GLEN FORD, glen.ford at blackagendareport.com, @blkagendareport
Executive editor for Black Agenda Report, Ford has been writing extensively on Syria. His latest piece is “The Big Switch: Obama Preparing to Bomb His Way to Regime Change in Syria.” He was recently interviewed by The Real News: “Is The Anti-ISIS Campaign Attempting to Renew War Against Assad?”
NAFEEZ AHMED, iprdoffice at gmail.com, @nafeezahmed
While the U.S. Congress called an early recess instead of debating war, The Telegraph reports that “David Cameron has recalled Parliament to debate airstrikes” on Friday. Ahmed is an investigative journalist who writes for The Guardian and other outlets. He was featured on an Institute for Public Accuracy news release on Tuesday: “ISIS: Is U.S. Goal to Build Up Islamists, Divide and Rule and ‘Chaos’?”
MICHAEL BEER, michael at nvintl.net, @NVIntl
Director of Nonviolence International, Beer is in contact with Kurdish and Christian communities in the north of Syria. He said today: “The democratic forces in the Self Administration Zones [in the north], have had zero support from the U.S., Europe or Turkey, even though these autonomous governments are secular, have a 40 percent quota for women in leadership positions, and are committed to a united Syria and a pluralist Syria. The U.S. has let Turkey dictate its policy towards the Self Administration Zones rather than supporting the most democratic of the governing groups in Syria.
“Syria’s civil war can be resolved but not through military victory by the Free Syria Army, the Baathist regime, Al-Nusra, Self-Administration Zones, or ISIL. None of these five groups is likely to obtain a military victory against the other four. So why are so many countries sending in weapons and bombing Syria?
“The Syrian people are suffering displacement by the millions, and hundreds of thousands dead and wounded. Not only are Syrians witnessing lots of foreign weapons pouring in, but foreign fighters from all over the world. Syria has increasingly become a proxy war by some of the neighboring states, including Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran.”