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In keeping with its pro-Assad editorial outlook, the London Review of Books gave Hugh Roberts the job of reviewing a number of books about Syria. Titled “The Hijackers”, it makes the case that the revolution was “hijacked” by jihadists from the get-go and lost its legitimacy as soon as it became “militarized”. Responding to the words of an SNC spokesperson that “nobody wants a war”, Roberts counters with “Plenty of people wanted a war”, most particularly Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Roberts has never written a single scholarly article about Syria. His specialty is Algeria and especially the brutal civil war in which the governing FLN suppressed an Islamist uprising in a sort of foreshadowing of what is taking place now in Syria. In an article for Socialist Register, Roberts faulted Noam Chomsky for believing “The Algerian government is in office because it blocked the democratic election in which it would have lost to mainly Islamic-based groups. That set off the current fighting.”
Well, when the elections took place in December 1991, the Islamist FIS won 189 seats in parliament while the ruling dictatorship’s party got 16 seats. Soon afterwards, the dictatorship decided that the elections were not to its liking and began ruling by the fiat and the fist once again. Thomas Friedman saw the wisdom of the ruling party’s decision by darkly warning about the problem of “freely elected tyrants” in Algeria—those parties that admire Ayatollah Khomeini, not the goons in uniform.
full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/07/12/hugh-roberts-ideological-defense-attorney-for-a-torture-state/
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