Excerpt: "We refer to them as 'rebels' - as if they were the Maquis fighting
in the French resistance or Partisans freeing Yugoslavia from the Nazis or,
indeed, the insurgents of Warsaw struggling for freedom from the German SS.
Which they clearly are not."
Members of al Qaeda's branch in Syria. The group has now rebranded in an
attempt to give the impression it's no longer connected to al Qaeda. (photo:
Mike Segar/Reuters)
The 'Rebels' of Aleppo Are No Heroes
By Robert Fisk, The Independent
09 December 16
We refer to them as 'rebels' - as if they were the Maquis fighting in the
French resistance or Partisans freeing Yugoslavia from the Nazis or, indeed,
the insurgents of Warsaw struggling for freedom from the German SS. Which
they clearly are not
I've just spent hours watching footage of the siege. The pictures are
familiar: planes fall like vultures through the sky and buildings are blown
apart, children are brought to hospitals covered in blood, bodies are buried
in shallow graves, hospitals themselves are repeatedly bombed, entire
districts of the city turned to rubble, civilians flee their homes amid
burning buildings. Rescue workers tug at the living and the dead amid the
wreckage of the city. America and Britain demand an end to the destruction
but do nothing. And Russia cynically and cruelly allows the innocent to die.
Readers will know exactly what I am describing.
The Warsaw Uprising, of course, 1944, not 2016. The scenes are eerily
familiar to all that other blood-soaked footage from Aleppo we've been
watching more recently - but, in one critical way, very different. For the
fighters of the Home Army in Poland - 'rebels' against German occupation,
patriots loyal to the Polish government in London - appear constantly in the
old black-and-white film of the Warsaw Uprising. Their own military targets
are attacked by their enemy. Civilians are seen queuing for weapons to fight
alongside the insurgents.
Not exactly what you see in the terrifying film from eastern Aleppo this
past year, where not a single 'rebel' can be identified - save for carefully
posed shots in their own propaganda productions - and where every target is
a hospital or a civilian home. And anyone who believes the French nonsense
about Aleppo becoming the "worst massacre since World War Two" should study
the stunning films I've been watching in the Polish Museum of the Warsaw
Uprising.
In the first week, the Nazis and their allies murdered up to 40,000
civilians. The Warsaw Rising was to last for only 63 days, but the death
toll was up to 200,000 - half the total deaths of the entire Syrian war,
even by the dodgy statistics upon which journalists currently depend. Warsaw
in 1944 was total war indeed - even if we forget later massacres of even
greater bloodshed: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 1991 and 2003 Iraqi
wars, the Afghan wars, the Algerian war of independence against the French
with a minimum of a million dead, which the French appear to have forgotten.
The "worst massacre since World War Two" indeed!
But now a reminder of the tragedy of Warsaw. By mid-summer of 1944, Russian
troops had smashed through the German armies in the east on their way to
Berlin, and reached the eastern banks of the Vistula river opposite the very
centre of Warsaw. Nazi troops had already begun to evacuate the city and
retreat towards the Polish-German border. The Polish 'Home Army' of General
Tadeusz 'Bor'-Komorowski, with the full knowledge of the Allied-supported
Polish government-in-exile in London, decided that the moment had come to
liberate Warsaw from the Nazis - at 5pm on 1 August, 1944.
It was a calculated, daring and disastrous decision. Komorowski wanted to
strike when the Germans were retreating - but before the Russians could
'liberate' Warsaw themselves and impose a Communist government on the once
independent Polish nation. Britain and France had declared war on Germany in
1939, after Hitler attacked Poland - but they were powerless to help.
Besides, Churchill and Stalin had already agreed that Poland would fall
under Soviet 'influence' in post-war Europe.
The Germans meanwhile brought in SS reinforcements and, on Hitler's specific
orders, razed the entire city of Warsaw to the ground while the Russians
watched from the other side of the Vistula - and did nothing. They were
quite happy to allow the Nazis to crush the 50,000 armed nationalist Poles
of the Home Army - leaving Warsaw to be 'freed' by the Russians in January
1945 and a Communist government imposed on the survivors.
This is a necessarily truncated and simplified version of those terrible
moments of history. The British and Americans deliberately delayed air drops
of arms and medicine to the Poles in Warsaw and even refused to send the
fully trained Polish Parachute Brigade to help them. RAF crews did volunteer
to fly from Brindisi to Warsaw but were shot at by Russian as well as German
artillery. An escaped British POW, RAF Lieutenant John Ward, actually joined
the Home Army, the 'Armia Krajowa' (AK), fighting in the Rising and sending
64 reports of the battle to The Times in London. Other foreigners, including
Ukrainians, even Azerbaijanis, fought alongside the Poles, as well as Jewish
survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto rising of 1943.
So back once more to Aleppo. No-one doubts that foreigners are fighting
alongside Jabhat al-Nusra/Al-Qaida and the Salafist Ahrar al-Sham and other
groups around the city. But, oddly, that's not what we call them. We refer
to them as 'rebels' - as if they were the Maquis fighting in the French
resistance or Partisans freeing Yugoslavia from the Nazis or, indeed, the
insurgents of Warsaw struggling for freedom from the German SS. Which they
clearly are not. And while we know that the 'rebels' of eastern Aleppo have
died fighting bravely, we also know that they have executed their internal
enemies, slit the throats of their prisoners and that - well, since Jabhat
al-Nusra is al-Qaida (and has since changed its name yet again) - they have
flown passenger aircraft into very tall buildings in New York.
Which the Polish resistance would not dream of doing. Indeed, in the footage
shot by four named 'war photographers' for the Home Army's commander - their
films were actually shown at a Warsaw cinema during the Rising - you can see
captured German officers and men surrendering to the Poles, handing over
their weapons and then being fed - and set to work building barricades for
the defenders of Warsaw. The film subtitles even comment on the surprise of
the German forces that they were not executed - as Poles were murdered at
the hands of the Nazis.
But back to the terrifying website and Facebook pictures that we still see
from eastern Aleppo. Why do we not see the defending fighters, as we do on
the Warsaw films? Why are we not told their political allegiance, as we most
assuredly are on the Warsaw footage? Why do we not see 'rebel' military
hardware - as well as civilian targets - being hit by artillery and air
attack as we do on the Polish newsreels? Or civilians lining up for weapons
to help the 'rebels' defend eastern Aleppo - as Polish civilians, prepared
to defend their city, were filmed in Warsaw?
No, this does not mean that the pictures of wounded and dead children in
eastern Aleppo are fake. Nor does it mean that the Syrian army or the
Hizballah or the Iranians or Iraqi Shiites are playing by the rules of war.
In the Syrian conflict, there are no rules - except those made up on the
spur of the moment for tactical military reasons - and there are no 'good
guys' in civil wars. The battle of east Aleppo is vile and brutal. The
Syrian military cannot - and does not - pretend that it has not killed
civilians. Although, until recently, civilian casualties of artillery shells
on western Aleppo fired by the 'rebels' - so constantly given that blessed
anonymity by us in the press - have been almost totally ignored.
My colleague Patrick Cockburn has expressed his own deep unease at the
coverage of the Aleppo siege. For months, Western reporters have failed to
state the obvious: that they cannot send their dispatches from 'rebel' areas
because the 'rebels' would slit their throats open - or hand them over to
other 'rebels' who would. And thus the 'rebels' have been tuned out of the
story except for that one amorphous description. And the more anonymous they
become, the braver they appear - fighters whose predecessors fought the
Nazis in the Second World War rather than foreign-paid and armed opponents
of the Syrian regime. And, by the same token, what better way of painting
the besiegers of eastern Aleppo as descendants of the SS?
If we could call Saddam the 'Hitler of Baghdad' and Milosevic the 'Butcher
of Bosnia' and Nasser the 'Mussolini of the Nile' (as Eden actually did call
him), then World War II goes on forever. Take a trip to Warsaw today,
however, and you'll quickly learn that the Poles are a deeply betrayed
people, and perhaps - constantly divided by three neighbouring powers
(Austro-Hungary, Germany and Russia) as the Kurds are divided by four
neighbouring powers (Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey) - they were born to be
betrayed. But their struggle shows up the Aleppo battle in a very different
light from that in which we are currently portraying it.
So if you want to make parallels between Syria and the Second World War, for
heaven's sake spot the difference. Civilians are always heroes, in Warsaw or
Syria. So were the fighters of Warsaw. But are the 'rebels' of Aleppo
heroes?
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Members of al Qaeda's branch in Syria. The group has now rebranded in an
attempt to give the impression it's no longer connected to al Qaeda. (photo:
Mike Segar/Reuters)
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syrian-conflict-rebels-jabhat-al-nusra-n
o-rebels-a7462986.htmlhttp://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syrian-conflict-re
bels-jabhat-al-nusra-no-rebels-a7462986.html
The 'Rebels' of Aleppo Are No Heroes
By Robert Fisk, The Independent
09 December 16
We refer to them as 'rebels' - as if they were the Maquis fighting in the
French resistance or Partisans freeing Yugoslavia from the Nazis or, indeed,
the insurgents of Warsaw struggling for freedom from the German SS. Which
they clearly are not
've just spent hours watching footage of the siege. The pictures are
familiar: planes fall like vultures through the sky and buildings are blown
apart, children are brought to hospitals covered in blood, bodies are buried
in shallow graves, hospitals themselves are repeatedly bombed, entire
districts of the city turned to rubble, civilians flee their homes amid
burning buildings. Rescue workers tug at the living and the dead amid the
wreckage of the city. America and Britain demand an end to the destruction
but do nothing. And Russia cynically and cruelly allows the innocent to die.
Readers will know exactly what I am describing.
The Warsaw Uprising, of course, 1944, not 2016. The scenes are eerily
familiar to all that other blood-soaked footage from Aleppo we've been
watching more recently - but, in one critical way, very different. For the
fighters of the Home Army in Poland - 'rebels' against German occupation,
patriots loyal to the Polish government in London - appear constantly in the
old black-and-white film of the Warsaw Uprising. Their own military targets
are attacked by their enemy. Civilians are seen queuing for weapons to fight
alongside the insurgents.
Not exactly what you see in the terrifying film from eastern Aleppo this
past year, where not a single 'rebel' can be identified - save for carefully
posed shots in their own propaganda productions - and where every target is
a hospital or a civilian home. And anyone who believes the French nonsense
about Aleppo becoming the "worst massacre since World War Two" should study
the stunning films I've been watching in the Polish Museum of the Warsaw
Uprising.
In the first week, the Nazis and their allies murdered up to 40,000
civilians. The Warsaw Rising was to last for only 63 days, but the death
toll was up to 200,000 - half the total deaths of the entire Syrian war,
even by the dodgy statistics upon which journalists currently depend. Warsaw
in 1944 was total war indeed - even if we forget later massacres of even
greater bloodshed: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 1991 and 2003 Iraqi
wars, the Afghan wars, the Algerian war of independence against the French
with a minimum of a million dead, which the French appear to have forgotten.
The "worst massacre since World War Two" indeed!
But now a reminder of the tragedy of Warsaw. By mid-summer of 1944, Russian
troops had smashed through the German armies in the east on their way to
Berlin, and reached the eastern banks of the Vistula river opposite the very
centre of Warsaw. Nazi troops had already begun to evacuate the city and
retreat towards the Polish-German border. The Polish 'Home Army' of General
Tadeusz 'Bor'-Komorowski, with the full knowledge of the Allied-supported
Polish government-in-exile in London, decided that the moment had come to
liberate Warsaw from the Nazis - at 5pm on 1 August, 1944.
It was a calculated, daring and disastrous decision. Komorowski wanted to
strike when the Germans were retreating - but before the Russians could
'liberate' Warsaw themselves and impose a Communist government on the once
independent Polish nation. Britain and France had declared war on Germany in
1939, after Hitler attacked Poland - but they were powerless to help.
Besides, Churchill and Stalin had already agreed that Poland would fall
under Soviet 'influence' in post-war Europe.
The Germans meanwhile brought in SS reinforcements and, on Hitler's specific
orders, razed the entire city of Warsaw to the ground while the Russians
watched from the other side of the Vistula - and did nothing. They were
quite happy to allow the Nazis to crush the 50,000 armed nationalist Poles
of the Home Army - leaving Warsaw to be 'freed' by the Russians in January
1945 and a Communist government imposed on the survivors.
This is a necessarily truncated and simplified version of those terrible
moments of history. The British and Americans deliberately delayed air drops
of arms and medicine to the Poles in Warsaw and even refused to send the
fully trained Polish Parachute Brigade to help them. RAF crews did volunteer
to fly from Brindisi to Warsaw but were shot at by Russian as well as German
artillery. An escaped British POW, RAF Lieutenant John Ward, actually joined
the Home Army, the 'Armia Krajowa' (AK), fighting in the Rising and sending
64 reports of the battle to The Times in London. Other foreigners, including
Ukrainians, even Azerbaijanis, fought alongside the Poles, as well as Jewish
survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto rising of 1943.
So back once more to Aleppo. No-one doubts that foreigners are fighting
alongside Jabhat al-Nusra/Al-Qaida and the Salafist Ahrar al-Sham and other
groups around the city. But, oddly, that's not what we call them. We refer
to them as 'rebels' - as if they were the Maquis fighting in the French
resistance or Partisans freeing Yugoslavia from the Nazis or, indeed, the
insurgents of Warsaw struggling for freedom from the German SS. Which they
clearly are not. And while we know that the 'rebels' of eastern Aleppo have
died fighting bravely, we also know that they have executed their internal
enemies, slit the throats of their prisoners and that - well, since Jabhat
al-Nusra is al-Qaida (and has since changed its name yet again) - they have
flown passenger aircraft into very tall buildings in New York.
Which the Polish resistance would not dream of doing. Indeed, in the footage
shot by four named 'war photographers' for the Home Army's commander - their
films were actually shown at a Warsaw cinema during the Rising - you can see
captured German officers and men surrendering to the Poles, handing over
their weapons and then being fed - and set to work building barricades for
the defenders of Warsaw. The film subtitles even comment on the surprise of
the German forces that they were not executed - as Poles were murdered at
the hands of the Nazis.
But back to the terrifying website and Facebook pictures that we still see
from eastern Aleppo. Why do we not see the defending fighters, as we do on
the Warsaw films? Why are we not told their political allegiance, as we most
assuredly are on the Warsaw footage? Why do we not see 'rebel' military
hardware - as well as civilian targets - being hit by artillery and air
attack as we do on the Polish newsreels? Or civilians lining up for weapons
to help the 'rebels' defend eastern Aleppo - as Polish civilians, prepared
to defend their city, were filmed in Warsaw?
No, this does not mean that the pictures of wounded and dead children in
eastern Aleppo are fake. Nor does it mean that the Syrian army or the
Hizballah or the Iranians or Iraqi Shiites are playing by the rules of war.
In the Syrian conflict, there are no rules - except those made up on the
spur of the moment for tactical military reasons - and there are no 'good
guys' in civil wars. The battle of east Aleppo is vile and brutal. The
Syrian military cannot - and does not - pretend that it has not killed
civilians. Although, until recently, civilian casualties of artillery shells
on western Aleppo fired by the 'rebels' - so constantly given that blessed
anonymity by us in the press - have been almost totally ignored.
My colleague Patrick Cockburn has expressed his own deep unease at the
coverage of the Aleppo siege. For months, Western reporters have failed to
state the obvious: that they cannot send their dispatches from 'rebel' areas
because the 'rebels' would slit their throats open - or hand them over to
other 'rebels' who would. And thus the 'rebels' have been tuned out of the
story except for that one amorphous description. And the more anonymous they
become, the braver they appear - fighters whose predecessors fought the
Nazis in the Second World War rather than foreign-paid and armed opponents
of the Syrian regime. And, by the same token, what better way of painting
the besiegers of eastern Aleppo as descendants of the SS?
If we could call Saddam the 'Hitler of Baghdad' and Milosevic the 'Butcher
of Bosnia' and Nasser the 'Mussolini of the Nile' (as Eden actually did call
him), then World War II goes on forever. Take a trip to Warsaw today,
however, and you'll quickly learn that the Poles are a deeply betrayed
people, and perhaps - constantly divided by three neighbouring powers
(Austro-Hungary, Germany and Russia) as the Kurds are divided by four
neighbouring powers (Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey) - they were born to be
betrayed. But their struggle shows up the Aleppo battle in a very different
light from that in which we are currently portraying it.
So if you want to make parallels between Syria and the Second World War, for
heaven's sake spot the difference. Civilians are always heroes, in Warsaw or
Syria. So were the fighters of Warsaw. But are the 'rebels' of Aleppo
heroes?
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
