[Marxism] Life styles of the rich and brutal

[Louis Proyect]

On 3/16/2012 11:24 AM, Eli Stephens wrote:
> Of course the question of joining or not joining with imperialism in the two
> minutes hate against Assad has nothing whatsoever to do with whether Assad
> is "committed to socialism" or not, but everything to do with resisting the
> imperialist war drive to subject yet another country to its dictat.
>

Actually I hated al-Assad and Qaddafi long before imperialism 
stepped up its most recent campaigns. Mostly this had to do with 
their dictatorship's collaboration with the CIA's extraordinary 
rendition program:

Maher Arar is a 34-year-old wireless technology consultant. He was 
born in Syria and came to Canada with his family at the age of 17. 
He became a Canadian citizen in 1991. On Sept. 26, 2002, while in 
transit in New York’s JFK airport when returning home from a 
vacation, Arar was detained by US officials and interrogated about 
alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, 
shackled and flown to Syria, where he was held in a tiny 
“grave-like” cell for ten months and ten days before he was moved 
to a better cell in a different prison. In Syria, he was beaten, 
tortured and forced to make a false confession.

full: http://maherarar.net/