https://socialistaction.org/2017/04/10/socialist-action-statement-on-the-u-s-missile-strike-on-syria/
Socialist Action statement on the U.S. missile strike on Syria
/ 1 day ago
U.S. strikes Syrian military airfield
Stop the U.S. Bombing of Syria! U.S. Out Now! Self-determination for Syria!
On April 6, the Trump administration launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at
Syria’s al-Shayrat military airfield. The U.S. strikes decimated a
number of buildings and airplanes. At least nine civilians and six
Syrian soldiers were killed.
Neither Trump nor any other U.S. government agency presented a shed of
proof that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used sarin
nerve gas in its bombing of al-Qaida/Nusra Front or any other “rebel”
held buildings in Idlib province.
History has repeatedly demonstrated the need to view with the greatest
skepticism U.S. imperialism’s justifications for its endless wars and
interventions.
Need we mention the 1964 U.S.-manufactured Tonkin Bay incident, wherein
a virtually non-existent Vietnamese navy was accused of attacking a U.S.
destroyer? That false flag pretext was employed to launch the Vietnam
War, in which four million Vietnamese were slaughtered in a 10-year U.S.
conflagration verging on genocide. Or the more recent Iraq “weapons of
mass destruction” lie that resulted in the U.S. murder of 1.5 million
Iraqis?
Even if the latest sarin gas accusations should prove to be true, we
must vehemently reject the warmongers’ proposition that the U.S.
military behemoth, with 1100 military bases around the world and
currently conducting seven simultaneous wars of death and destruction,
has any moral, legal, or other right to be the “cop of the world!”
Bomb first! Ask questions later!
Trump and his now bipartisan “Bomb first! Ask questions later” cohorts
have ignited what could become a catastrophic escalation in the region,
which could even pose the threat of a nuclear confrontation.
Immediately before the U.S. missile attack, the Trump administration
convened a bipartisan group of 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans for a
congressional briefing session. While there was no indication of
opposition to the Trump attack, a few, citing the U.S. Constitution,
later expressed the need for congressional debate and approval before
waging war.
Trump’s action came a day after Democrat Hillary Clinton had urged the
U.S. bombing of Syria. Today, Trump has adopted a version of Clinton’s
election-time “no fly zone” advocacy, suggesting that “safe zones” might
be established in Syria—that is, land-based regions policed by U.S.
imperialism and its allies.
Imperialism’s record in Syria
Not one day of the years-long U.S. imperialist-abetted intervention has
improved the humanitarian situation of the Syrian people. On the
contrary, the U.S. government’s aim—as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Libya—is to secure political hegemony in the region so as to better
serve its profit-driven corporate clients. In order to accomplish its
goals, as it demonstrated during the uprisings known as the Arab Spring,
the U.S. must foreclose the possibility of self-determination for the
peoples of the Middle East.
In reference to the Obama administration’s “red line” threat of war in
2012-13, Trump stated, “These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad
regime are a consequence of the past administration’s weakness and
irresolution. President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a
‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing.” No
doubt Trump is fully aware that Obama’s “nothing” included five years of
intervention that included CIA and Pentagon training and arming of
“rebels” seeking Assad’s ouster, a bombing campaign supposedly aimed at
ISIS targets but deadly for civilians, and an increasing number of U.S.
boots on the ground.
With Syria’s U.S.-backed “coalition” allies compelled to retreat from
much of the Syrian territory that they previously occupied and
terrorized, a bipartisan consensus has now emerged in Washington that
Obama’s “regime change” orientation cannot be dismissed.
We are witness to a major shift in U.S. policy, in which Democrats and
Republicans alike cannot brook a defeat in a war that they early on
fueled and promoted. Today’s crisis-ridden world economy ruled by the
wealthy one percent is compelled to pursue and intensify its wars
against working people at home and abroad.
More military strikes threatened
White House representatives state that the administration has not ruled
out taking further direct military action against the Assad government.
President Trump’s national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, stated on
April 9 that the U.S. goals of fighting ISIS and ousting Assad from
power were “simultaneous.”
The Trump administration’s bipartisan-supported missile attack is aimed
at advancing U.S. leverage at a future bargaining table in a
contemplated reconstructed Syria. It is the first taste of the new
administration’s promise to use the grotesque $54 billion rise in the
trillion-dollar war budget “more aggressively” in the interests of U.S.
corporate capitalism.
The need for a united and massive U.S. antiwar movement in the streets
of cities across the country has never been greater. Without
equivocation, the central responsibility of all antiwar and social
justice organizations is to mobilize against all U.S. and allied
interventions in Syria and to fully support the right to
self-determination of the Syria people.
The defeat of imperialist intervention is the prerequisite for the
Syrian masses to organize their own independent class-struggle forces
aimed at fully meeting the needs and aspirations of Syria’s workers and
farmers as they strive in the future to build a socialist society.
The days ahead will prove to be a critical measure of the antiwar
movement’s capacity to unite and stay the hand of the world’s most
dangerous superpower.
(Photo) Aftermath of the U.S. missile attack on Syria’s Shayrat military
airbase. Mikhail Voskresenskiy/ria novosti via AP
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April 10, 2017 in Anti-War, International, Middle East, Trump / U.S.
Government.
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