[Peace-discuss] Fw: [ufpj-activist] [syriadiscussion:4706] US regime change effort in Syria pre-dates Arab Spring

[Karen Aram]

Obviously no one is watching AWARE, reading my FB postings or info. on the Peace List.  Thank you to Bob Naiman for this information.

AWARE members please read the string.


________________________________
From: ufpj-activist <ufpj-activist-bounces+karenaram=hotmail.com at lists.mayfirst.org> on behalf of Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 11:15 AM
To: Ramah Kudaimi
Cc: UFPJ Activist List; syriadiscussion; Bill Fletcher Jr; Raed Jarrar
Subject: Re: [ufpj-activist] [syriadiscussion:4706] US regime change effort in Syria pre-dates Arab Spring

"But the problem is there is plenty of talk about Syria in US peace circles"

Is there? I'm not seeing that much. When was the last time anyone did an alert on Syria?

There is a tendency for some folks to talk temporarily about whatever is on the TV and/or whatever involves military force, even if they can't do anything about it. If North Korea fires a missile, there is a flurry of talk about it, even though we can't do anything about it. If China were to conduct a big military operation in Tibet, there would be a flurry of discussion about it, even though we couldn't do anything to affect it. I think this may be similar. Discussion without action has little consequence.




Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org>

Just Foreign Policy<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy to serve the interests and reflect the values of the broad majority of Americans, rather than those of special interests ...



naiman at justforeignpolicy.org<mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
(202) 448-2898 x1

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 9:43 AM, Ramah Kudaimi <rkudaimi at gmail.com<mailto:rkudaimi at gmail.com>> wrote:

But the problem is there is plenty of talk about Syria in US peace circles and the idea that we in the US can somehow only focus on the role of the US and its allies in Syria is extremely problematic when it is the regime and its backers that are the main issue. And what does all this mean after so many US peace groups spent time and energy on and Iran deal that has frankly allowed Iran to double down on its support for the regime?

And when we share news that is not news about US wanting regime change in Syria that feeds into Assad's propaganda and ignores reality of US policy in past 10 years, we cannot use excuse we are only concerned with US side of things. We are helping propogate lies that help the regime.

On Feb 16, 2016 10:31 AM, "Robert Naiman" <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org<mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>> wrote:
I think there are two different issues here which it would be useful to keep distinct.

One is: there are folks on the left in the U.S. who have/promote a one-dimensional "U.S. hands off Syria" view of the conflict and tend to be very close to, maybe even echoing, Russian government and Syrian government accounts of the conflict.

This is not a new problem. Folks of a certain age will remember that in 1990-1991, there was a "split in the U.S. anti-war movement" in the run-up to the First Gulf War, which, very controversially, resulted in two "national anti-war marches" in DC on successive weekends rather than one, because the groups that try to move the ball in Washington, like Peace Action, insisted that condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (a blatant violation of international law) had to be part of the march platform, whereas the International Action Center and the other Trotskyist and Maoist groups gathered around it (which later became the ANSWER coalition) insisted that no condemnation of Saddam Hussein could be part of the program of the march. As I remember it, the Peace Action side of the dispute took a lot of hits on the left for refusing to "unify" under the banner of the International Action Center and the Trots.

These dynamics continue in different forms and are certainly annoying. But it's not obvious how significant they are, how much attention should be paid to them. If you think Jill Stein is really important, maybe you think these dynamics are really important. If you think Jill Stein is a tree in the forest that will make no sound when it falls, maybe these dynamics are not so important.

The other issue is the apparent "silence" of other groups not in this camp about e.g. Russian atrocities in Syria. So, for example, when the U.S. blew up an MSF hospital in Afghanistan, some folks (not everyone!) did alerts backing MSF's demand for an independent investigation. (AFAIK, there has been no independent investigation yet.) Now, it seems likely that Russia has blown up an MSF hospital in Syria. Where are the U.S. alerts demanding an independent investigation?

There, I think the main answer is: to whom shall we target our alert? Speaking for JFP, when we do alerts, we do alerts targeting the U.S. government. That's our scope; almost everyone on our lists is in the U.S. So, for example, recently the UN working group on arbitrary detention found that Julian Assange is arbitrarily detained in London. So, some people came to us and said: you've done stuff on Julian and WikiLeaks. Can you do something on this? Sure, we said. We can do this:

Respect UN, Drop US Espionage Case Against Julian Assange
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/respect-un-free-assange

Some of the people said: oh. We were hoping you would do something targeting the UK and Swedish governments.

Out of our scope, we said. We target the U.S. government. If you want someone to target the UK and Swedish governments, you need someone else to do that.

OK, you could say. Do something about the apparent Russian blowing up of the MSF hospital in Syria that targets the U.S. government.

But if you try to think about how we would do this, the absurdity of the thing is immediately apparent six ways from Sunday.

Shall we ask the U.S. government to lead the charge for an independent investigation, after the U.S. refused an independent investigation of the U.S. bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan? And, in fact, after pretty much nobody in the U.S. cared a fig about the U.S. bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan? It would be a bad cartoon.

Another reason it would be absurd is this: it's totally obvious that there's no juice in the U.S. for any concern about what's happening to civilians in Syria, unless it could serve as a justification for increased U.S. military intervention. This is the key reason that reaction in the U.S. is so muted right now. If Lindsey Graham and John McCain thought they could use current events to successfully argue for increased U.S. military intervention, they would be screaming. But they seem to have given up. They got marginalized in the Republican Party - Trump and Cruz, civil war intervention skeptics, are leading the pack - they got marginalized in Pentagon circles, and the general view of analysts is that militarily in Syria, the game is over and the armed rebels have lost. So, there's not much margin for the Republican interventionists to scream about Syria now.

This is key context of the "silence." The world is full of stuff that we're "silent" about, if there's nothing plausible to do. My email inbox is full of atrocities happening in different corners of the U.S. empire, about which we are not doing alerts. Why? We can't do them all, and most of them look totally hopeless. So, in the set of atrocities, we try to pick the ones about which we can say, "Maybe there's a plausible story that this one is not totally hopeless; maybe there's a plausible story that we could do something about this."

===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org>
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org<mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
(202) 448-2898 x1<tel:%28202%29%20448-2898%20x1>

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 9:15 PM, Raed Jarrar <RJarrar at afsc.org<mailto:RJarrar at afsc.org>> wrote:
Excellent questions by Bill. I've been thinking about the same issue.

Today, Russia seems to have bombed 5 hospitals in Syria, and there is a video showing what appears to be Russian cluster bombs dropped on residential areas in Aleppo.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3447933/Two-hospitals-school-destroyed-air-strikes-Syria-killing-three-children-11-Turkey-accuses-Russia-acting-like-terrorist-organisation.html

I've been very critical of US interventions in the region, but I am also against Russian, Iranian or other interventions as well.

I understand we have a different moral and politician obligation when our own government is committing atrocities, but it seems that the silence surrounding other interventions, in some cases, is due to implicit support to one side of the conflict.

Even mourning the victims of violence seems to be one sided. I haven't seen many tears shed over the victims of ISIS attacks in Saudi Arabia and Turkey --- or even those falling daily inside Iraq and Syria. I haven't seen many covering the war crimes and mass killings committed by the Syrian and Iraqi governments against their own people either.


Raed Jarrar
Government Relations Manager
Office of Public Policy and Advocacy
American Friends Service Committee
1822 R St NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 483-3341 Ext 103<tel:%28202%29%20483-3341%20Ext%20103>
-------- Original message --------
From: Bill Fletcher Jr <billfletcherjr at gmail.com<mailto:billfletcherjr at gmail.com>>
Date: 2/12/2016 09:00 (GMT-05:00)
To: National Coordinator Emeritus <m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org<mailto:m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org>>
Cc: UFPJ Activist List <ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org<mailto:ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org>>, syriadiscussion at googlegroups.com<mailto:syriadiscussion at googlegroups.com>, nosyriaintervention at lists.riseup.net<mailto:nosyriaintervention at lists.riseup.net>
Subject: Re: [syriadiscussion:4669] US regime change effort in Syria pre-dates Arab Spring

So, the question is why is this appearing now in the midst of a significant intervention by Russia and Iran?  Why is it that so few of us on the Left have anything to say about the Russian and Iranian intervention?  When one looks at the Russian bombing what more needs to be said.

Mike:  I am not criticizing you.  I am just asking questions.

Fletcher

On Wednesday, February 10, 2016, National Coordinator Emeritus <m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org<mailto:m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org>> wrote:
What US Congress Researchers Reveal About Washington’s Designs on Syria

https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/what-us-congress-researchers-reveal-about-washingtons-designs-on-syria/

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