The Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal attended an Assad-sponsored trade union convention in Damascus the very same year
The "Assad sponsored" is a smear from the liberal security apparatus, he was invited by a trade union and paid for the trip himself. What exactly is the problem with going to Damascus and seeing what the situation on the ground is? He is a journalist after all?
Blumenthal was once supportive of intervention in Syria after visiting a refugee camp in Jordan
He has explained this about face on his podcast "moderate rebels", he initially agreed that Assad was a horrible leader, and cheered it on, but an interaction with journalists he respect, got him to reexamine his assumptions, go back to the books and investigate the situation on the ground, especially what the west was doing. It is completely clear that the Syrian war is an imperial project from the US empire, replacing Assad with ISIS will not bring human rights to Syria. How ever much you might hate Assad the alternative offered by the west is so much worse.
Also you can be anti-interventionist and still acknowledge Assad’s human rights violations.
We don't give a shit about human rights, thats why Saudi Arabia is our friend, a murderous dictatorship that's waging a genocidal war against the peasant population of Yemen, and we just can't stop selling them weapons and military assistance, there's a reason why they call it the Human Rights Industry. It's job is to manufacture consent for war, it always parrots the US / NATO alliance lust for war, and is completely silent on the human rights violations and war crimes we commit all the time.
I think its this episode of the pod (theres a lot on syria): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-jNckM-zw
Edit: nope wrong its this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enj89KoLhZI
The "Assad sponsored" is a smear from the liberal security apparatus, he was invited by a trade union and paid for the trip himself. What exactly is the problem with going to Damascus and seeing what the situation on the ground is? He is a journalist after all?
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He has explained this about face on his podcast "moderate rebels", he initially agreed that Assad was a horrible leader, and cheered it on, but an interaction with journalists he respect, got him to reexamine his assumptions, go back to the books and investigate the situation on the ground, especially what the west was doing. It is completely clear that the Syrian war is an imperial project from the US empire, replacing Assad with ISIS will not bring human rights to Syria. How ever much you might hate Assad the alternative offered by the west is so much worse.
deleted by creator
We don't give a shit about human rights, thats why Saudi Arabia is our friend, a murderous dictatorship that's waging a genocidal war against the peasant population of Yemen, and we just can't stop selling them weapons and military assistance, there's a reason why they call it the Human Rights Industry. It's job is to manufacture consent for war, it always parrots the US / NATO alliance lust for war, and is completely silent on the human rights violations and war crimes we commit all the time.
I think its this episode of the pod (theres a lot on syria): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-jNckM-zw
Edit: nope wrong its this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enj89KoLhZI
deleted by creator