Venezuelan Legislator Jumps the Syrian Shark
A member of Venezuela's Socialist Party (the PSUV) is apparently in Syria right now fighting in Bashar al-Assad's army. This is another rather extreme example of what I wrote about recently, namely the knee-jerk reaction in Venezuela to formulate foreign policy based on doing the opposite of the United States. One of many problems with this logic is the implicit assumption that the opposite policy of the United States actually promotes peace. Obama is bad, so Assad must be good.
Update: Here's an English-language account from Girish Gupta at the Global Post.
23 comments:
He is Syrian, he was born in Syria. Moreover, his mother lives in Syria. I thought this was a serious blog.
Martin
My mistake. He is Syrian and as we know all Syrians all around the world by definition love Assad and fight on behalf of his dictatorship in the name of anti-yanqui aggression. I love logic!
You have to admit, Greg, that your own logic is bit wanting in this post. There's no evidence that this figure's role in the PSUV has any real bearing on his decision to fight in Syria. Given that the figure is of Syrian descent, don't you think you ought to find out what his personal ties are before launching into some wild conjecture about how Chavismo is the reason that this man is going to fight on the side of Assad?
You're leaping here, Greg.
I know you don't know much about Venezuelan politics, Justin, but Adel El-Zabayar has been a well-known figure since 2000 and you can't pretend that his motivations are some kind of unfathomable mystery.
On his own account, El-Zabayar sees no contradiction at all between sitting as a PSUV deputy and active support for the Ba'ath. (This 2010 speech gives a good idea of where he's coming from: http://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n160268.html).
More concretely, he's acted as a spokesman for Venezuela's fuel trade with Syria. He also told a BBC interviewer that he's in Syria to express the solidarity of the AN and Nicolas Maduro. So it's hard to see how you can accuse Greg of leaping.
Actually, the one who knows next to nothing about Venezuelan politics here is Greg. His penchant for relying on anecdotal hyperbole is not the stuff of social science. And the fact that you don't get that, Adam, is strange. If some figure of Syrian descent from any other country in the region were to go to Syria to join either side, nobody would bat an eye about it. But somehow, if a figure of Syrian descent in Venezuela goes to fight on behalf of Assad, it's because Chavismo made him do it. That any political scientist would actually find this to be a serious line of argument is embarrassing.
This post is truly embarrassing, no political scientist should be writing any such tripe. I would email his chair immediately.
I don't believe in formal complaints to chairs about the blog posts of scholars, as scholars shouldn't be evaluated on the basis of their blog posts. Nevertheless, seeing as you are a chair, one would think that you might want to set the bar a little higher.
How 'bout that supposed plan in Venezuela to "ban" baby bottles that you told us about? Care to fill us in on how honest that blog post of yours turned out to be?
I have no problem with honest criticisms of the Venezuelan government's policies and positions when such criticisms are articulated in a serious manner (such as in the case of David Smilde's blog, Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights). A reliance on sensationalistic anecdotes, however, is not a serious approach to the study of Venezuelan politics. Rather, it's an approach that opportunistically plays on American cultural prejudices in such a way as to exacerbate inter-cultural misunderstandings. Your tendency to rely on anecdotal hyperbole might get you a little play in Associated Press reports, but, in my view, it's an intellectually dishonest way of discussing issues.
Justin, let me make two quick points here. First, if you think I'm going to buy your suggestion that it wouldn't be newsworthy if a sitting member of the legislature in another country in the region went to fight in the Syrian civil war then you're out of your mind. Also, Adel El-Zabayar has spoken to several media outlets, internationally and in Venezuela, about all of this. It's not like anyone's embarrassed by him or hiding the fact that he went to Syria.
Second, Greg Weeks's presentation of the story might have been cursory and sensationalistic (y'know, like a blog post), but as I tried to point out to you in my comment we do have access to Adel El-Zabayar's own account of his reasons for supporting the Assad government and for travelling to Syria. If you'd taken the time you spent on this little tantrum to learn something about Venezuela you'd know that his role in the PSUV likely did enter into his decision.
Now I'll leave you alone to carry on with whatever it is the two of you are doing here.
To call Greg's post merely "cursory" suggests to me that you're not a very good arbiter of what constitutes an honest account, much less a serious observer of Venezuelan politics. In the blog post, Greg fails to even mention that the figure is of Syrian descent. Of course, everybody knows that Maduro supports Assad against a U.S.-backed insurgency, but to neglect to even mention that the figure is of Syrian descent is fundamentally dishonest. At the very least, you ought to admit that the figure's particular relationship with Syria complicates one's ability to assess what his actual motivations for going there are. I'm sure Maduro supports him, but to imply that this is just your typical PSUV legislator seeking to stick it in the eye of Uncle Sam is fundamentally dishonest.
And by the way, since when does a serious observer of Venezuelan politics suggest that we should take the statements of Venezuelan politicians (or any politicians, for that matter) at face value?
Justin, why do you insist on acting as though Adel El-Zabayar is some mysterious figure about whom we can never hope to know anything? The fact that El-Zabayar is a sitting member of the Venezuelan legislature is what makes his request to stay in Syria newsworthy and interesting to someone like Greg Weeks. I suspect that's why Weeks' post highlighted this aspect of the story.
El-Zabayar's ancestry and personal ties to Syria are also salient facts if you want to better understand what he's doing. It would certainly help to explain why he was in Syria. With minimal effort you could also find out a little about: 1) El-Zabayar's record promoting a kind of Chavista-Ba'ath politics in Venezuela; 2) his role as a spokesperson for Venezuela-Syria energy co-operation; and 3) his own statements linking his desire to stay in Syria to the Bolivarian Revolution. But, if I'm taking you at face value, it seems you'd rather spend your time making a fool of yourself on someone else's blog.
Notice how selective your line of attack is, Adam. When Greg fails to mention not only the fella's name but also the basic fact that he's of Syrian descent, that's a-okay by you, in spite of the fact that you can't even bring yourself to deny that it is transparently dishonest to omit such a relevant fact. But somehow, if I call El-Zabayar a "figure" and don't trot out with a slew of factoids about his politics, I'm making an ass of myself. Now, how exactly does that work, Adam? How can I be making an ass of myself by not stating his name while Greg can avoid even mentioning his country of origin --despite its obvious relevance-- and somehow escape your righteous indignation? If I had to guess, the glaring double standard in your line of attack suggests that you're trying to score some brownie points with Greg at the moment. Pretty pitiful, to say the least.
In any case, your logic remains questionable. Presumably, you don't take PSUV legislators at face value when they claim, say, that there's a U.S. target on Maduro's head (nor should you, in my view). But, somehow, you then turn around and claim that a supposed public statement to the effect that El-Zabayar is in Syria on behalf of the Bolivarian Revolution is rock-solid evidence that Chavismo turned a legislator of Syrian descent into a fanatical Assad-loving zealot who's ready to die for the cause!
In my view, it's not usually so wise to trot out with some statement made by a politician for public consumption as the sole foundation of one's argument. The facts of the matter are (1) that you know no more than anyone else here as to what motivated El-Zabayar to make this call and (2) that you and Greg's sensationalistic conjecture about his motivations remain just that.
Let's revisit how we arrived at this rather comical point in our exchange. First, Justin, you took Greg Weeks to task for omitting to mention Adel El-Zabayar's Syrian ancestry (in a blog post that was scarcely a paragraph long and which contained three links through which you could easily have found that out for yourself) and for seeming to imply that El-Zabayar was acting because of his membership in the PSUV more or rather than some other reason or set of reasons. I then tried to point out that we do in fact have some information about why El-Zabayar was in Syria and what motivated him to ask for permission to stay, and that on his own account his role in the PSUV likely played some part. In response, you've now insisted in several ways that we just can't know anything about the man or his motivations and so shouldn't bother trying because to do so would be "conjecture", attributed all sorts of imaginary arguments to me that I didn't make and wouldn't under any circumstances come close to making, and just to drive home the crazy you've now finished up by accusing me, someone about whom you know absolutely nothing, of acting on the basis of some dark motives of my own.
I'm sorry, Justin, but this comment thread is proof enough that your unrelenting and often incoherent concern trolling does tend to make you look foolish.
Let's revisit how we arrived at this rather comical point in our exchange.
Indeed, let's do so.
First, Justin, you took Greg Weeks to task for omitting to mention Adel El-Zabayar's Syrian ancestry (in a blog post that was scarcely a paragraph long
You know as well as I that, if Greg wanted to be honest, he would plug in another half sentence about how the guy happened to be of Syrian descent, as that would plainly be relevant to anyone's attempt to assess what's going on. You yourself acknowledge that it's relevant, so the fact that you're still trying to make excuses for Greg's dishonest omission seems to me to be indicative of your quest for brownie points.
I then tried to point out that we do in fact have some information about why El-Zabayar was in Syria and what motivated him to ask for permission to stay, and that on his own account his role in the PSUV likely played some part.
Well, apparently you and Greg have a very unique conception of what constitutes meaningful evidence. For a social scientist to try to make some sweeping claim about the ideological effects of Chavismo on the basis of ONE MEASLY EXAMPLE of a Venezuelan legislator of Arab descent who goes off to fight in an Arab land is plainly anecdotal conjecture. It would be the equivalent of me arguing that, say, Strom Thurmond sought the restoration of formal segregation because, er, the National Republican Party convinced him do so. Nobody would take the latter argument seriously, but, whenever people talk about rival states like Venezuela, many tend to lose their logical bearings and offer somewhat outlandish claims about causality that cast the rival in a particularly negative light. Strangely, even some academics tend to feed off hysteria when it comes to official enemies.
and just to drive home the crazy you've now finished up by accusing me, someone about whom you know absolutely nothing, of acting on the basis of some dark motives of my own.
Indeed, I suspect that --on the basis of your style of argumentation and the knee-jerk manner in which you continue to deny the obvious with respect to Greg's dishonesty-- that (1) you're the kind of guy who uses false bravado to mask underlying insecurities and (2) you're in the quest for brownie points.
Justin, I think it'll be clear to anyone reading this that you're projecting. I'm just going to return to two straightforward points that you so far seem incapable of understanding and then I'll let you get back to your life.
First, I don't know why you can't see that I didn't say anything at all about Greg Weeks' original post except to say that it was "cursory and sensationalistic". The point I made to you was that if you didn't know that Adel El-Zabayar was of Syrian descent you could have found the truth simply by clicking on one of the links in the original post. To keep on insinuating that Weeks is a liar who deliberately misled his readers about this, and now that I'm somehow defending his dishonesty, just makes you look like a moron.
Second, you can't seem to stop accusing me of saying things that anyone reading this exchange can easily see I never said. Just in case it's not clear enough, let me remind you that I never made any claims, sweeping or otherwise, about what El-Zabayar's case might have to tell us about "the ideological effects of Chavismo". The point I tried to convey to you was that we do, in reality, have access to plenty of information that might help us to understand why Adel El-Zabayar, a sitting deputy in the Venezuelan AN, sought permission to stay and fight in Syria. On the basis of this information it would seem he was motivated, inter alia, by some kind of commitment to Chavismo as he understands it. Do what you will with that knowledge. If for some reason they don't have Occam's razor in your country and you'd like to float some more complicated hypotheses about what El-Zabayar is up to and why, I think you'll still find it helpful to relax for a minute and put some time and effort into learning a little more about Venezuela. It can't hurt.
The bottom line, Adam, is that it is a fundamentally crass and dishonest form of argumentation to take one particularly sensationalistic case of a PSUV legislator of Syrian descent who goes off to fight in Syria and then try to extrapolate from the extreme case some sort of general observation about Chavismo. That's what Greg did here, as you well know, and it's unfortunately the kind of argumentation he erroneously employs all the time.
Again, let's revisit the analogy I used. Would you consider it serious and honest for someone to take one particularly sensationalistic case of, say, Strom Thurmond's defense of the segregationist legacy and then extrapolate from the extreme case some sort of general observation about the Republican Party circa 1995? Would that be an honest thing to do?
If you can't see that there are serious problems with this style of argumentation, then I can't help you. Greg screws up his "analysis" of Venezuela all the time because he doesn't care to analyze facts about the country in a serious and honest manner. Again, the point is not that there aren't many legitimate criticisms of Chavismo to make. The point is that Greg Weeks is usually incapable of offering intelligent criticisms because he really truly knows next to squat about Venezuela. I suspect he's never set foot in the country, and yet it's somehow one of his favorite subjects to blog about. This is a guy who was trotting out opposition-sponsored polls predicting an overwhelming route for the opposition in the months leading up to Chavez's referendum victory in early 2009. In light of electoral trends at the time, no serious observer of Venezuelan politics would have made such an error. This is a guy who actually bought the absurd London Telegraph story that Venezuela was looking to out-and-out ban baby bottles earlier this year. The story was bogus, and anybody with the slightest inkling of Venezuelan reality would have known it was bogus.
And yet you're gonna try to tell me that I'm the one who needs to brush up on contemporary Venezuela? Come on, fella. It's time to stop trying to score brownie points here and start getting a little perspective on what's really at issue.
Justin, can you seriously not see the irony in your pretending to be able to psychoanalyze me, someone with whom you've never had any prior contact, and discern my motives, about which you still know absolutely nothing, even as you continue to flail around trying to deny that we can ever hope to know anything about a man who's discussed his political views and activities openly and at length, inter alia, in a public letter to the AN, in media stories and interviews in at least three languages, and on his own Twitter account?
As any thinking person who reviews this thread can see, I never said anything at all to defend Greg Weeks or endorse the content of his post. You still have no idea what I think about his speculation regarding Adel El-Zabayar's request to stay in Syria. Nor, by the way, have you even thought to ask what I think about it. My comment was addressed to your concern trolling and your insistence in the face of all evidence readily to hand that the reasons for El-Zabayar's actions are so inscrutable and mysterious that Weeks shouldn't even be allowed to hypothesize about them in a paragraph-long post on his own blog. Yet, because you're unable to break away from your compulsive policing of others' conduct to carry on an adult conversation even for the space of a single blog comment, you just rattle on mindlessly with the passive-aggrssive prosecutor's case against Weeks that you've assembled in your head. Have I given you any indication at all that I'd be interested in hearing any more of what you think about the man and his blog? Or that I'd be inclined to turn to you as an authority on Venezuelan politics, on social-scientific methodology, or for that matter on anything at all?
As any thinking person who reviews this thread can see, I never said anything at all to defend Greg Weeks or endorse the content of his post.
Well, now you're just lying, but whatever.
My comment was addressed to your concern trolling and your insistence in the face of all evidence readily to hand that the reasons for El-Zabayar's actions are so inscrutable and mysterious that Weeks shouldn't even be allowed to hypothesize about them in a paragraph-long post on his own blog.
Of course, Greg Weeks can write whatever he damn well pleases on his blog, and I can tell you what I think of his time-tested antics, as I've done. Now, Greg certainly didn't phrase the point as a hypothesis. Moreover, it would be kinda hard to base a hypothesis about an entire political grouping on the basis of one extreme case. Here, Greg attempts to draw an inference about the thought processes of an entire political grouping on the basis of a particularly extreme case. In my view, it's a crassly propagandistic way of approaching an issue.
Have I given you any indication at all that I'd be interested in hearing any more of what you think about the man and his blog?
I frankly couldn't give a flying f about what you want to hear. I'm going to tell you what I know, having viewed this blog for a number of years.
And, by the way, you continue to evade the question I asked you or to squarely address the central point I made in the last comment. That leads me to believe that, behind all your invective, you're actually quite the lightweight intellectually. But in order to determine whether I could be mistaken, I'll rephrase the questions and see what you got.
Do you consider it serious and honest to take one particularly sensationalistic case of a PSUV legislator of Syrian descent who goes off to fight in Syria and then try to extrapolate from the extreme case some sort of general observation about the thought processes of Chavistas? Why or why not?
Secondly, would you consider it serious and honest for someone to take one particularly sensationalistic case of, say, Strom Thurmond's defense of the segregationist legacy and then extrapolate from the extreme case some sort of general observation about the Republican Party around, say, 1995? Why or why not?
Let's see what you got, invective man.
Justin, you understand that anyone can easily read the comments on this thread and see that I'm not lying, right? I only tried to point out to you that the information you accused Greg Weeks of lying about is both common knowledge and easily accessible through three links in his post and that on the face of it the available evidence about why El-Zabayar asked for permission to stay in Syria doesn't support your assertion that he was "leaping"? I've now repeated this several times in terms I thought were simple enough for you to understand.
In any case, at any given point in this exchange you could have given up your concern trolling and tried to seriously discuss the issue raised in Weeks' post by introducing new evidence (some of which I tried to point you to), offering some kind of counter-argument of your own, or casting a new and different light on the question at hand. Rather than doing any of that, though, you've chosen to double down on your insistence that no such discussion is possible, rolled out a dossier you're apparently keeping on Greg Weeks' "antics" (about which I don't care no matter how much you hammer away at it, by the way), and now by repeatedly attacking me, a person you don't know anything about and who first waded into this conversation in the vain belief that he might be able to help you stop making such a fool of yourself.
Since I'm starting to feel sorry for you and it seems unlikely that you're going to be able to let this argument go on your own, I'm going to end this exchange by briefly addressing the analogy you've put to me. Do you really believe that any serious person would object on principle to an enquiry into such questions as why Strom Thurmond seemed to see no contradiction between his belief in segregation and long-term his membership in the GOP, why the GOP was such a safe political home for a segregationist over such a long period of time, or that Strom Thurmond's long career as a member of the GOP might tell us something - or at the very least allow us to put the question - of the GOP's position on and relation to race and racism? I don't doubt that a enquiry along these lines could reject the conclusion that Thurmond's racism was some kind of unmediated reflex of GOP ideology that you could then extrapolate to every member of the GOP, but I'd hope you'd arrive there through an analysis of the evidence rather than by appealing to the social science police (which seems to exist only in the mind of Justin Delacour) to have any such questioning declared off limits before it could even start.
Justin, you understand that anyone can easily read the comments on this thread and see that I'm not lying, right?
No, what I understand is that every one of your comments in this thread has constituted a rather transparent form of apologetics for Greg's modus operandi. In fact, you continue to avoid squarely answering certain questions because you recognize that you couldn't cogently do so without explicitly criticizing the propagandistic nature of Greg's original post.
In any case, at any given point in this exchange you could have given up your concern trolling and tried to seriously discuss the issue...
Actually, I think it's fairly clear that I have done more than yourself to facilitate discussion here, as your modus operandi is so centered on the use of invective as to make it next to impossible to have a discussion. You can't possibly be serious that you're genuinely interested in discussion, as your very first words in the thread were clearly intended to be insulting. In fact, this is by far the most dishonest claim you've made in the thread. Given how transparently dishonest you are, it doesn't surprise me at all that you hide behind a pseudonym.
Since I'm starting to feel sorry for you...
Oh, that's rich.
My guess is that you actually feel sorry for yourself, as anyone who has to rely so heavily on invective is usually not a very happy person.
Do you really believe that any serious person would object on principle to an enquiry into such questions as why Strom Thurmond seemed to see no contradiction between his belief in segregation and long-term his membership in the GOP, why the GOP was such a safe political home for a segregationist over such a long period of time, or that Strom Thurmond's long career as a member of the GOP might tell us something - or at the very least allow us to put the question - of the GOP's position on and relation to race and racism?
The enquiry would be legitimate, but the question you pose is somewhat different than the one I posed. You haven't actually denied that it would still be crass and dishonest to attempt to extrapolate from Thurmond's defense of the segregationist legacy some sort of general observation about the Republican Party as a whole. To say that the Republican Party provided a home to Thurmond is vastly different than to attempt infer that his positions were generally representative of the party as a whole.
Of course, it doesn't surprise me that you don't address the more pressing question. Is it serious and honest to take one particularly sensationalistic case of a PSUV legislator of Syrian descent who goes off to fight in Syria and then try to extrapolate from the extreme case some sort of general observation about the thought processes of the PSUV as a whole?
With respect to the latter question, it seems to me that both you and Greg are incapable of making a cogent case in the affirmative.
The only way to properly answer the "slightly different" question you seem to think you've posed would still be through logical argument based on an analysis of the best available evidence, not by closing off any line of enquiry that makes Justin Delacour feel uncomfortable or flailing ad hominem attacks on your potential interlocutors. Do you seriously intend with this analogy you're so insistent on to imply that it would somehow fall beyond the pale to suggest that there might be something like an elective affinity linking Thurmond's position to, say, the GOP's southern strategy in the 1960s, Reagan's attacks on "welfare queens" in the 1980s, or the GOP-dominated Supreme Court's recent ruling on the Voting Rights Act? Do you seriously know so little of your own country's history and politics that you think looking into this could be seen as "crass and dishonest"?
Do you seriously intend with this analogy you're so insistent on to imply that it would somehow fall beyond the pale to suggest that there might be something like an elective affinity linking Thurmond's position to, say, the GOP's southern strategy in the 1960s, Reagan's attacks on "welfare queens" in the 1980s, or the GOP-dominated Supreme Court's recent ruling on the Voting Rights Act? Do you seriously know so little of your own country's history and politics that you think looking into this could be seen as "crass and dishonest"?
Seeing as I've taught all of the history you mention (and beyond), I know it quite well. But, again, you're not squarely addressing either of the questions I posed. While there's a clear, racially biased tinge to Republican Party politics ever since the development of the Southern strategy, very few Americanist political scientists or historians would consider it serious and honest to suggest that Strom Thurmond's particularly virulent brand of race-baiting was generally representative of the Republican Party since the Civil Rights act. Most scholars would acknowledge that there's still a difference between the racially tinged politics you mention and the blatant apologetics for a system of formal segregation.
Stated differently, you probably wouldn't see Greg Weeks post anything to the effect that the extreme case of Strom Thurmond was generally representative of the politics of the Republican Party following the Civil Rights Act. So the question I'm posing is how it somehow becomes kosher to suggest --without even hedging-- that one Syrian-born PSUV legislator who decides to go fight in Syria is generally representative of the politics and ideological tendencies of Chavismo. I just don't think it's honest, and I also don't think such demonization of Chavismo is conducive to better U.S. relations with Latin America.
On the one hand, people like Weeks don't want the United States to adopt more aggressive and militaristic positions toward Latin America. On the other hand, many of the same people, including Week, constantly replicate exactly the kind of distorting and demonizing rhetoric that serves as ammunition to those who advocate a more aggressive and militaristic position toward the region. It doesn't make much sense.
I don't know if you'll understand this, Justin, but you're not really some kind of religious authority who gets to sit in judgment on which statements about the world are "kosher" and which aren't. The question (and I'm still agnostic about the likely answer, by the way) is whether Greg Weeks' account of the relationship between Adel El-Zabayar's asking permission to remain in Syria and what you call "the politics and ideological tendencies of Chavismo" is true or not. We're more than twenty comments into this thread and you still haven't offered a single piece of evidence or a counterargument of your own that would help to move us any closer to an answer. All you've done so far is to insinuate that the question itself ought to be off-limits.
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