This letter to Salon was written in response to this article, published on 27 November 2017
Dear Salon,
It is alarming to see a publication such as yours condone war crimes and crimes against humanity. Recently one of your “writers”, Patrick Lawrence, penned a propaganda piece that stank heavily of Russia Today and Al Masdar News, two noted and highly-disregarded Moscow/Damascus-backed “news” outlets. Let’s have some serious talk and evaluate the utter and complete war crimes apologist drivel Mr. Lawrence spewed all over your journal.
If this picture of Grozny in the early 2000s were a page on Facebook, Salon would “like” it
He starts his article by speaking of “Happy talk”, mentioning two men with some of the worst human rights records on the planet. For Vladimir Putin one needs to look no further back than the Russian treatment of Grozny during the 2nd Chechen War, wherein Russian forces, on Putin’s orders, utterly leveled the Chechen capital city in an attempt to root out an insurgency (one which still boils and utterly feeds the war in Syria to this day; see also “Chechen Daesh fighters” such as former Daesh commander of Syria Abu Omar al-Shishani). Russia’s actions in Chechnya at the beginning of the century, and their continuing abuse of the Chechen populations, have led thousands of young Chechen men to join the insurgencies in Iraq and Syria, hardly something worth celebrating. Or Bashar al-Assad, a man who has been labeled responsible for torture and other human rights abuses by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and many others.
Pictured: Not a foreign power (according to Salon)
The piece goes on to paint a picture of Russia being fed up with American-backed terrorism in Syria in the fall of 2015, thus leading to Russia’s involvement in that country. The piece could not be more wrong if it tried. Russia’s involvement in Syria dates back past the beginning of the uprising, but their massive, public involvement in the conflict only came after Russian proxies in Ukraine were forced to quiet down in early September 2015 with the removal of a high-ranking member of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. Following his removal and the immediate cessation of hostilities (for a while) in east Ukraine, Russia’s involvement shifted to Ukraine. “Vacationing” troops began appearing in Tartus and Latakia shortly afterward, as did Russian warplanes.
An innocent victim of a war Salon is seeking to sanitize
Regime change was a goal of the opposition in Syria, but it wasn’t an American-sponsored goal. One would think America would have at least supplied the opposition with anti-aircraft weapons if it were truly interested in regime change. Or backed the rebels when they got gassed on numerous occasions with something other than impotent stammering at the UN. Or even utilized UN resolution 377(a) to work around Russia’s veto.
Patterns of Russian bombing
Lawrence implies that the US is solely responsible for the jihadist threat in Syria, failing to recognize that the rise of Daesh could not have taken place if it were not for Assad’s crimes against humanity against the opposition. Assad’s regime also released hundreds of convicted jihadists from prison, an attempt to “other” the opposition that took place at an early stage in the conflict. Furthermore, the justification Daesh uses for their heinous crimes against local populations include things like “Assad’s men will torture you if they win this conflict” and “Do Assad’s bombs not remove the heads of your family members?” Thus, supporting the Assad regime can literally only lead to another jihadist resurgence at some point in the future.
Digging through a children’s hospital in Aleppo that was bombed by Assad; Salon would have you believe this is normal and acceptable
In Lawrence’s attempt to defend Putin and Assad, he fails to mention the concerted efforts to bomb marketplaces, hospitals, and places of worship, all of which are often inhabited by civilians. He fails to mention the children eating newspaper in east Ghouta, the leveling of entire neighborhoods deemed to be anti-regime, and the widespread human rights abuses carried out by Assad’s Shabiha.
Hey look Salon, you were wrong about this being the start of Russian/Syrian relations!
Russia has not “emerged out of nowhere” in the Middle East. Russia has been involved in the region for a long time, especially in Syria. Russia is re-asserting itself in the Middle East, not appearing like some form of a foreign policy magician. The author of the Salon piece also seems to think that problems between the US and Russia date back to Ukraine in 2014; he fails to mention 2008 in Georgia, or the fact that the uprising in Ukraine wasn’t some form of NATO/US-backed coup, but in fact a genuine revolution with popular support. And again, he insinuates that the US supported Daesh and jihadist rebels without providing a single shred of evidence. Yes, American weapons did, in fact, end up in the hands of jihadist opposition fighters in certain areas. But so, then, did advanced Russian T-90 tanks. This does not mean Russia was supplying the rebels. In fact, if anybody can be said to be supporting Daesh and the jihadists, it would be Russia and the regime. Their constant bombardment of the genuine opposition and ineptitude/lack of willingness to actually attack the jihadists led many in the opposition to join said jihadists (they were the only ones actually fighting for Syria).
Russian-supplied T-90 seized by Daesh
In closing I would like to remind Salon of the repeated nature of Assad’s human rights abuses. Hospitals are not spared. Chemical weapons are used. Children are deliberately targeted for murder and torture. And yet your publication is supportive of that. As a foreign publication, perhaps your stance should be supportive of the civilians trapped in the middle instead of cheer-leading an armed group or a faction in a war you aren’t involved in. If you’re trying to front anti-Imperialism, taking part in making Syria into a game of winners and losers is probably a terrible way to do that.
