Hensman - Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism

INDEFENSIBLE

DEMOCRACY,
COUNTERREVOLUTION, AND THE RHETORIC
OF ANTI-IMPERIALISM

Rohini Hensman

Haymarket Books
Chicago, Illinois

Abbreviations

AQI Al Qaeda in Iraq

ASP Arab Socialist Party

BOALs Basic Organizations of Associated Labour

(Yugoslavia)

CDF Committee for the Defense

of Democratic Freedoms
and Human Rights in Syria

CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

DiEM25 Democracy in Europe Movement

EFPs Explosively Formed Projectiles

EU European Union

FP Freedom Party of Austria

FSA Free Syrian Army

FSB Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

GFIW General Federation of Iraqi Women

GRU Main Intelligence Directorate (Russia)

HDZ Croatian Democratic Union

HNC High Negotiations Commission (Syria)

HRAS Human Rights Association in Syria

HVO Croatian Defence Council

ICC International Criminal Court

ICP Iraqi Communist Party

ICTY International Criminal Tribunal

for Former Yugoslavia

IDPs Internally Displaced Peoples

IFTU Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions

IGC Interim Governing Council (Iraq)

ILO International Labour Organization

IMF International Monetary Fund

IRGC Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

IRI Islamic Republic of Iran

IRIB Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting

IRP Islamic Republican Party

ISCI Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq

JAMA Revolutionary Movement of the Iranian People

JCPOA Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

KDP Kurdish Democratic Party

KLA Kosovo Liberation Army

KRG Kurdish Regional Government

LCCs Local Coordination Committees of Syria

LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

MKO Peoples Mujahedin of Iran

MPRP Muslim Peoples Republican Party (Iran)

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NDF National Defence Forces

NOC National Oil Corporation (Libya)

OCHA UN Office for the Coordination

of Humanitarian Affairs

OPCW Organisation for the Prohibition

of Chemical Weapons

OPEC Organisation of the Petroleum

Exporting Countries

OUN Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

OWFI Organization of Womens Freedom in Iraq

PDPA Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan

PJAC Free Life Party of Kurdistan

PKK Kurdistan Workers Party

PLFP-GC Popular Front for the Liberation

of Palestine General Command

PLO Palestine Liberation Organization

PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

PYD (Kurdish) Democratic Union Party

RCC Revolutionary Command Council (Iraq)

RG Rossyiskaya Gazeta

RPR Reanimation Package of Reforms (Ukraine)

SAVAK Iranian secret police under the shah

SCIRI Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq

SDF Syrian Democratic Forces

SSO Special Security Organization (Iraq)

StWC Stop the War Coalition

SWP Socialist Workers Party (UK)

UCM Unity of Communist Militants (Iran)

UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UNHRC United Nations Human Rights Council

UNMIK UN Mission in Kosovo

UNPROFOR UN Protection Force

VEVAK Secret police of the Islamic Republic of Iran

WDTUM Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement (Iraq)

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction

WPC World Peace Council

WPI Worker-Communist Party of Iran

WSWS World Socialist Web Site

WTO World Trade Organization

Introduction

I n September 2015, the image of little Aylan Kurdi, whose dead body washed up on a beach in Turkey, temporarily jolted the conscience of European politicians who had been preoccupied up until then with turning back the tide of refugees from Syria. The compassion and kindness of those who welcome refugees to their countries is certainly admirable, especially in contrast with the cruelty of the far right, which seeks to exclude them. We must ask, however: Is this enough? As a member of the advocacy group The Syria Campaign pointed out soon afterwards,

Since the picture of Aylan hit headlines across the world, 6 children have been killed in Syria every day the majority from barrel bombs and missiles from Syrian government aircraft. But their bloodied and blown apart corpses dont make the front page of any newspaper. None of the other 10,000 children killed in the fighting have. What broke my heart this week was a cartoon by Neda Kadri, a Syrian artist, that pictured Aylan in heaven being welcomed by children: you are so lucky Aylan! Were victims of the same war but no one cared about our death. (Nolan 2015)

Despite the tendency of the mainstream media to conflate migrants and refugees, it is important to remember that they are different. Refugees are fleeing violence. Therefore, the only viable solution to the refugee crisis would be to end the violence that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

That is, however, easier said than done. Ending the Syria crisis would entail, first and foremost, identifying its causes. For some of those who call themselves anti-imperialists, there is only one cause: Western (that is, North American and Western European) imperialism, which is responsible for all the bloodshed including the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which, according to them, is responsible for most of the violence in Syria. An example of this argument is an article in the Guardian by Seamus Milne (2015) titled Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq.

Milne supports his allegation by referring to a recently declassified US intelligence file, in order to claim that the US effectively welcomed a Salafi principality in Iraq and Syria. Yet the document actually says the following:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows: This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and protecting its territory. (Judicial Watch 2015, emphasis added)

It is surely a perverse reading of such phrases as the situation unravels, deterioration, dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and protecting its territory to say that it constitutes an effective welcome of this outcome. Attributing this to Obama is also strange, given that the usual criticism of him by human rights defenders is that the drone strikes in his relentless war on Al Qaeda and ISIS killed hundreds of civilians (Serie 2016).