionists won at home in the West.

In both cases, the Western left mistakenly prioritized its anti-imperialist principles over its internationalist duty to aid these revolutions by any means necessary. By any means necessary presumably includes aid from imperialist powers or other reactionary forces. If this presumption is wrong, then we are not for the victory of the oppressed by any means necessary and should remove those words from our vocabulary in favor of by any means we in the West deem acceptable.

When the going got tough and the F-16s got going over Libya, the revolution’s fairweather friends in the West disowned it, claiming it had been hijacked by NATO. Instead of substantiating this claim with evidence that NATO successfully pushed the Libyans aside and seized control of their war against Ghadafi, the Western left instead 1) focused on the alleged misdeeds of the National Transitional Council (NTC) and 2) hid behind phrases such as “Libyan Winter” and “civil war,” implying that the Arab Spring in Libya froze the instant NATO jumped in and that neither the rebels nor Ghadafi deserved anyone’s support.

Both evasions of the central issue – that NATO’s air campaign had mass support among revolutionary Libyans which was faithfully reflected by the NTC’s stand against foreign invasion and for foreign airstrikes – were very serious methodological mistakes that only a handful of commentators managed to avoid, Clay Claiborne of Occupy LA being the most prominent. Far from freezing over, the struggle in Libya became a long hot summer of multifaceted conflict with international, conventional military, tribal, and underground dimensions that eventually culminated in Ghadafi’s grisly execution, raising and personalizing the stakes for Assad.

Anti-imperialists were so focused on the NTC’s cooperation with NATO, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and repressive Arab governments that they were as blindsided as Ghadafi was when forces independent of NTC control – Berber militias in Western Libya and underground networks in Tripoli – overthrew his regime in a surprise move on August 20. The NTC that the Western left portrayed as all-powerful due to its CIA and Arab state patronage was not able to move into Tripoli for weeks afterwards. To this day, the NTC has not disarmed rebel fighters, contrary to the confident predictions born of anti-imperial hubris by anti-interventionists who sought to convince us that the revolution was a mirage and that the West’s pawns chosen from above were firmly in control of post-Ghadafi Libya.

Broken Records Lead to Broken Crystal Balls

When NATO launched airstrikes in Libya, the anti-interventionists heard the same pretexts about human rights and freedom used to justify wars for empire and oil in Afghanistan and Iraq. This identical stimulus triggered an identical reaction – they used the contradictions and hypocritical flaws in the official rationales for intervention as the basis for opposing NATO’s action – just as Pavlov’s dogs reacted as if they were being fed when they heard a bell ring, regardless of whether any food was actually served.

This conditioned reaction to the broken record of justifications led anti-interventionists to conclude that NATO’s end of the Libyan war would resemble the Afghan and Iraq wars and so their case against intervention was built around the following predictions:

1) Mass civilian casualties due to Iraq or Viet Nam-style aerial bombardment;

2) Foreign invasion/occupation due to imperialist “mission creep”;

3) Future interventions would be easier and more likely elsewhere;

4) A neocolonial regime would be installed in Tripoli as the result of NATO-led “regime change,” the logical conclusion of the “revolution was hijacked” conspiracy theory.

NATO’s methods and the war’s outcome were totally at odds with what the anti-interventionists envisioned:

1) There was no massive NATO bombardment of civilian targets, there was no Libyan highway of death, no Black Hawk Down, no Wikileaks-style helicopter gunship atrocities. The absence of wanton slaughter of civilians by NATO compelled Ghadafi to fake collateral damage incidents and civilian funerals and arbitrarily exaggerate the number of civilians killed.

2) The anti-interventionists believed that NATO would be compelled to send ground troops by the logic of “regime change,” by the inability of forces loyal to the NTC to make significant headway against Ghadafi’s forces. They seized on the presence of small numbers of NATO military advisers and special forces in Libya as a vindication of their prediction and as proof that the West put “boots on the ground.” In reality, NATO boots played a secondary role; Libyans did the fighting and the dying, not Westerners. Out of 30,000 people who were killed in the Libyan civil war, how many were NATO personnel? Zero. That number would have been higher if NATO ground forces were in the thick of combat or invaded (much less occupied) the country.

3) Paradoxically, NATO’s successful campaign in Libya made a future U.S./NATO campaign in Syria less likely. Russia and China are now determined to block any attempt to apply the Libyan model to Syria at the United Nations Security Council and the Obama administration is not willing to defy either of them by taking Bush-style unilateral military action for the time being.

4) The proponents of the hijacking theory failed to address the most obvious and urgent question that flowed from their own analysis: what could the Libyans do to take their revolution back from NATO’s hijacking? A hijacking is a struggle for control between legitimate and illegitimate actors where the rogue elements get the upper hand. (Never forget 9/11.) Not one of the Libyan revolution’s progressive detractors outlined how NATO could be elbowed aside by Libyans to regain control of their struggle.

This was no accident or coincidence.

The hijacking narrative did not arise from a factual foundation but from a simplistic, reflexive ideology, albeit an anti-imperialist one. The anti-interventionists did their best to substitute weak suppositions, NATO’s bald hypocrisy, and guilt by association for the evidence they lacked to support their hijacking story. For them, the Libyan revolution’s constituent elements lost their political independence, initiative, and lifeblood the instant NATO fired its first cruise missile. Nothing else mattered except that NATO chose to act; what Libyans said, did, thought, and organized was simply not a factor for them.

This image became very popular among Western leftists prior to NATO’s intervention. Revolutionary Libyans did not feel that U.N.-backed airstrikes constituted foreign intervention, a term they used to describe invasion and other forms of unwanted imperialist meddling. The Western left disregarded the thoughts and feelings of their Libyan comrades and called for an end to NATO airstrikes against Ghadafi’s forces.

The driving force behind the military offensive by Berber militias in western Libya that was timed to coincide with the surprise uprising in Tripoli that ousted Ghadafi was not NATO. NATO did not organize the underground network of neighborhood cells in Tripoli that penetrated Ghadafi’s secret police. And NATO certainly did not pick August 20, the day Muhammad entered Mecca, as the day to launch a risky grassroots insurrection in Tripoli.

Hammered by NATO’s airpower from above, by the Berbers from without, and by revolutionaries from below, Ghadafi’s forces in Tripoli melted away. The “Libyan Winter” proved to be the hottest chapter of the Arab Spring thus far.

Post-War Libya

Rebels who stormed Ghadafi’s Tripoli compound were eager to expose his regime’s relationship with imperialist powers and one of their commanders sued the British foreign minister for handing him over to Ghadafi to be tortured, hardly the acts of anyone on the CIA payroll.

Events shortly after Ghadafi was toppled provide even more evidence that the revolution was not hijacked by NATO. When rebels stormed Ghadafi’s compound, they were quick to show Western reporters the dictator’s scrap book featuring himself arm-in-arm with Condoleeza Rice. A top rebel commander publicly accused the British government of handing him over to Ghadai’s regime to be tortured right before he filed a lawsuit against Jack Straw, Britain’s former Foreign Minister for authorizing the rendition. The new Libyan government refused to hand over Ghadafi’s son Saif to the International Criminal Court (now it has even arrested their lawyers), the body responsible for dispensing NATO’s “justice” to Slobodan Milosevic. No U.S or NATO bases have been established in Libya unlike in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo.

In other words, Libyan sovereignty emerged from the revolution intact despite NATO’s involvement. This would not be the case if NATO was directly or indirectly in charge of Libya or set up some sort of neocolonial regime.

The bottom line is that the bulk of the Western left could not bring itself to wholeheartedly support a democratic revolution that co-opted foreign intervention for its own ends. The revolution landed safe and sound at a qualitatively more democratic destination precisely because control of the revolution never left Libyan hands.

Today, Libyans enjoy freedom of speech, freedom to protest and organize, and most importantly, freedom from fear of state repression. The Western left ought to join the revolutionary masses of the Arab and North African world in celebrating this historic victory, not isolate ourselves from them by mourning (or slandering) it.

Instead of trying to learn from their mistakes, the anti-interventionists simply moved on to Syria to make the same errors without a second thought about why the reality of post-intervention Libya looked nothing like their dire forecasts. This willful blindness makes them incapable of understanding why any Arab revolutionary in their right mind would look to Libya as a model, why Syrians would chant, “Bye, bye Ghadafi, Bashar your turn is coming!” while crowds in Tahrir Square chant, “If they want to be Syria, we’ll give them Libya” in response to the Egyptian military’s latest power grab.

The Main Enemy In Syria

The anti-interventionists are repeating their mistakes over the Libyan revolution blunder-for-blunder over the Syria revolution. In place of their attacks on the Libyan NTC, they denounce the Syrian Nation Council (SNC); they dwell on the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) U.S. backing, just as they painted Libya’s rebels as tools of the CIA; instead of “hands off Libya,” they put forward the slogan “hands off Syria,” as if Syria’s death squads were Uncle Sam’s handiwork and not Assad’s.

Hyperbolic condemnations of the FSA, SNC, or the coordinating committees do nothing for Syrians whose lives do not depend on the anti-imperialist credentials of these groups but on whatever assistance they can provide. Similarly, criticisms that the Syrian revolution should rely less on armed struggle and more on strikes by workers have a questionable relationship to reality at best. Since when has a strike ever stopped a death squad from breaking down a door and murdering a sleeping family or prevented a civilian neighborhood from being shelled by artillery? Does anyone seriously believe that the Syrian struggle is being led astray by trigger-happy gunmen (most of whom are working for Assad, not against him)?

German socialist Karl Liebknecht wrote an anti-war leafleft in 1915 under the title, “The Main Enemy Is At Home!”

Our first duty in the West is to do whatever we can to aid, abet, and provide material support for our Syrian brothers’ and sisters’ fight against the Assad regime. Our main enemy is at home in the West, but theirs is not. Washington, D.C. is not sending death squads door-to-door to execute women and children, the regime in Damascus is; the Pentagon is not shelling civilian targets and killing journalists in Homs, the regime in Damascus is. Their main enemy is at home, just as ours is.

This grim reality must be our starting point in any discussion about Syria, not a hypothetical U.S. military action down the road, the contours of which cannot be known in advance. We cannot have the same attitude towards U.S. airstrikes on Assad’s forces and a full-scale ground invasion of Syria because their impact on and implications for the revolution would be completely different. The contours of imperialist intervention must shape our attitude towards it. Sending the FSA small arms and anti-tank missiles or video cameras is not the same as sending American marines into the streets of Damascus, although they are all forms of U.S. intervention.

Syrian revolutionaries know damn well what atrocities Uncle Sam is capable of – Iraq is right next door – and the Arab world knows better than we in the West ever will what the colonial boot feels like. To lecture them of perils and pitfalls they know better than we do is to insult their intelligence. To pretend that we know the dangers of dealing with imperialist devils better than Third World revolutionaries do is a kind of white anti-imperialist’s burden, and its arrogant paternalism is just as misguided as its colonialist antipode.

We have no business criticizing the SNC, FSA, or the coordinating committees unless and until we have fulfilled our first duty by matching our words of solidarity with deeds and acts that can make a difference in the revolution’s outcome, however small they might seem.

Self-Determination and Intervention

The biggest obstacle to Syrian self-determination today is the Assad regime which increasingly rests on Russian bayonets drenched in Syrian blood. He is determined to stay in power by any means necessary and will not rest until their struggle for self-determination (which is what a democratic revolution is) is buried, in mass graves if need be. Respect for Syrian self-determination means respecting how Syrian revolutionaries organize their struggle and their choices even when they conflict with our own preferences and choices.

If Syrian revolutionaries ask for Western airstrikes because they lack an air force to counter the Assad regime militarily, who are we to oppose those airstrikes? Who are we to tell them that all-out defeat is better than the triumph of a revolution “tainted” by an unavoidable compromise with imperialists powers? Who are we to tell them they must face Russian helicopter gunships without imperialist aid because “the revolution will be won by Syrians themselves or it won’t be won at all”? Do we really want our Syrian brothers and sisters to confront tanks with rocks and slingshots as so many Palestinians have?

While the Western left is raising a hue and cry over the minimal aid Syria’s rebels receive from the CIA and reactionary Gulf states, Russia is overtly ramping up its military aid to Assad. Whether we like it or not, the struggle between the Syrian revolution and Assad’s counter-revolution has been internationalized just as the Spanish civil war of 1936-1939 was. The Western left in those days demanded foreign intervention in the form of arms, military aid, and volunteers for the Spanish Republic. The anti-interventionists (mostly fascists or fascist sympathizers) were more than happy to see the Republic starved in the name of “non-intervention” while Hitler bombed Guernica and did everything possible to ensure Franco’s victory.

Those who oppose Western military action today against Assad in the context of a revolution that has developed into a full-blown civil war where segments of the revolution and the people are begging for foreign arms, aid, and airstrikes while the counter-revolution imports arms to slaughter them follow in the anti-interventionist footsteps of the Spanish Republic’s opponents whether they are aware of it or not.

“Hands off Syria” should be the slogan raised at demonstrations in front of Russian embassies and consulates around the world, not the one directed at foreign powers aiding the rebels lest we become little better than Assad’s unwitting executioners in the eyes of revolutionary Syrians. Instead of focusing our fire on the shortcomings of the SNC, FSA, and the coordinating committees, we should be organizing events and fund-raisers for humanitarian relief, fact-finding missions, and video and communications equipment with the aim of smuggling it into Syria. These activities are already taking place but not with the participation of the Western left since we are more worried about our precious anti-imperialist principles and hypothetical Libya-style airstrikes (as if the outcome there was a step backward and not a step forward) than tackling the ugly realities of the Syrian revolution whose straits become more desperate with each passing hour.

We fiddle furiously while Syria burns and Syrians bleed.

The most important thing for the Western left to do is to forge close and enduring relationships with revolutionary Syrians living abroad by demonstrating our unequivocal support for their revolution through deeds, through joint work with their communities. Only in that context and on that basis can criticisms we have about deals with U.S. imperialism or mistakes made by the SNC, FSA, and the coordinating committees gain a hearing among the people who count: revolutionary Syrians.

One way to begin building these relationships would be to organize forums and debates over the question of intervention with revolutionary Syrians of various shades of opinion. The single most embarrassing aspect of the Western left’s opposition to NATO’s Libya operation was the way revolutionary Libyans were barred from Libya forums organized by anti-interventionists.

This outrage was the absurd but logical outcome of the white anti-imperialist’s burden, a burden we must cast aside if we hope to act in concert with the Arab Spring.

Conclusion

The Western left should reject knee-jerk anti-imperialism because its unthinking, blind, reflexive, natureput us at odds with the interests and explicit demands of first the Libyan and now the Syrian revolutionary peoplesand in line with the interests of their mortal enemies.

Knee-jerk anti-imperialism leads to our enemies doing our thinking for us: whatever Uncle Sam wants, we oppose; whatever Uncle Sam opposes, we want. This method plays right into U.S. imperialism’s hands because the last thing Uncle Sam wants is a thinking enemy.

Related Info:
Hama Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre
Hama Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Hama_massacre
Homs Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homs_massacre
Houla Massacre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houla_massacre


http://www.phillyimc.org/en/stop-imperialist-war-against-syria

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2012/08/417200.shtml?discuss
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Syria- Human Rights

by Pham Binh Friday, Aug. 03, 2012 at 11:31 PM

Syria- Human Rights...
0-syria-genocide-statistics.jpg, image/jpeg, 396x396

error
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Syria- Human Rights

by Pham Binh Friday, Aug. 03, 2012 at 11:31 PM

Syria- Human Rights...
0-syria-hama-homs-houla-massacre.jpg, image/jpeg, 434x406

error
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Syria- Human Rights

by Pham Binh Friday, Aug. 03, 2012 at 11:31 PM

Syria- Human Rights...
0-syria-massacre-bashar-al-assad.jpg, image/jpeg, 421x411

error
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'Pham' is at it again

by K.M.A. 'Pham' Saturday, Aug. 04, 2012 at 12:26 AM

'Pham is at it again with the narrative heard on the ConCorp media. In other words, the Pentagon.

Syria as a target of Death Squads from NATO & al-CIAduh.

The West and the Glorification of Terrorism
No one doubts that terrorism in Syria is being sponsored by NATO and the GCC but until now it was being carried out behind a veil of hypocrisy. Unable to bombard and raze the country because of the Russian and Chinese double veto, the Western powers and their Arab partners decided to bleed the country while setting it up for an attack by mercenaries. Then on February 12 came the call to jihad issued by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Suddenly, NATO, the GCC and al-Qaeda found themselves pursuing the same objective.-
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32069.htm
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In the name of the Father and the Son

by Bob Saturday, Aug. 04, 2012 at 11:26 PM

In the name of the F...
houla-massacre-bashar-al-assad.jpg, image/jpeg, 560x301

Long Live the Dictator of Syria!!! In the name of Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad, kill the innocent Syrian civilians including women and children. Defend al-Assad regime.

Is that what you are saying?

Stupid comment!
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real tired of vile evil assholes

by shove it Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 1:49 AM

You stinking spooks should go and die somewhere. Repeating the same lies over and over again only carries one so far.
Fuck israel
fuck the Pentagon
and fuck you yammering spooks with the over played photos that mean only death.
Stop NATO terrorism.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32083.htm
Obama Admits Funding Fake Revolutionaries to Attack Assad
By Susanne Posel

The US Treasury has granted release of funds to the FSA through the Syrian Support Group (SSG), a Washington representative of the Free Syrian Army to conduct financial transactions.
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Assad has to go

by Fidel Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 4:12 AM

It would be one thing to criticize the United States for getting involved in the affairs of other nations, but it is another thing to downplay, or even flat deny, the atrocities of this war and make them seem one sided. I support the Free Syrian Army, but at the same time I have no doubts that they've executed soldiers and loyalists: I would happily kill the person dropping mortar shells on my child's head. I would give them no quarter, just as Assad has done, and would not think twice about it. That's what happens in warfare, and will continue to happen, until Assad is dead and justice is carried out on his supporters. If you wish for the violence to stop, there is only one answer: Assad has got to go, and the faster the better.

I'm curious, now that there is amble video and other evidence of chemical weapons being prepared by Assad; will the hapless morons who regularly post this bullshit on Indymedia continue to do so, even after those chemical weapons are deployed on innocent civilians? Or, will the FSA be blamed for using chemical weapons against their own people?
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total bull shit

by "own people" Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 5:13 AM

", will the FSA be blamed for using chemical weapons against their own people? "
Not hardly since the 'Free Syrian Army" is neither free or Syrian.
The only thing that needs to go are you fucking spooks in the ministry of truth.
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self-denial

by jane Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 10:07 PM

some people are on self-denial. no use talking to them. they just want to hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see.
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again, still?

by Dear Jane Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 10:15 PM

Self denial is when you are able to push away from the triple fudge devil's food cake in front of you.
Now if your were able to actually READ, self denial would say, I I wont make an ass out of myself tonight by being an air headed moron without an argument. Like the author of this flapping hoax.
While NATO and al-CIAduh with their death squads continue to do mass murder in the name of "freedumb" for western interests in Syria.
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SYRIA THREATENS CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST FOREIGN ATTACK

by Iskander Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 10:31 PM

Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, was responding to public and private warnings from Israel and the US by insisting that the weapons would only be used in case of a foreign attack on Syria and not against its own people, as the opposition has warned could happen.

"No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used, and I repeat, will never be used … no matter what the developments inside Syria," he said at a press conference, reading from a prepared statement. "All of these types of weapons are in storage and under security and the direct supervision of the Syrian armed forces and will never be used unless Syria is exposed to external aggression."

Until now, Syria has never officially confirmed it has chemical weapons, though it is no surprise that it does. Like Israel, it is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the treaty banning production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqjWzGfOLlE

In other words they have stockpiles of chemical weapons. Will they use it on their own people or not? Do you trust the words of Bashar al-Assad and his minions?


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what a question

by Just like stink on sh*t Sunday, Aug. 05, 2012 at 10:43 PM

Well I'd sure trust anyone more than the insane inmates of a slaughter house that uses killer drones to murder wedding parties and lies about massacres they themselves committed through their terrorist proxies..
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Children tortured by the Assad regime

by Bob Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 5:28 AM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHqqyBNe48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aayfZZBBAg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnIRiItEFio

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Inside Assad's Torture Chambers

by Bob Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 5:51 AM

Inside Assad's Torture Chambers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSTZ4q2cuhw&feature=related

ASSAD SOLDIERS TORTURE DEMONSTRATORS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdGu0OwzaaE&feature=fvwrel

Syrian police beat man to death in Hama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9ASdzHQ5to&feature=related

Syrian protesters capture own death on camera

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnqiQICRD8w&feature=related


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not again!

by not funny Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 7:27 AM

Doesn't this just remind you of the 'plastic shredders' Saddam had?
All a hoax parroted by the whore media?
But we change a name and location...
And we have YouTube again to prove it!
You assholes are really pathetic evil bastards, aren't you?
What about the USA torture chambers? Ever hear about 'renditions'?
Abu Ghraib?
piss off
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Two wrongs can't make it right

by Iskander Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 4:48 PM

You can also see Abu Ghraib in YouTube. It has also been reported in most mainstream media. Invasion of Iraq by the Bush regime is not right. It got nothing to do with Sept 11 or al Qaida. It is based on lie.

However there is a big difference between Iraq and Syria. In Iraq the people in large are not fighting for their rights against the dictatorial regime of Saddam. In Syria, like Libya, there were massive peaceful demonstrations by the Syrian people. These were met by widespread police and mititary brutality until there were no recouse but to rebel. Now they are being massacred.

To deny this just show your contempt against your fellow human beings and their fight for democracy.

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No there weren't

by Bull Flop Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 5:23 PM

"In Syria, like Libya, there were massive peaceful demonstrations by the Syrian people."
No there weren't.
There were no such demonstrations in Syria.
Only NATO snipers and death squads from the clients of the CIA. Oh yeah, and a massive barrage of lies from the whore media.
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The Truth shall set us Free!

by Bob Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 6:41 PM


Syria - Damascus Rises Against Assad! 100,000 Protest in Mezze - 2-18-12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTZWvAE5f88

Syria towns under fire as thousands protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS32hijyiAE

Syria Yabroud Damascus Protest 1/6/2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546zxtkrBVw

Activists hold mass rallies across Syria

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuxV2_kx-WI


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Bob has YouTube!

by more Bull Flop Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 9:10 PM

YouTube is for showing whatever the video wants it to show.
Fakery being a popular theme, particularly if a stage is set up to purswade the viewer of something he or she isn't there to interpret themselves.
Like the 'protests' in India which were reported to be from Syria.
The war weasels are desperate to convince you that we need to kill Syrians for their own good. And faking some video is certainly not beyond them as there is nothing too low for these assholes.

Massacres in Aleppo, Syria
By Tony Cartalucci

"Responsibility to Protect" crumbles as Western-armed terror front slaughters civilians while foreign sponsors attempt to tie hands of Syrian security forces.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32094.htm
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When Anti-Imperialism Goes Right

by Lord Locksley Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 9:55 PM
armigerous@earthlink.net

When Anti-Imperialis...
superfort.jpg, image/jpeg, 675x246

"North Tinian tower,this is Dimples 8-2 requesting taxi clearance"

~Col Paul Tibbitts~
C,O, 509th Composite Group
6 Aug 1945
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lord scum worships death

by here we go again Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 at 10:29 PM

Our psychopathic zionist troll, lord scum, is using one hand to type while the other is busy pleasuring itself at the holocaust the other previous psychopaths in the Dept. of War loosed upon the people of Japan.
No surprise there as inbred degenerates have unusual tastes and fetishes.
Thankfully it comprises a minority...a dangerous one.
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Well,actually.....

by Lord Locksley Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 9:02 AM

....the little troll above who goes to such great lengths to pervert and distort and rewrite history is apparently unaware that it was the Imperial Japanese Military that 'worshiped death'...its members being expected to die for the Emperor...Japan had been at war with China for nearly a decade prior to Pearl Harbor.....they even went so far as to dedicate some of their Imperial Navy pilots to become suicide pilots....the "kamikaze"...or "divine wind".as they called it....they had even been receiving highly refined uranium oxide from Germany via submarine for over 2 yrs trying to develop their own atomic bomb after having purchased a working cyclotron from U Cal Berkley in 1937...(google "genzai bakudan")...and they would surely have used it if they had manage to finish it....so now the little troll wants to glorify what the Japanese did in WW2 and to smear the sacrifice Americans made to put and end to their butchery and conquest.....it's really kind of sad to know that in his hatred for me,he is even willing to retroactively align himself with one of the most horrific forces of pagan barbarism of the 20th century....that's a clear window into his mind..and into what he really believes....keep up the hate,clown....since that's apparently all you are capable of...that and lame attempts at historical revisionism
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no, cocksucker, it's you who worship death

by piss off, lord scum Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 1:45 PM

You don't merely love death, you worship it.
The 140,000 who were incinerated in Japan on the 1st nuclear strike weren't any more responsible than the 330 million here who allowed the Iraq, Afghanistan and soon to be Syria killing field to occur. But you particularly because you are and were one of the dependable cheerleaders in the carnage.
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Well,actually.....

by Lord Locksley Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 2:47 PM

....the total number of deaths at Hiroshima was closer to 75-80,000...fewer than died in the firebomb raid of Tokyo the night of the previous March 9th....I'm sure what is really bugging you is that when HST decided to use the bomb,it brought the killing to a halt...literally overnight...and since you've made it clear you endorsed and approved of Imperial Japan killing the America troops you hare in the largest possible numbers, that you would have much preferred that the Allies invaded the home islands where they would have suffered an estimated 500k casualties.....unfortunately for you,HST put an end to your little retroactive wet dream and ordered the bomb used...and the rest,as they say,is history
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history

by yup Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 4:54 PM

Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
From the August 8, 2005 issue: Sixty years after Hiroshima, we now have the secret intercepts that shaped his decision.
Aug 8, 2005, Vol. 10, No. 44 • By RICHARD B. FRANK
Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts


The sixtieth anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued affair--though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news editors in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it near the top again. It was not always so.
In 1945, an overwhelming majority of Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had used atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the "traditionalist" view. One unkindly dubbed it the "patriotic orthodoxy."

But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges of the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon. The challengers were branded "revisionists," but this is inapt. Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has a duty to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers are better termed critics.

The critics share three fundamental premises. The first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp
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Oh,really?

by Lord Locksley Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 5:29 PM
armigerous@earthlink.net

Between the time that Okinawa fell in late June,and August 6,the Imperial War Cabinet ordered a total of 9 Army divisions be redeployed to the southern island of Honshu in anticipation of the Aliies invading the home islands....they had over 5000 kamikaze aircraft prepared and hidden in caves as well as several thousand "baka bombs"..essentially manned suicide rockets designed to be strapped to the belly of a twin engine Mitsubishi "Betty" bomber and released about 5 miles from the target ship for its 600 mph suicide run....if the Japanese government were truly prepared to surrender,then why didn't they do so the day after Hiroshima was bombed?....they thought we only possessed 1 atomic bomb...and would not use another....even after Nagasaki we had 3 additional bombs on the island of Tinian that General LeMay was prepared to use as ordered....finally after Nagasaki was bombed on August 9,the Emperor personally intervened and ordered the War Cabinet to seek a halt to hostilities....he knew full well that the 3rd atomic bomb was going to be dropped in his Imperial lap....
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another Necrophile

by LeMay & lord scum Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 11:09 PM

LeMay was another worshiper of death. Unfortunately they aren't alone...
Both lord scum and LeMay are/were necrophiles as both really don't care who dies as long as there is mass death. The excuse for the A Bomb to reduce the war's death toll becomes a flimsy tissue of justification in view of the psychopaths who lord scum holds in high esteem and their plans to further the profits of the merchants of death...with the staged terrorism of Operation Northwoods. Where Americans were to be murdered in order to glory in the bloody fog of war. And justify another killing field.
Just like the one in Syria. Or Afghanistan or Iraq.

The National Security State and the Assassination of JFK

Operation Northwoods, also named ìJustification for US Military Intervention in Cuba,î was endorsed by the entire Joint Chiefs, which recommended the At the announcement of the end to the crisis, General LeMay roared at Kennedy, ì
"it ís the greatest defeat in our history" and that, "We should invade today!"
globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=22071

So it really doesn't matter who the victims are or were because these freaks would kill Americans just as well as an enemy as long as there were casualties.
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The Truth shall set us Free!

by Bob Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012 at 11:43 PM

A picture paints a thousand words. Movie clips paints much much more.

There are more movie clips about the subject in YouTube uploaded by Syrian activists and concerned Syrians.

But then there are people who only hear what they want to hear and see what to see.

No use talking to them.

Anyway, it is just a response to someone who said that there were no Syrians demonstrating against Assad.

Liar.
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blow it out yer ass, 'Bob'

by "Syrian activists" Wednesday, Aug. 08, 2012 at 1:22 PM

By "Syrian activists" do you mean foreign terrorists from al-CIAduh and NATO?
'Cause that's what they are.
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Liar

by Bob Thursday, Aug. 09, 2012 at 12:41 AM

No Syrians demonstrating against Assad?

Syria - Damascus Rises Against Assad! 100,000 Protest in Mezze - 2-18-12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTZWvAE5f88

Syria towns under fire as thousands protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS32hijyiAE

Syria Yabroud Damascus Protest 1/6/2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=546zxtkrBVw

Activists hold mass rallies across Syria

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuxV2_kx-WI
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oh yeah?

by Bob... Thursday, Aug. 09, 2012 at 3:17 AM

And you can prove that these videos aren't some stage that the western media created?
Something they are known to do?
Like the Indian celebration attributed to Syria?
I know that the 'intelligence' community thinks we are SOOO stupid that they pull this shit off all the time, 'Bob'.
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staged Syrian protests

by Exit, Stage Right Thursday, Aug. 09, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Oh, really?
Here's one for the non spooks who are reading this.
Just enter
staged syrian protests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDtOUrsuNEE
or
Syria - ABC News (AU) expose the lies of Reuters, ABC and other Medias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=kaNei6tuiUU
Watch closely.
These freaking spooks think you'll fall for anything.
Right, 'Bob'?
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Do your math

by Bob Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 at 4:23 AM

One or two fake videos made by whoever made them (maybe by Assad agents themselves) should not affect countless genuine videos showing genuine support by tens of thousands supporters of the opposition to Assad regime.

These tens or even hundreds of thousands Syrians demonstrating against Assad cannot be staged by Hollywood or by the CIA. They will not spend money to pay extras just for You Tube clips!

However, Assad can pay a handful of actors (or agents acting) to discredit the opposition.

Whoever say that here were no Syrians fighting against ASSad regime is truely a liar.

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my god, what a pesky spook

by huh Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 at 1:29 PM

"one or two faked videos" If an exception disproves a rule then you're out, simple.
Western interests are plain faking the 'rebellion' no if ands or buts.
Go back to the hole you crawled from, 'Bob. Quit trying to ride this dead horse. Your NATO and al-CIAduh friends are terrorists and the rebellion is a hoax. Unlike the massacres they commit.
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Wake up to reality

by Iskander Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 at 4:58 PM

You said: "the rebellion is a hoax"

What about the countless video clips showing massive demonstrations by the Syrian people. Hoax?

Wake up to reality. You are living in a parallel universe.

In this planet it is ASSad's days which is numbered.

No need for any government to fight for the Syrian people. They will fight for themselves. All that is needed is for Russia, China, Iran, and big Western corporations with vested interest to stop covertly shoring the falling regime.

Moral, material, logistic, political, and humanitarian support may hasten the process but it is the Syrian people's determination and fight for democracy that will win this war.

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uhh, spooks, the project is blown

by Suffer not, Fools Friday, Aug. 10, 2012 at 5:32 PM

The information is already out there.
Your massacres have already been called out for what they are and by whom.
NATO & al-CIA; it's common knowledge.
Don't be dreary.
Do you spooks get paid by the word of is it a salary position?
Possibly a MOS?
What ever it is, the familiar amount of noise is lost on the tide of truth.
You individuals will find your own survival in the fulcrum of truth, no matter your personal opinions or motivations.
I know you wont have any idea what that means but you might consider that the inner circle is usually eliminated first in any pogrom.
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Wake up to reality 2

by Iskander Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 at 4:55 AM

You really think real spy will waste their precious time answering you in an indymedia forum? Paranoid megalomania.

Anyway CIA, MOSSAD, KGB, and other spy network are BAD. They are against transparency and democracy. And so is the Assad regime.
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"a spy"?

by low grade spooks Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 at 8:55 AM

of course you're not intelligent enough to engaged in espionage, you're a low level propagandists. A keyboard commando. Or you would know that beating a dead horse only draws attention to the fact it's a very dead horse.
Your NATO and al-CIAduh terrorists have been uncovered as nothing more than foreign terrorist, not rebels or revolutionaries. Terrorists with heavy weapons.
Why do you persist in being tiresome?
The 'Free Syrian Army' aren't even Syrian. But they sure enjoy killing Syrians. Then blaming the Assad forces for it. It's already on mainstream [ of shit ] media. You are only being repetitive and dreary.
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the Earth is flat

by Bob Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 at 4:37 PM

"If an exception disproves a rule then you're out, simple", Huh said. What kind of logic is that? If a school class with 30 students and 2 of them are cheaters then everyone is a cheater. Right? Wrong! Only an idiot or a person with a deceptive mind will end up with such conclusion.

No Syrians demonstrating against Assad? Yeah, the Earth is flat and Santa Clause is coming to town.

By the way even his own Prime Minister defected to the revolution. Yeah, Assad is truely winning.... Liar.


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what an idiot

by dufus spooks Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 at 5:02 PM

'Nick' or 'Bob' [Bozo, because it wants us to believe it is two individuals ] can't help itself. In the face of over whelming defeat it begins to babble analogies about its 5th grade
But still trying to push the 'protesters' theme in dreary repetition until its supervisor says to cease.
Immune to facts and discovery, it just keeps going.
No popular 'uprising'.
Just foreign terrorists.
From your NATO, israeli and Al-CIAduh terror dump.
Is this the best they can do?
Repeat re-chewed spam?
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crooked logic

by Bob Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012 at 12:31 AM

Your the one who keep on repeating yourself. You keep on saying to anyone who does not agree with you is a spy. Any proof?

If you don't believe the photos and the video clips then you are on self-denial. As far as you are concern anyone who is against Assad is a spy.

No one is allowed to go against Assad otherwise you are a spy. Another crooked logic of yours.
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":any proof"?

by Twits on IMC Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012 at 6:21 AM

We don't need any 'proof' all we need is to see your narrative fall apart under the discovery of funding, arming and logistics.
NATO death squads and al-CIAduh invading a peaceful nation.
Duh...
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Okay I give up

by Bob Monday, Aug. 13, 2012 at 3:28 AM

Okay, I will leave you in your dream world. You can have the final word in this long thread. Sleep tight and enjoy your adventure in your dream land.
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"I give up"

by give up what? Monday, Aug. 13, 2012 at 4:26 AM

'Iskander' 'Bob' 'Nick' or 'RM', what are you giving up? Your tired wank about 'rebels or 'protesters' [ from other nations ] armed by the degenerate monarchs in the gulf, or the NATO death squads? [ look up Operation Gladio ]
TruthMove - Operation Gladio
Operation Gladio is undisputed historical fact. Gladio was part of a post-World War II program set up by the CIA and NATO supposedly to thwart future Soviet/communist invasions or influence in Italy and Western Europe.
truthmove.org/content/operation-gladio/

Maybe the al-CIAduh invaders with heavy weapons who massacre civilians?
Or the 'Free Syrian Army' who are comprised of foreign mercs?
Or did your supervisor tell you to quit beating this very dead horse?
Don't let the door bump your ass on the way out.
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