Syria

War of gangsters,

Crimes against humanity

Internationalist Voice

Homepage: *www.internationalist.tk*

E-mail: internationalist.voice@gmail.com

Although Russia's support for the Syrian regime (because of its imperialist interests and the Syrian regime’s compliance to destroy its chemical weapons) temporarily resolved the threat of a military attack by America and its allies, barbarism still is going on in Syria. Barbarities, crimes that the word is incapable of expressing. Organized slaughter, unimaginable atrocities, brutal massacres, hunger, homelessness, in a word, the real and earthly hell is a part of reality in Syria. Humans, who have survived, sentenced to a slow death. Living witnesses of capitalist barbarity. Why is such barbarism taking place in Syria?

Protests that have involved the whole capitalist world in recent years have also taken place in the Arabic-speaking countries. The protests in some countries, such as Egypt, Tunisia and others took on a more radical form but in some countries such as Libya, Syria, etc. they also became a battlefield for the gangsters, as, because of the involvement of Western countries, Arabic countries, Turkey, Iran, and so on were out of the way. It is more than two years since Syria became the battleground of gangsters, intent on liquidating each other. On one side of this dirty war are gangsters such as Russia, China, Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon etc. and on the other side are America, Great Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and so on. The crimes and barbarity of the war of gangsters hurts the heart of each free human, but it is the people of Syria who are paying the price for this war. Over a hundred thousand killed, thousands injured and millions displaced as a result of the war. The war has disintegrated the leading group of the society, fuelled by the ethnic, religious, and tribal differences and has eliminated the requirement for an independent movement of the working class, since the war is a war against the working class as well. This war distracted protests from its class-independent path and prevented the working class of Syria from putting its stamp on events as a battalion of the international working class and as a social class. Therefore this war has been a war against the working class as well.

This war is the war of gangsters, tearing the carcass codenamed "humanitarian aid", and it is in aid of their dirty imperialist interests in the new world order that has emerged after the collapse of the bipolar system, in which America is trying to consolidate its hegemony. The issue of the preservation of American hegemony in the world, which is threatened by its rival gangsters, is so public and obvious that even the Israeli newspapers admit it. The Israeli newspapers, “Haaretz” [1] and the "Jerusalem Post" [2], have recently stated that the purpose of an American attack on Syria has nothing to do with humanitarian aid but is rather in line with the interests of the superpower.

Western gangsters and their allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia were hoping that the war and sanctions on Syria would weaken the criminal Syrian regime, and then their thugs, organized in the “Free Syrian Army” or the other “Islamic armed beasts” like Libya, would overthrow the regime of Assad. But in recent months, in this reactionary war the balance of forces, due to the unsparing support and help of Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Russia, has turned in favour of the Syrian regime. In such circumstances, the chemical bombardment of suburbs of Damascus hurt their compassionate hearts, and they announced that their conscience could not bear Assad’s cruelty, and the balance of power in the "war" would be again turned in the favour of the “rebels”.

America claims that there are sufficient reasons and evidence that indicate the Syrian government is responsible for the chemical attacks. Because chemical attacks are seen as crimes against humanity, Bashar al-Assad’s regime should be punished. The Syrian government denies such claims and insists that in the situations where the regime achieved the military victories, it was not necessary to use chemical weapons. The governments of Russia and Iran also stressed that there is no evidence that indicates the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons and both claimed that chemical weapons had been used by the opposition of the Syrian government to provoke the West to attack Syria. The Iranian Foreign Minister announced in December last year through the Swiss Embassy, that it had informed America that "chemical handmade weapons of type sarin gas" had been transferred to Syria and there was a possibility of their being used by “rebels”.

Everyone knows that the American bourgeoisie is too evil and criminal for its compassionate heart to be touched by the chemical bombing of the suburbs of Damascus. America is the only criminal who has used the atomic bomb. Recently, on the 26th of September, 2013, an American journal called “Foreign Policy” released classified CIA documents that show that in 1988 America helped the regime of Saddam Hussein in its chemical attack against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. [1] Through satellite imagery, America found that Iran was gaining a strategic position on the war front. American intelligence authorities provided the Iraqi authorities with information about Iranian soldiers’ positions, Iranian logistical facilities, details about the Iranian air defence and so on. Retired Air Force Colonel Rick Francona, an American military attaché in Baghdad at the time, told the magazine “Foreign Policy”: “The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They did not have to say, we already knew.”

The aim of America was to prevent Iran from gaining an eventual military victory because the Iraqi regime was to take the upper hand in negotiations. At that time, the superiority of the Iraqi regime was in the interests of America, so as to be able to use it as a weapon against Iran. On the 16th of March, 1988, the criminal Iraqi regime attacked the Halabja city in Iraqi Kurdistan with a chemical weapon. Thousands of defenseless and innocent people died like animals in the space of a few minutes, but the Democrat conscience was not hurt. They did not announce that they intended to punish Saddam Hussein for the chemical bombing of Halabja!

In 2004, during the attack on Fallujah in Iraq, America used depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Not only was the conscience of the bourgeois of America not hurt but also that of European gangsters was not hurt either.

We all remember in 2003 how Colin Powell, George W. Bush’s Foreign Minister, stood up in the nest of thieves, the UN, and announced to the world that he had “indisputable evidence” that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to world peace. After the war, they turned over every inch of Iraq but did not find any weapons of mass destruction.

For a hundred years, Communists have declared that with the arrival of the era of capitalist decadence, the era of social revolution and imperialist wars began. War is not the product of the harsh policy of an unconventional state, instead it stems from the need of substantial capital; avoiding war in the era of imperialism is not possible. For a World War to be possible, the following two conditions are necessary:

• Two political blocks, economic and military.
• The working class must be defeated on a global level.

But in the past two decades the above conditions have not been available. On the one hand, each of the gangsters try to secure their own imperialist interests and, on the other hand, although the working class, in the current circumstances, is unable to provide an alternative to capitalist barbarism, it is not yet defeated. So wars are tending toward regional wars such as the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and dozens of other regional wars.

On the other hand the war of Syria has also been a liquidation of Democrat gangsters with Islamic gangsters (Iranian bourgeoisie). Syria is a strategic ally of Iran. John Kerry, the American Foreign Minister, has stated that “an attack on the regime of Assad sends a message to Iran and Hezbollah too”. In this regard, Russia has threatened that if the West attack Syria, Russia will sell its “S-300” missiles to “sensitive zones” in the world.

In line with its imperialist interests, Iran has warned that an attack on Syria will not remain limited to that country and its range may be extended to other countries in the region. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic bourgeoisie warned that “the region is like a powder keg and the future cannot be predicted.”

On the 26th of August, 2013, from the sidelines of the ninth session of Supreme National Security Council, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander in chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards, warned against military action against Syria and stated that a response to a military attack on Syria would stretch beyond its borders.

Iranian military equipment, including unmanned aircraft and also “mobilizing technology” (irregular repression groups), that has experience of suppressing protests in the irregular way, have been provided to Syria. Iranian newspapers have announced that since receiving “mobilizing technology” the Syrian regime has had some success and have gained a better position. Given that the Syrian air defense network, which is made ​​in Russia, is very wide, it makes it difficult to establish a no-fly zone. It is an undeniable fact that without the support of Russia and Iran the Syrian regime, like Libya, would fall in a few months.

Syria has an important strategic and vital role for Iran. It is only possible to give financial support, arms and logistics to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and other reactionary movements in Africa, with the help of Syria. There is on-going speculation that Iran has spent approximately ten to twenty billion dollars in grants to prop up the Assad regime.

Iran has the experience of Iraq and certainly, even if the Assad regime falls, has its own plans and will try to obstruct the influence of West, as Iraq did, and will continue its influence in other forms.

It was in such circumstances that Mahdi Tayb, the chief of headquarters of Amar, and also a seminary and university teacher, stated that:

“Syria is the thirty-fifth province and a strategic province for us. If the enemy will attack us and wants to take Syria or Khouzestan [The province of Iran that has oil] our priority is to keep Syria because if we keep the Syrians then we can take back the Khouzestan province, but if we lose Syria we can not have Tehran also.”[4]

The Iranian opposition, in the right of capital, the people of Mojahedin, hope that after Syria it will be Iran’s turn, and they will play the role of the “liberation army” in the imperialist tensions. In the left of capital the Worker-Communist Party of Iran (but with radical phrase) and under the title of ‘The Revolution of Syria’, stresses that the fall of Assad’s regime, will take revolutionary forces to the frontline of events, defends military attack of Syria. In the events of Libya this anti-revolutionary current stated that NATO’s attack allowed the Libyan revolution to continue. Now they hope that after Syria it will be Iran’s turn and the Iranian revolution will continue. No other political current in the Iranian political milieu has soiled the values of Revolution, Communism, Labour internationalism etc as much as this anti-communist current. Who is carrying out the Syrian Revolution? Where is the working class of Syria? What is the material force of the Syrian Revolution?

Despite the warmongering of democratic gangsters, the majority of people are against the war. The French newspaper “Le Figaro” published an article on the 7th of September 2013 reminding that the vast majority of French people are opposed to military action in Syria. It was not the parliament of Great Britain without the British people stopped Cameron’s warmongering. Angela Merkel stressed a diplomatic resolution of the Syrian crisis, not out of humanitarian concern but rather from the pressure of public opinion on the one hand and their imperialist interests on the other.

The gangsters’ war is rooted in the rottenness of capitalism as a production mode. The only position regarding the events in Syria that is revolutionary is that which assesses the capitalist causes of all the savagery and barbarism around the world. In the absence of the involvement of the working class of Syria the international working class bears a great responsibility. Instead of being cannon fodder in the war on gangsters, the attempted communist revolution should be fulfilled in order to end capitalist misery.

Firoz Akbary

26 September 2013

Notes:

[1] haaretz.com

[2]jpost.com

[3] foreignpolicy.com

[4] TABNAK, professional news site, 14 February 2013