Max Blumenthal was arrested on October 25, 2019 and charged with assaulting and threatening a 58-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, Naylet Pacheco, outside the Venezuelan embassy around 3 a.m on May 7.

Below are screenshots of Blumenthal’s docket (case #2019 CMD 013718) pulled from the Washington, D.C. court record system which outlines the charges and the evidence underpinning his arrest warrant (address and phone numbers redacted):

Below is the docket for Blumenthal’s co-defendant aka “suspect 1,” Benjamin Rubinstein (2019 CMD 006324):

Below is a brief statement from Pacheco about the alleged incident uploaded to YouTube the day after it occurred:

Below is a video uploaded to Twitter on May 8 that appears to place Max Blumenthal and Ben Rubinstein at the scene of the crime:

Art Fridrich on Twitter

Not a real good video from this morning's attack by two Code Pink guys on three women at the Embassy of #Venezuela's people! https://t.co/fYBUVJWBMQ

Blumenthal (wearing green) and Rubinstein become clearly visible at about 40 seconds in after the cameraman shouts for the police to get involved and arrest someone. Blumenthal is evidently filming or streaming with his camera phone:

The Twitter user who uploaded the above video apparently was not the one who originally captured it, based on the wording of this earlier tweet that mentions the incident:

Art Fridrich on Twitter

At 3 am, Code Pink and their minions attacked two women, we should have video later! We arrived at 9:40. All is quiet with a little media, police and #Venezuelans! For a peaceful group, Code Pinks previous mantra and actions show otherwise! #VenezuelaLibre

Another tweet from the above user appears to identify a third assailant (neither “suspect 1” nor “suspect 2”) given that Blumenthal was wearing green and Rubinstein was dressed in all black and the person below is wearing blue shoes:

Art Fridrich on Twitter

This is one of the two guys from Code Pink that hurt 3 #Venezuelan women at the Embassy early this morning! One of the 3 women remains in the hospital!

The final two tweets of relevance from this user are Spanish language video interviews of one of the women (not ) who was at the scene of the crime:

Art Fridrich on Twitter

Temprano en la mañana del 8 de mayo, dos miembros de Code Pink golpearon y lastimaron a tres mujeres venezolanas frente a la Embajada en Washington DC. Esta es la mayor parte de la entrevista de Telemundo sobre el ataque con la mujer menos lastimada por... https://t.co/Eoi23uvMbX

Art Fridrich on Twitter

Early in the morning of May 8, two members of Code Pink, struck and hurt three #Venezuelan woman outside the Embassy in Washington DC. This is most of Telemundo's interview concerning the attack with woman least hurt by the the action https://t.co/CyqB5fNDQy

By Lydia Wilson, published by The Times Literary Supplement

It is easy to blame the United States for many of the world’s ills: easy because of the availability of evidence. It is also easy to overstate your case, with misleading or one-sided examples — the trap that Max Blumenthal falls into in The Management of Savagery. Fortunately, what many will see as propaganda, sketching the role of the US in the recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, tips sufficiently and with enough regularity into full-scale conspiracy to allow any careful reader to dismiss it. A spot of fact-checking quickly furthers the case against it. Less happily, this book raises serious questions about the reputation of its publisher, Verso. Did no one care to send the manuscript out for checking?

Detailed analysis of all the errors would require a short book in itself, so a small sample will have to suffice. Charles Lister is a researcher of Syrian opposition groups; he is seemingly targeted in these pages, and the following mistakes all occur over just four pages dedicated to him. The Amnesty report Blumenthal quotes, “revealing” Lister’s apparent knowledge in 2015 of an extremist sheikh’s actions, is from 2016 and not 2014 (ie he didn’t know). Blumenthal claims David Cameron relied on an article written by Lister in the Spectator (in November 2015), despite the fact the article came out after Cameron’s speech. There is a mistake in the order of events between the US sending anti-tank weapons to opponents of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and the US Democrats asking Congress for money to do so. The money was actually authorized for training, not weapons. There is the author’s reporting of an argument Lister made for supplying weapons to groups “like Zinki” — though Zinki had been removed from the approved list by Lister by this point. Blumenthal uncritically reports the claims by a Pentagon spokesman that Aleppo had been held by Jabhat al-Nusra, despite the fact this was corrected later by CENTCOM (US Central Command). There is the claim, made twice, that Lister did his research in Riyadh (he is at one point described as being at “a luxury hotel in Riyadh”): in fact the first and only time Lister went to Saudi Arabia was in 2017, many years after the research detailed by Blumenthal.

Then there is the author’s treatment of opinions he disagrees with, his tendency to attack the person rather than the content of what they are saying. At one point he refers to the “vehemently anti-Russian Washington Post correspondent, Anne Applebaum” — surely in order to impugn the credibility of Applebaum’s husband (Radosław Sikorski). He appears less demanding of his own sources, by contrast, neglecting, for example, to mention that Kevork Almasian, who claims that the rural protests in Syria were from the beginning dominated by Islamists, works for the far-right party AfD in Germany and for the Kremlin-backed think tank Katehon, created by the fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin; in fact, Almasian’s name is buried in footnotes, as are many others who agree with Blumenthal. They do not receive the same level of scrutiny in the text.

Blumenthal’s portrayal of the notorious chemical attack on East Ghouta in Syria in 2013 uses long-debunked myths — emanating from both the Syrian regime and Russia — to claim that Assad did not carry out the attack; the author apparently ignores all the evidence amassed to counter his claim. When he does praise the US, it is for the wrong reasons. He calls President Obama’s response to East Ghouta, brokered by Russia, of backing down from military intervention in return for Assad’s promise to dispose of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons, a “rare example of de-escalation in a war zone”. This ignores the fact that killings by Assad’s regime went up when it became clear that the US was wary of intervention, not even in the face of war crimes and Obama’s own “red line”. Blumenthal’s take on the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun in 2017, which prompted a rare intervention by Western powers, assumes a different line: he simply sketches a conspiracy almost by innuendo, referring airily to “an unusual procedure for the treatment of sarin victims” (“splashing water on writhing children … White Helmets treating victims without gloves”), rather than directly meeting the challenge of refuting the abundant evidence of the attack.

Perhaps the most absurd position Blumenthal forces himself into is his vilification of those seeking to intervene for humanitarian reasons, a standpoint “enabling them to mask imperial designs behind a patina of ‘genocide prevention’”. How terrible it must be to be the kind of person who wants to prevent genocide, or, in the case of Syria, the “crime of extermination” according to the UN (because genocide is against one specific group of people and Assad was found guilty — by the Human Rights Council — of targeting a whole country). Blumenthal continues: “With this neat tactic, they [the interventionists] effectively neutralized progressive anti-war elements and tarred those who dared to protest their wars as dictator apologists”. This description extends to the late Labour MP Jo Cox, a “self-proclaimed feminist”, in Blumenthal’s description, who, with this position of “military humanism”, fuelled the civil war and thus the refugee crisis and thus the far right, which, the author almost seems to imply, gave rise to her own murder. What we should say about dictators is an awkward question for Blumenthal, who, in his lengthy analysis of Syria, neglects to analyse Assad’s role in the carnage (over 90 per cent of civilian deaths in Syria over the past eight years have been attributed to the Syrian president’s forces and his allies). Further, he omits to discuss the champions of this dictator: there is barely a mention of Russia’s and Iran’s bolstering of the brutal regime, let alone their direct participation in the civil war, despite Syria occupying the majority of The Management of Savagery (a rare example comes when Russia is praised for “rolling back jihadist insurgents” — Assad’s own excuse for the interminable violence). For Blumenthal, it would seem, intervention is only bad when conducted by the US and its allies; the US alone destabilized the Middle East, and no one else bears any responsibility at all.

A major weak point in the argument, even on Blumenthal’s own terms, is the lack of coherent explanation for this thirst for foreign invasion. Why does the endless parade of Americans in this book, from across the political spectrum, hunger so insatiably for war? The confusion partly arises out of the author’s failure to define the blanket terms he uses: “imperialist” and “neoconservative” (even “neocon democrat”) ambitions are bandied around as if these in themselves were powerful enough concepts to explain everything.

Another mistake Blumenthal falls into in every aspect of his analysis is more common to Western commentaries on the Middle East: denying any agency to the people on the ground. There is no credence given to the fact that Syrians themselves protested and took up arms against Assad for their own reasons, and not just to fulfill America’s foreign policy agenda (Blumenthal takes care to refer to the “Western-backed opposition to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad”). Similarly, in his analysis of Libya, Blumenthal’s denial of the rebels’ stated aims of gaining basic democratic rights leads him to rely on evidence from the Gaddafi family to depict the apparent stability and harmony of the country before Western arrogance took a hand. He seems blind to the motivations of the millions of Arabs desperate to see the back of the Libyan dictator.

Publishers, especially those with illustrious histories, have a responsibility for what they put their stamp on, and with this book Verso has torn a hole in its reputation. The overarching argument shoehorns history into unrecognizable shapes; the fact-checking has clearly not been as it should; even the copy-editing seems to have been skimped on, judging by the number of typos. But even more worrying than these basic failures in publishing a meaty, non-fiction book is the apparent lack of concern about the controversy surrounding the author himself. As the NYRB Daily noted last year (October 16, 2018), Blumenthal’s views on Syria “completely flipped” in 2015. Having previously been critical of Assad’s Russia-sponsored regime, he seemed to have performed a volte-face. Blumenthal now regularly retweets pro-Kremlin sources. Targets of his Twitter comments include an eight-year-old girl (Bana Alabed) living in rebel-held Aleppo, who ran an account of the siege with her mother. According to Blumenthal: “Alabed & the White Helmets [were building] on a grand tradition of pro-war psy-ops” in their first-hand reports.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Bana Alabed & the White Helmets build on a grand tradition of pro-war psy-ops, most notably this Gulf War-era scam: https://t.co/rAFnjZW5aN

A comprehensive list of rebuttals to an earlier article of Blumenthal’s with similar views was collected at the blog Hummus for Thought (October 5, 2016). It began with an impassioned plea from the Syrian Marcell Shehwara for readers to start listening to Syrians themselves, rather than dismissing them as stooges, as Blumenthal does. There are many similar take-downs of Blumenthal’s work online. It doesn’t take much digging to realize how many people question the author’s work.

Verso’s choice to continue to publish Max Blumenthal (see also the Verso-published The 51 Day War: Resistance and ruin in Gaza, 2015) therefore seems perverse, casting doubt on the entire stable of authors in this field. There are also the moral implications of this book: there is the danger that such arguments can be used by others to legitimize violence against secular and humanitarian actors in a number of theatres of conflict, thus fuelling the conflicts themselves.

• This piece was amended on September 23. In the original version, we misspelled Radosław Sikorski’s first name as “Rudosław”. We also incorrectly listed the date of Charles Lister’s Spectator article as November 2017 instead of November 2015. The point about it being printed after David Cameron’s speech remains.

Dear Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib,

First, I wish to express my appreciation for your statements on the eighth anniversary of the Syrian struggle for freedom. Your words are so very important because our struggle has been met with both genocidal repression and terrible slander. Thank you for standing with us against the Assad regime.

As I know you are friends of the Syrian people, I want to share with you the difficulties we face. I am a teacher in the province of Idlib. Our city is the most dangerous in the world. Idlib lives under attack night and day by the Assad regime and Russia, and is constantly threatened by violently sectarian Iranian militias. We have been under attack for 8 years, and many good men and women, and children have been martyred. The attacks, the bombing, are relentless. There is no safe place to live. Moreover, the air and artillery strikes have caused great physical damage: sometimes we go without electricity for days. Our children often cannot go to school; our hospitals are also targeted. Many injured by the bombing die for lack of treatment. We live constantly with a fear of death. Many try to escape to Turkey, with the help of smugglers, but they cannot be trusted and the journey is dangerous. In any case, we can see that Syrian refugees find cold welcomes, and where would millions more go?

The situation has become even more critical now that aid agencies, under pressure to avoid letting funds fall into the hands of the sectarian terrorists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have cut off all funding to the province. Our hospitals lack medicines, our schools need supplies, our doctors and teachers work without pay. In my case, I am fortunate as I am able to work a job at night so that I can continue to teach our children during the day. But there are very few jobs, and those fortunate to work don’t earn enough. Wages are about US$70 per month, while the United Nations’ minimum to meet the needs of a family is US$5 per day. Why are there international discussions about renewing aid to the regime, even as it executes prisoners and bombs us day and night? It feels as if we are expected to die alone, and quietly.

For weeks now our communities in Idlib, with support from Syrians in exile around the world, have been mobilizing in peaceful marches to commemorate the eighth anniversary of our struggle, to demand freedom for the political prisoners, and to defy the regime’s attempt to terrorize us with bombing.

We also want the world to know that we are not HTS. Today, as I write this letter to you, there was another demonstration by the people in Marat Alnouman against HTS, together with a march in Alatareb. We are not terrorists. The Assad regime is terrorizing the Syrian people.

We often wonder why we have been abandoned. Millions of Syrians are trapped in refugee camps and in exile, thousands are dying in prison, raped, tortured and starving. Homes, families, our country, have been destroyed to preserve a dictator. Does no one care? Your words in support of our struggle are so very important; we must find a way to help others to understand as you do.

We know that another congressional representative has visited Syria, but only to meet with the dictator who murders our people. I would invite you to come to Idlib, to see our situation first hand, but that would be too dangerous. Perhaps you could visit the refugee camps that are home to many hundreds of thousands, millions, in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, to bring attention to the terrible situation facing our people. Perhaps you could meet with the representatives of the United Nations to demand that aid be delivered, not to the dictator, but to our hungry people. Perhaps you could meet with the families of our political prisoners. We welcome your voices.

We want the world to know that we, and our children, have a right to a dignified life, as we too are human.

Thank you for your understanding and patience,
 — Muhammad Abonasr

Some observations towards a balance of the US Left’s response to the genocidal repression of the Syrian revolution.

An air-tight case has been presented for the US Left’s helpless response to genocidal repression of a revolutionary struggle in Syria. The base and sides of the box are bound with the unbreakable principle that revolutionaries promote proletarian independence, and within this box many on the anti-Assad Left close themselves under the lid of the incontrovertible observation that US imperialism is hostile towards revolutions, only paying lip service to human rights to cover its own horrendous crimes and abuses. Trapped between proletarian principles and the nature of The Beast, these thinkers conclude that faced with the genocidal crushing of a revolutionary struggle by reactionary forces other than US imperialism, all the US Left could do is confront its own imperialist bourgeoisie, while counseling the Syrian revolutionaries not to trust in US or European imperialism, or the UN.

Principles and analyses are put to test in the course of political struggle. The remarkable result of the previous conclusion, in practice, was that much of the Left that supported the revolution in propaganda was in terms of its practical demands indistinguishable from the likes of Noam Chomsky, long a purveyor of the parochialist “fight our enemy at home” — which is not internationalism — and certainly not a supporter of the Syrian revolution.

The anti-Assad Left’s staunch opposition to Syrian appeals for a humanitarian intervention also meant that in regards the main US policy they were indistinguishable from the apologists for Assad; the two wings of the revolutionary Left coincided on key points: opposition to Obama’s “red line” and condemnation of Trump’s missile strikes.

United front mobilizations around single demands can be very effective, bringing together broad forces that are otherwise disunited, as per the historically classic example of the demand “US Out Now” from Vietnam, and “US Hands Off Nicaragua”. In the case of the Syrian revolution, however, united Left opposition — in practice if not in theory and propaganda — to appeals for humanitarian interventions from the Syrian masses being bombed and starved has not won the Left any victories, although US imperialism, Trump’s theatric missile strikes notwithstanding, has indeed allowed the genocide to proceed.

Although the US Left’s opposition to humanitarian intervention has been the order of the day in Washington, across two administrations, this has not meant a victory for our movement. On the contrary, our anti-war movement has withered and died, under the leadership of Assad’s apologists, as we have passively witnessed neighborhoods, communities and cities buried under rubble and millions driven from their homes.

To be fair, many among the anti-Assad Left called for lifting the embargo on arms to the opposition, some even for delivering ground-to-air missile defense systems. Others called for non-lethal aid, food and medicines, to be delivered to the besieged, but to my knowledge, here in the US, with the exception of our own small Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with the Struggles for Self-Determination, and our allies in News and Letters Chicago, none on the Left called for taking up the demand raised widely by Syrians for a humanitarian intervention to stop the bombing, often practically expressed as a call for a No Fly Zone (NFZ).

Two things must be said in regards the nuanced opposition to interventions, first the practical result of rejecting Syrian appeals for a humanitarian intervention to stop the bombing, although supporting other forms of interventions, meant that the anti-Assad Left could not work in unity with the Syrian diaspora, which mobilized repeatedly in mass actions for an NFZ. Indeed, by and large, the anti-Assad left did not make a united effort with the Syrian diaspora to build a solidarity movement. Second, the incongruity of opposing humanitarian interventions categorically while calling for imperialism to intervene through the supply of arms and other measures was not only painfully obvious, such contortions did nothing to challenge the really dangerous illusions held widely in the US working class that an isolationist strategy can save us from being embroiled in wars. It is a remarkable feature of this period that distrust in the intentions of the generals at the Pentagon and the politicians in Capitol Hill is fairly widespread. I would venture to say that illusions in the good will of US imperialism are not the primary confusion among working people; rather, the response to this recognition is confused, for instead of building international solidarity with peoples in struggle against austerity and for human rights and democracy around the world, the general sentiment seems to be that we must turn inward; isolationism is the confusion that befuddles our struggles.

The anti-Assad left, again with notable exceptions, by adopting a categorical rejection of the Syrian appeals for a humanitarian intervention, has in practice simply adapted to the isolationist sentiments to which the apologists pander in a deceitful manner.

In regards the struggle for leadership, which is the irreducible material down to which all political struggles are boiled, trapped by its own conclusions, the anti-Assad Left could not challenge the apologists, who held tightly onto the leadership of the main US anti-war coalitions. Once their leadership over anti-war opposition was accepted, the normalization of the apology for genocide inevitably resulted. Thus, although the International Socialist Organization has, to its credit, promoted Syrian intellectuals, such as Joseph Daher, and publications of such important works as Yassin al Haj Saleh’s The Impossible Revolution (which quite pointedly does not categorically reject the appeal for an international intervention), it did so even as it supported Ajamu Baraka’s [vice-presidential] candidacy, even as the latter openly praised the Assad regime and engaged in atrocity denial. Thus, more recently, the united forces against fascism in this country include the ANSWER coalition, which is an open supporter of fascism in Syria. Having failed to split the anti-war opposition on principle from the apologists for genocide, the anti-Assad Left can only ever challenge its opponents in propaganda, which is meaningless to the Syrians being bombed.

Deprived of our own anti-war banners, the practical imperatives of confronting the fascists and the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants and Muslims, has repeatedly subordinated solidarity with the Syrian struggle, and principled opposition to atrocity denial, so that the apologists for genocide of ANSWER and Workers’ World have been accepted on the Left as “comrades”. The final result is the normalization of apology for genocide within the ranks of the US Left and the popular movements in which it intervenes.

Needless to say, many Syrians look upon this moral collapse of our movements with complete disgust, and thus, not only is the Left unable to connect to the Syrian struggle, many Syrian activists have begun openly questioning the relevance of a Left which accepts “comrades” engaging in atrocity denial.

Tehmoor Khalid on Twitter

A Syrian refugee shut down by protestors, trying to make his point in a polite way. Is this really acceptable? #stopthewar #syria https://t.co/yvEgNfuPZZ

Now these practical results were surely not the desired outcome the anti-Assad leftists sought, but these are nonetheless the results toward which this sector of the US Left, its principled elements, fatally stumbled.

Another point needs to be made about the principled US Left’s response to the Syrian revolution. Reading their material, one cannot help but draw the conclusion that these leftists feel the revolution was primarily lost by its leadership, not crushed through massive repression. Some forthright elements of the anti-Assad Left are explicit in this charge that the leadership failed the revolution, rather than the reverses being the result of genocidal repression, but even the elements that avoid such sharp accusations cannot really distance themselves from the charge.

If one accepts that collective punishment of civilians by the regime, with massive direct international support from Russia and Iran, rolled back the territorial gains of the revolution, then opposition to the bombing logically follows as the central demand for the solidarity movement. In practical terms, recognizing the primary threat of the bombing to the revolution would have opened up the possibility for united actions with the Syrian diaspora. With these allies, the weak forces of the anti-Assad Left might have been able to marginalize and isolate the atrocity deniers and take leadership of anti-war opposition. Furthermore, in the same rallies in which we were opposing the bombing of Syrians by Assad and Putin, and Iran’s intervention, we as internationalists could also have raised Israel’s crimes of bombing civilians in Gaza, the siege of Gaza, and the US supported bombing and blockade of Yemen, and more generally, opposition to the bloody farce of the “War on Terror”.

To build united actions with the diaspora, it would not have been necessary to support Syrian demands for an NFZ, but it was certainly necessary not to reject these demands (which is how I read Mr. Yassin al Haj Saleh’s position and the appeal that we “listen to Syrians”).

The key was to recognize the primary task of opposing Assad’s bombing.

Instead of building a united solidarity movement against the bombing, united with allies in the Syrian diaspora who repeatedly took to the streets, the anti-Assad Left largely accepted the core argument made ad nauseum by the apologist Left, and now plainly absurd, that a humanitarian intervention to stop the bombing could only make matters worse — worse than genocide.

As some reason had therefore to be offered for how such a heroic struggle as the Syrian revolution could suffer defeats, and why we could not build a united solidarity movement with the Syrian diaspora against the bombing, the leaderships of the US anti-Assad Left, either consciously or not, fell back on the rather canned conclusion that without a proletarian leadership the revolution was doomed to failure. Somehow the relentless explosions of concrete rubble and shrapnel and the terrible toll these took on the Syrian leaderships was ignored, as if the problem were only one of clarity and resolve. A balance of the US Left suggests that it is our clarity that is in question and our resolved that lacked.

What is remarkable about the fatalism of the US anti-Assad Left is how it follows strictly from an argument that assumes the intentions of US imperialism are decisive, and not the balance of forces in the struggle.

If I have understood Das Kapital, we would be silly to believe the US ruling class has the good intentions to raise the federal minimum wage to a level allowing working families to rise out of poverty. Yet, the obstinate opposition of the capitalist class not withstanding, revolutionaries generally support the struggle of Fight for $15 Now (and do not refuse to participate in the movement because its leadership is “reformist”). This is not an isolated example; on the contrary, it is generalizable: the intentions of the ruling class are relevant, but so are ours.

If we intend to limit imperialist interventions in Syria to the protection of civilians from bombing, then we can exert political pressure towards that end. There were and are clearly great risks that US imperialism could have used and could use the pretext of humanitarian intervention to attempt to control and corrupt the democratic revolutionary struggle, but it would be perverse for US leftists to now breathe a deep sigh of relief, since no such intervention has taken place, and resistance in Syria has been reduced to a last stand in Idlib. On the contrary, the danger of foreign control over the revolutionary struggle, which will continue until Assad is overthrown, has grown precisely to the degree to which the mass popular movement has been forced by relentless bombing and sieges to hole up and endure terrible sacrifices, such that, indeed, short of a humanitarian intervention, the fatal end was forseeable in one revolutionary stronghold after another.

Protest against keynote speaker, Green Party 2016 vice-presidential candidate, and leading Assadist Ajamu Baraka:

Come to Left Forum 2018 on Saturday, June 2 for a three-part panel/workshop track dedicated to the challenge of the Syrian revolution to building an internationalist socialist movement in the US!

— Imperialism, “Anti-Imperialism” and the Syrian Revolution (12PM-1:50PM)

— Red-Brown Alliances, Fake News and Genocide Denialism (2PM-3:50PM)

— The Movements We Have and The Revolution We Need: What Is To Be Done? (4PM-5:50PM)

Sponsored by: Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with the Struggles for Self-Determination (AWCs); Eugene Debs Caucus of DSA; News & Letters Committee; Oakland Socialist; Socialist Workers Alliance of Guyana.

Videos from previous Syrian revolution panels at the forum:

The Friends of a Free, Stable, and Democratic Syria Caucus is now up to 46 members in less than a year since its establishment! In the past two months, six members have joined: 1) Rep. Luis Correa (D-CA); 2) Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY); 3) Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA); 4) Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL); 5) Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA), and 6) Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA).

The full list of Caucus members can be found below:

Get involved with Americans for a Free Syria today and get your representative to join the caucus.

What is stunning about this lie is that we have years of publicly available evidence written by Max Blumenthal himself disproving his claim that he “came out in 2016” against U.S. military intervention in Syria:

What was new in 2016 about Blumenthal’s position was his relentless smearing of Syrian dissidents under attack by Bashar al-Assad’s and Russia’s bombers including first responders known as White Helmets and Bana al-Abed, a young girl living in rebel held-Aleppo. For years — up until his trip to Moscow for RT’s 10th anniversary gala in December 2015 — Max Blumenthal’s Twitter feed was filled with anti-Assad, pro-opposition commentary and expressions of sympathy for the Assad regime’s victims, many of them children:

(All of Blumenthal’s anti-Assad tweets have been collected and archived here in case anyone wants to see or re-tweet them. They are also republished at the end of this post.)

Moreover, Blumenthal resigned from Al-Akhbar newspaper in June 2012 after the paper published an editorial denouncing anyone who combined their opposition to U.S. military intervention with support for the 2011 revolution.

After Blumenthal’s resignation, he wrote an open letter with the grandiose title, “The Right to Resist Is Universal: A farewell to Al-Akhbar and Assad’s Apologists.” In it, he said the following:

“ [U]nless I was prepared to spend endless stores of energy jousting with Assad apologists, I was merely providing them cover by keeping my name and reputation associated with Al Akhbar. More importantly, I decided that if I kept quiet any longer, I would be betraying my principles and those of the people who have encouraged and inspired me over the years. There is simply no excuse for me to remain involved for another day with such a morally compromised outlet. And so, instead of preparing to throw up in my own mouth each time I click on one of the pro-regime op-eds appearing with regularity on Al Akhbar English’s home page, I am washing my hands of the whole operation.”

“ In the end, Assad will be remembered as an authoritarian tyrant whose regime represented little more than the interests of a rich neoliberal business class and a fascistic security apparatus. Those who have thrown their intellectual weight behind his campaign of brutality have cast the sincerity of their commitment to popular struggle and anti-imperial resistance into serious doubt. By denying the Syrian people the right to revolution while supporting the Palestinian struggle, they are no less hypocritical than the Zionists who cynically celebrate the Syrian uprising while seeking to crush any iteration of Palestinian resistance. In my opinion, the right to resist tyranny is indivisible and universal. It can be denied to no one.”

“ Besides exploiting the Palestinian cause, the Assad apologists have eagerly played the Al Qaeda card to stoke fears of an Islamic takeover of Syria. Back in 2003, Assad accused the US of deliberately overestimating the strength of Al Qaeda in order to justify its so-called war on terror. ‘I cannot believe that bin Laden is the person able to outmanoeuvre the entire world,’ Assad said at the time. He asked, ‘Is there really an entity called Al Qaeda? It was in Afghanistan, but is it there anymore?’ But now, in a transparent bid for sympathy from the outside world, Assad insists that the Syrian armed opposition is controlled almost entirely by Al Qaeda-like jihadists who have come from abroad to place the country under Islamic control. In his address to the Syrian People’s Assembly on June 3, the dictator tried to hammer the theme home by using the term ‘terrorists’ or ‘terrorism’ a whopping 43 times. That is a full ten times more than George W. Bush during his speech to Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.”

“In joining the Assad regime’s campaign to delegitimize the Syrian opposition by casting it as a bunch of irrational jihadis (ironically, they seem to have little problem with Hezbollah’s core Islamist values), Assad’s apologists have unwittingly adopted the ‘war on terror’ lexicon introduced by George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon, and the neocon cabal after 9–11.”

In September 2013 when interest in the topic of Syria peaked because Assad gassed 1,400 men, women, and children to death in Ghouta, Blumenthal traveled to Zataari refugee camp in Jordan and wrote a report for The Nation about the camp’s deplorable conditions and refugees’ opinions about a U.S. military strike on Assad which at that time seemed imminent. According to Blumenthal, “100%” of the refugees he spoke to wanted U.S. military action to stop Assad’s rein of terror that drove them from their homes. A few months later, he spoke at length to Danny Postel of Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies about what he characterized as the Western anti-war movement’s “abandonment” of Syrian refugees whose “U.S. out” position on Syria did nothing to address their plight.

Blumenthal maintained his principled pro-revolution, anti-U.S. military action position throughout 2014 and 2015 until his paid trip to Moscow as part of RT’s 10th anniversary celebration in December 2015. There, he shared a stage with the likes of anti-Semite Charles Bausman, editor of Russia Insider and author of “It’s Time to Drop the Jew Taboo.”

#SaveDaraa on Twitter

Oh and when I say Max Blumenthal was next to Charles Bausman at the 2015 RT panel, I mean literally 2-3 feet away from him. Bausman was introduced right before Blumenthal. https://t.co/UCfdf3u6wP https://t.co/kZbmfar9VS

Blumenthal returned from Moscow a changed man. He no longer spoke out against Assad or his crimes or expressed any sympathy for the victims of the crimes he claimed in his open letter disgusted him. Instead, he would pass off as his own work White Helmets conspiracy theories hatched by Rick Sterling and Vanessa Beeley. In 2017, he even repeated Beeley’s ludicrous smear that the White Helmets are Al-Qaeda after seven White Helmets were murdered by Al-Qaeda in Idlib.

The Assad regime itself would later repeat these lies about the White Helmets at the United Nations Security Council in February 2018.

What is remarkable about Max Blumenthal’s transformation from Assad opponent to Assad apologist is the degree to which he became exactly what he railed against in his essay, “The Right to Resist Is Universal.” Now it is he who is “nickel-and-diming civilian casualty counts.” Now it is he who speaks the language of George W. Bush, ranting about terrorists and Al-Qaeda. His flunkeys Benjamin Norton and Rania Khalek quickly and mindlessly followed his lead and became rabid Assad apologists, engaging in the very behaviors they too once railed against.

However, unlike Norton and Khalek, Max Blumenthal has not tried to scrub his Twitter history of anti-Assad comments. Nor has he issued retractions after U.N. investigations proved him wrong about Al-Qaeda poisoning Damascus’ water supply and wrong about the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. He was also wrong about Bana al-Abed’s Twitter account being run by a foreign P.R. firm, wrong about a random Arab guy with a beard being infamous jihadist cleric Abdullah al-Muhaysini, and wrong about a whole lot more.

And why should Blumenthal issue retractions?

Being a Blumenthal means never having to say you’re sorry for any of the vicious lies you spread. After all, his millionaire daddy and Hillary Clinton hitman Sid Blumenthal never apologized for spreading the smear that Barack Obama wasn’t born in America during the 2008 Democratic primary.

Being a Blumenthal means you always escape accountability for your actions. When you get fired from Alternet because your “journalism” is garbage, you slither over to The Real News.

Being a Blumenthal means lecturing other people about what it’s like to “toil at the lower rungs of the work force” while attending daddy’s posh book launch parties inside the Beltway where you rub shoulders with the very power elite you rail against on the propaganda platform of a registered agent of a foreign government.

Above all else, being a Blumenthal means being shameless in everything that you do. No lie is too big to tell and no person is too small to step on for whatever cause you’ve decided to leech on to and suck dry for personal gain.

Tweets Before Kremlin Cash:

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

RT "@_YasmineG_: nighmare in #Syria I security officer: we received n order Friday 2 kill all th protesters n the town. http://t.co/IMgPNYq

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@syrianforchange True, Assad is showing how state violence only pushes protest beyond a point of no return. I can't imagine him holding on.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Syrian Christians rally for Assad in Dearborn http://t.co/DJW7Mhh The blind ethnic tribalism sort of reminds me of Stand for Israel rallies

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Assad's mini-Nakba? Syrian forces shelling Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia w/gunships, tanks, 10,000 flee http://t.co/5KgD8ts

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Demonstration against #Assad regime, 1000 protest outside Syrian embassy in London today http://t.co/0pRtwMd

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Excellent interview by @AlakhbarEnglish of Fawwaz Traboulsi on Syria, Yemen, and US approach to Arab Spring http://t.co/VQirQjD

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Assad assails the Arab League as empty and useless, then says, "Here we're not attacking the Arab League.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Assad seems intent on besmirching Arabism by conflating it with his dubious character, brutal reign, and ignominious demise. #assadspeech

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@Remroum Thanks for ruining my childhood memories by bringing Assad into them!

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Demo in Damascus suburbs despite curfew and electricity cuts http://t.co/3dzpUOzb #syria

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Excellent reporting by @AlAkhbarEnglish correspondent embedded with the Free Syrian Army http://t.co/pL0x84Le #syria #assad

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@NirRosen on Assad's shelling of Homs: http://t.co/l2JocyaD "They just bombed the civilian buildings from a distance.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

RT "@RDevro: Marie Colvin's final report from Syria, 'We live in fear of a massacre,' is an incredible must-read. http://t.co/bk8Xkpis

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Reuters on a big shift: Hamas ditches Assad, backs Syrian uprising http://t.co/xwFBZvCD

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

92 massacred by Assad forces in Houla including 30+ kids http://t.co/gOWXL4Sv #HoulaMassacre

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Excellent post by @DarthNader answering those who claim Assad regime had no role in #HoulaMassacre http://t.co/zgQfoicg

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Ok now return the Golan, munafiq MT "@AmbassadorOren: I express our revulsion over the massacre being perpetrated by the forces of Assad

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Crazystupid: http://t.co/VczJDJOh Stupidcrazy: http://t.co/zeh9Aq4A #syria #assad

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Angry Arab -- absurd levels in defending the Assad dictatorship: http://t.co/HpmqJ6eg

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

I have had enough with the Assad apologia appearing at @AlAkhbarEnglish. No excuse for defending autocrats. I quit: http://t.co/18Omyvrn

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

RT "@antissa: @AlakhbarEnglish's editor responds to the frenzy over @MaxBlumenthal and its #Syria coverage - http://t.co/CrUZGeU3

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Israel and the Assad regime share a penchant for shelling Lebanon http://t.co/jAFHFDi7 #sharedvalues

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Hicham Safieddine, my former editor at Al Akhbar, on Assad apologists: http://t.co/lZL9xqsB via @jadaliyya

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Robin Yassin-Kassab on leftist blanket thinkers http://t.co/kU0YlT7S #Syria

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Safaa Zarzour at #PalestineConf: Assad's supporters have been saying for past 8 days, "Hamas got what it deserved." The mask is off.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Safaa Zarzour at #PalestineConf: while 165 were killed in Gaza, 850+ were killed in Syria, killing on a scale we've never seen.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

SAC's Sunbulli to my q on Hezbollah's position on #Syria: the status of Nasrallah has been ruined completely in Syria. He's lost all he had.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

SAC's Sunbulli to my q on reports of Syrian rebel atrocities: they are individual acts, not collective strategy. #PalestineConf

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Safaa Zarzour on q of FSA atrocities: none of pro-regime towns w/in firing range of rebels have been shelled. #PalestineConf #SyrianCrisis

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Nick Griffin does Damascus MT "@DarthNader: British Nazi Nick Griffin is using same discourse on Assad as many in Western left.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Reports of 300+ dead after Assad regime warplanes bomb a bakery line in #Hama. Horrifying video: https://t.co/Ogste2G9 #BakeryMassacre

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

PFLP in Gaza distancing itself from Assad cutout PFLP-GC in Damascus http://t.co/PjnQpIgB

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Except when they bomb you RT "@IsraelNewsfeed: Syria's Chief of Staff: We'll Respond to 'Zionist Aggression': http://t.co/xKX8VxdN

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

At 1:15 in this video, the meaning of the Assad regime comes into view: https://t.co/PXGNOQc3! ht @TheMoeDee

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@snarwani downplays and dismisses the Syrian civilian death toll: http://t.co/N2gNh4NYPP She is a moral giant, an example to humanity.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@snarwani I know it's hard to own it. No one really aspires to be a serial Assad slaughter denier from their perch in Beirut.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

RT "@linktvnews: Syria: 'Vacuum Bombs' Target Civilians in Urban Areas http://t.co/Ca0s0UsALp [VIDEO]

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Palestinian who fled Syria tells @MoeAliNay how the Assad regime ruined Yarmouk refugee camp: http://t.co/XSCXJIiNtu via @intifada

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@sareemakdisi @DarthNader A problem: If rebels & activists pack up and leave regime intact, Assad's mukhabarat will quickly round them up

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

I noted a while ago that Islamophobia informed certain Assad apologists. Not surprised Daniel Pipes has joined them: http://t.co/6cyYgOAzEF

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Sharmine Narwani seems to be trying to milk the #Boston tragedy to rally sympathy for Assad: https://t.co/wRFijQMnsP A moral paragon she is.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Bloodied and burned corpses piled in the streets" of Syrian coastal town of Banias http://t.co/YE71bGHzFY #Assad

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@PalestineVideo I don't think any fan of the criminal Assad has much standing to assess my credibility

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

RT "@ZaidJilani: The Syrian opposition condemns Israeli strike on Syria http://t.co/iGq5BlogtX

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Nick Griffin does Damascus MT "@DarthNader: British Nazi Nick Griffin is using same discourse on Assad as many in Western left.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Al Assad trading one liners with Bibi, Blair and Bush: https://t.co/06lPGogq5x

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Anders Behring Al Assad MT "@Presidency_Sy: President al-Assad: Terrorism will...export itself through illegal immigration into Europe.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@khabarist The real petition for Assad's ouster is the increasingly endless list of dead civilians.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@vijayprashad The same @snarwani who runs cover for Assad by calling Baba Amr an "armed opposition stronghold?" http://t.co/cnRsFuXZKp

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Sharmine Narwani seems to be trying to milk the #Boston tragedy to rally sympathy for Assad: https://t.co/wRFijQMnsP A moral paragon she is.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@ramahkudaimi her arguments on Syria mirror those of Bibi on the "war on terror

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Al Akhbar's chief editor on Syria: "to hell with...their false tears and to hell with all their human rights groups" http://t.co/D02dd0gotT

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Did Rubio actually say Assad supported Al Qaeda in Iraq? I wonder why they suddenly turned on him.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Cutewashing RT @Jezebel: Syria's first lady looks super cute on Instagram http://t.co/vC000Iw2lu

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

I made it into Zaatari refugee camp today, home to 120,000 Syrian refugees, site of unbelievable misery & resilience

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

100% of dozens I spoke to in Zaatari today want US intervention in Syria. "Do it already!" they said. I am against but they must be heard.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Most I spoke to in Zaatari survived massacres, shelling. Here's Mansour, held at gunpoint while his dad was arrested

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

I will post more photos and reporting from Zaatari this week. For now, here's the new arrivals section of the camp:

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

UK jails Syrian refugee who secretly filmed Assad's atrocities -- "an abuse of immigration law" http://t.co/v5f82SFxvg

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

My report from Zaatari refugee camp: http://t.co/HAEl4mRr6z "Either bomb the regime or bomb Zaatari and get it over with for us.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Cynthia McKinney goes to Damascus, praises country's "free healthcare" https://t.co/CjvC3KUMTu So many have been healed by Assad's policies!

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@jacobplitman I agree. The refugees of both Palestine and Syria cry out for the right of return. What can we do to help them?

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@ElSayedAyman @jeremyscahill @OwenJones84 so you listen to the nun who went to Israel to lie about atrocities against defenseless felahin?

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@ElSayedAyman @jeremyscahill @OwenJones84 the people of Daraa and Homs have no security. They have mass death & torture. That ok?

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@ElSayedAyman @jeremyscahill @OwenJones84 I don't see why anyone should have to legitimize Assad. As for my views, read me on the opposition

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@ElSayedAyman @jeremyscahill @OwenJones84 how many 100's of 1000's dead will it take for you to turn on Assad? 200? 500? Is there a limit?

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Sub-mental op-ed by a @FreeBeacon Islamophobe attacks me for being opposed to Assad's brutality: http://t.co/1rErY6oKsY

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Journalist Qusai Zarkrya is on hunger strike to protest the siege of Moadamiya, Syria http://t.co/7gKOaCHd1W HT @DannyPostel

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Transcript of a powerful presentation on Syria, Palestine, and the role of the left by @Budour48 http://t.co/TpyjjNvQp9

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Israel's preference is for Bashar Assad to remain in power..." http://t.co/3UFZRX4nyc

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Allegations - with evidence - of "industrial style killing" by the Assad regime http://t.co/b70NEvuWKl "This is a smoking gun...

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Palestinians trapped in Syria war denied aid, stalked by starvation: http://t.co/IZbUogJgO4 via @AliAbunimah

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

RIP Ali Mustafa, @_fbtm, just killed by Assad's bombing of Aleppo. A talented photographer, here's his last tweet: https://t.co/3vS1gst5rf

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@RanaKabbani54 @JosephIsVegan @RaniaKhalek I do. I think victims of Assad would be best honored by us not replicating a shabiha mentality.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@miriwood @Mobute @AdamWeinstein when non Muslims say takfiri I cringe almost as much as when they defend Assad's reign of terror

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@ArabSecularist @ikhras @Partisangirl you're correct that I've always opposed the Assad family's ongoing legacy of criminal fascism.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Slam = new slang for coordination? RT @ahramonline: US 'horrified' by Syrian regime raids, slams Assad http://t.co/pjsLvmstYk

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Former leader of neo-fascist Islamophobic BNP, Nick Griffin, is in Syria as a guest of Assad regime http://t.co/DfZekPXelX ht @MadeInNablus

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@RiosJose559 @MadeInNablus as a guest of the regime's justice ministry in Damascus. A literal white supremacist feted by the regime.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@RiosJose559 @MadeInNablus let's not make excuses for anyone. the regime is mobilizing extreme right support just as it appeals to the left.

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Alan Dershowitz on Russia Today: "We may someday come to appreciate Assad in Syria" https://t.co/lhR23bvlFJ

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

@Saeed6Ali @Leen_AlZaibak @AdnanSadiq01 Galloway's support for Assad was pretty clear here: http://t.co/2kYyVSipsJ

Max Blumenthal on Twitter

Selfie from 2013 in Syrian refugee camp, Zaatari, with the greatest threat to Red State America

Post-Script 7/3/2021: British journalist Brian Whitaker revealed that in 2018 alone Max Blumenthal received $20,000 from a pro-Assad lobby group, the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees (AIPAC). This is the same group that paid Dennis Kucinich $20,000 to give a speech to a pro-Assad conference in Britain.

Blumenthal’s failure to disclose this income from a pro-Assad lobbyist group means he has once again violated the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethical Guidelines and that he is simply a shill not a journalist.

Syrian-American activist Shiyam Galyon writes on Facebook:

If you want to donate to support people in Eastern Ghouta, please donate to Syrian-owned and Syrian-operated organizations. The Assad regime doesn’t allow international organization across the border without dictating where the aid goes and the ONLY people who can reach the people inside Ghouta are Syrian citizens.

• فريق ملهم التطوعي Molham Volunteering Team
• Lubna Alkanawati (trusted Syrian activist)
• Ahmad Tarakji (for Syrian American Medical Society- SAMS)
• Syria Civil Defence — The White Helmets
• Karam Foundation
• Syria Relief and Development
• NuDay Syria
• UOSSM (Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations)
• Syrian Forum

After a week of global protests to #SaveGhouta, more protests are being organized because Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Russia continue attacking civilians in rebel-held Ghouta despite a U.N. Security Council vote for a 30-day ceasefire.

Brussels, Belgium: https://www.facebook.com/events/162710341048549/

Detroit, Michigan: https://www.facebook.com/events/2100351973315369/

Gainesville, Florida: https://www.facebook.com/events/227343607836060/

Little Rock, Arkansas: https://www.facebook.com/events/150557832298434/

Palermo, Italy: https://www.facebook.com/events/323114084877607/

Paris, France: Every day at 6pm at Place de la République

Prague, Czech Republic: https://www.facebook.com/events/1599725780109843

Szczecin, Poland: https://www.facebook.com/events/734491796750243/

Sydney, Australia: https://www.facebook.com/events/161015401369962/

Udine, Italy: https://www.facebook.com/events/222570021625309/

Global #SaveGhouta Protest Lists Can Also Be Found Here:

• Ghouta.com
• Syria Calendar

Bashar al-Assad’s murderous campaign to re-take rebel-held Ghouta sparked global demonstrations in solidarity with the Syrian revolution the likes of which we have not seen since his forces re-took Aleppo in 2016. This post is an attempt to document the global explosion of solidarity with besieged Ghouta. Special thanks to @hopesarout who did most of the compiling.

مريم قطريب on Twitter

SaveGhouta #Peaceful protest #Protest #Amman #Jordan #syria #Free #GhoutaGenocide https://t.co/WjIjUe4iKU