Fw from David McReynolds: Syria piece

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David McReynolds 
To: Joanne Landy 
Cc: Bruce Cronin ; 'CCDS Members' ; ufpj-activist 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: Syria piece


And here it is - sending it also to my EdgeLeft list. I look forward to the issue.

Friends, Joanne Landy, of New Poliitics, is running a symposium on Syria and asked for my comments, They follow.

Syria: what is to be done?

We know that the war in Syria - which is a civil war, not a revolution - is profoundly tragic, with over 100,000 dead, with tens upon tens of thousands of people fleeing into neighboring countries. I'm baffled that the left seems in confusion. I know there are some on what might be called the "hard left"  (I'd be inclined to call it the thick headed left) who see Assad and his regime to be socialists under assault, including, by one recent statement, by Israel. (I have no idea what Israel will do - it's foreign policy is brutal and clumsy but not usually insane - I doubt very much the Israeli generals, much as they may hate Assad, want to risk trading a relatively peaceful border for one under the control of extreme Islamists). And I'm aware that another part of the left seems to feel that we must intervene (a small segment of the left, but one we heard from on Libya as well).

At least I know how little I know about Israel. I have never been there, nor made a study of it. (Unlike Libya, about which I did know something, and where I think US/NATO policy was dishonest). I know Assad has run a brutal regime. I also know that he does have some genuine popular support (my source for this is the New York Times). And I know that at this time, the rebels are in retreat and Assad is gaining the upper hand in a military sense. It may well be that Syria cannot be "put back together", that a Rubicon has been crossed in terms of bloodshed. I know there are deep religious divisions in Syria (not, I think, the cause of the trouble, but, once the trouble begins, then, as with Iraq, they take on a terrible life of their own).

Most of all I don't think there is anything the left can or should do except profoundly and totally oppose any military aid to the rebels, and give all possible support to negotiations. Some things to keep in mind. Lebanon had a similarly bloody civil war which continued until it finally simply ran out of steam. The US had a civil war which, considering how small our population was, took a terrible toll. More Americans lost their lives in our civil war than were lost in the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War all put together!!!

We do know (even if, as with me, we don't know much) that there were some decent, secular, democratic forces involved in the original uprising against Assad. We can seek to maintain contact with them, even as we categorically refuse to send military aid, either overtly or covertly. (Here, as so often, I would urge those who feel we need to send military aid to find a way to go there and join the fight - I'm sure the rebels would rejoice in a few English speaking radicals willing to carry guns, and I'd suggest that those in the hard left who think Assad must be defended to take similar action - put their bodies where their slogans are).

I'm disturbed by the shallow level of some of the discussion. We have heard of possible use of poison gas by Assad - though of late that charge seems to have lost steam. For Americans to raise the question of chemical war is in poor taste, since we were teachers in this area, not only with tear gas, but with the enriched uranium littering the battle fields of Iraq, and the terrible toll agent orange took of the Vietnamese (and of Americans serving in that war).
It is in particularly poor taste for the Americans to raise this, given the "covert" role we played in helping Saddam use poison gas against the Kurds and the Iranians.

And speaking of Saddam, and bloodshed, and the need to intervene for "humanitarian reasons" in Syria, I do not remember one word from the White House during the terrible war Iraq launched against Iran and which took the lives of a half million young men on each side over the course of that war. On the contrary, the US was delighted to see Iran under military attack.

As a pacifist I would not fight in this or any war - some would say a cheap way out. But I can distinguish between and among wars. If ever there was a just war, it was that of the Vietnamese people against the US, and if ever there might have been reason for a Security Council decision to establish a no-fly zone, it would have been there, against the US. I think all of us who are now old would say the Spanish Civil War was also a just war, and we salute those who fought there in defense of the Republic. We can say, of the Israeli attacks on Gaza and on Lebanon, that while they were not attacking secular, democratic forces, they were engaged in barbaric attacks on civilian populations,  and involved the use of white phosphorus. I'll take the "humanitarians" in the State Department seriously when they speak out in defense of the Palestinians.

But most of all - granting how terrible this war is, and how unjust it is for its impact on the civilians - have we not learned by now that one cannot count on an imperial power to act with democratic and humanitarian concerns? Have we forgotten how, in Indochina, the US sold out the Viet Minh, with whom we had been working, and turned that area back over to the colonial control of France?

No military aid to the rebels. A curse on all who send in weapons, whether Russia, Iran, or Hezbollah or, as some seem to forget, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States which have been so eager to fund the rebels but are totally opposed to democratic and secular movements in their own territory. What has happened to that part of the left which seems to think the US has a positive role to play in these areas?

Let me close by noting of the voices in the State Department for some form of humanitarian "aid" that they represent an armed and oppressive state which invaded Iraq without reason, has laid waste to Afghanistan and has given Israel unconditional support. They have lost the right to speak in moral terms. Silence would become them very well. Or, at the least, serious work with Russia for an international conference to bring the warring parties to the table.

                              - 30 -



On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 3:41 PM, Joanne Landy <[email protected]> wrote:

  I will be sure to give it to our relay team of proofers :-)


  At 02:40 PM 8/6/2013, you wrote:

    And let's hope someone can proof read the text so we are not protesting the civilians in Syria.

    David

    On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 9:22 AM, Joanne Landy <[email protected]> wrote:

      Hi David,

      Thanks! Looking forward to receiving it.

      All the best,

      Joanne

      At 03:39 AM 8/6/2013, you wrote:

        Hope to do it tomorrow (today) Nothing deep - to me it seems very obvious. This isn't the Spanish Republic where we had to take sides, or Vietnam, where the UN should have enforced a no fly zone against the US (and perhpas sent in a UN military force to protest civilians from the US


        On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 1:27 AM, Joanne Landy <[email protected]> wrote: 
          Hi David, 
          Checking in about your Syria piece. 
          Best, 
          Joanne



            Have been without a computer for more than two weeks - but am back, and resuming operation. To the international list 
            david 
            On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Rick Kissell <[email protected]> wrote: 
              Communist Party makes a comeback ... in Japan 
              by Gavin Blair 
              The Christian Science Monitor 
              8/5/13 
              A smiling, smartly attired 30-year-old woman sits at an expansive table in a meeting room decorated with simple elegance on the fourth floor of a modern office building in central Tokyo. 
              Only the sunflower broach – an anti-nuclear symbol – on the woman’s suit, and perhaps that the large calligraphy scroll on the wall behind her that isn’t hung perfectly straight, betray the fact that this isn’t a scene from corporate Japan. Yoshiko Kira doesn’t look like she intends to dismantle capitalism, but this is the headquarters of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and she is one of its rising stars, and that’s her plan. 
              When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party cemented its grip on power with a victory in the upper house elections on July 21, the unlikely other winners were the Communists. Ms. Kira was one of the party’s newly elected lawmakers who saw the JCP raise its representation in the House of Councilors from six seats to 11, giving it a large enough bloc to propose legislation. She was the first Communist to win in the five-seat Tokyo constituency in 12 years, while another young JCP candidate won in Osaka, the party’s first victory there in 15 years. Overall, the Communists came in second to the ruling party in terms of votes collected in Japan’s two giant metropolises. 
              How?  Part of the reason has to do with the deterioration of the main political parties. 
              DISARRAY 
              What had been the main opposition, the left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan – which spent three years in government until its defeat in December's general election – is in almost utter disarray. 
              Two of the founding members have left the party, while the third, Naoto Kan – the prime minister at the time of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters – has just been suspended from the party for three months after supporting an independent candidate in the recent election. Some voters appeared to have seen the Communists as the only party able to counterbalance the nationalism of the Abe administration and its talk of amending Japan’s pacifist Constitution. 
              Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso caused consternation in some quarters this week when he appeared to suggest, during a speech to a conservative think tank, that the current controversy around the constitution could have been avoided if Japan had changed it in secret, as was done in Nazi Germany.   
              “When I was a child there were a lot of books in my house with pictures of the war and the atomic bombing. I used to worry that planes flying overhead might be carrying bombs. Then one day my mother told me that Japan can’t have wars anymore because of the Constitution, and I thought I was lucky to be born in this country,” Kira says. “But now the Abe government wants to change the Constitution so that Japan can start wars again.” 
              “It’s not just about war. When I was looking for work I applied to a large number of companies, and was told during interviews that hiring a woman was a risk. I realized there were many things about Japanese society that need changing,” says Kira. 
              ONLINE MASCOT CHARACTERS 
              Founded in 1922, the JCP is the oldest political party in Japan, and has enjoyed constant representation in parliament for longer than any other. But until recently, its image was one of older activists and it struggled to attract younger voters. 
              July's elections were the first in Japan where online campaigning was permitted, and it was the JCP that is widely seen as having made best use of it. As well as savvy leveraging of social networks and video streaming platforms, the party created a series of online mascot characters that addressed individual issues such as the planned consumption tax hike, shady business practices, the heavy US military presence on Okinawa, and constitutional change. 
              “We were able to use the Net to reach out to younger people, many of whom don’t read newspapers or watch TV much. Through the characters, we could communicate issues simply and appeal to young voters,” says party spokesperson Toshio Ueki, who reports that the characters’ webpages got 1.5 million hits in the weeks before the poll. 
              While the party has embraced new technology in its campaigning, it can still lay claim to a consistency in both policy and personnel that sets it apart from other parties in Japan. Kazuo Shii has led the party since 2000, during which time Japan has seen nine different prime ministers. And while some politicians have turned anti-nuclear since the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant, the JCP was always against nuclear power. 
              'REFRESHING' 
              “One of the appeals of the Communists has been the clarity and consistency in their pledges; people find it refreshing,” suggests Takashi Inoguchi, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo. “It’s healthy for the political development of the country that there is a party that is at least clear in what they say, whether you agree with their positions or not.” 
              Although Japan is not yet on the road to a workers’ paradise, having struck a chord with the electorate, the JCP may now have the opportunity to establish itself as the most cohesive opposition to the current government. 
              “If we did take power, the JCP wouldn’t try to implement a Communist economy immediately. It would require huge changes and we would seek the support of the people for each step,” Kira says. “And we would want to use the best parts of the current economic system, too.”






              http://news.yahoo.com/communist-party-makes-comeback-japan-134436281.html