Syria: A Fire Within

Amid the flurry of really wonderful documentaries about Syria and the Syrian revolution that are emerging these days, this one might represent a more modest effort in this regard, and might seems a bit dated now since it was mostly filmed in the summer of 2012. Still, since the focus here is to trace the roots of the Syrian revolution and its transformation into an armed struggle, and to showcase the betrayal of the nonviolent liberal prodemocracy activists that led the early protests throughout the country by the leaders of the free world, the subject matter maintains certain relevance and seems to distinguish this effort from other works.

Continue reading “Syria: A Fire Within” →

Of Power and Justice

Yezidis come under attack from ISIS in Iraq

I said it before, and I say it again:

Some people care more about the identity of the killers than that of the victims. This is so because these people are, in fact, more interested in the acquisition of power than the pursuit of justice. That’s why they can criticize America and Israel while ignoring, if not praising, Assad and Putin, and see a villain in Al-Baghdadi but a hero in Strelkov. When I hear these people, I know that I am dealing with hypocrites, that a greater darkness still lies ahead for all of us, and that our night is still quite young, and will prove quite long. For wrongs can never be righted nor justice achieved through an amoral pursuit of power, a pursuit that blinds us to the victims, and the crime, that we end up perpetrating the crime.

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)

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.

Continue reading “Radical Movements and the Logic of Conflation” →

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.

Continue reading “On the irrelevance of truth” →