[Marxism] More from Postol

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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https://husseini.posthaven.com/ted-postol-updated-assessment-of-us-gov-claims-regarding-the-khan-shaykhun-syria

-- 
Best regards,

Andrew Stewart
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[Marxism] Fwd: Notes on the Global Condition: "Unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable"? How dangerous is the Sino-American economic imbalance? – ADAM TOOZE

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.adamtooze.com/2017/04/11/notes-global-condition-unstable-unbalanced-uncoordinated-unsustainable-dangerous-sino-american-economic-imbalance/
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Re: [Marxism] PYD: US bombing of airbase good, but it should bomb rebels too

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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Video evidence and a doctor's report on his patients' symptoms constitute 
strong evidence of the use of chlorine.  Amnesty is ultra-cautious in drawing a 
definite conclusion, but that does not mean the accusation is "spurious".

Chlorine is not as lethal as sarin.  But still, firing chlorine laden missiles 
into an urban neighbourhood is an attempt to terrorise the civilian population.

The use of chemical weapons was merely one aspect of the siege imposed on 
Sheikh Maqsoud by some reactionary rebel groups.

I won't comment on Salih Muslim's interview without seeing the full text.  I 
don't advocate US bombing as a response to rebel use of chemical weapons.

Chris Slee


From: Michael Karadjis 
Sent: Thursday, 13 April 2017 4:35:19 PM
To: Chris Slee; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: Re: [Marxism] PYD: US bombing of airbase good, but it should bomb 
rebels too

-Original Message-
From: Chris Slee

Readers can look at Amnesty International's report on the siege of
Sheikh Maqsoud (a predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Aleppo) by some
rebel groups and decide for themselves if the accusation is "spurious":

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/
...

Yes, we already had that discussion, so I'll just post it here again,
and then you tell me if this spurious accusation is in the same league
as Assad's sarin massacre and whether it justifies the PYD leader
calling for US air strikes on the rebels:

Amnesty:

"There are also **allegations** that members of armed groups attacking
Sheikh Maqsoud **may have** used chemical weapons. A local doctor told
Amnesty International that on 7 and 8 April he treated six civilians and
two YPG fighters for symptoms including shortness of breath, numbness,
red eyes and severe coughing fits. Several of the victims, he said,
reported seeing yellow smoke as missiles impacted. A toxicologist
consulted by Amnesty International, who viewed video-clips of the
apparent attack and reviewed the doctor’s testimony, said the patients’
symptoms **could be** the effects of a chlorine attack. A subsequent
statement purportedly issued by the leader of the Army of Islam armed
group said that a field commander had deployed an **“unauthorised
 weapon”** on Sheikh Maqsoud and that he would be held to account".
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/

Not sure that the only cause of “shortness of breath, numbness, red eyes
and severe coughing fits” is the use of chemical weapons. Lots of “may”,
“could” etc in this report for very good reason.

But the trouble with the bit about a Jaysh Islam leader disciplining a
northern field commander (JI is almost entirely a Damascus-based group)
for use of “weapons not authorized for use in these types of
confrontations” is that JI specified it was referring to “modified Grad
rockets, not chlorine:
https://twitter.com/islamalloush0/status/718121743949414403.


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Re: [Marxism] not so fast, Lars!

[Fred Murphy via Marxism]

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Barry, check out George Caffentzis, "Why Machines Cannot Create Value:
Marx’s Theory of Machines" from *In Letters of Blood and Fire*. PDF of
entire book available at
https://libcom.org/library/george-caffentzis-letters-blood-fire

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Barry Brooks via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> DW,
>
> Without labor all income would be profit. The limit of productivity is
> full unemployment, and the necessary transformation of the working
> class into owners.
>
> Marx would not be so slow to see the changes we face, but he was not
> a follower.
>
> Barry
>
> > Barry initiated an interesting digression...Barry believes our species to
> > be parasites. How interesting and indeed, anti-Marxist. That the root of
> > the labor theory of Value is that we, humanity, take nature, build tools,
> > and change our environment. Boo hoo. Back to the trees you scallywags
> > There is no hope!!! No, Marx allowed us to analyses capitalism.
> Everything
> > else is about how we use that analysis. There is no profit without labor,
> > regardless of what it is you automate. It just changes where that power
> of
> > the working class lies. I suggest as an intro probably the best peice of
> > Marxist analysis I've read in the last 5 years as a start before you
> start
> > raising he Green flag off that branch you are clearly sitting on.
> >
> > https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/logistics-industry-organizing-labor/
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Re: [Marxism] not so fast, Lars!

[Barry Brooks via Marxism]

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DW,

Without labor all income would be profit. The limit of productivity is
full unemployment, and the necessary transformation of the working 
class into owners.

Marx would not be so slow to see the changes we face, but he was not 
a follower.

Barry

> Barry initiated an interesting digression...Barry believes our species to
> be parasites. How interesting and indeed, anti-Marxist. That the root of
> the labor theory of Value is that we, humanity, take nature, build tools,
> and change our environment. Boo hoo. Back to the trees you scallywags
> There is no hope!!! No, Marx allowed us to analyses capitalism. Everything
> else is about how we use that analysis. There is no profit without labor,
> regardless of what it is you automate. It just changes where that power of
> the working class lies. I suggest as an intro probably the best peice of
> Marxist analysis I've read in the last 5 years as a start before you start
> raising he Green flag off that branch you are clearly sitting on.
> 
> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/logistics-industry-organizing-labor/
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Re: [Marxism] The Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria - Theodore Postol

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 4/13/17 10:17 AM, Andrew Stewart via Marxism wrote:


http://www.unz.com/article/the-nerve-agent-attack-in-khan-shaykhun-syria/




Postol is a joke. In the aftermath of the August 2013 Ghouta sarin gas 
attack, he began working with Maram Susli, "The Syrian Girl".


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/17/the-kardashian-look-a-like-trolling-for-assad.html

As the wrangling continued, Lloyd and Postol grew to rely on their new 
colleague, Susli. She was adamant in her assertions that the attack was 
carried out by the rebels in a “false flag” attack, designed to prompt 
American intervention. And she was no fan of Kaszeta and Higgins.
Susli, the one-time chemistry grad student, started helping Lloyd and 
Postol with research into hexamine. Armed with that research, Postol 
began emailing Kaszeta with questions about his hexamine analysis. 
Postol presented his outreach as simple academic curiosity about 
Kaszeta’s research. There was no mention of Susli’s involvement.
The email exchanges started out as cordial, if cold, but gradually grew 
more confrontational. Postol argued that the presence of hexamine at the 
attack site could be explained by the presence of the chemical in 
explosives of the warhead used to deliver the chemical weapons.
After a few volleys, Postol cc’ed “syriansis...@gmail.com” on a reply to 
Kaszeta. Things went quickly downhill from there.


After Susli boasted of her knowledge of nerve agents, Kaszeta warned 
Susli’s school, University of Western Australia, that she might be 
engaging in potentially dangerous research involving chemical warfare 
agents.”


Susli, in turn, threatened to sue. “.@DanKaszeta you have used racism 
and lies against me,” she later tweeted. “But I’m going to use chemistry 
to bury your career.”


And Postol rose to his new compatriot’s defense. “By all professional 
standards, and by all standards of courtesy, SyrianSister has 
distinguished herself as a consummate professional,” Postol wrote to 
Kaszeta. “You, on the other hand, have made an unbroken string of 
technically false claims.”


Then, Postol wrote to the FBI about Kaszeta, warning of the “potential 
criminal implications” of his accusations against Susli. “In addition to 
making a false claim of a terrorist activity… Mr. Kaszeta has also 
targeted Ms. Susli because she is a descendent of Syria,” Postol 
continued. “This raises further questions about whether the false report 
of terrorism also qualifies as a hate crime.”


So far, there’s no public evidence of FBI follow-up. But the letter was 
nonetheless a notable development. The esteemed MIT professor, whose 
previous, deeply reported analyses had caused governments to rethink 
their multibillion-dollar missile defense systems, was now defending a 
grad student who took it as fact that, as she put it, “the U.S. 
government has been experimenting on Ebola as a biological weapon.”

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[Marxism] The Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria - Theodore Postol

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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http://www.unz.com/article/the-nerve-agent-attack-in-khan-shaykhun-syria/


Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
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[Marxism] Help on a meeting about Ukraine

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A Ukrainian who has written from a Euromaidan/Marxist perspective will 
be in NYC from April 19-25. If there are any student activists on 
Marxmail who would be willing to line up a room and do some publicity, 
it would be most appreciated. Please contact me privately: l...@panix.com



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Re: [Marxism] PYD: US bombing of airbase good, but it should bomb rebels too

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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It's not very clear how accurately these quotes that Rudaw.net presents
from Salih Muslim from an apparent interview with Voice of America - no
such interview seems to be on the VOA website - represents his views. It is
from a news source based in an authoritarian statelet run by billionaire
gangsters intensely hostile to Rojava. It's even less clear from the two
almost identical summaries of the Rudaw article on other sites that Michael
seems to think supports the veracity of the report. All they show is how
anyone can select quotes and take out qualifications, which is what they
do.

It doesn't seem likely likely that Rudaw just made this up or that it's as
egregious a distortion as their previous total stitch-up of Muslim as
supporting ethnic cleansing, which Chris referred to, as Muslim has made
comments before seemingly supportive of US intervention. But it's also not
clear to what extent these are genuine illusions in US imperialism on his
part, and what extent they are diplomatic noises, a bit like Fidel saying
to US audiences he was for "Jeffersonian democracy" in the 50s.

Anyway I think the following from an article published today might be more
representative of the views of PYD cadres:

> "Berxwedan ashes his cigarette and recalls the final days of the battle
that saw the so-called Islamic State expelled from this Kurdish city of
resistance. He is visibly upset by my question about the so-called
‘international community’ (i.e United States) wanting to claim the glory in
this struggle, saying ‘The international powers ignored what was taking
place here until only a tiny section of the city was still left in our
control. Then they intervened at last – not for us in the YPG and YPJ, but
for both their geostrategic interests and because they themselves perhaps
finally saw the danger to Daesh could pose even to them. But we know they
didn’t give us air support because they actually support our struggle. They
certainly don’t support us politically. That hasn’t changed more than two
years later.’

"Newroz chimes in, talking about how the western powers ignoring the battle
of Kobane provoked ‘a lot of anger’. She also insists, ‘how dare they try
to take the credit for the liberation of Kobane when they have contributed
nothing to the rebuilding of the city?’"

http://kurdishquestion.com/article/3888-the-epic-resistance-of-kobane-21st-century-stalingrad-rises-from-the-rubble
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Re: [Marxism] PYD: US bombing of airbase good, but it should bomb rebels too

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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-Original Message- 
From: Chris Slee


Readers can look at Amnesty International's report on the siege of 
Sheikh Maqsoud (a predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Aleppo) by some 
rebel groups and decide for themselves if the accusation is "spurious":


https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/
...

Yes, we already had that discussion, so I'll just post it here again, 
and then you tell me if this spurious accusation is in the same league 
as Assad's sarin massacre and whether it justifies the PYD leader 
calling for US air strikes on the rebels:


Amnesty:

"There are also **allegations** that members of armed groups attacking 
Sheikh Maqsoud **may have** used chemical weapons. A local doctor told 
Amnesty International that on 7 and 8 April he treated six civilians and 
two YPG fighters for symptoms including shortness of breath, numbness, 
red eyes and severe coughing fits. Several of the victims, he said, 
reported seeing yellow smoke as missiles impacted. A toxicologist 
consulted by Amnesty International, who viewed video-clips of the 
apparent attack and reviewed the doctor’s testimony, said the patients’ 
symptoms **could be** the effects of a chlorine attack. A subsequent 
statement purportedly issued by the leader of the Army of Islam armed 
group said that a field commander had deployed an **“unauthorised 
weapon”** on Sheikh Maqsoud and that he would be held to account".

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/

Not sure that the only cause of “shortness of breath, numbness, red eyes 
and severe coughing fits” is the use of chemical weapons. Lots of “may”, 
“could” etc in this report for very good reason.


But the trouble with the bit about a Jaysh Islam leader disciplining a 
northern field commander (JI is almost entirely a Damascus-based group) 
for use of “weapons not authorized for use in these types of 
confrontations” is that JI specified it was referring to “modified Grad 
rockets, not chlorine: 
https://twitter.com/islamalloush0/status/718121743949414403. 


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Re: [Marxism] PYD: US bombing of airbase good, but it should bomb rebels too

[John Edmundson via Marxism]

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Chris Slee writes:


   Michael Karadjis claims that Saleh Muslim made a "spurious assertion
   about an alleged use of chlorine" by the rebels.

   Readers can look at Amnesty International's report on the siege of
   Sheikh Maqsoud (a predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Aleppo) by some
   rebel groups and decide for themselves if the accusation is "spurious":


   
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/syria-armed-opposition-groups-committing-war-crimes-in-aleppo-city/

   This amnesty article includes the following, which suggests that on one
   isolated occasion a chemical weapon was used: I would suspect from the
   context that someone found and used one, and was being dealt with for it,
   although what that means is anyone's guess. It's still comparing apples and
   oranges (or watermelons and grapes) to liken this one incident to the
   regime's record.
  "A toxicologist consulted by Amnesty International, who viewed
  video-clips of the apparent attack and reviewed the doctor’s testimony,
  said the patients’ symptoms could be the effects of a chlorine attack. A
  subsequent statement purportedly issued by the leader of the
Army of Islam
  armed group said that a field commander had deployed an “unauthorised
  weapon” on Sheikh Maqsoud and that he would be held to account."
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