Category: Activism & Advocacy

Radical Movements and the Logic of Conflation

Smoke rises from buildings following what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike, as Palestinians search for victims under the rubble of a house which police said was destroyed in another Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip July 11, 2014. Israel pressed on for a fourth day with its Gaza offensive on Friday, striking the Hamas-dominated enclave from air and sea, as Palestinian militants kept up rocket attacks deep into the Jewish state. At least 79 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the offensive, which Israel says it launched to end persistent rocket attacks on its civilian population, some of which have reached Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities. (REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
Smoke rises from buildings following what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike, as Palestinians search for victims under the rubble of a house which police said was destroyed in another Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip July 11, 2014. Israel pressed on for a fourth day with its Gaza offensive on Friday, striking the Hamas-dominated enclave from air and sea, as Palestinian militants kept up rocket attacks deep into the Jewish state. At least 79 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the offensive, which Israel says it launched to end persistent rocket attacks on its civilian population, some of which have reached Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities. (REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

New Statesman | Times of Israel pulls “permissible genocide” blog.

If there is anything that pontiffs, policy analysts and decision-makers need to do it is this: We need to stop conflating radical populist movements whose ideologies call for the destruction of others, and the larger civilian populations that may support and sympathize with these movements for reasons of identity, economy and psychology; reasons that cannot and should not be callously dismissed as illegitimate. 

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On the irrelevance of truth

Scene from Caesar's congressional testimony on July 31, 2014.
Scene from Caesar’s congressional testimony on July 31, 2014.  Caesar is the man in the blue parka, the costume he wore to protect his identity.

When there is no will to act, truth makes little difference.

This is what we have been talking about for the last four years. This is the proof of the genocidal venture that the Assad regime is still implementing in cooperation with his regional and international backers, especially Iran and Russia. This is what the self-declared champion of resistance against imperialism and Zionism, Bashar Al-Assad, has been doing to his own people for the last four years. And he did it all in the name of fighting an imperialist Zionist conspiracy! The gall and impunity of it all is mind-boggling, and soul-crushing.

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Making Love to Satan

Numbers written on the bodies and on white cards told regime bureaucrats the identities of the deceased, when they died and which branch of Syrian authorities had held them, according to a Syrian military-police photographer now outside of Syria. Faces have been obscured at photo source's request.
Numbers written on the bodies and on white cards told regime bureaucrats the identities of the deceased, when they died and which branch of Syrian authorities had held them, according to a Syrian military-police photographer now outside of Syria. Faces have been obscured at photo source’s request.

10,000 Bodies: Inside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Crackdown – WSJ.

Caesar’s revelations referred in the WSJ article might seem old by now to those following developments in Syria at it has been reported months ago, but now, it is the U.S. official investigators who have examined the evidence supplied by Caesar and who are corroborating his story. Indeed, an Industrial-scale campaign of mass slaughter is being conducted by the Assad regime against his opponent, a campaign that was unleashed soon after the beginning of the Syrian Revolution, even in its year-long nonviolent phase.

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