"We have a responsibility to our history, as well as to our future. Because there is a Turkey that is bigger than Turkey. Let us not forget that there is a bigger country than our Turkey" "This is the reason why we cannot be trapped at our borders," said Mr. Tsavousoglou. Think that there is a movement that accepted and is receiving help from the Turkish rapists, and then wonders about the suspicion it caused as a movement. -- Γιώργο Μητραλιά καλά τα λες για την Ουκρανία, συμφωνώ μαζί σου, έχουμε την ίδια άποψη, αλλά ήρθε η ώρα να μιλήσεις και για την επιθετικότητα τής Τουρκίας. Μη ξεχνάς ότι ο ευρύτερος πολιτικός σου χώρος στην Ελλάδα το έχει κάνει τουμπεκί ψιλοκομμένο, από τότε που δεν είχες πρόβλημα μαζί του, και συκοφαντούσε όποιον είχε αντίρρηση ως εθνικιστή στα όρια τού φασισμού. Κάποια συγγνώμη κύριε Μητραλιά; Εκ μέρους όλων σας. -- If you want the truth without teeth, you will have what I want (true, lie, moral, cynicism, all together) to I help the truth tear your flesh apart, because that is what those who want the truth without teeth deserve to receive.
The state, the patriarchy and the class-exploitative division, were born at the same time and will die at the same time.
I come to this conclusion, without of course saying anything original.
We are talking about three phenomena that simultaneously constitute a causal grid/nexus.
Let us not now consider the dialectical dimension of "productive forces-productive relations", let us put this dimension of the socio-historical being in a temporary parenthesis.
Which of the three structures-phenomena mentioned above is the most important as a cause, that is, this cause which gave birth to the others, without making them mere effects from it, but (making them) content forms of this most important cause?
The most important, "bad cause" is patriarchy.
Simplifying: the patriarchy gave birth to the state and the class exploitation.
--
If what I claim is true, that the deepest, most decisive and important cause for the emergence and existence of the causal grid/nexus "patriarchy / state / class exploitation" is patriarchy (also called death), then any compromise with patriarchy (and its disgusting crown, which is religion), even under the pretext that it is a superstructure of the other two elements of this causal grid/nexus, is a shameful compromise with class exploitation and the state, it is a betrayal of life.
The mass
graves and bombed-out cities targeted by Russian forces in Ukraine have
shocked the civilized world, and rightly so. But to millions of Syrian
war refugees, and Syrian-born Americans like myself, Vladimir Putin's
barbaric assault on Ukraine is less a shock than it is a grim reminder
of the overwhelming destructive forces he and his fellow dictator,
Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, unleashed on our home country over a decade
ago.
The West's response to Putin's murderous invasion of Ukraine has been
swift, decisive, and unequivocal. Yet the ongoing Syrian crisis, which
began in 2011 when protesters rose up against Assad's repressive
government, is now, tragically, all but ignored. It's a mistake to see these two conflicts as separate. The failure of
the United States and its allies to stand up to the Russian-backed
Assad government years ago opened the door for Putin to wage all-out war
against Ukraine. And unless Western leaders commit to helping Syria's
opposition topple Assad and achieve the Syrian people's aspiration to
transition to democracy, the world will remain needlessly vulnerable to
the whims of dictators.
In the first years of Syria's civil war, opposition forces made
steady progress, gaining control of large segments of several provinces,
including Aleppo, Idlib, and Deraa. That all changed in 2015, when
Putin came to the aid of Assad. What followed was one of the most
horrific airstrike campaigns in history. Putin's forces didn't just bomb
military targets -- they intentionally bombed schools, hospitals, and
markets, killing 24,743 defenseless civilians, by one estimate, and
leading to the world's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
All told, 6.6 million Syrians have fled their country since the
beginning of the war, and an additional 6.7 million have been internally
displaced.
My own brother, along with his wife and children, were forced to flee
the Damascus suburb of Ghouta to avoid the bombings and a terrifying
chemical attack that killed scores of their neighbors. They joined tens
of thousands of Syrians who fled to overcrowded and unsanitary refugee
camps in Idlib.
These joint Russian-Syrian assaults were critical in helping Assad
stave off opposition forces and remain in power. But for Putin, they
were a proving ground for tactics and technologies he would later deploy
in Ukraine. Not only did the Syria campaigns allow Russia to test out
new weapons systems and refine their disinformation techniques. They
also offered Putin a sense of how the West might respond should he use
these strategies in the future.
And it's here that the connection between these wars is most
critical. Had the United States and other Western countries rallied
behind Syria's opposition, and worked with allies in the Middle East to
help rebel fighters beat back the Assad regime, it would have sent a
strong message to Assad and Putin both. Specifically, it would have
shown these dictators -- and others around the world -- that targeted
assaults on helpless civilians won't be tolerated, no matter where they
occur.
But no such response materialized. In fact, at no point has the
United States ever provided enough support to the Syrian opposition to
even remotely threaten Assad's power, much less Putin's. In effect,
Putin was permitted to perpetrate horrific war crimes against the
civilians of another nation with impunity. Is it any wonder he believed
he could do the same in Ukraine?
Thankfully, the West has finally taken notice, showing solidarity
with those fighting for their freedom in Ukraine, and demanding action
from their leaders in the form of much-needed military support and
economic sanctions. But an effective response to Putin's uncivilized
behavior can't ignore his past and ongoing crimes against the Syrian
people.
It's time for the West to make up for its failure in Syria, and
finally provide my home nation's opposition forces with the support they
need to beat back both Assad and Putin and achieve the Syrian people's
desire to transition to democracy.
Dr. Tarek Kteleh is a practicing medical doctor, president of
Rheumatology of Central Indiana, and a member of Citizens for a Secure
and Safe America, a nongovernmental organization whose mission is to
promote security in the Middle East and democratic progress in Syria. He
is the author of The Six Pillars of Advocacy: Embrace Your Cause and Transform Lives. The views expressed are the author's own.
I will try to critique in 1-2 points of the analyzes of the honest
Marxist Michael Karadjis (When the work leave comes, in a few days or
faster. I am an employee, not a professional intellectual, so show
understanding for my simplistic and sometimes violent way of speaking).
Among the slogans of Iranian retirees: "Neither Lebanon nor Gaza, think of the retirees" .. This
"reactionary" -by the left and Iranianleft criteria- slogan, drips like
a poison in the "anti-Zionist" false consciousness of the (iranian and
west) far left, freezes them, because they see where the Iranian people
are going, and they do not like it. Let leftists be careful, but they
are not careful, and so they will lose again.
--
Not only is Ukraine (as a nation and people) moving forever to detached
from Eastern totalitarianism to join the West, but Iran (as a nation
and people) is also moving in that direction. The "west-east" divide
may in fact be an alienative determination/definition, and may have to
be overcome in the future, but at the moment eastern totalitarianism is
the worst, first and foremost for the eastern peoples themselves who
live within its chains.
Strange hypothesis of sociological and philosophical research, based on a strange socio-historical fact:
If we look at the attitude of the vast majority of the world leftism towards the Russian-Ukrainian war, we find that it was fully instrumentalized by Russian imperialism, certainly not in support of the Russian invasion (although there have been such cases) but by following a neutral line.
If we think about this fact more carefully, we will understand that this is exactly what Russia from the leftism wanted [''Neutrality''], and that is what it succeeded.
The Russian imperialists and their mechanisms are not naive, they tried and fully achieved the realistic goal they set in relation to the leftism, and the leftism did what Russian imperialists they wanted.
Therefore?
Neither the conspiracy theories about "secret" centers of power, which manipulate unsuspecting victims, apply, but nor the structuralist or Foucaultian notions (that dominate within the new left), that there are no centers of power and that everything is mainly structures.
The proof that Foucaultian abstraction was not valid is the very attitude of the left, which along with most of anarchism became Putin's neutral puppet.
Η
αποτυχία αναβίωσης ενός νεκρού κεντρικού Ονόματος μέσω τής πρόσθεσης
εμβόλιμων και μη-οργανικά συνυφασμένων με αυτό κατηγοριακών
προσδιορισμών, δεν είναι η τελευταία φάση θανάτου του.
Επακολουθεί
για μια στιγμή μια παράκρουση επίκλησης τού Ονόματος αυτού σαν να είχε
από «μόνο» του την «δύναμη» να υπάρξει στην αρχική λαμπρότητά του ως
πάλι «μόνο», κύριε Μπαντιού και λοιποί.
Αν
τα κεντρικά Ονόματα και νοήματα είναι κάτι σαν οι εξουσιαστές ενός
ιδεολογικού-θεωρητικού συστήματος, οι οποίοι δεν προσφέρουν την
ουσιαστική εργασία-διεργασία για να χτιστεί και να συντηρηθεί αυτό το
ιδεολογικό-θεωρητικό σύστημα όπως οι εργαζόμενοι του (διαμεσολαβούσες
έννοιες κ.λπ), τι πιο λογικό από το να σκεφτούν όσοι είναι «δίκαιοι» την
απόδοση τής εξουσίας στις διεργασίες και τούς εργαζόμενους τους;
Ρίχνουν
τον βασιλιά και εξουσιαστή «Όνομα-Νόημα» και περιμένουν να υπάρξει
επιτέλους μια δημοκρατία χωρίς κανέναν άλλον εξουσιαστή, χωρίς κανένα
άλλο ετεροθεμελιωμένο από αυτούς «Όνομα-Νόημα».
Έλα όμως που δεν γίνεται έτσι, και το φάντασμα τού μονάρχη εξουσιαστή είναι σαν να στοιχειώνει τούς εξεγερμένους.
Έλα
όμως που κάποια στιγμή επανέρχεται ένα άλλο «Όνομα-Νόημα» που κι αν
ακόμα δεν έχει «σημειακή συγγένεια» με το αποκαθηλωμένο επιτελεί την
ίδια λειτουργία.
Έλα όμως που
κάποια στιγμή επανέρχεται ακόμα και ένα πρόσωπο, αυταρχικό και
δεσποτικό, το οποίο δεν κάνει τίποτα άλλο από το να υποστασιοποιεί ξανά
αυτή την ίδια λειτουργία.
Δεν
νομίζω πως ο καλύτερος τρόπος να υπάρχει μια διαδοχή Ονομάτων και
φαντασιώσεων, κεντρικών σημασιών και πίστεων, κι ας μην υπάρχει κάποιο
ευτυχές «λογικό τέλος» τους, είναι να μεσολαβεί μια εποχή μαζικών
εξοντώσεων και καταστροφών-αυτοκαταστροφών. Δεν το έχουν κατανοήσει
μερικοί «εκ γενετής αθώοι» ότι μια «αυτοκριτική» και μια «μετατροπή» δεν
αρκεί για να απαλείψει τις ευθύνες και να δικαιολογήσει μια τόσο ακραία
βίαιη διαδοχή των οικείων κεντρικών σημασιών τους. Ακόμα δε
χειρότερο είναι να νομίσει κάποιος από αυτούς τούς «εκ γενετής αθώους»
ότι θα αρκούσε έτσι απλά μια πλήρης αποποίηση ευθυνών για «λάβαρα» και
πρακτικές που οδηγούν μέσω τής πλήρους αφέλειάς τους στο θανατικό χωρίς
καν λόγο, η οποία θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει με μια μεταφορά τής ευθύνης
αυτής στον εχθρό, πάλι.
Κανένας λογικός άνθρωπος, κανένας
άνθρωπος με τσίπα, δεν θα μπορούσε να δεχτεί ότι μπορεί να υπάρξει ένας
«άλλος» εθνικοσοσιαλισμός, αφού το βάρος των εγκλημάτων αυτού τού
τερατώδους δεν μπορεί να αποκολληθεί από το όνομα του, ούτε το όνομα του
μπορεί να αποκολληθεί από το βάρος των εγκλημάτων που έγιναν υπό την
σκέπη του. Όμως, υπάρχουν πολλοί ακόμα στον άγιο οικείο χώρο μας (κομμουνισμός) που
δεν τους έχει περάσει καν από το μυαλό η ιδέα ότι κάτι ανάλογο αν και
ηπιότερο (είναι δόξα αυτό το «ηπιότερο»;) συμβαίνει και σε μας, ή σε
αυτούς (αν δεν με δέχονται στην πίστη τους) όσο ακόμα υπάρχει
προσκόλληση σε ονόματα, σύμβολα, κεντρικούς συμβολισμούς, αλλά και
στρατηγικές ιδέες περί ολικής απάρνησης τού πολιτικού στοιχείου τής
κοινωνίας. Η ενοχλητική προσκόλληση σε σύμβολα και λάβαρα που έχουν
ακυρωθεί αμετάκλητα, και δεν ξεκολλάνε από την κακή τους χρήση όσα
ξόρκια κι αν κάνεις, δεν είναι απλά εμμονή, μαγικοθρησκευτική
προσκόλληση, αλλά εντέλει σημαίνει, ως εμμονή, ένα σημάδι ότι δεν έχουν
εγκαταλειφθεί κεντρικές στρατηγικές ιδέες και βλέψεις που είναι
αυταρχικές.
Cataclysmic
destruction of Russian-speaking Ukrainian city Mariupol by Russian
invasion; Putin claims, ironically, that his invasion aims to “liberate”
these people from “genocide”.
We’ve all heard it time and time again. Whether it is an argument in
support of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, or just as often, opposed
to it but claiming both sides are equally at fault, we hear that that
“the Ukrainian army killed 14,000 ethnic Russians in Donbas between 2014
and 2022.”
Here’s just one example among thousands of examples regurgitated,
with never a simple fact-check, all over the left and right media:
According to pro-Putin writer Max Parry, “For what the late Edward S.
Herman called the ‘cruise missile Left,’ the 14,000 ethnic Russians killed in Donbass by the Ukrainian army since 2014 are ‘unworthy victims,’ as Herman and Noam Chomsky defined the notion in Manufacturing Consent.”
The purpose of this claim is to argue that, while Putin may have
over-reacted by going all the way to invading, it was the Ukrainian army
most at fault before the invasion. Even if it is admitted that Putin’s
invasion is criminal and may have imperialist goals and is only using
the plight of the Donbas Russians as an excuse, the claim is that this
excuse is genuine.
Therefore, even many of those who oppose the Russian invasion equally
oppose the Ukrainian resistance, and in particular its receipt of arms,
because if Ukraine gets the upper hand, it will just continue to do to
the “ethnic Russians” what it was previously doing, the same as what
Russia is now doing to “the Ukrainians.”
While not quite as colourful as Putin’s claim that Ukraine was
committing “genocide” against the ethnic Russians in Donbas, these
claims are nevertheless serious and merit clear examination.
…………………………………………………
Let’s look at the claim again:
“The Ukrainian army killed 14,000 ethnic Russians in Donbas between 2014 and 2022.”
Is any of this true?
Yes – the 14,000 figure. Yes, 14,000 lost their lives in the conflict
in Donbas between 2014 and 2022. That’s a terrible figure, and of
course many times that number have been wounded, the entire region is a
dead zone covered by landmines, and some 3.5 million people have fled
the region. But what of the rest?
“The Ukrainian army killed.”
Wrong – two sides were involved in the armed conflict – the Ukrainian
army, and various irregular Ukrainian militia (often composed of people
uprooted from their homes) on one side, and the Russia-backed and armed
separatist militia of the two self-proclaimed ‘republics’ in eastern
Donbas on the other, backed by Russian troops and mercenaries. Both
sides shoot; both sides kill.
“ethnic Russians”
Ethnic Russians are a minority of around 38-39 percent of the population in Donbas,
so it is unlikely that all or most killed are “ethnic Russians,” but
that is not the point of this part of the assertion. The reason this
fiction is inserted is to imply that people were killed “by the
Ukrainian army” simply for being ethnic Russians, in a war of targeted
ethnic extermination, rather than being victims of the cross-fire
between the two sides shooting at each other.
So, let’s be clear: we are talking about 3,404 civilians, killed by both sides, over 2014-2022.
However, what about the last part:
“between 2014 and 2022.”
Well, yes, if we make the small change to 2014-2021, then this is correct in the abstract.
But implication here is that there was a continual, ongoing bloody
conflict (allegedly all caused by the Ukrainian army incessantly
“shelling ethnic Russians”) right up to the Russian invasion. The
invasion, in a sense, is simply the continuation of the ongoing
bloodshed, at a perhaps slightly higher level.
In reality, almost all the 14,000 deaths, including almost all
the 3,404 civilians, were killed when the conflict was raging from 2014
till the ceasefire in mid-2015 – that is, during a time when no-one
seriously denies the direct involvement (ie, invasion) by the Russian
army. Let’s just look at the OSCE Status Reports from 2016-2022.
The year by year figures were 87 fatalities in 2017, 43 in 2018, 19 in 2019, and 12 to September 2020.
TheOSCE report as of 11 January 2021 reports “The total number of civilian casualties in 2020 stands at 128: 23 fatalities and 105 injuries.”
The OSCE Status Report as of 13 December 2021reports “since the beginning of 2021, the SMM has confirmed 88 civilian casualties (16 fatalities and 72 injured)” in 2021.
Of these 16 fatalities in 2021, 11 were from the first half of 2021: according to the OSCE Status Report as of 14 June 2021, “Over the past two weeks, the SMM corroborated four civilian casualties, all injuries due to explosive objects. This brings the total number of civilian casualties that occurred since the beginning of 2021 to 37 (11 fatalities and 26 injuries). The majority of the casualties (27) were due to mines, unexploded ordnance and other explosive objects.”
Meanwhile, the OSCE Status Report as of 6 September 2021 reported “a fatality, bringing the total number of confirmed civilian casualties since the beginning of 2021 to 62 (15 fatalities and 47 injuries).” Hence, of the 5 fatalities in the second half of the year, 4 were before September.
From these three 2021 reports, we see a continual decline in fatalities in Donbas: 11 in January-June, 4 in June-September, 1 in September-December.
This trend continued into 2022. The OSCE Status Report as of 7 February 2022
reports “The Mission corroborated reports of a civilian casualty: a
56-year-old man suffering a leg injury as a result of small-arms fire on
29 January 2022 in the western part of non-government-controlled
Oleksandrivka, Donetsk region. This is the first civilian casualty corroborated by the Mission in 2022.” In other words, to 7 February 2022, 2 weeks before the Russian invasion, there had been zero fatalities in Donbas.
Therefore, this is the trend in what Putin calls the “genocide” of
the ethnic Russians in Donbas, even taking into account that the
Russian-owned armed forces shoot and shell as much as do the Ukrainians,
and that the majority of deaths were due to landmines and unexploded
ordinance, laid by both sides:
2016 – 88 deaths
2017 – 87 deaths
2018 – 43 deaths
2019 – 19 deaths
2020 – 23 deaths
2021 – 16 deaths, including:
– 11 deaths (Jan-June)
– 4 deaths (June-Sep)
– 1 death (Sep-Dec)
2022 – 0 deaths (before Russian invasion).
As we can see, the rate of death has continually declined until it
reached zero. The Russian invasion, which resulted in thousands of
deaths and untold injuries, destruction and dispossession, was “in
response” (allegedly) to the zero deaths in Donbas in 2022.
The total number of civilian fatalities from 2016-2022 was therefore 276, about half due to landmines.
Of course any number of deaths is far too many, and neither the
Ukrainian side nor the Russia-owned side should be excused for
violations and war crimes that resulted in civilian deaths.
But as there were 3,404 civilians killed from 2014 to 2022 before the Russian invasion, that means that 3128 of these (92%) occurred in 2014-15,
when no serious observer denies the direct intervention of the Russian
armed forces, mercenaries and heavy weapons in the conflict.
…………………………………………………………….
The aim of this is not to let the Ukrainian government and army off
the hook. Both the Ukrainian army and the Russian-backed separatist
militia have committed war crimes (mostly in 2014-15).
There is also room for criticism of the post-2014 Ukrainian
government’s virulent Ukrainian nationalism, as a major factor leading
to opposition among parts of the Russian-speaking population in the
east; the fact that the Maidan was confronted by an anti-Maidan in the
east was in itself an entirely valid expression of democratic protest.
What was not valid was the almost immediate militarisation of the
anti-Maidan by Russian-backed militia, armed by Russia, involving the
direct intervention of Russian armed forces, mercenaries and heavy
weaponry, arbitrarily seizing control of parts of eastern Ukraine.
Simon Pirani argues that neither the Maidan nor the anti-Maidan
should be stereotyped as reactionary and in fact the “social
aspirations” of the two “were very close,” but “it was right-wing
militia from Russia, and the Russian army, that militarised the conflict
and suppressed the anti-Maidan’s social content.”
It is important to understand that the Donbas is ethnically mixed;
according to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 58% of the
population of Luhansk and 56.9% of Donetsk; the ethnic Russian minority accounts for 39% and 38.2% of the two regions respectively.
How ironic that Putin supporters justify the flagrant Russian
annexation of Crimea by pointing to the 58% ethnic Russian majority
there, when Ukrainians are the same size majority in Donbas! The ethnic
Ukrainian population is then evenly divided between primary Ukrainian
speakers and Russian speakers, but language does not equal ethnicity,
and neither language nor ethnicity equal political opinion. Surveys
carried out in 2016 and 2019 by the Centre for East European and
International Studies (ZOiS) in Berlin found that in the
Russian-controlled parts of Donbas, some 45% of the population were in
favour of joining Russia, the majority against. Of the majority against,
some 30% supported some kind of autonomy, while a quarter wanted no
special status. But in the Ukraine government controlled two-thirds of
Donbas, while the same percentage (around 30%) favoured some kind of
autonomy within Ukraine, the two-thirds majority favoured just being in Ukraine with no special status(almost none supported joining Russia).
Hence neither ethnic composition nor opinion shows these are
“Russian” regions that favour separation or even necessarily autonomy;
they are very mixed in all aspects. The bits that have been seized
therefore (the fake ‘republics’) are entirely arbitrary – there was no
basis for these seizures in terms of any “act of self-determination;”
and since the armed conflict took off after these seizures, neither can
they be justified as being in response to some violent wave of
government repression of the anti-Maidan.
The foreign-backed militarisation of the anti-Maidan on the one hand
polarised views on the edges, while on the other driving away the
middle, including a large part of the original anti-Maidan civilian
population; and the more the far-right and fascist Russian-backed, or indeed actual Russian, political figures and militia came to dominate these ‘republics’, imposing essentially totalitarian control and massively violating the human rights
of the local population, the less this had anything to do with any
genuine expression of valid opposition to the Ukrainian government’s
policies. Alienation from this reality, combined with the war itself,
led to literally half the population fleeing Donbas – 3.3 million of the
original population of 6.6 million – either to other parts of Ukraine,
or to Russia.
In this context, it was entirely valid and expected that the
Ukrainian armed forces would attempt to regain these regions conquered
by separatist militia backed by a foreign power. Of course, one may
criticise Ukraine’s reliance on military means to regain these regions,
almost inevitable given that its virulent Ukrainian nationalism
precluded a more political approach. But to lay most blame on this
military response rather than the foreign-backed military aggression it
was responding to is hardly logical. Whatever the case, the continual
and decisive reduction of fatalities, injuries and ceasefire violations
between 2015 and 2022 – from 3128 civilian fatalities in 2014-2015 to 0
in early 2022 – puts the lie to not only Putin’s claim that his bloody
invasion, with its countless thousands of deaths, millions uprooted and
cataclysmic destruction, was in response to “genocide” of “ethnic
Russians,” but also to the more subtle plague on both your houses case
that the Ukrainian army was waging a relentless war against “ethnic
Russians” in Donbas.
