For Syria's military victory
against any imperialist attack!
International Statement by those unconditionally
opposed to this Imperialist attack: Hands off Syria!
opposed to this Imperialist attack: Hands off Syria!
Liaison Committee for the Fourth International - LCFI
28 August
2013
We oppose
unconditionally the imperialist attack on Syria and are for its defeat. The
fundamental task of the hour for all serious socialists and anti-Imperialists
internationally is to defend the national sovereignty of Syria against this
Imperialist attack which is launched with Zionist assistance (a big Israeli
military delegation is in Washington right now discussing with Susan Rice) in
order to assist their allies, the Free Syrian Army and the various al Qaeda
rebels of the Al-Nusra Front etc. There are no revolutionary socialists or
anti-Imperialists fighting Assad in Syria, talk of what might have been is to
support a phantom revolutionary army in the face of the very obvious reality of
this Imperialist war of aggression.
We have
every reason to suspect that Sarin and mustard gas (the same as used by the
U.S. in Vietnam) which killed hundreds of people was more the work of
imperialist terrorism in the region. Obama and the imperialist mass media are
seeking to ascribe the blame to the Syrian government and are using this to
justify the attack. And the same pro-imperialist forces, this time the KLA,
fabricated a bogus tale of the Račak Massacre in Kosovo in 1999 (all the dead
were KLA fighters) [1] to justify the bombing of Yugoslavia, just exactly as
they are probably doing now with their Sarin gas “red line” and the Weapons of
Mass Destruction lies used to justify invading Iraq in 2003 and the Gulf of
Tonkin incident in 1964 used to justify the war in Vietnam. [2] It is also
reminiscent of the Gleiwitz incident a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as
Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in
Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of
World War II in Europe. This was used to justify the invasion of Poland in
1939. [3]
It has
always been thus; the spiral of imperialist barbarism tries to hide a crime by
committing another, greater, crime. The imperialist terror attack using
chemical weapons against hundreds of children and adults in Syria occurred
immediately in the wake of a blatant coup in Egypt, followed by a bloody
massacre of hundreds of the Egyptian oppositionists by the new pro-imperialist
coup government. Now, to cover the second crime, imperialism threatens to bomb
Syria, accusing it in a great hullabaloo of massacring their own people, when
we know that since 2011 the U.S. itself has been supplying arms and other
assistance to the terrorist mercenaries in Syria. The U.S. government has
enlisted allies in the West and the Middle East and has transported huge
killing machines by sea and air to commit genocide against the Arab peoples.
They have used lies and media manipulation to accomplish this as in previous
operations in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and more recently in Libya.
We offer
the traditional Marxist position of unconditional but critical support to Syria
in this assault and in the war against the Imperialist-sponsored rebels. We
must follow the tactic of Lenin and Trotsky to the threat of Kornilov in Russia
in 1917. We are for crushing the mercenaries of the FSA and the Al-Nusra Front.
We are for an Anti Imperialist United Front (AIUF) with Assad. We demand that
Assad arms the working class and call for the enlisting of all the people in
the army against the mercenaries and imperialism. But we do not support Assad.
This is a matter of principle. The Leninist -Trotskyists have not supported in
the past, do not support in the present nor will in the future support any
capitalist government. As Lenin said:
“Even now
we must not support Kerensky’s government. This is unprincipled. We may be
asked: aren’t we going to fight against Kornilov? Of course we must! But this
is not the same thing; there is a dividing line here, which is being stepped
over by some Bolsheviks who fall into compromise and allow themselves to be
carried away by the course of events. We shall fight, we are fighting against
Kornilov, just as Kerensky’s troops do, but we do not support Kerensky. On the
contrary, we expose his weakness. There is the difference. It is rather a
subtle difference, but it is highly essential and must not be forgotten.” [4]
We reject
the abject notion that Imperialism is sponsoring any type of a revolution in
Syria, no more than it did in sponsoring and militarily assisting the overthrow
of Gaddafi in Libya or in covertly supporting the army coup in Egypt. Those who
point to the subsequent slaying of the American Ambassador in Libya a year ago
or the US support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi when he was in office
forget that Imperialism has no permanent friends or enemies, only economic and
geo-political interests. The Fundamentalists it supported in Afghanistan in the
1980s and 90s fought it later in Iraq and Afghanistan itself, those it sponsored
in Libya turned against it in Mali, those it is now sponsoring in Syria via its
client states in the Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,
will later fight it in a new arena. But if the US overthrow Assad and defeat
the Hezbollah at the same time it will have gained its most important strategic
geo-political war aim in the region: it will have removed the threat to Israel
posed by Hezbollah, the best guerrilla fighting force in the region, and it
will have prepared the next attack for regime change on Iran. That it will have
facilitated the imposition of barbaric regimes who may confront Israel later is
very much a secondary question for Imperialism; the CIA celebrated the fall of
Kabul to the Taliban and the lynching of former President Mohammad Najibullah
in Afghanistan in September 1996.
The United
Nations is effectively a nursery talking shop whereby the Imperialists allow
the assembled nations of the world to play with the toys of diplomacy on
secondary questions whilst it gets on with its own business regardless of what
they think. Western Imperialism bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 despite the fact that
the UN Security Council did not sanction it. US imperialism considers the UN
its own thing, because it is the majority funder and provides its HQ. It is
nothing but a back office of the Pentagon when it decides to act for world
order under US terms. The split on the top table, the Security Council - is
unavoidable and can no longer be postponed if Imperialism is not to relinquish
its all-encompassing global predatory role - economically, politically and
militarily. This must mean war against Russia and China in the medium term. The
social consequences on every continent are nothing but collateral damage for
this “alliance of robbers” as Lenin described the League of Nations in 1920.
We reject
any characterisation of this attack or the war in Syria since 2011 as any type
of an inter-Imperialist proxy war between US-led Western Imperialism and
Chinese-Russian Eastern Imperialism. The US and its allies in the UK, France,
Germany and Japan control the overwhelming majority of the economic and
military resources of the planet and are as bellicose now as the Imperialist
powers were before WWI and WWII. They are going to war because capitalism’s falling
rate of profit means this is the only way to restore a higher rate of profit
for their trans-national corporations and finance houses in Wall Street, the
City of London, Paris, Hamburg and Tokyo.
Just the
announcement of the attack on Syria has boosted oil prices. The commodity
hegemony of the “Seven Sisters” oil barons controlled by the U.S. and Britain
(Exxon, Mobil, Gulf, Socal, Texaco, Shell, BP), whose main partners in the
Middle East, not by chance are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE the major direct
funders of the Syrian mercenaries. “In New York, the price of a barrel of crude
oil for October delivery rose $ 3.23 to $112.24 a barrel, the highest since May
3, 2011. Already in London, the price of Brent crude oil for delivery in
October, reached a maximum of six months, rising 26% to $ 117.34 a barrel. The
United States, France and the UK are close to a military intervention in Syria,
after the alleged use of chemical weapons in the country.” [5]
This war
could well be the opening volleys of WWIII in what is essentially a global war
for markets between the NATO bloc and the central opposition around Russia and
China. The Chinese and Russian bourgeoisies are not strong enough to prevail in
the fight for their own areas of influence. We see this in the successive
retreats forced on China in Africa, first in Libya, then in Mali and more
recently in the Central African Republic.
Compared to
Western Imperialism the resources of Russia and China combined are puny indeed.
This is a Western Imperialist-sponsored war and a counter-revolution which is
currently engaged in ethnically cleansing the Kurds in northern Syria in order
to declare an Islamic state based on Sharia law with all the terrible
consequences for women, gays and lesbians and all minorities who are not
sufficiently of the Sunni Muslim faith. The sponsoring of Sunni Muslim
terrorism has been the main strategic orientation for the US via the CIA since
the fall of Saddam made Shi’a Iran the main objective opponent in the region.
The Special Activities Division of the CIA has carried out much Covert Action
and “Special Activities” such as bombings of Shi’a civilians in Iraqi
marketplaces to promote communal violence for its own ends. That is the reason
for the obviously growing popularity of the Assad government not only among all
the ethnic minority communities but also among the urban Sunni Muslims who wish
to defend at least the level of secular rights and freedoms they have under
Assad. We therefore reject absolutely that this is, or is degenerating into, a
sectarian Sunni/Shi’a conflict no more than the conflict in the north of
Ireland was/is a religious Catholic/Protestant sectarian conflict, despite many
instances of this on both sides in the region. Religion is always an
ideological cloak beneath which people fight out their real material economic,
social and political interests. The dividing lines in both conflicts, as in the
entire semi-colonial world, are between the forces of Imperialism and the
forces of anti-Imperialism. Revolutionaries are always unequivocally
anti-Imperialist.
Those who
cannot seek the defeat of their own Imperialist war-mongers in this attack have
fallen at the first hurdle and are of no use to the working class whatsoever.
The kindest thing that we can say about them is that they are confusing the
concepts of unconditional and uncritical support. Their main motivation in
defending the bogus “Syrian Revolution” is to gain acceptance from the trade
union bureaucracy, the social-Imperialist layer which is the main pillar of
capitalism in the ranks of the working class.
We salute
the heroism of the brave soldiers of the Syrian National Army who have suffered
terrible casualties in defence of their country’s right to self-determination
against this Imperialist-sponsored assault. They have every right to get their
arms and other assistance from Iran and Russia; Imperialist Special Forces have
been on the ground in Syria since 2011. From the ranks of these
anti-Imperialist working class fighters may come the forces for the future
revolutionary socialist party which will in its turn deal with Assad and his
reactionary bourgeois nationalists whose economic policy was as anti-working
class and as neo-liberal as any Imperialist country. We are confident that the
pro-Imperialist rebels and their supporters will be consigned to the dustbin of
history by these anti-Imperialist forces.
Of course
principled revolutionary socialists and anti-Imperialists do not defend the
record and practice of reactionary bourgeois nationalist governments like those
of the “Supreme Leader” of Iran, Ali Khamenei, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi
or Bashar al-Assad. These were and are all brutal tyrants and as
pro-Imperialist as domestic political conditions allow them to be. We can never
forget the favour Assad’s father Hafez al-Assad did for the Zionists and
Western Imperialism in procuring the terrible massacre of the Palestinian in
the Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp during the Lebanese Civil War on August 12,
1976. And they have brutally oppressed their own working class, outlawing
strikes and executing and imprisoning trade union leaders and imposing
corporate state trade unions to oppress the workers. But there are oppressed
and oppressor nations; Imperialist nations and semi-colonial nations. This is
the essence of Imperialism according to Lenin. These humanitarian liberal
social patriots who point to the terrible deeds of the semi-colonial tyrants
and equate their crimes with those of Imperialism itself deserve universal
contempt. They stand in the tradition of the “third campists” like Max
Shachtman when proclaiming “neither Imperialism nor Assad but the working
class”. This tendency now compromises the vast majority of self-proclaimed
Trotskyist groups internationally. Very few indeed continue to look on the
reactionary rebels as revolutionaries or see a revolution hiding in the tail of
that particular comet. We cannot fight for socialism in our own Imperialist
country and accept the booty of empire extracted from the brutal oppression of
semi-colonial workers and peasants as its source.
We stand
unequivocally with Lenin on this question:
“That is
why the focal point in the Social-Democratic programme must be that division of
nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism,
and is deceitfully evaded by the social-chauvinists and Kautsky. This division
is not significant from the angle of bourgeois pacifism or the philistine
Utopia of peaceful competition among independent nations under capitalism, but
it is most significant from the angle of the revolutionary struggle against
imperialism” [6]
If the
bourgeois governments of Russia, China and Iran do not capitulate again before
imperialism, and imperialism is consistent with their own interests we may have
a third world war. In this conflict revolutionaries did not seek out an ideal
and comfortable third camp, they cannot be mistaken as mere pacifists. Neither
do we have illusions in the bourgeoisies of Russia, China, Iran or Syria. The
outcome for humanity will be barbarism if we do not prevail in the struggle to
defeat the U.S. and its allies. We put our faith in the victory of the
oppressed nations and the reconstruction of the Fourth International, the world
party of socialist revolution.
Down with
the Imperialist attack on Syria!
For the
military victory of Syria against any imperialist attack!
Defend
Syria’s right to self-determination!
Defeat the
Imperialists-sponsored rebels of the Free Syrian Army and the Al-Nusra Front!
Arm the
entire working class and poor of the cities to fight Imperialism and its
mercenary rebel proxy army!
Form
workers committees in the cities and in the army to pursue this war to victory!
Overthrow
the Zionist state of Israel, for a Multi ethnic Palestinian workers state!
Forward to
a workers government as part of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East!
Notes
[1] NATO’s
Illegal War Against Serbia/ The Lies of The Račak Massacre In Kosovo,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-muEj_E0PY
[2] In
2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified;
it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2,
but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the
incident of August 4. The August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, where U.S.
warships were allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese PT Boats, was cited by
President Lyndon B. Johnson as a legitimate provocation mandating U.S.
escalation in Vietnam, yet Tonkin was a staged charade that never took place.
This is what is an exact repeat of what Bill Clinton did in 1999 and what Bush
and Blair did to attack Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 and what we can
be sure what Obama is now doing in Syria now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident
[3]
Gleiwitz incident, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
[4] V. I.
Lenin , To the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/aug/30.htm
[5] Preço do petróleo sobe com receios sobre impacto de
intervenção militar na Síria
http://www.rtp.pt/noticias/index.php?article=676575&tm=6&layout=121&visual=49
[6] Lenin, V.I., The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination.
[6] Lenin, V.I., The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination.