Discussion meeting.
Sat 26th Jan.
1pm — 3pm.
The Function Room.
Lincoln Arms pub.
Next to Dorking Main station and only 2 minutes from Dorking Deepdene station.
There will be introductory talks by an ACG member and a CWO member.
Hosted by Surrey Libertarian History Society.
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A
hundred cruise missiles were launched against the military installations of the
Assad regime on 14th April 2018. In the
aftermath the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, stated that the
United States was “locked and loaded”. Together the US, France and Britain
engaged in bombings that will be of no benefit to the Syrian masses suffering
under the murderous regime of Bashar Assad.
It can
be seen that all three regimes in the USA, France and Britain have their own
domestic
problems, and that a military adventure is always a good ploy to
divert attention.
Trump is wrestling with the ongoing Muller investigation, the
revelations of ex-FBI Director Comey, and ongoing legal wrangles with porn star
Stormy Daniels and polls that show his lack of popularity and the mid-term
elections where the Democrats wrested back the House of Representatives. The
ruling Conservative Party in Britain is faced with serious divisions in its own
Party, with deepening problems over Brexit. Macron in France faces increasing
unrest at home.
Trump
was elected President on a populist programme, but part of that programme was
that he would withdraw troops from Iraq and not be involved in military
adventures in the Middle East. This was in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton
who maintained an aggressive stance towards Russia and calls for a no-fly zone
over Syria that would have caused confrontation with Russia, Assad’s ally. Now
Trump has betrayed his populist base, to the horror of some of his previous
conservative backers. Haley has stated
that the US would maintain its troops in Syria and would start sanctions
against Russian firms doing business with Assad.
Some of the most virulent
critics of Trump have been papers like the Washington Post. In a lead editorial
just after the bombings it criticised the joint US, French and British attack
as inadequate and attacked Trump for saying that he had been ready to withdraw
American troops from Syria. Similar views were aired in anti-Trump paper the
New York Post. It is clear that a substantial part of the US ruling class wish
to pursue a more aggressive attitude towards Russia and its allies. They are
concerned by the new alliance between Russia, Turkey and Iran and the weakening
US influence in the Middle East.
For the
last quarter of a century, the US and its allies have been engaged in constant
warfare, using fabricated excuses like the bogus weapons of mass destruction to
dismantle the regime of their former ally Saddam, overthrow Gaddafi in Libya
because of an ‘imminent’ massacre of civilians and now the gas attacks by the
Assad regime.
The
attacks on the Syrian regime were not a last minute response but the result of
plans prepared over many months as can be seen by the high level of
coordination between the three state powers.
Large
sections of the US ruling class including the leaders of the military have
little confidence in Trump being able to oversee moves against Russia and its
allies. That is why the campaign against Trump is increasing in intensity at
the same time as aggressive moves
by the US and its allies. This has been explicitly stated by neo-conservatives
who link the removal of Trump to the expansion of war moves.
In the
USA, France and Britain there is widespread anti-war feeling and this has been
aggravated by the bombing attacks. In Germany, sections of the ruling class
there have expressed the need to re-arm and, at the same time, pursue foreign
policies less dependent on the USA. This turn is justified by lauding German
“high moral and humanitarian standards”.
Assad
is a bloody dictator and it is highly possible that he used gas attacks against
the Syrian population. However those who condemn Assad are the same States that
justified mass bombings of Hamburg and Dresden and two atom bomb attacks on
Japan during World War Two, the use of the chemical Agent Orange in Vietnam, as
well as the deployment of napalm there and previously in Greece, and the use of
white phosphorus in Fallujah by the US Army in November 2004, or the deployment
of chemical weapons in 1988 in
Halabja by the Iraqi Baath regime, then the ally of the West. More recently,
the British government has had few qualms about providing the weaponry used by
the Saudi Arabian military to kill numerous civilians in Yemen.
The USA
realised it has lost influence in the Middle East. It and its allies initially
backed the Islamist militias in their attempts to overthrow Assad. Now ISIS is
a shadow of its former self and Assad controls 75% of Syria. Russia had been
warned before the bombing attacks with the hint that its own forces and bases
there would not be touched.
Nevertheless
it was implied that the USA was still the only surviving superpower and that
Russia should not overstep the mark.
Russia
will not easily abandon its ally, Syria. It needs the Mediterranean ports that
Syria provides. On the other hand the USA would like to confine Russia to the
Black Sea and is seriously concerned about the new alliance, temporary though
it may be, between Turkey and Russia and the increasing strength of the Shiite
axis in Iran, Iraq and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel
launched its own attacks on its old enemy, Syria, obviously with the approval
of the USA. For its part, Turkey is looking to increase influence and presence
in Syria and has moved against the Kurdish controlled enclave of Afrin,
exploiting the tensions between the great powers.
Whatever
the outcome, it is clear that the different world and regional powers are
gearing up for more armed conflict. In Syria over 400,000 people have been
slaughtered and many more have been displaced. The situation is the same in
Iraq. The masses there have nothing to gain from the murderous and barbarous
depredations of the different armed gangs, whether they be Russian, American,
Turkish or Islamist etc. Only revolution to overthrow all these regimes offers
any alternative.
For
now, we call on all internationalist and class conscious workers, communists,
anarchists and revolutionary socialists to come together under the ‘No War but
the Class War’ banner
to promote working class resistance to the bosses’ war machine.
