The petty-bourgeois “left” promotes the CIA war in Syria

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Saturday April 13, 2013 11:10 by fred

For those of you following events in Syria, WSWS has an interesting analysis of how the "petty bourgeois" left has given it's support to a CIA backed coup by right wing religious fundamentalists in Syria. Worth a read.

Quote:
The ISO’s fantasy that Syrians are now experimenting with radical forms of self-government under the jackboot of ultra-right, sectarian Islamist militias armed by the CIA is ludicrous. Syrian workers in opposition-controlled areas are either simply trying to survive as Islamist guerrillas loot their workplaces, schools, and homes, or are actively protesting the opposition’s thuggery.

A series of interviews in the Guardian with opposition militia forces in Aleppo last December laid out the basic character of the Islamist militias, which plunder the population for cash to buy CIA weapons. One militia commander said, “I liberate an area, I need resources and ammunition, so I start looting government properties. When this is finished, I turn to looting other properties and I become a thief.”

Another opposition official noted the death of an opposition fighter, Abu Jameel, in a fight with other militias over how to divide the loot from the seizure of a steel warehouse. He said, “To be killed because of a feud over loot is a disaster for the revolution. It is extremely sad. There is not one government institution or warehouse left standing in Aleppo. Everything has been looted. Everything is gone.”

Given Aleppo’s role as the center of Syria’s state-run pharmaceutical industry, the opposition’s raids on factories and other state facilities have had a devastating impact. Critical medicines are running out, notably diabetes medications and antibiotics. State flights carrying vaccines into Syria have been shot at, and chlorine for water purification is banned for import by the imperialist powers under the pretext that Assad could use it to create chemical weapons—resulting in a spread of water-borne diseases.

Abdul-Jabbar Akidi, a former Syrian army colonel and a leading official in the opposition’s military council in Aleppo, confessed that there is deep popular hostility in Aleppo to his forces: “Even the people are fed up with us. We were liberators, but now they denounce us and demonstrate against us.”

Another Quote:
"The ISO’s presentation of CIA-backed Islamic fundamentalists as defenders of women’s rights is absurd and repugnant. Should Al Qaeda-type forces conquer Syria with US and Saudi help, Syrian women—who largely lived in modern conditions under the secular Assad regime—will be forced to live under conditions like those faced by women under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or in Saudi Arabia. There, women are considered legal minors and are denied basic rights, including the right to drive a car.

As it turns out, the Aleppo women activists the ISO cynically held up as examples of the opposition’s supposedly progressive character have not fared well. “In early March, the revolutionary local council in Aleppo was elected and didn’t include a single woman, despite some well-known female activists being nominated,” the ISO writes, complacently adding: “So there is—like everywhere in the world—some distance to go before women have equality in Syria.”

full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/12/isos-a12.html