Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Welcome to the Arms Race by Justin Isis Justin Isis. It cannot be, as is often thought, an unreflective grounding in the everyday, the kind of consensus-seeking Social Realism favored by whoever currently maintains the Canon™. Inasmuch as Horror is a scalar value, a jerking left into the negative zone of the Uncanny, then its opposite cannot be the zero point neutrality of the merely Real; it requires, instead, a state just as heightened, equal but opposite. This state, it seems clear, has until now been evoked much less in literature than its superficially menacing but commercially profitable reflection, but for some time it has been gaining momentum in certain subterranean channels of its own, unobserved and mostly unsuspected until the publication of the present volume. This state is the Pleasant . It’s been noted that a worldview often achieves its greatest prominence just as it is about to decline. This seems an appropriate description of what could variously be termed the cosmic horror or Lovecraftian mode, which some would claim to be undergoing a renaissance, but which seems more strictly appropriate to the years of its origin than to the early decades of the 21st century. At the time when this mode was still fresh, the scientific revelations of Darwin and Einstein, the mass devastations of the World Wars, and the changing social attitudes brought about by rapidly advancing technology all hastened the decline of the already enfeebled anthropocentric view of literature. The novelty of the approach was to suggest that increased scientific understanding would lead, not to greater sanity and social harmony as H.G. Wells would have had us believe, but to an unceremonious expulsion into a universe that was at best infinitely and inhospitably vast, and at worst populated with forces wholly destructive of human life and meaning. And as the 20th century progressed, the various voices of Anxiety, Absurdity and Exhaustion joined the chorus. The critical quarter took part too, with academic writings focused on the radical contingency of human values. By the turn of the 21st century, this mode had become something of a default, degrading into a reflexive apocalypticism suitable for the comic books, video games and blockbuster films that had arisen to recuperate its insights and render them safe for the capitalist production line. In short, this mode has become shorthand for “seriousness,” and has now reached its Mannerist nadir. It’s possible to imagine the Pleasant incubating all the while, beneath a toadstool perhaps, like some shadowy fairy embryo. The fairy or bright blinking goblin of the Pleasant, youthful and shy, has until now only peeked through the pages of a scattered band of authors who would at first seem to have little in common: Colette, John Cowper Powys, Jippensha Ikku, Robert Walser, Mario Vargas Llosa, Italo Svevo. But there is nothing here like a school, and the glimpses of the Pleasant in their works are just that: brief sightings, usually unverified and likely to have been taken for something else entirely. The Pleasant is distinct from the whimsical, the absurd, the comical and the farcical. The Pleasant is not pastoral; neither is it realism in the sense that the term is usually meant; neither is it fantasy. A few of the works of Quentin S. Crisp come perilously close to embodying the Pleasant in full flower (the story “Italianetto,” and parts of the novel Blue on Blue ). But nowhere has concentrated Pleasantness been felt until now. In 2010 Brendan Connell published Unpleasant Tales . Unlike many of his more workshopped peers, Connell had, in the service of style, sensibly discarded plot, character, “arcs,” “craftsmanship,” and most of the other appurtenances of modern commercial fiction. In their place was an emphasis on the historical extrusions of decadence, or what might be termed a Neo-Decadent expression of classical decadent themes. Unpleasant Tales thus succeeded in its objectives, but in a sense it succeeded too well. Eight-year-old boys and girls reading it were stricken with a profound sense of disquietude that occasionally interfered with their delectation of the conveniences of the modern Industrial Age. To be unpleasant is at heart to be uncivilized, and nothing uncivilized can long retain the attention of an English-language readership. After realizing the crudeness of the Unpleasant and its even more boorish and self-aggrandizing cousin, the Weird (now a reformed New™ genre of sorts, with its own tedious orthodoxies and compound eyes fixed on the Hollywood Prize), Connell went through a prolonged spiritual crisis. He drank mostly black barley tea, fed himself on figs and prickly pears, and observed the desert, the sky. Through rigorous training he achieved an enviable abdominal definition. He wandered the streets at night playing Tetris on a vintage Game Boy. In the end he arrived at the Pleasant through mostly non-rational and extra- literary means. The Pleasant as manifested through Connell’s stories is unconcerned with any teenage hysterics, with any of the plunging, swooning theatrics of Modernist ecstasy. Character and self as generally understood are not important; neither is plot. The Pleasant mode is at once atmospheric yet deeply detached, expansive yet leanly impersonal. Blissfully unmarked by the cross-hatchings of programmatic psychological realism, it is in a sense a transpersonal literature, albeit one more spiritually complete than its predecessors. It is manifestly not a critique, in that it does not perceive anything in existence to be lacking. Its characters are human in the same sense that figures in premodern literature are human, while still striking us as recognizable inhabitants of the present. The instinctive philosophical position of the Pleasant can be defined as a kind of super-correlationism. The universe is not inimical to human life, nor even indifferent to it; rather, the universe dotes on us like a grandfather, wheezing and rocking in infinitely relaxed decrepitude, patient and amused, blinking its endless eyes or stars. A benevolent animism quickens its rhythms. The characters are not situated in their settings like actors on a stage; rather the settings emerge directly from the characters, or can be considered as the expressions of everything they are not consciously aware of knowing, but are always remembering in some vague, distracted way. There is something grotesquely excessive about the Pleasant, yet perfectly natural—and in this it is the perfect counterpart to Horror, because it evokes exactly as much of an inhumanly positive seizure of Meaning as its opposite does a negative or malevolent seizure through estrangement. Connell seems to be telling us: the Human in the 21st century has become estranged from estrangement. The period of Anxiety, Absurdity and Exhaustion was akin to the momentary disillusionment felt by a child discovering the literal non-existence of Santa Claus. For a brief moment the child became a cynical atheist concerned with “truth” and perturbed by vast doubts; eventually, though, the realization set in that the child’s parents were in fact doing the hard work of depositing the vintage Game Boys and brightly-colored toothbrushes under the ornament-laden tree. And just as the Claus scenario functions structurally as a form of home invasion, so the child or reader will come to anticipate that tingling moment when the Pleasant comes crawling down the chimney of the everyday, dressed in its ancestral costume, depositing fresh novelties wrapped in cheap tinsel. Pleasant Tales is a vision of the Human utterly at home in the universe, sinking into mildness as into an old armchair. The Pleasant is coming, and it fully intends to crawl headfirst into your safe space. Be sure to keep your metaphysics clean, and leave out a plate of cookies. Welcome to the Arms Race. The long-awaited second collection from Justin Isis takes us on a sharp turn away from the ‘Huysmans in Tokyo’ feel of the first collection and into a world of near and far future shocks. Torrents of alien language and remixed fragments of science fiction hauntology merge in the valley of the shadow of unguessable metaphysics, while atomized characters scramble for self and meaning only to find themselves overwritten or revised out of reality. Churches made of meat, spaceships powered by song, simulated authors and a soul-warping artwork that may or may not exist — in these ten stories you will be confronted with a garish neon blueprint of post-humanity, a form-fixated vision of the Altermodern less New Wave than No Wave. Welcome to tomorrow. Welcome to the Arms Race . Contents. 1 Welcome to the Arms Race 2 Some Notes on the Artwork of Chris Wilhelm 3 M-FUNK VA THA FUTUREGIONS OF INVERSE FUNKATIVITY 4 The Stars and Yellow Doubt 5 The Heart of a Man 6 Brent Beckford vs Writing 7 The Portrayed Man 8 The Plot 9 The Willow 10 Defense/Prosecution. What People Say about Welcome to the Arms Race : “ Welcome to the Arms Race is on my list of futures books that belong to the present, and push fiction ahead like Boeing exhaust vaporising over Heathrow.” Jeremy Reed , poet and novelist. “In Welcome to the Arms Race , Justin Isis, as usual, dazzles with his rendition of shattered reality where deeply damaged characters kick up their heels as they revel in their self-inflicted agonies. There’s just no letting up—from depravity involving a squid to the relentless mirroring of our deep- seated anxieties in ‘The Heart of a Man,’ from cosmic horror in ‘The Willow’ to the tortuous psychedelia in ‘M-FUNK VS THA FUTUREGIONS OF INVERSE FUNKATIVITY.’ Another terrific collection of stories from Chômu Press.” What People Say about I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like : “I love these stories for their fractionally off-world message that is always vitally, sexily modern.” Jeremy Reed , poet and novelist. What They Say Generally: “Justin Isis is a genius and an inspiration. I’ve said so before; and I’ll say it again.” Mark Samuels , author of Glyphotech and Other Macabre Processes. Wisch: Time For Cubs To Draft A Pitcher And Enter Arms Race. (CBS) When their turn comes around this evening in the 2014 MLB First Year Player Draft, Chicago Cubs executives Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have insisted that they’ll select the best player available with the No. 4 pick. But should they, if that player isn’t a pitcher? Shedding light on the franchise, Baseball America currently rates the Cubs’ minor league system as the fourth best in baseball, calling it a “very top- heavy system that drops in talent quickly” before also adding that, “Championship teams are built on star power.” I’d actually argue, however, that championship teams are built on power pitching, of which the Cubs have little in their ballyhooed minor league system. And considering that crucial need, I believe the time has come for the Cubs to finally roll their first-round dice on the best pitcher available – and not just the “best player.” Of the top 100 prospects listed by Baseball America prior to the 2014 season, the Cubs lay claim to an impressive seven in Javier Baez (No. 5), Kris Bryant (No. 8), C.J. Edwards (No. 28), Albert Almora (No. 36), Jorge Soler (No. 41), Pierce Johnson (No. 87) and Arismendy Alcantra (No. 100). Two of those players – Edwards and Johnson – are pitchers, but among all right-handed prospects, Baseball America ranks Edwards as only the 14th best, while Johnson comes in at No. 32. The Cubs have no left-handed pitching prospects listed in Baseball America’s top 30. They do have one reliever (No. 6 Arodys Vizcaino) listed among the top 10. Such numbers don’t seem to add up to a future championship-caliber pitching staff, especially if the team trade opts to trade current ace Jeff Samardzija rather than sign him to a long-term deal. But if the Cubs are ever to win it all, the elite pitching clearly is going to have to come from somewhere. And with the franchise’s relative wealth of positional prospects, it’s time to try to finally grab some top pitching via the draft. I understand, of course, that picking pitchers high in the draft is a gamble, something that CBS Chicago’s Nick Shepkowski highlighted on Wednesday when he shared his research showing that since 2000, 37 pitchers have been selected with top-five overall picks and only four of them – Justin Verlander, David Price, Stephen Strasburg and Mark Prior – have been All-Stars, while only one other, Gerrit Cole, appears on pace to be an elite hurler. However, I’d counter that plenty of top positional players – including the Cubs’ Luis Montanez (No. 3 in 2000), Ryan Harvey (No. 6 in 2003) and Josh Vitters (No. 3 in 2007) – haven’t panned out over the years, either. But that’s just baseball. There are no sure things in the draft. What is for sure, though, is that the Cubs need star-caliber starting pitching more than they currently need anything else. By far. On Wednesday, however, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman projected in his latest mock draft that the Astros, Marlins and White Sox will nab the top three pitchers in the draft, leaving the Cubs with a tough decision about who to pick at No. 4. If such a scenario unfolds, the Cubs may indeed opt to select the supposed “best” positional player in the draft instead of the supposed “fourth- best” pitcher, and Heyman believes they’ll be drafting catcher-outfielder Kyle Schwarber out of Indiana. On that topic, my buddy Jamey down in Louisiana – who has been stumping all season for the Cubs to draft LSU ace pitcher Aaron Nola (who Heyman has at No. 7) – said to me via text, “If they pick an outfielder, I may become an Astros fan.” With Houston having selected Stanford righty Mark Appel with their No. 1 pick a year ago and likely to select another highly touted pitcher first overall tonight, he might some day have good reason. Because World Series truly are won with great pitching, and the Cubs really need to get in the arms race soon. The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews. A FEARLESS FAITH IN FICTION — THE PASSION OF THE READING MOMENT CRYSTALLISED — Empirical literary critiques from 2008 as based on purchased books. Some Chômu Press books I have bought for my shelves. Links are to my specific real-time reviews. THE GALAXY CLUB by Brendan Connell. Share this: Like this: One thought on “ * ” 12 July 2014 Noon. All my WordPress sites, other than this one, have just closed down from today for a Sabbaticess and an intended reconstruction, but all their current content and links will be preserved unchanged. Currently, you may enter these sites by requesting access if you are a WordPress registered user. Nobody will be refused.* During this period, if you can’t find a continuation part of any Real-Time Review, you may be able to find it by searching for its second copy here: http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com Also you can always obtain from me, duly signed, the complete printed text in book form of any of my past Real-Time Reviews – or direct from the printer at Lulu. Details here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/rtrs-as-books/ Non profit to me. *all you need to do is sign in normally as a WordPress user and then, on the next page, click ‘request access’. [This real-time reviews site is nominated for the 2014 BFS award for non-fiction.] Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Please use the Search Box above for author, title, publisher etc. GESTALT REAL-TIME REVIEWING. Reviews linked for each year: 2008/9 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016 – 2017 – 2018 – 2019 – 2020 – 2021. . And Click: HERE for full Navigation, Stop Press & Backstory. Available DFL books: HERE. The Three Ages of D.F. Lewis. 0. 1948-1985 — Poems / Zeroist Group (1960s), The Visitor (Novel) 1973, Agra Aska (novella) 1983. 1. 1986-2000 – Over 1000 fiction publications in magazines and anthologies, some selected for the Prime Books D.F. Lewis collection ‘Weirdmonger’ (2003). Work once in Stand, Iron, Panurge, Orbis, London Magazine…. I was awarded the BFS Karl Edward Wagner Award. 2. 2001-2010 – Publishing multi-authored ‘Nemonymous’. 3. 2008- GESTALT REAL-TIME REVIEWING (www.nemonymous.com), Plus one novel NEMONYMOUS NIGHT (Chômu Press), a story collection and two novellas entitled THE LAST BALCONY (InkerMen Press), and a novella entitled Weirdtongue (InkerMen Press), and my reprint of Agra Aska that was originally published in 1998 by Scorpion Press, Plus three originally created multi-authored anthologies that I published, Plus two books from Mount Abraxas Press, and an Eibonvale chapbook called The Big Headed People. And a book collection from Eibonvale: DABBLING WITH DIABELLI, Plus, in July 2020, a past story selected for THE BIG BOOK OF MODERN FANTASY edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. THE LAST BALCONY: HERE. After many satisfying years of gestalt real-time reviewing, it now feels really special to see one of my own old stories showcased here! The Rebel Commander of Damascus. Zahran Alloush, head of the Army of Islam, talks to The Daily Beast about a four-year siege, the future of Syria, and accusations that he’s just another dictator in Islamic garb. Hadeel Oueiss. In early 2011, I was a part of a group that staunchly believed in the necessity and urgency to change the status quo in Syria. As a 19-year-old Christian student, full of hopes and dreams, nothing was going to stop me back then from taking the risk of wandering the streets of Aleppo on March 10, 2011, on a very cold night, to distribute fliers calling on the people to protest. I was jailed and tortured by Bashar al-Assad’s forces, not once, but three times. I was later forced into exile, to leave my home, family, friends, and hopes back home. In 2013, I heard about a new leader, a Salafist preacher and rebel commander, whose existence made me—a secular activist from a confessional minority—an immediate antagonist. He was Zahran Alloush, and his Jaysh al-Islam, or Army of Islam, today controls al-Ghouta, the largest part of the Damascus countryside, which the regime hit with chemical weapons in August 2013, killing 1,400 people in a day. His headquarters are few miles away from Assad’s presidential palace. Alloush fought on many fronts and against many adversaries, including ISIS and the regime. Today, he’s a prominent target of the Russian airstrikes, which tend to hit Army of Islam positions just as Alloush’s forces are battling ISIS. Alloush’s conservatism isn’t foreign to the region he controls, but nor has it impinged upon competing traditions of liberalism in the surrounding areas. There are Christian towns in al-Ghouta where churches have been kept unmolested for decades. Muslims and Christians have lived harmoniously in the area, too. Also somewhat distinct from other rebel organizations in Syria, Alloush’s Army of Islam is purely Syrian in composition. There are no foreign fighters in its ranks, no veterans of mujahidin campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan. Whatever heroic status he may enjoy among opposition forces, Alloush is also a deeply controversial figure. He stands accused by many of having abducted a great icon of the Syrian uprising, the human-rights campaigner Razan Zaytouneh. I first thought that interviewing him would be an incredibly hard task, given my politics and religious background. I was wrong. I interviewed Alloush for The Daily Beast recently while he was at his compound in al-Ghouta. The Daily Beast: How did the Army of Islam emerge? Is it a Syrian army or an Islamic one? What is its banner? And what are your priorities? Zahran Alloush: Jaysh al-Islam, like other revolutionary forces, emerged after the regime crackdown of the Syrian peaceful protests. It was a must at that time to have tools to protect the population from the regime atrocities by carrying arms and defending them. As for the identity—we are Syrians with a revolutionary project. That is why we have always chosen our allies and enemies depending only on their position from the revolution and the regime. As for the banner, we have a distinct banner as a faction but it is not a replacement of the Syrian independence flag. It is just a banner that carries our name. Our priorities are those initial priorities of the revolution. We want to rid our country of all dictatorial and terrorist projects. TDB: In one of your prior interviews, you said that you do not have any differences with Jabhat al Nusra, the al Qaeda franchise in Syria. You said that your Sharia adviser does not disagree with the Sharia adviser of al Nusra. Does that mean that you have no ideological differences with al Qaeda? ZA: Back then, I was referring to Abu Maria al-Qahtani, one of [al Nusra’s] Sharia advisers. We saw that Qahtani was showing a moderate face and we wanted to encourage those efforts. Now al Nusra has different Sharia advisers, and ours have many disagreements with them, ideologically and intellectually. TDB: How is your relationship with Ahrar al-Sham, the powerful Salafist rebel group in Syria? Why were you excluded from its new coalition against Assad called the Army of Conquest? ZA: Jaysh al-Islam stands alongside Ahrar al-Sham and all revolutionary forces that fight Assad and refuses ISIS’s takfiri mentality. You should ask them this question. We have heard that one component of the army which has ties with ISIS is the one that lobbied against us. TDB: Why does Jaysh al-Islam have many enemies on opposite sides such as ISIS, al Qaeda, and secular opposition figures? ZA: In general, Jaysh al-Islam does not have objections or sensitivity to criticism. On the contrary, we reach out to all those who have the expertise and comprehensive vision to evaluate us and offer advice. However, we are always subject to distortion by some people simply because we cannot satisfy everybody. There are always people who hate what we do and feel that their personal interests are not served and they will continue to criticize us anyway. We think that we have to continue work rather than waste time on propaganda and anti-propaganda. TDB: Do you think you have been wrongly accused of kidnapping Razan Zaytouneh and have you arrested those who kidnapped her? ZA: The case of Razan Zaytouneh has been used to demonize Jaysh al-Islam by many sides. Most people do not know that Jaysh al-Islam facilitated Zaytouneh’s entrance into eastern Ghouta through the martyr Mohamed Adas, manager of the office of [Syrian regime] defectors in Jaysh al-Islam. We offered to protect Zaytouneh because many sides might be upset by her work, but she preferred to work independently. Why would we bring her in and then kidnap her? It is illogical. As for the arrest of those who kidnapped her, this is also not true. When we figure out who the kidnappers are, they will immediately appear in court. TDB: Do you apply Sharia law in the areas you control? What are your views on democracy and the future of Syria? ZA: Jaysh al-Islam does not intervene in the judiciary body in our areas. We have representatives in the judiciary councils. The judiciary councils include many sheikhs and jurists who represent the diversity of our community. We believe in the rule of institutions. When I criticized democracy, I was referring to the manipulation of people through lies covered by attractive colors. The democracy of Assad, the pluralism of the Baath, and the Islamism of ISIS are a few examples. The Western double standards are also applied to democracy. While democracy is used to serve people’s interests in the West, democracy is manipulated in our countries to bring villains to rule as agents for outside powers. We believe that the future of Syria after Assad should be governed by a technocratic body which has the skills and the qualifications. We do not believe that Syria should be ruled by sectarian or partisan rule, but by a technocratic body that represent the diversity of the Syrian people. We do not see ourselves as Islamic. We are Muslims. TDB: Erbin, a town in Ghouta, includes many Christians. How do you treat the Christians in your area? Is it true that the Christians prefer Assad to the rule of the opposition? ZA: The Christians have been living in Syria for hundreds of years and they have contributed to the enlightenment of Syria. The Syrian revolution core was the freedom and equality of all Syrians regardless to their religion. The regime of Assad is the main contributor to the misery of the Christians. The regime of Assad has enforced many restrictions on the Syrian Christians, and forced many of them to leave and to close their businesses due to Assad’s so-called social economic policy. TDB: You’ve been under siege for around four years. How are you providing services to people in your areas? ZA: Assad uses starvation and siege because he thinks he’ll win the war this way. We have in Ghouta some resources like water and agriculture; we have professionals in many fields from the citizens of Ghouta. We try to be creative in terms of providing the main needs for the people and this is not the effort of our army by itself but the efforts of the Ghouta people in general. Our people still suffer from a severe lack of very basic needs due to the tough siege. This takes place, unfortunately, before the eyes of the world’s institutions that carry humanitarian logos. TDB: Why do many people call you a dictator? And what is the reason behind the demonstrations against you? ZA: Dictatorship indicates that I am forcing people to accept and apply someone’s ideas. In Ghouta we witness a lot of social and political activities. People protest, write, and meet freely. We also protect the demonstrations against Jaysh al-Islam and accept the other point of view. East Ghouta is by far the most secure liberated area for activists and ordinary people. Media are always welcome to cover the situation in our area. Many people criticize me and they live safely in Eastern Ghouta. Many people suffer from the repercussions of war and siege and they protest against the groups that control the smuggling tunnels, yet everyone knows that we do not control any. Some demonstrations against Jaysh al-Islam were organized by family members of ISIS prisoners demanding their release. No country in the world would release criminals under the pressure of protests. TDB: Unlike many areas of Syria, ISIS was not able to recruit or control any area in Ghouta. Why is that? ZA: Although most of the people in our area are conservative, they aren’t radical. We have many Muslim scholars who belong to civic and moderate schools of religion. People of Ghouta are fortified from radicalization due to these facts. When we liberated Ghouta from the criminal regime of Assad, and the people were mourning their loved ones who were killed by Assad, radicalization was contained by Jaysh al-Islam because we have local Islamic scholars who relentlessly educated our young men and women and told them that this is not the answer for Assad’s brutality. TDB: You fought ISIS in Ghouta, Qalamoun [a southern district in the Damascus region], and in northern Syria. You lost many of your men in the war against ISIS. But Western countries still do not back you or include you in any arming project. Why? ZA: ISIS does not belong to the Syrian revolution. Assad has exploited this organization at the most critical time when it was about to fall. Despite the involvement of foreign Shia militias, Assad was in a very weak condition when ISIS appeared to save his regime. It started assassinating revolutionary commanders and attacking Free Syrian Army groups rather than fighting Assad. ISIS accused the Syrian people of being infidels and created big trouble inside liberated areas. A few months later, they waged an all-out war against revolutionary forces. We think that the West was happy to see ISIS in the region, especially those who evaded the moral obligations to stand by the Syrian people after Assad crossed all the red lines and used chemical weapons. The West intervened after ISIS took control of Mosul in Iraq. We fought ISIS early on when we discovered their deviation from Islam and the danger they pose to our revolution and people. The West knows well that Jaysh al-Islam and other revolutionary forces are not terrorist, but the wish to reproduce the regime may affect its designation policy. TDB: What do you think of the United States? Do you believe that it can help solve the Syria crisis? ZA: America is a powerful country and it can play a major role to end the Syrian conflict if it wants. But the current administration refuses to play this role and acts with cold blood when it comes to Syria. It has failed to respond effectively to Assad’s massacres and we saw that obviously when Assad crossed the “red line” on the use of chemical weapons. America was able to stop the chemical attacks, but it didn’t care. When America demanded Assad to pull his army out of Lebanon, Assad had to do that in few days, though being in Lebanon was very essential and important for his regime. Even if the administration didn’t want to intervene directly, it is still able to support the real revolutionary groups which are capable of toppling Assad and at the same time defeating ISIS. Instead, it is promoting weak groups and supporting them just to say, ‘We are doing something for Syria.’ TDB: Are you concerned about the Russian intervention in Syria? ZA: Russia has always supported Assad politically and supplied him with weapons. The intervention now will cause more destruction and death for the Syrian people but we know from history that foreign occupations always lose at the end. We think that this intervention is the result of the regime’s failure in the war with the revolution despite all the regional support. Shortly before the intervention the regime suffered huge losses in Idlib and Damascus. These defeats caused a collapse in morale among the regime’s supporters, and it prompted the Russians to get involved. TDB: Is the Russian air force targeting Jaysh al-Islam? And will you cooperate with Russia if it restricts its targets to ISIS? ZA: Russia bombed Jaysh al-Islam positions for a time, and then stopped. We do not need their help in the fight against ISIS. TDB: You control areas near the Israeli border. Do you have any agenda regarding Israel or the Israel-Palestine conflict? ZA: These issues along with other foreign policy issues should be tackled by the future Syrian government, which has to be formed after the removal of the Assad regime and has to stick to our people’s principled stances. TBD: Do you support the exportation of jihad and acts of violence in the West? ZA: We were forced to take up arms to defend ourselves after the regime committed atrocities against us before the eyes of the world, which did not intervene to save our people. We condemn acts of violence all over the world regardless of who commits them and who are the victims. TDB: We have seen you going to Turkey though Ghouta is under siege. Is it true that you arrange that with the regime? ZA: If I and other revolutionary factions leaders arrange our movements with the regime when we get in and out of besieged areas, then who is fighting the regime on the ground? Who is defending the liberated territories? Who is killing the regime’s soldiers every day? If we are coordinating with the regime, why is it besieging our areas and bombing us? These rumors are released by ISIS to defame Jaysh al-Islam, but it is unacceptable to hear them from sane people. Of course, we won’t tell anybody about the secret routes we take to get out of besieged areas because this is what they want. We can’t reveal how we move from the north to the south of the country to get captured and killed by ISIS. Our fight on the ground and our martyred fighters and commanders as well as the death of thousands of regime mercenaries at the walls of Ghouta are the strongest proofs of our sincerity. TDB: Ghouta has lost the biggest numbers of people because of regime attacks. You eliminated ISIS there and prevented Assad from regaining it and your fighters are all Syrians. Do you think that Ghouta can be a safe zone for people and refugees to come back to? And what do you need to achieve that? ZA: Ghouta rebels, like other Syrian rebels, need the international community to first impose a no-fly zone to prevent Assad’s warplanes and helicopters from striking populations; second, it needs to break the siege of Ghouta and allow food and medicine into the area. We are not deluded into thinking that this will happen tomorrow. It rather requires efforts from different sides and an international cover. These are the two things that the world can offer today to atone for its silence. TDB: The ISIS attacks in Paris reflected the group’s ability to threaten an internationally powerful country. You have warned of ISIS’s threat earlier when it was attacking only the Syrian people. Are you ready to cooperate with France and Arab countries against ISIS? ZA: We have fought ISIS and were able to wipe it out in areas like Ghouta and Barzeh. We also cooperated with other revolutionary forces to fight ISIS in Qalamoun and in the north without any outside support. Nonetheless, we are ready to cooperate with any party ready to help our people in its struggle for their rights.