Yessss, this is what I've been saying:
Loubna Mrie, a 24-year-old Syrian activist from Latakia, wishes the world had paid attention to what was happening in Manbij before U.S. airstrikes began raining down on it.
....“The Americans did not really support the Free Syrian Army that much,” Mrie said. Working as a photographer for Reuters, “I used to be on the front-lines all the time and I have seen how the American support is really a joke. Their only serious support was for the YPG,” a group that has appealed to the global left with its talk of social revolution, anti-capitalism and commitment to gender equality.
....When I posed this question to Mrie, the activist who was in Manbij before the U.S. began bombing it to save it—why the fuss about one intervention but not the other?—she was blunt.
“First of all, I hate the left in America because they are so stupid when it comes to Syria,” she said. “And I’m not surprised they aren’t saying anything,” exceptions to the rule aside. Able to speak with moral clarity when Israel bombs Palestinians, perceived U.S. support for toppling the Syrian government leads to moral confusion when the latter bombs Palestinians in Syria. Likewise, defending Russia’s bombing of Syria on the grounds that some in the State Department have said bad things about a rival’s air campaign, under the reasoning that the opposite of what a U.S. imperialist says is anti-imperialism, doesn’t lend itself to principled opposition when that U.S. imperialist does the same thing for the same stated reasons.
The Anti-Imperialism of Fools
Loubna Mrie, a 24-year-old Syrian activist from Latakia, wishes the world had paid attention to what was happening in Manbij before U.S. airstrikes began raining down on it.
....“The Americans did not really support the Free Syrian Army that much,” Mrie said. Working as a photographer for Reuters, “I used to be on the front-lines all the time and I have seen how the American support is really a joke. Their only serious support was for the YPG,” a group that has appealed to the global left with its talk of social revolution, anti-capitalism and commitment to gender equality.
....When I posed this question to Mrie, the activist who was in Manbij before the U.S. began bombing it to save it—why the fuss about one intervention but not the other?—she was blunt.
“First of all, I hate the left in America because they are so stupid when it comes to Syria,” she said. “And I’m not surprised they aren’t saying anything,” exceptions to the rule aside. Able to speak with moral clarity when Israel bombs Palestinians, perceived U.S. support for toppling the Syrian government leads to moral confusion when the latter bombs Palestinians in Syria. Likewise, defending Russia’s bombing of Syria on the grounds that some in the State Department have said bad things about a rival’s air campaign, under the reasoning that the opposite of what a U.S. imperialist says is anti-imperialism, doesn’t lend itself to principled opposition when that U.S. imperialist does the same thing for the same stated reasons.
The Anti-Imperialism of Fools
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