Thread by @MaxBlumenthal

As the US military occupation of Syria deepens & Western sanctions spawn starvation & medical shortages, a group of Western-based regime changers publish another tired open letter attacking critics of the dirty war & implicitly endorsing intervention.

Thread on some signatories

https://twitter.com/aljumhuriya_eng/status/1375766938723422209

The letter was first circulated by Gilbert Achcar, a UK Trotskyist who also clamored for a NATO no fly zone over Libya.

As @BenjaminNorton reported, Achcar covertly trained a British military unit alongside fellow signatory Helen Lackner.

True leftism thegrayzone.com/2019/10/03/lef…

Besides having been a paid contractor of the UK Ministry of Defense, Gilbert Achcar has flagrantly violated the Palestinian BDS call and Lebanese boycott by publishing his book, "The Arabs and the Holocaust," with Van Leer – an Israeli publishing house. vanleer.org.il/en/publication…

The open letter smearing anti-imperialist critics of the US dirty war was published by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, a US gov't informant in Syria whose Al Jumhuriya is backed by billionaire foundations & the EU Endowment for Democracy – a European version of the CIA cutout known as NED.

Along with regime change dead-enders, there are anarcho-neocon pundits like @mollycrabapple, whose Ralph Steadman-imitating cartoons are sponsored by surveillance capitalist Google CEO Eric Schmidt at a State Department-funded Democratic Party think tank

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1298343052852039681

Not surprised to see "Leila al-Shami" on the letter. This shady character was quoted in Western media as an expert despite having no known identity, no scholarly or journalistic background, no record of experience in Syria, and refusing to be photographed. thegrayzone.com/2020/02/03/huf…

Zaher Sahloul, whose Syrian American Medical Society got millions from USAID to lobby for US intervention and serve as a MASH unit for Al Qaeda and friends, also lent his name to the letter. As a true grassroots leftist, Sahloul appears at MEK rallies. thegrayzone.com/2018/04/12/al-…

Academic Yasser Munif, who posed as a leftist while clamoring for US intervention in Syria, signed the letter.

Munif was given a platform in @jacobinmag to call for the CIA to give MANPADS to the right-wing Salafi-jihadi gangs ravaging Syria. jacobinmag.com/2017/01/syria-…

And here's @RaniaKhalek mopping the floor with Yasser Munif, who appears to never have been confronted with the massive contradictions in his arguments before. See the difference between an academic lounge lizard and an actual anti-imperialist.

For some reason, Noam Chomsky agreed to add his name, essentially denouncing himself as a traitor after signing many other letters condemning Western regime change plots against Syria. Does Noam just sign every open letter that comes across his desk?

It's funny to see the names of several Israeli Trotskyists I recognize on the letter. They have never protested the many hundreds of Israeli military strikes on Syria these past two years, or Israeli support for Salafi contras. In Syria, they've found common cause w/ Netanyahu.

The letter gives silent commission to US troops invading Syria, stealing its oil & occupying wheat fields, or "Caesar" sanctions starving civilians while Washington boasts of wrecking the country's currency. Its signatories ultimate aim is to suppress opposition to these crimes.