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This evening from Linux Beach in San Antonio:
Vijay Prashad's Syrian contradictions
<http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/09/vijay-prashads-syrian-contradictions.html>
Vijay Prashad's latest defense of Bashar al-Assad, *Obama’s Syrian
dilemma*
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/obamas-syrian-dilemma/article6416557.ece?homepage=true>,
is a bundle of contradictions . The only thing that holds it together
is his covert support for Assad.
Vijay say near the very beginning of his piece:
In Syria, IS faces three adversaries: Kurdish fighters, the Syrian
government and an assortment of the Syrian opposition.
This is a laugh, after all that has been written on this score, Vijay
still counts Assad as a force fighting ISIS in Syria. Sure there have
been a few outbreaks but on balance, Assad has been much more friend
than foe to ISIS.
The sad news this week is that ISIS has succeeded in taking 60
villages away from the badly out-gunned Syrian Kurdish forces and
sending another 60,000 of Assad's citizens fleeing across the border
to Turkey. The Kurds don't have an air force, but Assad does, well
supplied by Putin. So why was Assad's air force MIA, while ISIS took
another slice out of Syria? Were they too busy bombing Syrians
demanding democracy in Aleppo and Idlib? Vijay takes the position that
Obama should team up with Assad to battle ISIS in Syria, rather than
those who are really fighting ISIS. In fact, near the end of his piece
Vijay seems to contradicted himself when he excuses Assad's failure to
take the fight to ISIS with:
Mr. Assad will not throw his troops at the IS unless he has an
assurance that the rebellion against him is over.
So if Assad has yet to throw his troops at the IS [i.e. ISIS], while
the Free Syrian Army certainly has, in what sense is he an adversary
of IS, to be named ahead of those that have actually been fighting it?
This statement is also an admission that both Vijay and Assad know
that IS is not a part of the rebellion against him!
Vijay goes on to confuse rhetoric with reality when he speaks of:
Mr. Obama’s commitment to the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad
Based on what does he make this claim? Is it like Obama's
/"commitment"/ to a living wage, affordable healthcare, and clean
energy? If Obama has been so /"committed to the overthrow of Assad,"/
why is this morning's CNN headline /"US plans to arm Syrian rebels"/,
sometime in the future, 3.5 years into the conflict? V
*More...*
<http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/09/vijay-prashads-syrian-contradictions.html>
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