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Largely, I think engaging with crude propagandists like Blumenthal only serves their purpose; only the credulous still bother with the Grayzone. But since you asked... https://twitter.com/JebSprague/status/1276396161155260416
Let's set a few things straight: the Caesar Files aren't part of a "selective[...} narrative"; they actually happened. The fact that you try to strike a moral equivalence between torturing civilians to death and soldiers being killed in combat is frankly disgusting.
The reason people don't focus on the dead soldiers is because soldiers dying in combat is part of war; civilians being deliberately killed in an industrial system of murder is beyond all the norms of civilised society, and as such rightly gets more attention. This isnt conspiracy
The fact that the Grayzone sets this up as some sort of 'gotcha' speaks to the moral vacuum at the centre of their enterprise, and the lack of ability to dispute the evidence. The fact you fall for it speaks to your own moral depravity.
The article also takes aim at whether Caesar is a genuine defector; despite the typically large amounts of invective thrown his way - the grayzone housestyle can't resist an empty descriptor - the case against him rests solely on the fact his identity is kept secret.
It's apparently inconceivable to Max that someone fleeing a murderous regime known to kill and kidnap dissidents as well as persecute their families would want to remain anonymous. But he can't dispute the evidence of the thousands of photos and the fact that only a regime...
insider would have access to them, so instead he uses innuendo to cast the completely understandable anonymity afforded to a whistle blower as something underhand and shady. In fact, in focusing on the photos of dead soldiers, Max tacitly acknowledges Caesar's legitimacy
The article then does the typical Grayzone trick of smearing human rights organisations because of their funders. In the first example he reduces the work of the Center for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) to a 'regime change initiative'
CIJA in fact has a proud record of going after human rights violators in the US, Somalia, China, Bosnia, Chile, Guatemala, Indonesia and many other places, bringing the type of accountability that the Grayzone is working so hard to prevent in Syria
Similarly, the article goes after Sir Geoffrey Nice, because his firms have ties to Qatar. Thus, the lead prosecutor in the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, is dismissed as a govt patsy, rather than someone seeking justice for abhorrent crimes
The article then goes after the Holocaust Memorial Museum for having the temerity to recognise that these were mass killings on an industrial scale - if you are going against the Holocaust Memorial Museum you might want to reconsider which side you are on.
The article then expends a lot of moral indignation on behalf of the dead soldiers killed in combat (although without any such care for the murdered civilians); significantly in doing so it undermines its central conceit; that Caesar is a deception. If the photos of dead...
SAA soldiers are real, then so are the ones of the civilians tortured to death and thus Caesar's evidence is robust documentation of an industrial killing machine. Have previously commented on the debased nature of anyone trying to case a moral equivalence between the two sets...
of photographs, but worth reiterating. So, if Caesar is in fact legitimate, what are we left with? Crude invective and innuendo that seeks to smear widely respected human rights organisations for daring to try and bring accountability and attention to Assad's crimes.
And it's worth commenting on what the article doesn't say. Max laments the suffering of Syrians but he extends no sympathy to the victims featured in the photos. There is not a single word for those tortured, raped, bombed or gassed nor any condemnation for the man responsible.
There is no discussion of the literal starvation sieges imposed by Assad, his deliberate targeting of hospitals and rescue workers, his displacement of millions of people nor - hysterically - his own role in wrecking the Syrian economy through kleptocracy and mismanagement.
So concern for civilians ring hollow. And the central problem for anyone championing this as a critique of sanctions is this: it's perfectly possible to argue against sanctions but you do not need to try to lessen Assad's crimes to do so. If you do, your motives are transparent
We see you. If you had nothing to say about Madaya, we see you. If you were silent on Douma, we see you. If you omit Houla, we see you.
