The Syria Game is Just Another Repeat

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

12-24-24

Following on from Owen Jones' extensive report about the western media bias, particularly the BBC,and the US when it comes to the Israeli genocide in Palestine; we need to recognize that this is not new and not confined to that one issue.

 

As Israel, the US, and Britain bomb Yemen, (did you vote for that?) it’s important for working people to reflect on Syria for a bit and the video above is an important contribution to an understanding of the underlying causes of the Syrian crisis and US imperialism’s role in it. 

 

As the narrator points out in the video, the western mass media is praising the overthrow of Bashar Assad by the Islamist fundamentalist group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Al Qaeda offshoot which translates to the “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant”. The group is led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, known more familiarly as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani who until last week had a $10 million bounty on his head. HTS was also designated a terrorist organization by the US. 

 

With Assad’s overthrow, numerous forces are seeking to strengthen their positions, some local like the Kurdish YPG that the US has been supporting but as the narrator above points out, the Kurds have been betrayed by the US on more than one occasion and, in this case, what complicates matters is the Turks, who controlled the region prior to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WW1, consider the YPG a terrorist group. There are some 25 million Kurds in Turkey as well as others in Iraq and Syria and perhaps Iran. Turkey will not be favorable to any strengthening of the Kurdish presence in an Assad free Syria.

 

Last week, the US state department’s senior diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, met with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its leader and removed the $10 million bounty. This has all the trappings of yet another US/ NATO catastrophe written all over it. 

 

The Islamist group’s meeting with US imperialism’s representatives in the region is like a kiss of death for the Syrian people. Neither group at the table has the interests of the workers in Syria or the region in mind. Nor are they acting in support of US or British workers.

The US proxy in the region, the Zionist Apartheid state, has been bombing Syrian infrastructure, installations, its navy and air force, in order ensure that whatever government follows Assad will not have the capability to defend itself against Israeli aggression. 

From what I understand, Jolani wants to create Sharia law in Syria but at the same time is claiming to be supportive of minorities and other religions. Why would he not? The US wouldn’t give him any of our money otherwise. But he’d better be careful. The US has no problem with supporting jihadists, religious fanatics and despots of all stripes but, only if Wall Street interests are protected. Hussein, Ben Ali, Mubarak who Hillary Clinton considered “like family”, and many other so-called friends of the US have not fared well over time.

 

Syria, a Nation state created in secret by the French and British through the Sykes/Picot agreement after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks, has faced many efforts by the US to foster and promote destabilizing sectarian divisions over the past 25 years.

 

In 2006, five years before the Arab Spring that forced numerous ruthless US backed dictators from power in 2011, “….destabilizing the Syrian regime was a central motivation of US policy.” Robert Naiman wrote in the Wikileaks Files. Thanks to Julian Assange and Wikileaks, we have access to cables sent by William Roebuck, chargé d’ affairs at the US embassy in Damascus, to the US State Department and White House.

 

In a December 2006 cable Roebuck stressed that there were a number of weakness in the regime that could be exploited including the Kurdish threat and Islamic extremists. Bathist regimes were traditionally hostile to Islamic fundamentalists but the US clearly has a much more flexible approach as the makeover of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani shows.

“The cable suggests….”,  Naimann writes, “…that the US goal in December 2006 was to undermine the Syrian government by any available means and that what mattered was whether US action would help destabilize the government, not what other impacts the action might have.” My added emphasis. Let’s not forget that the first Americans in Vietnam were CIA, and their job was to disrupt that society.

 

Publicly, the US was then, and still is apparently, opposed to Islamic extremists unless they serve Wall Street’s interests as Osama bin Laden did for a while.  In Syria, as in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, US imperialism saw the possibility of Islamic extremism as a potential threat to the Syrian government and an opportunity that should be taken.

 

Syria is a very diverse nation composed of Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Kurds, Jews, Christians and US representatives would be failing in their duties if they didn’t foster sectarian divisions when it suited US interests. 

 

With the growing influence of Iran and the ongoing tensions between the Iranian Mullahs and the Saudi’s, Roebuck saw an opportunity and suggested that the US should try to destabilize the Syrian government by joining forces with Egypt and the Saudi’s  to “fan sectarian tensions between the Sunni and Shia.”, writes Naiman. 

 

Roebuck’s cable to the White House makes that pretty clear: “Both the local Egyptian and Saudi missions here…….are giving increasing attention to the matter and, we should coordinate more closely with their governments on wats to better publicize and focus regional attention on the issue” added emphasis.

 

The US ambassador to Syria was recommending cooperation with two of the most corrupt regimes in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in an effort to undermine the Assad regime in the hope of creating a more reliable pro-western ally. 

 

Eight years later as Syria was engulfed in civil war that had sectarian Shia/Sunni elements in it, the US, and most likely other western nations, criticized this conflict as an unfortunate development, a product of Arab/Muslim backwardness. These former colonial subjects simply don’t know how to govern themselves. The Irish, the black South Africans, the numerous colonized states of Latin America, all of them unable to govern, were desperately in need of a colonial overseer to save them from themselves. 

 

Their political instability and relative backwardness, economically, the inability to develop “healthy” capitalist democracies along the lines of Britain or Germany,  was not a product of colonial occupation, restricting this development, but inherent in the racial or religious makeup of the population.

 

As I read some of the cables detailed in The Wikileaks Files, I am reminded of the debt we owe to Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and others who have pulled the mask from the ugly face of capitalist politics. There are others mentioned in Julian Assange’s excellent book, When Google Met Wikileaks

 

The developments in Syria will not benefit the Syrian working class and we will see more bloodshed as the forces determining the outcome are the enemies of the Syrian workers and workers throughout the world.

 

But this is not unique to Syria. Sudan, Kashmir, Eastern Europe, Argentina, Mexico, India and throughout the world we are witnessing the by-products of a global social system that has reached the limits of its ability to take human society forward. China too will be engulfed in struggle as the Chinese working class pushes back against the Stalinist bureaucracy in Beijing. There is no human or environmentally friendly capitalism and China will confirm that as time goes on.

 

Most of the nation states in the former colonial world are relatively young, created from without. Nigeria for example only became a state in 1960 as British colonialism put a box around hundreds of different tribal communities and told them they are all Nigerian now; national consciousness takes time. Syria and all the problems we are witnessing in former European colonies are a direct result of colonialism and will never escape endless war, poverty and famine within the framework of global capitalism.

 

National borders are not a divine creation but workers cannot ignore them. The vast majority of the world’s people possess no working capital. Yes there are huge differences in living standards and conditions are so bad in some regions that slavery is a norm. But we have much in common as an exploited class and there is an inherent tendency for oppressed peoples to unite and seek allies beyond their immediate borders. The attack in immigrants is an attempt by our enemies to undermine this tendency. But we can, and must build an international movement to combat and eliminate the system that is waging war against humanity and nature.

 

The only answer is a global federation of democratic socialist states that can work cooperatively to produce the necessities of human life in a way that is in harmony with nature not in conflict with it. As things are going, there will be huge swathes of the planet that will be uninhabitable due to climate change, a product of industrial society and capitalism.

 

We have a future to fight for, a future for our children and grandchildren. We owe it to them.

Palestine: genuine revolution versus another round of betrayal

Sharing this commentary for the interest of our readers.

Palestine: genuine revolution versus another round of betrayal

Kevin Ovenden London UK

 

The very first thing any truly revolutionary force would do on walking into an Arab capital at the collapse of its degraded regime would be to issue a declaration of struggle for the cause of Palestine. 

It would be to call on all sincere supporters of the Palestinians to come together right now to engage in mass struggle in all its forms across the piece and across the region. Appealing to solidarity internationally. 

 

It would be instant denunciation of all those states that back Israel and are in alliance with the US, whose war against the Palestinians this is. 

 

You may call on representatives internationally - civil and political - to join together in existing and fresh initiatives to come to the aid of the Palestinian people. Prepare for a historic Congress. 

 

You would proclaim: there is a genocide happening in Palestine. The immediate issue now is to stop that genocide. You could demand of those Western - and Arab - governments wanting to bathe in the fall of the old regime that you will not entertain them until they declare for Palestine and break off relations with Israel. 

 

You could say - even with some diplomatic obliquity - that the emptying of one torture prison should signal the same happening right across the region: in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Turkey, Iran... and above all and most directly - in Israel. 

 

And you would say that whatever those other state actors do we will fight for that and with the common people everywhere to that end. 

You would say immediately that there can be no peace with the genocidaires of Israel. Nelson Mandela declared that South Africa would not be free until Palestine is free. 

 

That or similar is not what anyone is saying in Syria right now. Not those in the decapitated regime, not the official opposition, not the HTS militia. 

 

Instead there is the deadly hand of Realpolitik. It is a childlike delusion to imagine that that is not present via blood-soaked state actors and their proxies just because there have been statues pulled down. The biggest of those political actors is the US and its allies. It does actually control Syria's relations to the global financial system and it is occupying strategically vital territory of the country. 

 

For us in the West, we must redouble our efforts for Palestine as the lodestone and centrepiece of what we can do to help curb our own murderous states and thus contribute to progress in the Middle East. 

 

That is if we truly believe that there is a genocide unfolding and a growing Israeli, expansionist land grab and ethnic cleansing, greater even than the Nakba. 

 

In the alternative, is it that we didn't really believe that but just engaged in hyperbolic rhetoric? That would mean that we deserve utter damnation and never to be trusted in our own societies ever again. It would mean we lied to people about something so absolute as a genocide. It would mean Israel and its apologists were right about us all along. 

 

The truth is that there is indeed a genocidal war against the Palestinians. There is a catastrophic push for more Israeli war for "Lebansraum", as one public figure put it. All with the proximate additional boost of Netanyahu himself relying upon expanding war to stave off domestic opposition and legal difficulties. 

Palestine and the genocide are the issue of issues here.

 

And when we keep our eyes firmly on that, it becomes easier to navigate what will be yet more war and unfolding chaos in the Middle East. 

 

Hatta al nasr, hatta al quds.

Britain: We owe it to young people to let Shamima come home

Shamima Begum,

Shamima Begum left London for Syria and became and Isis bride. She was 15 when she fled the UK. As of this moment the British Home Secrertary Sajid Javid has said she is losing her citizenship which would make her stateless.  Here is a commentary on the case from a British Muslim woman. To read the article from its original source click the link below. FFWP received it from Left Horizons UK

By Anjum Peerbacos, London schoolteacher.

As a British Muslim woman, parent and teacher, I’m horrified by the home secretary’s handling of the Begum case.

Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, clearly does not have faith in our judicial processes, and in the case of Shamima Begum, has decided to take matters into his own hands. Last week, Javid announced that Begum was being stripped of her British citizenship, making her stateless. Javid has effectively made himself Begum's judge and jury.

Once again, the home secretary is pandering to the far right – and in so doing, abusing his powers in furtherance of his political ambitions. As William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University, explains, “by obstructing her right to return, the government is violating international law.”

“The UN international covenant on civil and political rights, which the UK has ratified, declares: ‘No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country’... Even deprived of her citizenship, there can be no doubt the UK remains Shamima Begum’s ‘own country’ as she has no other.”

Breach of international law

This horrendous breach of international law sets an extremely dangerous precedent. For Shamima Begum herself, at 19, she has already experienced a marriage of sorts, and the deaths of two children, all away from the support of her family and loved ones. One can only assume that she is in a state of shock and denial. She could be suffering from postnatal depression and post-traumatic disorder. Pregnancy and childbirth alone are difficult and challenging times for any woman. To experience those things in an alien environment can be incredibly traumatic.

Sajid Javid has left a young woman isolated and alienated even further. Bangladesh have stated clearly that Shamima is not their problem. By removing Shamima’s citizenship we have abdicated all our responsibility towards this teenager, and left her at the mercy of the likes of ISIS and other groups. This can only be an awful alternative for her and her newborn baby. And what of the baby? He is a British citizen, Javid has confirmed, but case law suggests there is a very real threat he could be taken from his mother.

As a child of migrants all this makes me incredibly nervous. Could this mean that I could have my citizenship stripped of me because my parents were both born abroad? And what about my children? Their grandparents are from India, but they have never been.

The Windrush Scandal is still fresh in our minds. The Begum case only reconfirms the problematic attitude the Conservatives have towards immigration, race and people of colour. Are all children of migrants now to be deemed second-class citizens? Were our parents right all along? Is this not my home, not my children's’ home? Can those of us from a different country of origin now have our citizenship revoked without a trial or due process?

Teenagers think they know what they are doing

As a parent of a teenager and a teacher of teenagers I know all too well that often they think they are in-charge and know what they are doing, when they don’t.

And finally, Javid’s handling of the case is letting down other young people. As a parent of a teenager and a teacher of teenagers I know all too well that often they think they are in-charge and know what they are doing, when they don’t. Fifteen-year-olds are impressionable. They are vulnerable to being groomed online. That is what happened to Shamima.

Parents want their children to be safe at all times, including online. We can take some measures as parents to ensure their safety – we can keep screens, tablets, phones and computers in communal areas, rather than bedrooms. We can try to ensure our children only engage with people online that they know in person. We can try to ensure they are not spending every waking hour in front of screens and tablets, but have other activities in their day.

But ultimately, some children are more susceptible to being groomed online. Shamima was one of them. She became a victim of grooming – and we need to find out why. Why was Shamima so disconnected with her immediate family and immediate society – disconnected to the point that she felt a pull from thousands of miles away? Why did she feel the need leave her home and family and all that was familiar to her, to go and become a bride in a foreign land with foreign people?

Was the entire experience romanticised for her? Only when we ask her can we know and prevent others from becoming prey to the same grooming process. Only when she returns can we learn from her experiences.  

But while stripped of her British citizenship Shamima is stateless and ideal prey for other predatory groups like ISIS. I dread to think what the future holds for this abandoned teenage mother and her newborn baby.

February 28, 2019

For original article with all hyperlinks, go to: https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/

A Note on Syria

While this blog has not supported Bernie Sanders and his campaign this is a very thoughtful and balanced piece on the very complicated situation in Syria and the Middle East, and we share it for our readers' interests. Admin

From Themos Demetriou, Cyprus’

Before making hasty judgments, revolutionaries in the West should step back and ponder the horrors Middle East populations find themselves in.  Revolutionaries should of course make correct, accurate and balanced analyses of all other political forces and powers but they cannot stay aloof in any conflict, especially in a civil war, unless they have the possibility to take power themselves. 

If the choice is between ISIS and Assad or even between American financed ex-al Qaida ‘rebels’ the answer is a no brainer.  One does not have to buy the Socialist Assad spin – this Assad especially based his authority mainly on neo-liberal policies with fair success for an emerging middle class.  But the fact is that Syria was a stable country until the US financed, organised and armed Islamic militia posing as ‘democratic’ rebels.

Especially repugnant is the dismissal of Rojava as Assad’s allies.  The three Kurdish cantons in the North of Syria is probably the nearest we had ever to Revolutionary organisation of society in the Middle East.  The two eastern cantons were effectively crushed and brought under US control after US proxy troops (the Peshmerga) withheld support to the defenders of Kobani until they were exhausted under the attack from Isis.  The support the Peshmerga provided in Kobani was like Lenin’s proverbial support of the hangman’s noose.

The Western canton of Afrin was crushed by Turkey with the quiescence of Russia, its new potential ally.  Turkey is now poised for a long-term occupation of Afrin if not outright annexation.  The Kurdish question, which with Rojava was moving away from nationalist discourse, is again being pushed hard towards unmitigated nationalism.

Where does this leave Revolutionary Theory?  Clearly there is no country in the Middle East at this moment capable of carrying out a Socialist Revolution capable of sparking a World Revolution.  The Arab Spring was a possibility but there was no revolutionary programme to carry it through.  Sadly, its turning point was the overthrow of Qaddafi by western backed ‘rebels’ and western bombs, which some naïve revolutionaries hailed as the overthrow of a dictator.  Now Syria is the theatre of a crisis that far from promising revolution is pregnant with the possibility of a generalised conflagration.

We are powerless to save the situation directly in Syria.  But we can affect what is happening in the West and fight against the West’s intervention in the Middle East.  We can support and help Syriza in Greece (2015), Bernie Sanders in the US (2016) and Corbyn in Britain (today).  I don’t see how we can intervene in Russia, something I would support if we could.  But simply fulminating against Assad and Putin can have the effect of just obfuscating the responsibility of the US and the West for the Iraq war, the creation of ISIS, the catastrophe in Afghanistan, the slaughter in Syria and Yemen.

Having said that, at the level of analysis we should be clear and precise.  But we need not be at each other’s throats when we differ.  In fact, it would be a very poor analysis if the discussion was limited within a close circle of uniformly minded individuals.  It would be a recipe for isolation within a small – very small – echo chamber.  

Unfortunately, the Left is very prone to that.

Boris Johnson and Syria, an English Upper Class Twit Speaks

 

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

Now how ridiculous is this. I just watched that idiot Boris Johnson commenting on the bombing of Syria.  Johnson is a upper middle class twit whose political education outside the home is grounded in the halls of Eton and Oxford. He represents the British bourgeois in Parliament as is the Conservative Party's Secretary of State.

He talked about how bombing Syria was the "right thing to do" because it would "deter the use of chemicals weapons not just by the Assad regime but around the world.."  This is a laugh as Britian is now a tenth rate nation and could not embark on such a venture without the protection of the United States. Showing how disconnected he is from the global community in which we live, he also said, with a straight face mind you, that "people around the world are looking now  and are saying, well finally someone stood up against that..." 

He then went on and made pretty much admitted that the attack won't have any affect on the conflict. It did have one affect of course, Raytheon, the manufacturers of the missiles sent to Syria  had its stock rise some $5 billion.

Is he mad?  Does he really think the vast majority of the people in the world are thinking this? No he isn't mad. He believes this. His entire existence, rooted in the comforts of a family of the British and Anglo Saxon ruling class governs his thinking don't forget. When he says "people" he is talking about  the people, and especially the powerful ones, who are members of his class. He doesn't see the millions, the billions, the ordinary people, industrial workers, factory workers in China or Sunderland, rural workers from the mines of Bolivia to the peasants of India. They are not a part of his world view. 

So he is right when he says people around the world. It's which people that is the issue. Any class conscious worker in the imperialist countries and almost any worker or peasant in the former colonial or underdeveloped world sees it otherwise. They certainly will not  be grateful to these three former colonial and imperialist powers for anything but assaulting a small nation state founded by British and French imperialism. They will see the Syrian people as pawns in the plunder game and condemn all of them, the western powers, Russia, the Israeli's and Iran.

I assure you, the vast majority of workers on this planet no matter what their language or national allegiance, do not rise in the morning to make their daily bread and hope that those horrible Syrians don't invade their country or bomb them. They don't fear Ireland that way either, the first colony of British capitalism.

No, most people in this world fear the United States, they consider the United States the greatest threat to world peace and igniting global war.

As for that pompous twit Boris Johnson think about this, his full name is Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. How many English workers can name a friend of theirs with a name like de Pfeffel? That's a class giveaway too. No, he's not "our people".

No support for US-UK-France bombing of Syria

We share this analysis of the current attack on Syria from the UK Website, Left Horizons

for the interest of our readers. It was written published on the eve of the actual attack.

Editorial: No support for US-UK-France bombing of Syria

The threatening escalation of the war in Syria, by means of American, French and British air strikes, is a matter of grave concern to socialists everywhere. The Labour leadership must vigorously oppose Theresa May’s stampede to support Donald Trump, who seems determined to exacerbate an already complex and bloody war in Syria.

Syria has been devastated in the last seven years; it is an arena for a series of interconnected and sometimes contradictory proxy wars, involving the armed forces of Russia, Turkey, Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, Israel, USA and the UK, as well as ISIS, Syrian Kurdish forces and the Syrian government itself. In many parts of Syria, armies are fighting over rubble and the wrecked remains of what used to be cities, towns and villages.

The losers in the conflict, and always the last consideration in the minds of international politicians (despite their pious rhetoric), are the terrorised civilian population of that country. The Syrian war has cost half a million civilian deaths and at least double that number of injured. From a pre-war population of around 22 million, more than 6 million are internally displaced and around five million are refugees outside of Syria, half of them in Europe. The United Nations estimates that as many as 13.5 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. Further bombing and intervention by US and British forces will do nothing, except prolong the agony for the mass of the Syrian population.

Socialists do not support the murderous regime of Bashir al-Assad. He took over a personal dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, ‘inheriting’ a regime built on terror and state oppression. The father was no less vicious than the son is today, suppressing any opposition with the full force of a military-police state. In 1982, for example, an uprising in the town of Hama was crushed after an army siege of 27 days. Some reports put the number of deaths at as many as 20,000. Any socialist daring to be active in Syria today would be risking immediate imprisonment, with the possibility of torture or murder in one of Bashir al-Assad’s many prisons.

Since coming to power, the Syrian Baath Party has based its power on the minority Alawite population, with a disproportionate number of them in key positions in the Baath Party, the armed forces and the state apparatus. It was no surprise that when the ‘Arab Spring’ erupted in 2011, the majority Sunni population expressed an aspiration for greater freedom and opportunity. By ruthlessly suppressing the incipient Sunni opposition movement in 2011, Assad laid the basis for the rise of ISIS a few years later.

Assad is winning on the ground

In the last two years, Assad has been winning the war against ISIS, thanks largely to military support from Russia and Iran, backed on the ground by the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Both Russia and Iran have supported Syria only as a means of enhancing their own military-strategic influence in the region. The increasing influence of Iran (in Iraq too) and its support for Hezbollah, has also drawn Israel into the war. In the last few years, Israel has made over a hundred air raids aimed at Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria.

Another important component in wearing down the ISIS military machine has been the intervention of Syrian Kurdish militias, backed to some degree by the US military. But adding a further complication to the war, the success of the Kurdish militia is bitterly resented by the Turkish government to the north. Turkey has therefore been drawn into the conflict, invading and occupying parts of northern Syria, for fear that an autonomous – and armed – Kurdish enclave in Syria would ignite the national aspirations of Kurds living in Turkey. Last but not least, and largely hidden from any media attention, American and British ‘special forces’ are on the ground in Syria, working with armed groups that are fighting against Assad’s regime or against ISIS.

But as much as socialists must oppose the brutal regime of al-Assad, we can give no support whatsoever to a US, French and British bombing campaign, which now looks increasingly likely. America is still the world’s greatest military super-power, with a capability greater than the next three or four states put together. Nor is it just a question of the number of planes and warships; the American military is technologically far superior to its global rivals. Trump’s boasts, therefore, about ‘new’ and ‘smart’ missiles are not entirely empty. The US military capability is more than a match for both the Syrian and Russian forces in the region.

But the irony is that this huge US military advantage masks a long and inglorious decline in the political and strategic influence of the USA in this part of the world. Six years after Obama declared that “Assad has to go”, the Syrian president is in a stronger position than ever before and he will not be weakened one jot by more American missiles. As Edward Luce wrote in the Financial Times, “If you want a glimpse of a post-American world, look at Syria.”

Trump’s prime consideration – and we might also add, that of Macron and Theresa May – is domestic politics. In ordering new missile strikes in Syria, they are pushing the right buttons for their political support at home.

The Immediate pretext for airstrikes is the alleged use of poison gas against the population of Douma by the Syrian government last week. But this, in reality is only a pretext. The US and British governments will never let any facts stand in the way of a good story. A year ago, in an identical narrative, an alleged poison gas attack at Khan Sheikhoun was the pretext for a missile attack on a Syrian air base. But now, according to the American Newsweek magazine, the US Secretary of Defence, Mattis, has admitted that there is no evidence that Syria was responsible for that gas attack.

According to the Newsweek correspondent, a White House Memorandum on that attack “seemed to rely heavily on testimony from the Syrian White Helmets who were filmed at the scene having contact with supposed Sarin-tainted casualties and not suffering any ill effects”. (Newsweek, February 8, 2018). Other journalists, a little less ‘embedded’ in British and American government propaganda machines, have pointed out that ISIS itself has a track-record of using gas. It has also been pointed out, by Peter Ford, the former British ambassador to Syria no less, (on BBC Radio and TV) that the Syrian regime has no incentive to use poison gas when it was winning the war on the ground and the use of gas was only likely to provoke the reaction that it has. He further pointed out that the main evidence for the gas attack has come from jihadi groups who have beheaded and burnt prisoners to death. 

Of course, it is possible that the Syrian government did use poison on the residents of Douma last week. They are certainly capable of doing it. But we also know that the British and American governments are capable, where no evidence exists, of manufacturing it. After all, the invasion of Iraq by US and Britain in 2003 was based on a mountain of lies. We all remember Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, speaking in the United Nations about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction.” We remember, too, Tony Blair telling the British House of Commons that Iraqi missiles could reach London in 40 minutes.

War in Iraq launched on mountain of lies

That war cost millions in lost Iraqi lives and injuries. Untold damage was done to the Iraqi infrastructure and economy, damage from which it will take decades to recover. Hundreds of American and British service personnel gave their lives. And for what? For lies. For oil, and for the hundreds of billions of dollars of profits for the military-industrial complex. Iraq was so shattered by the 2003 invasion and its new ‘constitution’ so rigged along rigid sectarian lines, that this country too, like Syria after 2011, was a fertile ground for the rise of ISIS within its Sunni population.

We take no lessons in righteous indignation, therefore, from Theresa May and Donald Trump over the deaths of civilians in Douma. We cannot help noticing that there has been no righteous indignation over the persistent bombing of civilians in Yemen by the Saudis, with arms and logistical support provided by the West. Neither has there been any government or media outrage about Israel deploying snipers, to fire live rounds at unarmed Palestinians in Gaza.

Although a new American missile attack on Syria now seem inevitable, it is not likely that it will lead to a generalised conflict and certainly not to a major military conflict between the USA and Russia. Despite all the Twitter bellicosity of Trump, echoed by comments of Russian officials from time to time, a US strike will not trigger a war between the super-powers. It is likely that the missile attack on Syria will be limited. The USA has the capability of completely wiping out the Syrian air force. Even the Israelis – a small state in terms of population, but a regional military super-power – could eliminate the Syrian air-force in a day. But this scenario is not likely to happen, because, despite its military superiority, the USA does not want to push the Russians into such a tight corner that they will be obliged to rearm Syria – as they would – with even more modern aircraft and weapons.

For their part, the Russians can see that their influence and prestige in the region are on the rise, corresponding those of the US, which are on the wane. Russia has no reason to provoke a major military confrontation with the USA at present and they will quietly move their planes and ships out of harm’s way until the immediate crisis is over. They are content, instead, to play the long game and be a minor irritant in the short term.

Having said all that, we live in a period of unprecedented social and political upheaval, and the dominant characteristic of the age is volatility. A major conflagration may be very unlikely, but it can never be completely ruled out that an unexpected combination of ‘accidental’ factors – not least the unpredictability of the loose cannon who occupies the White House – may trigger a conflict on a much wider scale than either side originally anticipated. 

Labour must strenuously oppose the Tories’ rush to war in Syria.  Bombing Assad’s air-bases will inevitably result in even more civilian 'collateral' deaths so it will do absolutely nothing to help the civilian population of Syria or undermine al-Assad. More bombs and missile attacks will only prolong the agony of the Syrian population. The Labour Party should demand that if the British Government does anything in Syria, it should be sending boatloads of humanitarian aid and making good on its empty promise to take child refugees.

Statement: Syrian Political Prisoners on Hunger Strike

We reprint this statement from the website of the Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists for our readers interests.

Statement From Detainees in Homs Central Prison

More than 500 political prisoners in Homs Central Prison, detained by the Syrian regime for participating in the Syrian revolution,   have issued a statement announcing that they have launched a hunger strike.  There are currently over 100,000 political prisoners in Syria,  mostly in the Assad regime’s dungeons.


October 17, 2017

“We are detainees in Homs Central Prison who have been arrested for participating in the revolution in our beloved country. We declare that we will refuse food and drink and declare a hunger strike

1. Because we have suffered, as the great Syrian people have suffered, from oppression, injustice and tyranny.

2. Because we were always treated as the weakest link in any negotiations, and we were the last item to be considered in any local or international meeting.

3. Because we are abused in the prison and cannot bear this suffering, and the pain of our parents, spouses, children and loved ones.

4. Because all the promises made by all the parties to the conflict and crisis in Syria have been in vain.

This is a distress call on all humanitarian organizations requesting immediate intervention to prevent any prison break-in.

Our peaceful hunger strike is our legitimate right and is the only way left to us to raise our voice to all the world’s free peoples.

We demand that we be immediately evacuated from prison prior to any negotiation, as with those areas, towns and villages evacuated within hours under the auspices of international observers.
We only want our freedom, our dignity and the release of ourselves and our families, so that we may return to our parents, our children and our other loved ones.

From: The Detainees of Homs Central Prison
Tuesday October 17, 2017

معتقلو سجن حمص المركزي يطلقون نداء استغاثة إلی جميع المنظمات الدولية والأممية والانسانية وحقوق الانسان خاصة والمجتمع الدولي والی كل حر في العالم ..
“نحن معتقلي سجن حمص المركزي و عددنا خمسمائة و خمسون معتقلا موقوفون علی خلفية الثورة التي قامت في بلدنا الحبيب نعلن اضرابنا التام عن الطعام و الشراب و نعلن اضراب البطون الخاوية
.1 لأننا عانينا ما عاناه هذا الشعب العظيم من قهر و ظلم و استبداد
.2 لقد كنا الحلقة الأضعف دائما في اي تفاوض وكنا البند الأخير في اي اجتماع دولي او محلي
.3 لقد ضاقت ظلمات السجن بنا ولم نعد نستطع ان نصبر علی آلامنا و آلام اهلنا و اولادنا
.4 ان الوعود التي وعدنا بها من كافة الاطراف التي تباحثت ملف الأزمة في سوريا كانت هباء” منثورا و وعود واهية .
مطالبنا:
1 هذا نداء استغاثه الی جميع المنظمات الانسانية للتدخل الفوري لمنع اي اقتحام السجن علينا
.2 اضرابنا السلمي عن الطعام هو حقنا المشروع و إيصال صوتنا لجميع احرار العالم
.3 خروجنا الفوري من السجن قبل اي تفاوض اسوة بأي منطقة او مدينة اخليت من سكانها خلال ساعات برعاية دولية
.4 نحن نريد فقط حريتنا وكرامتنا و فك اسرنا بشكل فوري و عودتنا الی اهلنا و اولادنا .

**معتقلو سجن حمص المركزي.
الثلاثاء17 10 2017 الساعة الثانية صباحا

Thoughts on the the Kurdish Referendum

 

We reprint this commentary on the Kurdish referendum for the interest of our readers. We received it through the Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists.   It was originally published in Peace News.

 

Iraq Kurdish Independence Faces Threats from Outside and Contradictions from Within

Support for the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people and opposition to the Barzani clan is a necessity for combining democratic and social rights in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. We should bring our support to the most revolutionary and democratic sectors of Kurdistan autonomous region to build a progressive alternative.


Joseph Daher
October 3, 2017

Source:  Peace News
http://peacenews.org/2017/10/03/iraq-kurdish-independence-faces-threats-outside-contradictions-within-joseph-daher/

With a victory of the “yes” at over 92% in favor of the independence and a participation rate reaching 72%, the results of the referendum are clear and confirmed the popular enthusiasm of the vast majority of the Kurdish population seen the weeks before the vote.

Popular scenes of jubilation have also taken place among the Kurdish populations in neighboring countries to celebrate the results of the referendum. Residents of a number of cities, mostly populated by Kurds in north-western Iran, including Marivan and Baneh, challenged the threats of repression by the Iranian authorities and celebrated the victory of the “yes” by dancing in the streets and singing slogans praising the Kurdish nationalist movements. Clashes between demonstrators and security forces took place in the cities of Mahabad and Sanandaj. In Sanandaj, the crowd waved the prohibited Kurdistan flag in Iran. As a reminder, the Kurdish majority populated areas have been severely repressed in the last decades by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and many Kurdish activists languish in prison, often sentenced to long prison terms or death.

Similarly, in Syria, in the territories controlled by the PYD, the Syrian branch of the PKK, many popular demonstrations commemorated the victory of the “yes” in several cities such as Qamishli, Amouda and Derik (Malakiyya).

Threats and acts of hostilities against the Kurdistan Regional Government
However, regional and international pressures and threats have escalated against the authorities of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), headed by Massoud Barzani. In an attempt to coax the Iraqi government and neighboring countries and calm the pressures on the Kurdish autonomous region, Barzani wrote a letter to the Baghdad authorities saying that the referendum did not mean an immediate announcement of independence or the imposition of a status quo on anyone. He added: “We are ready to wait for two years during which we can communicate through a deep and constructive dialogue to discuss all the problems and subjects that can make us two partners in building a future for our two nations, without any de facto imposition in any zone.” This was not enough to reassure the authorities in Baghdad and neighboring states.

Since the announcement of the victory of the “yes” in the referendum, the Iraqi government has multiplied threats and hostile acts against the Kurdish autonomous authorities. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi set as a condition of any negotiations the cancellation of the results. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani also declared his opposition to the secession of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Members of the Iraqi parliament voted in favor of the closure of border posts outside the authority of the Iraqi state and asked the Prime Minister, as head of the armed forces, to take all necessary measures to maintain the unity of Iraq. They also reiterated their demand for a dispatch of security forces in “disputed areas”, including the multi-ethnic and oil-rich city of Kirkuk. These contested areas include the province of Kirkuk (north), but also parts of the provinces of Nineveh (north), Dyala and Salaheddin (north of Baghdad). Most of these territories were conquered by the Kurdish peshmerga fighters in 2014, as a result of the chaos after the offensive of the Jihadist movement of the Islamic State (IS). I’ve written about the background here.

In the city of Kirkuk, tension continues to mount. Members of the Shi’a fundamentalist militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces, Hashd al-Sha’bi, have allegedly positioned themselves as “civilian,” but are heavily armed. They are also present in some localities of the governorate of Nineveh. On 29 September, the authorities of Baghdad imposed an air blockade on the Kurdish autonomous areas to force the KRG to relinquish control of its airports and cancel the outcome of its referendum on independence, to which the KRG refused. Flight connections between Iraqi Kurdistan and foreign countries have therefore ceased.

Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran react violently
Turkey, Syria and Iran, three neighboring countries with significant Kurdish minorities, have all condemned the referendum and called for the unity of Iraq against any division plans.

Turkey and Iran are the most vehement in their rejection of the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan and the intimidations of these governments have proliferated against Erbil. The Turkish Parliament had already extended the mandate allowing for the deployment of Turkish military troops in Iraq and Syria before the referendum on 23 September. This is a clear threat to the Kurdish authorities of Erbil. Ankara had already threatened military and economic measures in retaliation for the holding of the referendum.

Following the announcement of the massive victory of the “yes” to the referendum, the Turkish government reiterated its threats against the KRG, while announcing the cessation of military training of the Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq. Turkish President Erdogan also said that Iraqi Kurds “would pay the price” for their decisions and would soon be lacking everything, including food by “going hungry,” if his country closed the borders and hence truck and oil traffic. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil every day are sold through pipelines from northern Iraq to Turkey, linking the region to world oil markets.

Tehran has pledged on its side to stand by Baghdad and Ankara against the outcome of the referendum for the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan. Ali Akbar Velayati, the chief adviser of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that “Muslim nations will not allow the creation of a second Israel.” The conservative press in Iran described the referendum as a “Zionist plot” to destabilize the region.

Similarly, Hezbollah, the Shi’a fundamentalist Islamic movement in Lebanon, through its leader Hassan Nasrallah, said that the Iraqi Kurdistan independence vote marked a first step towards the partition of the Middle East and would lead to internal wars and it was necessary to oppose it. He described the referendum as a US-Israeli plot to sow chaos in the region.

The collaboration between Baghdad, Ankara, and Tehran has intensified against the KRG in recent days.
An Iraqi military delegation visited the border of Kurdistan on the Iranian side and then Iran deployed a dozen tanks supported by artillery at its border with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region on October 2nd. The deployment at the Parviz Khan border point was part of joint military drills conducted by the Iranian and the Iraqi armed forces in response to the referendum. Joint military exercises between the Turkish and Iraqi military forces had already been conducted at the border of Iraqi Kurdistan on the Turkish side on the days following the holding of the referendum. A small Iraqi force was still deployed on the Turkish side of the border as part of joint drills with the Turkish army.

The Iraqi authorities also plan to take control of the borders of the autonomous region of Kurdistan in coordination with Iran and Turkey, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence said on 29 September. In a similar fashion, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi suggested that his government would take control of the revenues generated by Kurdish oil exports.

The United States and Russia, or the maintenance of stability at all costs
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States does not recognize the independence referendum of Iraqi Kurdistan and calls for a halt to “threats of reciprocal actions.” Western countries repeatedly reiterated their opposition to holding a referendum, fearing that a victory of the “yes” of the referendum would lead to more regional instability, weaken the “war” against IS, and lead to unrest in disputed areas such as the multi-ethnic and wealthy city of Kirkuk.

Russia, which invested over $4 billion in the Kurdistan Region’s energy sector, overtaking the United States as the largest investor, has been more cautious, saying considering “with respect the Kurdish national aspirations.” Moscow considers, however, “that the disputes between Baghdad and Erbil must be resolved by dialogue with the aim of finding a formula of coexistence within the Iraqi state.” The significant Russian investments in the energy sector might be one of the reasons why Turkey has not yet made good on its threats to shut down the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, so to not harm its Russian ally. Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, expects the pipeline to be open for business, and Moscow expects revenues from the KRG as a return on its investment. Without the pipeline, open borders or payments from Baghdad to Erbil, the KRG will go broke, a disaster for the Russian venture. This might however not last for too long as Turkish government is ready to escalate rapidly its sanctions against the KRG if no solution is found.

More about the Kurds here

Israel’s support, or opportunism
Israel is the only regional state that had supported the independence of the Kurdistan autonomous region. A long historical political relation exists between the State of Israel and the Barzani family, going back to the sixties when the first Israeli special-forces aided Mullah Mustafa Barzani and his peshmerga rebels in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Massoud Barzani previously declared in a 2005 interview with the Saudi daily al-Hayat. “Establishing ties between the Kurds and Israel is not a crime, especially since many Arab countries already have links with the Jewish state”.

Moreover, in Iraqi Kurdistan, Mossad agents or former Israeli soldiers have been quietly training Kurdish security forces. The KRG has also sold large quantities of oil to the State of Israel in recent years through international trading companies and without the approval of the authorities in Baghdad. In this affair, this oil passed through an oil pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, on the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey, allied with the Kurdish government of Massoud Barzani, has facilitated this long-standing affair. Ankara opened an account for Erbil in the Turkish public bank, Halk and stored Kurdish oil waiting for buyers.

Israel does not support the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people genuinely or because they have been oppressed, but they view an independent Kurdish state under the reactionary and pro-western imperialist leadership of Barzani as a way to find a new ally in the region against various regional actors, especially Iran. Israel has for example rather been silent of the faith of Kurds in Syria, Turkey and Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu also said recently that Israel considers the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a terrorist group, taking the same position as Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Israel’s also played a role in the capture of the fugitive leader of the PKK Abdullah Ocalan in early 1999 in Kenya by the Turkish state.

On the other side, the Barzani clan and some of the Kurdish bourgeois leadership tend to see Israel as a role model for an independent Kurdistan, a small nation surrounded by enemies and bolstered by a strategic partnership with the United States. This feeling has been nurtured by decades of oppression against Kurdish people by the central authorities in the countries they are present (Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria). The lack of solidarity to the Kurdish issue among the populations of the regions, even among wide sectors of the left did not help. In addition to this, the various Palestinian leaderships organizations have generally stood alongside Arab authoritarian regimes against the Kurdish people. This situation was symbolized by the Israeli flag raised at several Kurdish rallies in Erbil and across Europe.

The internal problems of the KRG
The autonomous region of Kurdistan has experienced the worst economic crisis since 2003. It is clear, as I mentioned previously, that the referendum was orchestrated by the leader Massoud Barzani to remain in power and divert the working and popular classes from socio-economic problems in the region. There must be no illusion about the bourgeois and authoritarian leadership of the ruling Barzani clan.

Similarly, all measures aimed at creating a new form of oppression against ethnic and religious minorities in the Kurdistan autonomous region must be denounced. Since 2003, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have relied on “intimidation, threats, arrests and arbitrary detentions” to secure the support of minority communities and establish control over disputed territories, according to report published in November 2009 by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). Some have spoken of a process of “kurdification,” by trying to create a form of allegiance on the part of minorities towards the KRG. In some areas, for example, opening schools where the students learn Kurdish and recruiting civil servants for administrations newly created by the KRG.

In the governorate of Nineveh, for example, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of (KDP), controlled by the Barzani family, replaced undemocratically the mayors of two important Christian towns in the Nineveh plain, Faiez Abed Jahwareh of Alqosh and Basim Bello of Tel Keppe (Tal Kayf), who both opposed the holding of the referendum in their localities. DPK affiliated members took their seats. Numerous popular demonstrations were organized in these localities to denounce these measures. The official structures and councils of the governorate of Nineveh and the Sinjar region have gradually been dominated by members of the KDP through various clientelist policies and intimidation’s practices against members critical of KRG’s policies.

Even worse, Human Rights Watch revealed more recently that during the war against IS, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters also tore down with bulldozers Sunni Arab villages in disputed areas of the governorates of Kirkuk and Nineveh.

Nothing can justify these kinds of actions, although of course, it is necessary to recognize and denounce the campaigns of “Arabization” in the past led by successive Iraqi regimes, especially under the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in these disputed territories. This policy of demographic change resulted at the time in the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, especially Kurdish populations, in order to install Sunni Arabs. This is the reason why the KRG authorities and large sectors of the Kurdish society in Iraq claim to have historical legitimacy on these lands.

But in these disputed areas, other ethnic and religious populations also exist, including Turkmen, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Yazidis, Kakais, and Shabaks.

The authoritarianism of the Barzani clan did not stop during and after the referendum against the other Kurdish political groups. Throughout the period leading to the referendum, the KDP branded any questioning and criticism about the way was organized the Referendum and the date chosen for it as a sign of treason on the part of its political rivals. The Gorran Movement, the Kurdistan Islamic Group (known as Komal), and sectors of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) initially, before changing their position, in addition to Kurdish activists, denounced the objectives of the Barzani clan through the organization of this referendum, including its willingness to divert the Kurdish population from the socio-economic problems, the monopolization of power by the KDP, and the closure of the parliament. These parties and activists had a long history of struggle for the right to self-determination of the Kurdish people in Iraq, but wanted to create the best conditions for holding this referendum and preparing for the independence process, for example by opening once again the parliament, to improve the socio-economic living conditions of citizens and to reach a political consensus on this process of independence. Komal finally expressed its support for “yes” on the eve of the ballot, while the Gorran movement did not give any official position, but its leader, Omar Said Ali, announced that he had voted “yes.”

Conclusion
The broad victory of the “yes” in the Kurdistan autonomous region is rooted in a long historical willingness by the Kurdish people to establish a state and also the consequences of a violent history of oppression of the Kurdish populations in Iraq by the various previous Iraqi nationalist authoritarian regimes. The massacre by chemical weapons against the Kurdish population of Halabja in 1988 by the Baathist regime is particularly remembered. About 5,000 Kurds perished in this massacre. This attack was part of Operation Anfal launched by the authorities in Baghdad during this period, which killed 182,000 people and destroyed more than 90 percent of the Kurdish villages.

The Iraqi referendum also demonstrated, once again, the failure of the models of the capitalist, chauvinist and centralized nation-states of the region, which have consistently repressed, erased, and/or denied the plurality of their societies by affirming the supremacy and/or domination of an ethnic group over others, a religious sect over others or both at the same time.

That is why we must support the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people in Iraq and elsewhere and denounce the foreign international and regional pressures to prevent the Kurdish population of Iraq from their right to self-determination.

This support must also go through a clear opposition to the Barzani clan that will bring no good to the Kurdish popular classes at the level of democratic and social rights. Similarly, it is necessary to denounce the attempts of the KRG to impose a new ethnic domination and it should leave the populations of the disputed areas the right to choose freely, which state they want to belong to, how they want to organize themselves and choose their political representatives.

The will of the Barzani clan to convince Western imperialist states of the utility of an Iraqi Kurdistan on the regional political scene, not to mention links with Israel and the Barzani family, must also be combated. However, these elements can’t be used to justify the refusal of the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people, as did some chauvinist left in the region. As the revolutionary Russian Vladimir Lenin said:

“The fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain circumstances, be utilized by another ‘Great’ Power in its equally imperialist interests should have no more weight in inducing Social Democracy to renounce its recognition of the right of nations to self-determination than the numerous case of the bourgeoisie utilizing republican slogans for the purpose of political deception and financial robbery, for example, in the Latin countries, have had in inducing them to renounce republicanism.”

This articulation between these two main different objectives (support for the right of self-determination to the Kurdish people and opposition to the Barzani clan) is a necessity for combining democratic and social rights in Kurdistan autonomous Region. We should bring our support to the most revolutionary and democratic sectors of Kurdistan autonomous region to build a progressive alternative.