Stanley Heller is Administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace and host of the TV news magazine “The Struggle.” He’s author of “Zionist Betrayal of Jews: From Herzl to Netanyahu” and hosts the TV program “TheStruggle”. See https://thestrugglevideo.org Contact him: mail@thestruggle.org
Recently a group called the “Hands Off Syria Coalition” disrupted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth in Grand Central Station that was done to honor the White Helmets group. The White Helmets, of course, are rescue workers in Syria, of whom 140 have lost their lives while digging out victims of the Syrian regime and of Russian bombs.
After tens of thousands of young people rushed to the streets to denounce Trump’s election, “Sanderista” Tulsi Gabbard’s made different kind of headlines. She answered Donald Trump’s call and went to a vetting meeting. Yes, after the election all the Democrat pols gave the usual clichés about cooperation with Trump on certain matters, as if Trump were just some other Republican. That’s bad enough, but this was something more. Gabbard was actually looking to join the Trump Administration. She denies it. She ludicrously claims this was just a meeting to talk about Syria and the need for peace. As if “peace” was uppermost in Trump’s mind now. As if he wasn’t spending all his time visiting Alt-Right sewers and billionaire clubs to staff his cabinet.
A refreshing, unconventional view, with none of the usual leftist idolizing of Castro. We talk about Fidel's popularity in Cuba among the older generation, his success in standing for Cubans against U.S. designs, the dictatorial power he seized and some of the huge moves he made in Africa, some good, some awful (Eritrea, Syria, Ortega's Nicaragua today).
It’s painful to read Scott Ritter’s “The ‘White Helmets’ and the Inherent Contradiction of America’s Syria Policy” and see him joining the ranks of the conspiracists on Syria.
They say that generals usually prepare for the last war. This has happened to the peace movement, too. The anti-war coalitions in the U.S. and UK are acting as if this was 2003 and everyone need to focus on Western imperial adventures. Instead circumstances are quite different. The main carnage right now has little to do with “the Empire”. A dictator from a family dynasty is using his entire military, every weapon the country owns, to bring a nation to heel. He’s assisted (and in some ways commanded) by foreign powers, one semi-fascist, the other a theocracy. The larger anti-war organizations and coalitions have nothing to say or bleat “Our main responsibility is to criticize our own government’s abuses” or airily call for all foreign forces to stop intervening. (There are also the unspeakable organizations licking the dictator’s boot in the name of “anti-imperialism”.)
The uprising and fighting in Syria have gone on for over five years and your platform doesn’t say a word about it. Delegates to this weekend’s convention, how about adding these five sentences?
The New Politics Summer 2023 issue is now in the hands of subscribers, featuring articles on the left in Cuba and Puerto Rico, interviews with Kavita Krishnan and Jesse Hagopian, review essays by Kim Moody and Carl Mirra, and much, much more. Articles will be gradually released on the web.
