Re: <nettime> Syria and left's responsibility

[Alex Foti <alex.foti@gmail.com>]

   Dear Vahid,
   for the very little it's worth i've been campaigning to save aleppo
   since the siege and furiously since the assad-putin-iran atrocities
   escalated. i agree about the complicity by omission of the left, which
   finds a depressing parallel with most of the left muddling truth about
   ethnic cleansing in bosnia in the early 90s.�   going back to analysis, as moral introspection is maybe for other fora,
   it's to me clear that the rebels and the women and children of east
   aleppo were the first victims of the global reaction triggered by
   trump's election. it is foremost a murderous reaction against the 2011
   revolutions, and an ominous foreboding for us all. the left loves
   rojava's kurds (rightly so), but is split (trotskyists as far as i know
   support the revolution against the assad dynasty) over solidarity to
   free syria.
   Why? communist nostalgia, mostly and as you said the glee to see the US
   on the losing side. But even lefties should ponder that the destiny of
   Aleppo was bargained between Putin and Erdogan, which certainly ain't
   positive for the kurdish cause. But the US is now no longer a liberal
   empire but an aggressive nation-state bent on transnational revanchism,
   perhabs a bit like putinism (petrocapitalism) projected domestically
   and internationally. White America needs to protect itself from the
   black and brown menace inside and the yellow peril abroad. Rising
   nuclear tensions in Asia (again Keith was prescient on US-China
   rivalry) and the global trading system at risk are other immediate
   consequences of elected nazipopulism. In Europe, France, Holland and
   even Germany could succumb to the forces of national populism in 2017,
   boosted by the white house returning white.
   Returning to lack of American and European military support which made
   the fall of Aleppo possible to perennial shame for the supposedly
   western values of human rights, i think the critical left (which is
   undoubtedly anti Trump Putin Erdogan) should ponder the whole Global
   War for the Middle East in its political complexity without renoucing
   to take a strong stand in defence of opposers of authoritarian regimes
   and forces, whichever they are and no matter how they fit in one's
   ideological matrix. For instance, ethnically and socially, sunnis are
   victims in Syria of Assad and Iran, while shias are victims in Yemen
   (and Bahrein) of the House of Saud. In Mosul, there's in effect a grand
   international coalition against ISIS that conjoins temporarily russian,
   kurdish, iraqi, iranian, kurdish, american, even french interests.
   Trump's election is not affecting that front fundamentally, although
   the daesh has reclaimed palmyra where putin had recently held a
   propaganda concert hailing its liberation.
   Putin has effectively hacked the elections and made Trump possible.
   However, just like China's, his ambitions are regional not global.
   Russia's economy is weak, but the rise in oil prices decided by opec is
   guaranteed to give the regime a respite as it extends undoubtedly its
   political influence over Europe. For instance, even if Le Pen loses,
   Fillon has already said there will be a rapprochement with Russia (in
   fact, the EU will no longer apply sanctions for Ukraine). China will
   tighten repression in Hong Kong and confront Taiwan, as the yuan drops
   in value and Chinese stop being first holders of US treasuries. The
   global financial system is being redesigned as positive interest rates
   make their restrictive comeback, the dollar rises and restrictions on
   financial movements to stop capital flight are introduced by the
   chinese communist party (which owns directly or indirectly Milan's two
   football teams if i can insert a lighthearted comment at the end a
   somber post about a bleak situation).
   Finally the domestic appointments point toward America turning into a
   low-wage high-carbon economy (Exxon at State and Goldman at Treasury -
   no change there - fossil capitalism lobbysts at EPA and Energy) that's
   set to further increase ballistic inequality. A fast-food executive
   (carls jr if u wonder) at Labor wil fight fight for 15 to the death and
   is already proposing subsidized robotization of fast food restaurants
   and supermarket chains.
   Finally, how's informational capitalism reacting to all this. Amazon
   and IBM are collaborationist. Facebook too, am i right? What about
   Google and Apple? Is the Californian Ideology compatible with national
   populism (or whatchmacallit)? The mysogynist-in-chief has assembled the
   executives of Silicon Valley the day the people of Aleppo were raped
   and murderd. How did it go according to nettimers?
   love to you all, let's think big, let's stay human,
   lx

   On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 5:29 PM, Vahid Salehi <vahidsal@gmail.com> wrote:

     Just to ask what should we do?
     Global left backed Assad by silence if not verbally.
     There is an obvious reasons for such alignment.
 <...>

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