Don’t attack Syria
CND general secretary Kate Hudson shares her recent blog post on why we should oppose attacks on Syria.
We oppose any military attack on Syria. Such actions will only exacerbate this bloody civil war and risk drawing neighbouring states into the conflict.
The alleged use of chemical weapons within Syria is to be condemned in the strongest terms, and full details must be sought and secured by UN inspectors. But the right response is to urgently seek a political solution, ensuring that the Syrian people can democratically choose their own form of political, economic and social structures. A political solution takes time but ultimately it is the only viable way to secure long term peace, democracy and stability.
The fact that the British Government is considering military intervention shows that it has not learned the lessons of the recent past. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s support for an attack, despite the ongoing violence in Afghanistan and Iraq more than ten years since their invasion, is particularly reprehensible. His willingness to ‘pay the blood price’ resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths in Iraq. These catastrophic wars, based on the discredited doctrine of so-called ‘humanitarian’ intervention, have cost countless lives, and have set back health, education, infrastructure and human security immeasurably. Military intervention by foreign powers, in their own interests, is not the answer to complex and tragic national or regional problems.
The strength of public opinion is overwhelmingly against military intervention. According to a YouGov poll, 74% of the British public oppose sending troops to fight, with only 9% in support. The skewed priorities of this government are clear: while cutting funding for health and education it is continuing to spend billions on new weapons of destruction and is prepared to commit further resources to war. An attack on Syria would not only bring a human cost – with the inevitable ‘collateral damage’ of civilian deaths – but each Tomahawk missile fired will cost almost £1 million.
All efforts must be made to achieve a swift and peaceful resolution to the conflict. The situation in Syria is grave, but military intervention is no answer for the complex problems facing the country. We appeal to British parliamentarians to reject a call to attack Syria and urge the strongest possible demonstrations in support of that position.
If you are in London, please join the Stop the War Coalition protest at Richmond Terrace opposite Downing Street at 5pm on Wednesday 28 August. A rally will take place at around 5.30pm and will include Jeremy Corbyn MP, chair of Stop the War. There are other protests taking place around the country and there is likely to be a demonstration in London this Saturday, 31st August, assembling at 12 noon. Further details to be announced.
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38 responses to “Don’t attack Syria”
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The Daily Mail has published the names of military men who have known the follies and failures of other wars and we would do well to listen to them as a contrast to the Koolaid of Kerry and Obama spokespersons wailing about ‘proofs’ based on utube and facebook videos.
Don’t start what you can’t finish, warn the top brass
As Britain, America and France threaten to launch missile strikes against Syria, IAN DRURY asks some of Britain’s leading military experts what the West should do…
Lord West of Spithead
LORD WEST OF SPITHEAD
Former First Sea Lord and security adviser in Gordon Brown’s Labour government:
‘We have to be absolutely crystal clear in our own minds that the use of chemical weapons was by the regime. If it was, then I think we can persuade Russia to sign a UN resolution that condemns a head of state for using them against their own people. That seems to be the first move.
‘I’m very wary of military action, even if it is a limited missile strike. What do we hope to achieve? Where will it lead?
‘What if Assad says, “get lost”, and uses chemical weapons again? Are we going to escalate military action? I have a horrible feeling that one strike would quickly become more.
‘The region is a powder keg. We simply can’t predict which way military action will go and whether it would draw us, unwillingly, further into a conflict.’
LORD KING OF BRIDGWATER
Defence Secretary during the First Gulf War:
Lord King of Bridgwater
‘There are no good options, only the least worst ones. I’m very wary of getting involved militarily in the teeth of a major sectarian Sunni-Shia bust-up that could affect the whole region. That’s why it’s so urgent that we get around the table to find a diplomatic and political solution.
‘I’m all in favour of getting Iran [the world’s largest Shia nation] involved because it is vital not to rub them up the wrong way. It’s also important that the Russians are involved: they must not feel as though they’ve been pushed back into a corner.
‘It is imperative to find a solution, and it mustn’t be military. This is turning into such a conflagration that it’s becoming extremely dangerous. I am appalled by the idea that the regime, if that is the case as it appears, would use chemicals against its own people. But the difficulties in how we respond do not become any easier.
‘The idea of a military strike to express disapproval is fraught with problems. We would have to avoid hitting civilians, and if we attacked the chemical plants there is the danger of dispersal of those chemicals into the air. It is hugely important that the UN does show some leadership here.’
MAJOR GENERAL JULIAN THOMPSON
Ex-Royal Marines officer who led 3 Commando Brigade during Falklands War:
Major General Julian Thompson
‘The attack in Damascus last week has altered the conflict dramatically because
it has aroused a considerable amount of odium around the world. It was a stupid thing to do because Assad has fired up people who, on the whole, were not inclined to do anything about him.
‘If we are going to retaliate – which I don’t think we should – then an attack by a submarine using cruise missiles is the favoured solution because you don’t have
to put troops on the ground and you don’t fly aeroplanes against Syria’s
well-armed air defences.
‘It is risk-free, but we have to get our targeting right because we don’t want to kill civilians. The problem is we don’t know what the consequences will be. Russia is certainly against it, as is China.
‘There is a perception that Assad is poking us in the eye; if we let him get away with this chemical attack, what will he try next? But I’m wary of acting if we don’t know what the consequences will be.’
VICE-ADMIRAL SIR JEREMY BLACKHAM
Former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff in 1999:
Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham
‘I strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons, which is illegal, and the idea of
a punishment strike is not at all unreasonable: how else is international law to be upheld?
‘Ideally this should have support, or a mandate, from the UN or the International Court of Justice.
‘However, it would be most imprudent to do it without careful consideration of, and proper preparation for, the range of consequences which might follow. This is not
a very nice dilemma and the answer is not at all obvious.’
COLONEL RICHARD KEMP
Former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan:
Colonel Richard Kemp
‘If the Syrian regime carried out a nerve agent attack, then a limited but
devastating surgical air strike is not only justified but necessary in order to send
a clear message to Assad.
‘It is essential that the US and UK base their decision on the best possible
chemical analysis, backed up by firm intelligence to confirm who was responsible.
‘Of course our governments will need to be prepared to follow up with a second, more severe, wave of attacks if Assad responds with another chemical strike or some other outrage. But we must not be drawn into a protracted campaign, either in the air or on the ground. It would not be long before all sides turned against us.
‘And while it will be possible – under the table – to square a swift and limited intervention with Russia, a wider operation would be much more likely to develop into a proxy war or worse.
‘Nor should we supply rebel fighters dominated by Islamist extremists with anti-aircraft or anti-armour missiles: they are sworn enemies of the West.’
GENERAL SIR MICHAEL ROSE
Former SAS commander and leader of United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994-95:
General Sir Michael Rose
‘The credibility of America hinges on Obama doing something after he said use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that couldn’t be crossed.
‘I am not against a military strike, but the intelligence has got to be good and the target has got to be very specific; so specific that it identifies the unit that carried out the attacks.
‘If not, we will be seen to be siding with the rebels – and that should not be the business of the Western powers. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be, and we could end up with people in power who are worse even than Assad.
‘We need to be imposing an arms embargo and a no-fly zone, which would reduce the level of the violence. This is a total lose-lose situation for the people of Syria. But however terrible their suffering is with Assad and his brutal ways, the end result of an escalating arms race will be to make things worse. The suffering will only be greater.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402597/Syria-crisis-Britains-armed-forces-draw-plans-military-action.html#ixzz2dC6olz6m
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It is NOT acceptable to use force. . . even if the highly suspicious chemical weapon attack was proven without doubt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjMHf5hVVEg&list=PLD03E7002FBEAACA5
Agreed 100% The only solution to this mess is a political one.
At the point a tyrant is slaughtering people, calling for political solutions is, I’m afraid, silly. If you want to argue non-intervention please do – but please don’t pretend that “political” solutions are anything more than the opposition putting their heads on the chopping block.
Moreover, there’s absolutely no way we should be negotiating with a side which has used NBC weapons, or has credible proven accusations of such against it.
Where’s the evidence?
Stop ranting for war on our site, thanks.
It’s not your site. It’s a site for the left.
Some of us don’t believe in giving a free pass to dictators – I’ve called for a UNGA resolution against him, not just the UNSC, *should* it prove that he has used NBC weapons.
You’re the one pre-judging the UN inspectors report, and conflating refusing to support either side in a conflict with support for one side. The effort should be on breaking Russian ties with Assad, more than anything.
oh dear andrew. so do you support a french/british/Us molitary intervention?
I’d be supporting a UNGA resolution, at this point, if he’s used NBC weapons.
Ian; So you think it’s a bad thing there isn’t a civil war in Egypt yet? I’m fuzzy on your reasoning. Moreover, you’re pre-guessing a UN inspector’s report…that you are assuming the other side of the civil war in Syria is comprised only of Islamists…
Your excuses for Assad are, bluntly, sad. I would note that Israel has offered Alawite refugees, excepting only their leadership, sanctuary.
“Your excuses for Assad are, bluntly, sad. I would note that Israel has offered Alawite refugees, excepting only their leadership, sanctuary.”
Wow, that’s big of them, offering asylum to a few Arabs! Pity that two thirds of the Arab population of their territory – the majority of the population, were driven out by violence and pogroms have never been allowed back. How about offering asylum to them? Or their homes and properties back?
I’m not an apologist for Assad, but you certainly seem to be an apologist for the mass murderer Al Sisi, as well as a friend of Al Qaeda and the king of Saudi Arabia. I’d be very happy to see both Sisi and Assad end up dying in the manner of Ceaucsescu at the hands of the masses who revolted in both countries in 2011, but I don’t support Assad being ousted by counterrevolutionary thugs funded by the House of Saud, who also fund Sisi (another counterrevolutionary thug, as is Assad).
You appear to want the Syrian people to replace Assad with another Sisi, who according to John Kerry has ‘restored democracy’ to Egypt.
Which is why he had to massacre supporters of the elected government, to show them what democracy really means!
Why don’t you reply to the actual things I said instead of inventing stuff out of thin air? You certainly are ‘fuzzy on reasoning’ – your own.
I am for the restoration of the elected government of Egypt (though I would not have voted for them in an election), against the reactionary military coup. If you support that coup, how are you better than Assad?
(actually, as far as I know, Assad has never overthrown an elected government, so that’s one up for him on Sisi).
But I suppose your idea of democracy is to throw the majority of the population you know won’t vote for you out of the country, declare them non-citizens, and then hold an election and call yourself ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’.
To me, sorry, that ain’t democracy.
Ian –
You’re the one who’s bemoaning the fact that Al Sisi hasn’t slaughtered enough people to cause a civil war yet, not me! That you accuse me of being a friend of Muslim fanatics while supporting Hamas! Er…
“Appear”. No, you *assume*. There’s an unsubtle difference. “Restoring” the government of Egypt likely *would* kick off the civil war. The way fowards has to be further elections under the watch of international teams, Morsi unfortunately thoroughly poisoned the well by rushing through the radically flawed constitutions as he did.
Assad? Not overthrown a government? Er… Lebanon?
And no, I don’t share your views on throwing people out.
You are trolling
Andrew Crystal is very incompetent with his smears. I won’t reply in kind, I prefer to elaborate some ideas.
“You’re the one who’s bemoaning the fact that Al Sisi hasn’t slaughtered enough people to cause a civil war yet, not me! That you accuse me of being a friend of Muslim fanatics while supporting Hamas! Er…”
I don’t actually support Hamas. I would note vote for them in an election if I were Palestinian. But if that people vote for them in an election I defend their democratic right to be governed by them. I have the same attitude to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. I take it that’s two coups against elected governments Andrew approves of.
In any case, the Saudis are funding Al Qa’eda in Syria, and they also funded the Egyptian coup. Does this not strike you as strange that Saudi Arabia hates the Muslim Brotherhood yet funds people who at times have even threatened their own regime? It does make sense if you remember that Saudi Arabia is highly dependent on Washington, and Washington has always been prepared to fund the most violent Islamists, the ultra-ultras, as its instruments of counterrevolution, knowing full well that such people can sporadically prove dangerous to them also. Remember Afghanistan; if there had been no US-backed jihad in the 1980s, there would have been no 9/11. But that will not put Washington off playing the same game again.
Saudi Arabia funds the overthrow of democracy in Egypt because they hate the MB for winning a democratic election. The very concept is to them a crime, even if the winners are devout Muslims themselves.
That is also partly why they fund Al Qaeda in Syria – to create a sectarian bloodbath and make any democratic development impossible. They are hardly going to support the Syrian MB, are they? Given they would also like to win elections in Syria (and might even manage it if any took place).
Islamism is a very varied thing. Not all Islamic movements are the same. Some – the mass-based ones like the MB and also Hizbullah, win support from large numbers of people who have a real yearning for democracy and progressive social change. Even if these are illusions, and these are capitalist parties, some of them have a left-populist appeal. As an Islamophobe who only sees Islam as uniformly barbaric, Andrew does not see the nuances that animate them at the base.
“‘Restoring’ the government of Egypt likely *would* kick off the civil war.”
Quite possibly. That does sometimes happen when elected governments are overthrown by military coups and the people resist. If it does, it is 100% the fault of the military coup-makers.
“The way fowards has to be further elections under the watch of international teams”
Presumably then, if Egyptians vote the ‘wrong’ way again under these ‘international teams’ (from where? – as if we did not know!) would have organise another coup, and then more ‘supervised’ elections until they finally vote the ‘right’ way.
Andrew wants to see Egypt run as a bantustan like the West Bank is being run today. Of course, Arabs are not ready for democracy, so they have to be ‘guided’, that’s the narrative. Kipling called that idea ‘the White Man’s burden’. Its as disgusting today as it was then.
“Assad? Not overthrown a government? Er… Lebanon?”
In case Andrew has not noticed, Lebanon is still run by a coalition of elected politicians, and has elections every four years (last in 2009). It is not ruled by Assad. Go and research it. Sorry to disappoint.
“And no, I don’t share your views on throwing people out.”
My only views on ‘throwing people out’ is that I am utterly opposed to it, everywhere it happens. Including Israel, as no doubt that is the innuendo here. The Israeli Jews have to remove the barriers to the right to return to all Palestinians to the whole of occupied Palestine, but they should not be thrown out. And I don’t believe they would be. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
It is usually those who defend racism who persuade themselves that those who are victimised are themselves inhuman barbarians who would gladly repay all the crimes committed against them and then demand interest. That’s the only way they can justify it to themselves. Andrew fits a lamentable pattern in that regard.
Mikems – You throw the label of troll around very freely. Just as you’ve demanded I go away, with your exclusionary view of the left. I am not trolling, I condemn interventionism here regardless of who’s doing it, and I refuse to blame the Rebels before the UN report comes out!
Ian – Er… Hamas overthrew the Palestinian government in Gaza. And that you are actively trying to put someone who took a lot of power on himself, after rushing through a flawed constitution in a process which the Egyptian left have condemned?!
Sparking civil wars, for the “correct” way to do things is wrong. There has to be pragmatism, ways to move forwards and to establish lasting democratic mandates, rather than dogmatically sticking to flawed processes.
“Andrew wants to see Egypt run as a bantustan like the West Bank”
No, that’s your assumption. You’re trying to paint me as a caricature. You are, in fact, uncritically supporting Hamas and calling for Israeli Jews to not defend themselves. It’s language which works directly against peace, and drives for a three-state solution there.
The pattern is your defense of your views against possible progress on peace.
“As an Islamophobe who only sees Islam as uniformly barbaric, Andrew does not see the nuances that animate them at the base.”
Ian, this deserves it’s own comment. You’re accusing me of being something I simply am not for your own short-term purposes. That’s both rude and bluntly bigoted.
In fact, I am far more often accused of being soft on Islam, elsewhere, and am actively involved in interfaith work. I, in fact, routinely argue against using assumptions of thought crimes simply for people being involved in ideologies which have small extreme branches.
You’ve repeatedly accused me of saying things I haven’t, and would not, say. Why?
Hm, so Bashir al-Assad is a tyrant slaughtering his own people, is he?. I wonder what the Egyptian dictator al-Sisi was doing just a week or so ago when his troops opened fire with live ammunition on supporters of the elected government, and massacred over 1000 demonstrators in Cairo and other cities?
According to the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, they were ‘restoring democracy’ to Egypt.
Its all crap. Its possible Assad’s forces are responsible for the chemical attack which appears to have happened. It is equally possible that it was Al Qaeda-linked forces that were responsible. Heads or tails! Saudi Arabia and other US proxies have been funding such people in a bid to overwhelm the Syrian revolution with a ping-pong of tit-for-tat atrocities by sectarian Sunni Islamists versus the secular but in terms of personel, largely Alawite regime.
They have been bombing Shi’a Mosques in Lebanon, unfortunately Hizbullah seems to have replied in kind in Tripoli – a terrible error that plays into their hands if that is true.
You think the US would not give chemical weapons to Al Qaeda for a false-flag operation? That is naive!
That was the imperialist strategy to defeat the Syrian revolution – turn it into a sectarian bloodbath. A variant of what they did in Libya, where in an inversion of the old Vietnam-war cynical adage ‘we had to destroy the village in order to save it’, they instead pretended to save the revolution in order to destroy it. It was a very successful strategy, unfortunately.
One thing seems odd – almost everyone knows it is a toss-up who did this. The Americans know, Obama knows it, Cameron and Hague know it. They seem completely unconcerned that Al Qaeda may have sarin gas, or something similar. Despite all the panic of the ‘war on terror’ about WMD in the hands of ‘terrorists’ after 9/11.
But counterrevolution is more important than public safety to them. And they may even benefit if it is used in a terrorist attack on a Western target in years to come. As the Japanese ruling class could testify after the Aum Shiriko attack in Tokyo. It all helps in driving things to the right politically.
The Arab spring as we know it is dying. It will take a more serious revolution to take things further than they went – a workers revolution (or rather a series of them, region wide, to establish a federation of workers states). That is the only way to achieve democracy in the Arab world.
It received what appears to be its death blow with the US-supported Tien-an-Mien style massacre committed by the Pinochet-clone Al-Sisi. Any war US imperialism, or its stooge the UK wages anywhere in the world including the Middle East, is a counter-revolutionary war through and through, and needs to be opposed and defeated. Hopefully if Syria is attacked it has some decent Russian-made weapons that can inflict serious casualties on the imperialists.
Russia is a much weaker imperialist power in its own ex-USSR sphere of influence, but is hardly a serious rival to NATO and its Israeli ally in the Middle East. Syria, for all the horror of its civil war, is still an oppressed country, part of the balkanised Arab world that is subject to imperialist oppression, not least in the manipulative character of their current machinations with bin Ladenists (shades of Afghanistan in the 1980s!). It needs to be defended in whatever way we can against this likely NATO/US war.
Ian Donovan sets out a partially correct perspective against the shallow “anti-dictator” philistinism of the Trotskyists and others who swallow hook line and sinker the CIA and Mossad provoked Syrian revolt as a “freedom struggle”, thereby feeding the latest war drive and HELPING CAPITALISM with their most craven opportunism. Syria was an artificial counter-revolt from the beginning, like the monarchist and reactionary rebellion against Gaddaffi’s anti-imperialism, a counter to the great spontaneous uprising in Egypt in 2011 which terrified the West – if Egypt with 80 million falls to the left then the whole Middle East will not be far behind. The whole laughable fraud has been swallowed whole by the fake-“lefts” just like they swallowed all the post-war anti-workers state “revolts”, like the Vatican-funded Solidarnosc restoration of capitalism in Poland. The same lefts now swallowed the West’s turned round “second wave” in Egypt (hyped up by Tony Blair) as more democracy when it was clearly itself a manipulated counter-revolt as well. Their “Islam is just as reactionary as capitalism” racist idiocy and “Morsi deserved it” stupidity let capitalism get away with murder (literally). Some of them staggeringly at still saying the new “revolt” was progressive after the bloody butchery in Cairo which it cheered on.
Unfortunately Donovan is little better with his Tian an Men parallels – what “massacre” Ian?? Even the BBC correspondents like Simpson have long backed away from those “thousands shot down” outright fabrications (no one was killed on Tian an Men). At just the same period as the counter-revolution in Europe (which is what Solidarnosc and the Berlin wall stuff etc were) a Statue of Liberty wielding (ie pro_American) “democracy” movement (ie pro-capitalist) ended up provoking violence in Beijing and was suppressed finally (and far too late) by the Chinese workers state with around 400 deaths in the streets around Tian an Men (including over 100+ of workers state police and army themselves butchered by the mob – there are pictures from the time of one having his head crushed for example)only after the violence had been started by the pro-democracy-ists (bourgeois democracy that is).
Of course now it is losing in Syria the West has to intervene directly to try and hold the line against being defeated by rising revolt (whoever it is being done by).
But the issue not mentioned at all here is that the capitalist system WANTS and NEEDS war, ANY war will do almost, because of the total economic crisis collapse of its system which for all the “upturn is coming” bullshit (and fatuous “left” we can stop austerity rubbish) has not gone away but is unfolding ever faster into world CATASTROPHE (as Marxism alone has constantly warned against all the Trots and Stalinist decrying “old-hat” dogma). But the WW1 and WW2 prove3d that the only way out for capitalist rule is all out war and that is what all this is preparing.
There is no way to stop war or “end austerity” except to take up the revolutionary fight to END capitalism.
Every defeat that imperialism’s now non-stop warmongering (Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and the Congo) suffers is a step forwards by whoever does it, to weaken its power and ideological grip – and therefore the only line to take now is for this new war adventure to be completely DEFEATED. That implies no support at all for the bourgeois nationalist vacillations of the Assad regime as such – but for the moment the issue is to see capitalism’s main force get a bloody nose.
Peace will only come when capitalism is ended and than means building a Leninist understanding of struggle against it.
EPSR = Economic and Philosophic Science Review
Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Is Phil on holiday so you have taken over?
Please everyone, do not take up a detailed refutation of this. It represents no-one and is just a waste of all our time.
Another example of a left statement that is incapable of even an empty rhetorical gesture of solidarity with a people in revolt against tyranny, not to mention actual international solidarity.
No to intervention. Yes to Revolution.
Why do you want empty rhetorical gestures?
You don’t know what the Syrian people want, but you sound like a western warmonger.
Excellent article by Kate.
It seems more likely the rebels carried out the attack to obtain western military intervention in Syria.
Britain has used chemical attacks on the Kurds in 1920 and Britain and USA in Iraq in 2004.
I/ll be on the national demonstration on Saturday.
Kevin O’Connor
Islington left unity.
Don’t forget the Iran-Iraq War: the US and UK stood by and watched as Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian troops. The IDF used white phosphorus in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead and the US dropped Agent Orange on Vietnam, cause. The so-called West has no moral authority over Syria or anywhere else.
I don’t buy into the argument that the rebels used chemical weapons, I’m sure Syria has the capability and Assad has the cruelty to use them. But nor do I support intervention, which will only make the situation worse. We need to oppose Assad, oppose Islamists in the rebel camp and oppose Western escalation towards another disastrous war. That may sound like a lot of things to be against, but since when did being against killing be a bad thing?
Agree with you. There is no contradiction in opposing western intervention and Assad at the same time.
Depends who you think ‘the rebels’ are. I’m am not talking about the people of Syria who rose up against Assad as part of the same revolutionary wave that brought down Ben Ali and Mubarak in early 2011. The popular movement still exists, but has been marginalised by others who have a completely different agenda.
The funding of reactionary armed groups by Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia – a very large recipient of US aid and many would say a conduit – has led to some amazing acts of barbarism by some opponents of Assad. I would not include those people in the opposition or the revolution – they are just as counterrevolutionary as Assad.
The kind of people who can film acts of cannibalism and use that threat to terrify others – whether it be the original opposition who began the struggle for freeedom against Assad, or for that matter supporters of the Assad regime itself – those types also have the cruelty to use chemical weapons. Some in the UN believe they have done just that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10039672/UN-accuses-Syrian-rebels-of-chemical-weapons-use.html
I don’t see how anyone can dismiss out of hand the view that reactionary opponents of the reactionary Assad could be responsible. Even before this attack, there were credible warnings that this could be happening. And the main source for the supposed evidence that the US/UK axis are using to accuse Assad are the Israelis. Possibly the most tainted source of all, given the many decades of enmity against all and any Arab states with an hint of real independence.
Oppose ALL intervention. That includes blocking Russian intervention. Via a UNGA vote (“Uniting for Peace”, 11th usage) if necessary.
Sorry, hit enter early – but there also needs, if NBC weapons usage is proven, no mercy or freedom to leave Syria for anyone who was involved in ordering it; War crimes charges *must* be filed.
As before-email was incorrect
Ian Donovan sets out a partially correct perspective against the shallow “anti-dictator” philistinism of the Trotskyists and others who swallow hook line and sinker the CIA and Mossad provoked Syrian revolt as a “freedom struggle”, thereby feeding the latest war drive and HELPING CAPITALISM with their most craven opportunism. Syria was an artificial counter-revolt from the beginning, like the monarchist and reactionary rebellion against Gaddaffi’s anti-imperialism, a counter to the great spontaneous uprising in Egypt in 2011 which terrified the West – if Egypt with 80 million falls to the left then the whole Middle East will not be far behind. The whole laughable fraud has been swallowed whole by the fake-”lefts” just like they swallowed all the post-war anti-workers state “revolts”, like the Vatican-funded Solidarnosc restoration of capitalism in Poland. The same lefts now swallowed the West’s turned round “second wave” in Egypt (hyped up by Tony Blair) as more democracy when it was clearly itself a manipulated counter-revolt as well. Their “Islam is just as reactionary as capitalism” racist idiocy and “Morsi deserved it” stupidity let capitalism get away with murder (literally). Some of them staggeringly at still saying the new “revolt” was progressive after the bloody butchery in Cairo which it cheered on.
Unfortunately Donovan is little better with his Tian an Men parallels – what “massacre” Ian?? Even the BBC correspondents like Simpson have long backed away from those “thousands shot down” outright fabrications (no one was killed on Tian an Men). At just the same period as the counter-revolution in Europe (which is what Solidarnosc and the Berlin wall stuff etc were) a Statue of Liberty wielding (ie pro_American) “democracy” movement (ie pro-capitalist) ended up provoking violence in Beijing and was suppressed finally (and far too late) by the Chinese workers state with around 400 deaths in the streets around Tian an Men (including over 100+ of workers state police and army themselves butchered by the mob – there are pictures from the time of one having his head crushed for example)only after the violence had been started by the pro-democracy-ists (bourgeois democracy that is).
Of course now it is losing in Syria the West has to intervene directly to try and hold the line against being defeated by rising revolt (whoever it is being done by).
But the issue not mentioned at all here is that the capitalist system WANTS and NEEDS war, ANY war will do almost, because of the total economic crisis collapse of its system which for all the “upturn is coming” bullshit (and fatuous “left” we can stop austerity rubbish) has not gone away but is unfolding ever faster into world CATASTROPHE (as Marxism alone has constantly warned against all the Trots and Stalinist decrying “old-hat” dogma). But the WW1 and WW2 prove3d that the only way out for capitalist rule is all out war and that is what all this is preparing.
There is no way to stop war or “end austerity” except to take up the revolutionary fight to END capitalism.
Every defeat that imperialism’s now non-stop warmongering (Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and the Congo) suffers is a step forwards by whoever does it, to weaken its power and ideological grip – and therefore the only line to take now is for this new war adventure to be completely DEFEATED. That implies no support at all for the bourgeois nationalist vacillations of the Assad regime as such – but for the moment the issue is to see capitalism’s main force get a bloody nose.
Peace will only come when capitalism is ended and than means building a Leninist understanding of struggle against it.
EPSR = Economic and Philosophic Science Review
Dearie, dearie, me, Don, the extraordinary ranting of the unreconstructed Stalinist/Maoist ! You must be a lonely figure nowadays sitting in your bedroom , without friends, festooned with all those adulatory posters of comrades Stalin and Mao ! The fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the murderous Stalinist dictatorships of the Soviet empire were a “bad thing ” ? Time to return to the mothership for a historical reality reboot comrade !
Tee hee!
The economy is stagnant and the government’s poll ratings are in the toilet. It’s Groundhog Day, folks.
http://buddyhell.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/selling-war/
I hope Kate is ready to take responsibility for Assad’s next gas attack when she and her friends are successful in preventing intervention and they will be successful because there is no oil in Syria and the West have no stomach for it. They may lob in a few cruise missiles but that will just indicate to Assad that his conventional slaughter has the green light. Cameron and the US will happily lay the blame on the pro-Assad left and the revolting Putin for tying their hands. In the racial scale of things Arabs are lower than blacks and Native Americans in the US imperialist mind. One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million? Who cares?
The labour movement should be on the side of the Syrian Revolution regardless of the policy of imperialism. It hasn’t done anything so far to protect Syrians and it won’t do much in the future. In fact so far it has imposed a vicious arms embargo that has prevented the Syrian people from defending themselves and been responsible for 4 million of them being driven into neighbouring countries.
I don’t see what is wrong about Kate Hudson’s short article, which covers most of the bases on which opposition tot eh war-mongering has to be based, or with Ian Donovan’s reponse, which contains important information to flesh out these bases and exploit the underlying hypocrisy. I have tried in the Discusion Forum and on the thread about the Protest against the war to focus on the historical background and the international ramificatioins. All these are complementary.
Rober Fisk, a major expert on the Middle East, reports in the Independent on persistent reports in Beirut, where he has lived for decades, that three Hezbollah members – fighting alongside government troops in Damascus – were apparently struck down by the same gas on the same day, supposedly in tunnels. They are now said to be undergoing treatment in a Beirut hospital. So if Syrian government forces used gas, Fisk asks, how come Hezbollah men might have been stricken too?
Baton Rouge and Don Hoskins are merely peddling pre-digested dogma and jargon which seems to have a precarious relationship to both historical and contemporary realities.
Because gas weapons are rarely controllable, which is one of the major reasons for them being banned. Look – the UN are investigating. It’ll be, what, 3 days? Let’s see what conclusions they come to, and on what evidence, before rushing to judge which side did it.
I call, and will continue to call, for the UNGA to step up if the UNSC won’t do it’s job. (Not military action, *political* intervention against meddling by the Russians, Hezbollah (can’t rightly blame Lebanon per-se there) and Saudis!)
And whoever ordered the attack should face trial in the Hague when they’re caught. Period. The UNGA should make that clear too.
“Because gas weapons are rarely controllable, which is one of the major reasons for them being banned.”
That’s nonsense. These men were apparently gassed in a tunnel. That’s the last place the gas would appear if it was released in the open air. It would disperse.
It would appear in a tunnel if it were deliberately introduced into the tunnel by an enemy. As Assad and Hizbullah are allies, it could not have been Assad who was responsible.
Robert Fisk is a very, very, dubious journalistic source to quote on any Middle East issue – notorious for simply making stuff up to “prove” his points. I would treat his story about supposed Hezbollah gas casualties with utter suspicion.
I totally disagree. He is one of the best writers on the Middle East you can find. His books are a treasure trove of informed commentary and history and have few equals in the field.
Excellent point made by Ian.
The chemical attack is quite likely a false flag carried out by the western backed rebels. The west do plan false flags remember operation northwoods in the early 1960,s.
kevin O’Connor
Islington left unity
I am against imperialist wars, against dictators and against ‘left-wingers’ who delight in confrontation and rancourous, vicious ‘debate’.
Let’s have honest respectful debate not accusations of supporting dictators. That’s what the fascists say.