[Peace-discuss] Angry Arab on Chomsky on Syria

[David Green]

Chomsky, as you know, spoke out against any Western military intervention.  But what bothered me about this interview with him is that he basically adopted the dominant Western governmental discourse about events in Syria: that the regime responded brutally to demonstrations (which it did) and then suddenly overnight the peaceful demonstrators became armed revolutionaries.  Chomsky should go back to the early birth of the Fee Syrian Army, which indicated early on that it is not the same as the civilian population: it claimed that it was being formed to defend the civilian population. The notion that civilians became armed groups or Jihadi over night is not credible.  There is also in such a narrative no mention of the role of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in forming armed militant groups from early on, prior to the eruption of the Syrian uprising and along with it.  
 
http://www.angryarab.blogspot.com/2013/09/chomsky-on-syria.html
 
 
 
____________________
 
 
I don't know who Chomsky talks to learn about the Syrian non-revolution and I don't know what he is relying on to follow-up developments on Syria but he seems to me woefully ill-informed.  I am quite displeased with his analysis here.  The worst part is when he draws an analogy to the Vietcong.  Vietcong?  The Syrian rebels are reactionary and conservative and anti-revolutionary forces (and I am talking about the armed bands of the Free Syrian Army which the US considers "moderate" and not about the obvious right-wing reactionaries of the Jihadi groups) and can't be compared to communist liberation movements.  To Chomsky I say: the Syrian rebels are the Contras of Syria, and not the Sandinistas of Syria.  And also, it is not a coincidence that Prince Bandar, who had helped fund the Contras--as Chomsky remembers--is the same man who is now organizing all funding and arming for the Syrian rebels.  I don't want to invoke analogies too much because I
 detest the Asad regime much more than I dislike the Sandinistas, especially Ortega.  So I am on board in considering the Asad regime also a counter-revolutionary regime and his regime is not revolutionary like the Sandinistas when they came to power. But the Syrian rebels (supported and armed by the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, US, France, Germany, UK among other non-progressive forces) have to be considered for what they are: counter-revolutionary forces who are responsible for the GCC hijacking of a potential revolution in Syria.   Chomsky should realize that the real leftists of Syria (not the leftists who receive orders from Prince Bandar, like Michel Kilu) are represented by the likes of Haytham Al-Manna` who oppose GCC intervention and the rebel groups and the regime.
 
http://www.angryarab.blogspot.com/2013/09/chomsky-and-syrian-rebels.html  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20130903/444ba23a/attachment.html>