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On 1/11/17 5:08 PM, Nick Fredman wrote:
https://www.greenleft.org.au/glw-authors/tony-iltis. On my phone on the
tram to work it's true but I think what I say here is pretty
accurate. Up to the end of 2014 at least his articles included
Nice evasion of the "warlords and bandits" complaint I lodged. I was
hoping that you might substantiate it. At least Tony took the trouble of
citing journalists who despised the rebels.
But how little is left of the local committees and "civil society" or
how much of a national-democratic character to the armed struggle is
left is unclear to me. Noting the importance of the "increasing
marginalisation" as Leila Shami puts it of democratic and progressive
aspects of the uprising, or the decisive shift in balance between FSA
and Islamist groups — not just those with an Islamic name, but with
reactionary, far right-wing, sectarian politics — in the armed struggle,
is hardly unique to Tony Itlis. It's what Jonathon Littel observed
starting in 2012 in Homs and has analysed since, it's what Theo Padnos
found when purported FSA units and supporters twice handed him over to
al Nusra to be tortured between 2012 and 2014, it's what Syrian
journalists writing in Tahrir-ICN relayed by Tony have expressed.
I happened to have seen the documentary on Padnos so I am very familiar
with his story. His tale is quite chilling but it really does not give
you a sense of the broader political relationships in Syria. And even
more troubling, he does not even attempt to analyze why the FSA would
have taken such an obviously hostile measure against someone who had
risked life and limb to go to Syria to report positively on them. In six
years of brutal civil war, this is the only incident of the FSA treating
a Western reporter--and one committed to their cause--so poorly. In the
documentary, Padnos almost makes it sound like they were just sadists
without any politics as he indicated in a long NY Times article that
follows the same narrative as the film:
->Ten minutes later, the F.S.A. officers returned, accompanied by my
kidnappers, and I was trundled into a car and taken to an F.S.A. safe
house. There I was placed in a hole in the ground. Was I six feet below
the surface? Only three? I didn’t know. Officers threw dirt on me,
laughing and shouting insults. Someone jumped down and landed on my
chest. Someone else beat me with the butt of his Kalashnikov. One
officer insisted that I reply to his questions by yelling out, “I am
filth, sir!”<-
There is not a single word in this article that even hinted at why the
F.S.A would behave so sadistically. There's much more about Padnos's
imprisonment that I could comment on but I don't have time right now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html
I can't say, however, that I surprised that Nick would cherry-pick this
incident.
--
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