[Peace-discuss] B-H L vs. Chris Floyd on Syria, "humanitarian" intervention vs peace movements, etc.

[Stuart Levy]

We need arguments on hand for people who think that the NATO/US 
bombardment of Libya was a good idea, done for humanitarian reasons, and 
that we should now do likewise in Syria 
<http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/french-philosopher-bernardhenri-lvy-calls-for-west-to-intervene-in-syria-7788822.html>.  
Even at last week's anti-NATO demonstration in Chicago, I saw several 
people carrying signs cheering on the NATO win against Qaddafi.

Bernard-Henri Lévy has a film in Cannes, The Oath of Torbruck (Le 
Serment de Torbrouck), about Lévy's own visit to Libya, meeting with 
rebel leaders, and convincing Sarkozy that France needed to intervene 
for humanitarian etc., apparently.  The trailer makes it look like war porn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E37jv8aisw&feature=share 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E37jv8aisw&feature=share>


A recent posting to the United for Peace and Justice list by Kevin Zeese 
brought up this article from Chris Floyd from earlier this spring:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2229-fools-rush-in-april-prank-launches-next-american-war.html

an excerpt below, but please see the full article too, where Floyd goes 
on to say what he thinks motivates these wars in the first place.

The self-proclaimed "Friends of Syria" group has now undertaken to pay 
the salaries of the "Free Syrian Army" and supply the rebel forces, led 
largely by Islamist factions -- although Western leaders and their 
parrot-like media still pretend (at least in public) that the armed 
uprising is aimed at establishing a groovy secular showcase of 
pluralistic democracy. The fact that sectarian Sunni factions have 
seized control of the initially unarmed (and largely secular) protests 
and are now set on a course of "ethnic cleansing" of the Alawite 
minority, from which much of the regime's ruling class is drawn is, of 
course, ignored or downplayed by the ubiquitous cheerleaders for 
Permanent War in our militarist media-political class. To be sure, 
Alawites are not the only targets; all other "minorities" -- i.e., 
anyone, including fellow Sunnis, who do not agree with the sectarians' 
narrow notions -- are also in the cross-hairs of the sectarians as well.

Just before Hillary and the other April Fools played their deadly prank 
-- a move absolutely guaranteed to lead to more violence and bloodshed 
-- one of the leading lights of the initial peaceful protests spoke out 
against the militarization of the resistance to the odious state regime. 
As AFP reports:

Fadwa Suleiman, an actress who became an icon of Syria's revolution, is 
furious that her country's peaceful protest movement has been drawn into 
armed conflict with the regime.  She said she is saddened to see that 
"the revolution is not going in the right direction, that it is becoming 
armed, that the opposition which wanted to resist peacefully is playing 
the game of the regime and that the country is heading for sectarian war".

...Suleiman became a high-profile member of the opposition movement last 
November when she appeared in footage from the rebel city of Homs that 
was broadcast on the Al-Jazeera television news network.

The 39-year-old actress, well known in her homeland for her work in 
theatre, films and television, belongs to the same Alawite religious 
minority as President Bashar al-Assad. She says that a major reason for 
her participation in the protests was to do her bit to stop any slide 
into a sectarian war between factions of the Sunni Muslim majority, 
Alawites or Christians.

...And that is why she is furious that those "who are arming the Syrian 
street are willing to do anything to take power in the same way that 
Bashar Al-Aaasad is ready to do anything to stay in power."
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