No to the Slaughter in Syria

Say No to the Slaughter in Syria

The U.S and Russian governments continue their chess match with the lives of the Syrian people. Last week, Russia made a move that pushed the U.S. to temporarily delay its aggressive march to an open war on Syria. The Russian government took advantage of the widespread opposition to any U.S. bombing of Syria – internationally as well as here in the U.S. The Russian government still claims that there is no proof that Assad’s regime did in fact use chemical weapons. And a recent UN report claims that sarin gas was used but has no evidence for who carried out the attack. The U.S. has agreed to the Russian plan, which will send in some sort of weapons inspection team to dismantle all chemical weapons in Syria. But the U.S. has insisted that if Assad’s regime does not comply in any way, they will return to their original plan of bombing the people of Syria as punishment.

This plan has nothing to do with protecting the Syrian people from future attacks, and nothing to do with any real opposition to weapons of mass destruction. Both countries are interested in the same thing: protecting their military and financial interests in the region, which were threatened during the Arab spring in 2011, when the Syrian people rose up against the brutal Asaad regime. But now this uprising has turned into a bloody civil war, with the U.S. and Russia supporting opposite sides.

Russia has been arming and funding the Assad regime for decades, including during this civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 Syrians, and has forced over two million people to flee becoming refugees in neighboring countries.

And the U.S. has been arming and funding these so-called rebel groups indirectly through aid to the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Many of these fighters have links to Al Qaeda and have killed thousands of civilians. Just last May, United Nations monitors accused these groups of using sarin nerve gas on civilians in a crowded city. Overall most of the armed opposition to Assad are many different groupings of kidnappers and killers. Neither Assad’s regime nor these so-called rebels represent the interests of the Syrian people.

The U.S. and Russia aren’t concerned with the lives of ordinary people. They think the conflict in Syria is likely to get worse, and may even spread to neighboring countries. Both of them want to have their hands in the mix so they can have a stronger influence on the outcome. And on Sunday, President Obama said in an interview on ABC news that Iran “shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck [Syria], to think we won’t strike Iran.” In the end, for both Russia and the U.S., their only concern is to keep regimes in power that will do their bidding and try to topple the ones that won’t.

And so by agreeing to this international plan with Russia, the Obama administration has bought themselves some time to try and chip away at any opposition to their murderous plans. Polling in the U.S. and throughout the world show the majority of people are opposed to any U.S. military strikes on Syria. The U.S. even had a difficult time getting approval from its allies for its planned assault. The British government failed to convince their parliament to go along with it. In Germany, the press was reporting that they were shown evidence that the opposition forces were the ones who used chemical weapons. And it seemed unlikely that the U.S. Congress was ready to approve the planned attack.

The Obama administration will continue to try to win approval for this slaughter of innocent people, perhaps seeking support from Congress, maybe some allied governments in Europe, and maybe a few regimes in the Middle East. But the administration has said that approval is not necessary – they will be the ones to decide whether to carry out an attack.

The role the U.S. plays in the world is not that of a peacekeeper but a butcher of the world’s people. And as the U.S. has decided to buy some time to build support, let’s not stand by and allow another slaughter to be carried out in our name.

NO! To The Bombing Of The Syrian People

The U.S. military stands ready to bomb Syria. President Obama and other supporters of this planned assault claim that Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad has used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians and killed a thousand people. Whoever used these horrific weapons against a civilian population is indeed a monster, whether it was Assad’s forces or those opposed to his dictatorship. But this doesn’t justify another massacre.

The attack occurred as UN weapons inspectors were entering Syria. Their investigation was thwarted by all those involved – from Assad’s regime to Obama’s. Their limited investigation has yet to produce a report. So, why the rush to unleash an attack on Syria?

After more than a year of brutal warfare, who could believe that launching an attack on Syria using some of the most advanced weapons in the world will lead to anything more than further destruction? Already more than 100,000 have been killed, cities and villages destroyed. An estimated two million refugees have fled the country.

The Obama administration is lining up support in the Senate and House of Representatives and is pressuring governments around the world to back this military attack. The claim that the Syrian regime has stepped over a line with its supposed use of chemical weapons is just an excuse. Have we forgotten the Bush administration’s lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were used as proof for the need to wage war on Iraq?

How dare the U.S. government portray itself as the upholder of world morality and opposed to the use of chemical weapons! It was the U.S. that used napalm and Agent Orange in Viet Nam. It was the U.S. that used white phosphorous in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons, supplied by the U.S., (including Sarin gas) in the Iraqi war against Iran. But in those days Saddam Hussein was the ally of the U.S.

Decades of U.S. wars have destroyed the lives of millions of people in other counties, ruined their infrastructure, so today they don’t have electricity or access to sanitary water. These wars have cost trillions of dollars, robbing people in this country of access to decent social services, education, and healthcare. Those who fought these wars come back with wounds to their bodies and minds.

It is the worst sort of hypocrisy for the U.S. government to claim that they are concerned about human life! Whose lives are they concerned with? Certainly not the millions who have fled Syria or who will die as the U.S bombs their country.

The U.S. politicians claim this is about freedom for the people of Syria. Nothing could be further from the truth. The freedoms being defended are not those of the Syrian people but the interests of the corporations and the banks. What is being defended is their rights to the oil of the Middle East and the resources of the world. What is being defended is a system that rests on the exploitation and control of the resources, the labor and the wealth of the planet.

The majority of the people of the world have no interest in the bombing of Syria. The overwhelming majority of people polled in the U.S. do not support this war. All over the world, including here in the U.S., people are demonstrating against this attack.

The U.S. government has shown its total disregard for the rights and freedoms of the people of the Middle East. The U.S. military uses its forces on the ground and its drones in the air to carry out targeted assassinations and terrorize ordinary people. With this latest build up to a war on Syria, the U.S. government is stating to the world that the economic and political interests of the large corporations will be imposed – regardless of international law and despite the will of the people.

We cannot allow ourselves to be fooled into supporting another war which will lead to a further waste of life and resources. We cannot allow ourselves to be accomplices to these attacks. We need to oppose these attacks in every way we can. We need to say loud and clear:

“No Attacks On Syria”

“No More Wars In Our Name!”