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Celebrating Syria

by Berry Friesen (August 31 , 2017)

We anti-imperialists don’t often have cause for cheer.  These days we have one.

Against all odds, Syria has beat back a 6-year assault by the US-led empire and its proxy Salafist militias. Syria’s future as an independent, self-governing, secular nation is no longer in doubt. It will remain a place where Muslims and Christians of all kinds live together in peace.

So say a prayer of thanks to your god today (as I have to mine) for saving Syria—its people, its government and its leader, Bashar al-Assad.  And promise yourself to learn more about the remarkable people of Syria, who confounded the entire world by hanging together across lines of tribe, ethnicity, class and religion through years of horrible violence, excruciating pressure and overwhelming odds.

For a thumbnail history of the war, see here.

All ISIS forces have been defeated and removed from the western regions along the border with Lebanon and from the suburbs east of Damascus. Al-Qaeda-led mercenaries in Idlib (the northwest province of Syria) are encircled and effectively confined. ISIS-led mercenaries in central Syria—just north of Palmyra—are similarly surrounded and contained. Along the Iraqi border—west of the Euphrates River—the Syrian Army is closing in on ISIS forces making a last stand near Dier es Zor.

No, Syria has not yet recovered all of its territory.  Kurds supported by the US hold a broad slice of land across northern Syria and along the border with Turkey. Salafist forces (yes, including al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters) working with Israel continue to hold territory along the Israel-occupied Golan Heights.  For a map, see here.

And yes, Syria is heavily obligated to two nations—Russia and Iran—and one Lebanese militia—Hezbollah; without their help, Syria would be shattered, chaotic  and ruled by Salafist extremists, much as Libya is today.  Instead, earlier this month, Damascus hosted an international trade fair and exhibition that attracted delegations and visitors from around the world.

Since 9/11—that day when we Americans took leave of our senses and began to inhabit a delusional world in which a few men with box cutters could cause US air defenses to stand down and steel-framed towers to crumble—we have had continuous war: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen. We have not learned as much as we should have from these disasters.

But in Syria, startling realities became too obvious to miss. Here are a half-dozen.

1.  Good leadership makes a difference.  Bashar al-Assad is the case in point. Faced with the overwhelming force and violence of the empire, he laid his life on the line and stayed put, rallying his people to defend their country.  His policies actually became more liberal as the scope of the threat to Syria came into focus.  Read this analysis by Thierry Meyssan (end of the long article) for more.

2. In Syria, the US-led empire and terror groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS functioned as a team; they shared a common purpose and a common strategy. Junior members of the empire (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan) enabled the funding and logistical support for the terrorists; the CIA arranged for the weapons deliveries and training (see here and here); NATO members provided the air support, satellite intelligence and battlefield communications. Al-Qaeda and ISIS did the head-chopping. It was a team effort, all the way down.

3.  The mainstream, corporate media do not tell us the truth about these imperial wars. For all practical purposes (as Caitlin Johnstone puts it) “the corporate media is state media.” Regarding foreign events, the corporate media publish government propaganda. Thus, it dependably gives us a supply of images and stories about the brutality of the intended victim (Syria in this case). Occasionally those images and stories will be true, but most often they will be manufactured by so-called humanitarian groups (like the White Helmets) or fabricated via false flags (like the Ghouta gas attack in 2013).

4.  The US-led empire does not want to control targeted nations; it wants to destroy them as functioning, integrated, successful states.  In Syria, the empire never had a plan to replace President Assad with someone more humane or more skillful in governance. The empire simply wanted Syria to cease to exist as an opponent of Israel; as a moderately successful, non-sectarian alternative to the Salafist autocracies of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; and as a roadblock to Western energy companies.  For the empire, chaos is victory. It can always hire private security agencies to guard private US assets like oil production facilities.

5.  Both the Democrats and the Republicans are enthusiastic war parties. If we had to choose one as worse than the other in this regard, it would be the Democrats because they are so skillful at masking US aggression with humanitarian rhetoric.

6.  The US peace movement is fragmented and compromised by identity politics, an infatuation with globalism and slavish loyalty to the Democratic Party. If a Democrat is in the White House, the US peace movement falls silent (as it did regarding President Obama’s war on Syria). It only raises its voice when a Republican goes to war.

If we’ve really learned these lessons from Syria’s travail, we’ll never be the same. We’ve glimpsed how treacherous and brutal the empire is, and we’ll never think of it as a positive force in the world again.

One more thing:  today, if you get a chance, tell your friends and neighbors how happy you are that Syria has survived the assault by the US and its terrorist proxies.  When you get a quizzical look, remind folks that ISIS, al-Qaeda and the US all worked together in the terrible war on Syria.

Never forget.
*  Published this morning just after I posted is this excellent essay, "Homage to Syria," by Aidan O'Brien; its analysis of liberal Westerners who stand in judgment of Syria's effort to defend itself and its cultural heritage cuts to the quick.  I highly recommend it.


  1. Is the mainstream media simply government propaganda? Only if understood through the insightful perspective offered by Sheldon Wolen, which is that the unaccountable structure of power resembles an inverted totalitarianism, where large corporate power controls government policy. It is the government doing the bidding of the corporate oligarchy that also owns most of the media, that is being promoted by the corporate media megaphone. As an example, we often hear the excuse proffered by banksters, and even accepted by populists, that it was government policy that forced them to make all the liars' loans and bundling malfeasance that led to the 2008 financial meltdown, that required bailing out Wall Street (but not Main Street). That's lying through half truth. The government's policy was dictated to it by Wall Street - with even supposed change agent Obama's administration before it took power, having its lead cabinet picked by Citibank head honchos. You couldn't come up with a better example of the textbook technical definition of fascism than this inverted totalitarian variant has metastasized to in modern America, and moved on to an international, imperial project that overturns democratic accountability everywhere, in favor of multinational corporate rule.

  2. Wow…. I have to comment. First – I know Syria personally – having lived and worked in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. I have always found Syria one of my favorite countries personally, and have many friends that were in Syria. Many have left. That said, the Assad regime has always been extremely repressive. It is a regime that tortures, kills, and intimidates. It is a perfect example of what Berry would call “empire” on its own. Only those personally protected by the regime spoke in favor of it.

    Why do people who want to rightly critique US policy feel they have to praise dictators who are in fact worse. This erodes any credibility in the first argument. I am not justifying the US actions, and if those actions would have been the only focus of this and other articles I would not respond. I saw this same thing in Iraq with Saddam Hussein. You can condemn the US invasion without ignoring the evilness of Saddam. Berry, I fear you have fallen into the trap of whoever the US is against has to be good. Evil can be found on many fronts. Wow….

    1. Hi Ed. After all these years, it's good to hear from you, even though we obviously disagree rather strongly. I praised Assad's leadership in response to the invasion of Syria. I also agree Assad has a long history of brutality toward his opponents (Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Salafists of all stripes). This was true before the invasion and continued during the invasion. None of that is praiseworthy. Yet when assessing his performance during the war, you see a leader protecting, supporting and rallying his people, and you see Syrians responding positively to that. How else do you think a people hangs together through the horror of what Syria has experienced? The Syrians have been heroic. By the way, now that you are not living in Syria, how do you separate the rampant imperial propaganda about Syria to which you are exposed daily (including White Helmets' lies broadcast by mainstream media) from fact?

  3. I generally refrain from comments, as I find most online discussions very unhelpful to real understanding and dialogue. You raise a good question - how much am I influenced by the propaganda in the west in my view? I still have Syrian friends, both inside and outside, including living in Jordan. The absolute horrors I hear about the current regime hanging on to power through brutality is no different than what I heard before. The regime has not changed and it still relies on torture threats and reality to exist. Again, this does not make any actions by the US or others justifiable. I would agree totally with you on the phrase that Syrians have been heroic. They are faced with numerous enemies, including their own leaders. Let's just not be naïve to believe that somehow just because the West is doing badly in Syria, somehow that makes the regime good.

  4. No mainstream western journalist reported from Syria on the war. Instead, western media relied on propaganda sources such as the White Helmets and the so-called Syrian Observatory in the UK, another propaganda arm of the empire. The UK military had additional private contractors delivering anti-Syria propaganda for consumption by Western media. I respect your knowledge about Syria, it's 1,000 times deeper than mine, but if (IF) you have been relying on mainstream reporting about the war in Syria and how the Syrian government has fought that war, then you are misinformed about that aspect. There's no other way to say it. Vanessa Beeley reported from Syria; she's alternative press and her reporting is ignored by the mainstream outlets. But yes, you still may be right about President Assad (i.e., that's he's a bad man), even if you are wrong about how Syria has conducted its defense of its country against the invaders. And I highly recommend my 85 paragraph chronology of the war, which you will find via the archive button at "The'Fall of Aleppo?'"