NATO’s Syrian Puppets On the Run

New Worker

The Syrian army has launched a new drive against the Nato-backed rebels sweeping them off the major motorway that runs from Damascus to the coast and rooting them out of their terrorist hide-outs in northern Syria and the Damascus countryside.

But confusion surrounds the whereabouts of two Greek Orthodox bishops kidnapped on Monday by the Islamic fanatics, who are increasingly focusing their venom against the Syria’s Christian communities that have remained loyal to the Baathist-led popular front government.

The government of Bashar al Assad is working with the opposition forces in the Syrian parliament as well as endorsing Russian initiatives for a broad dialogue with all opposition forces to end the civil strife and work for national reconciliation within the boundaries of the new constitution.

The Syrian army is advancing on several fronts as part of its fresh widescale operation to wrest control over rebellious areas across the country, local media reported Wednesday.

Syrian troops have broken the rebel siege on the Wadi al-Daif encampments in northwestern Syria to secure the road between the central province of Hama and the north-western province of Idlib all the way to Aleppo province. The road between the capital Damascus and the southern province of Daraa and the borders with Jordan is now open, and the army has cleared the road between Damascus and the central province of Homs as well as areas along the border with Lebanon.

The Syrian army has thwarted every attempt of the rebel Muslim Brotherhood militias and Al Qaida gangs to create a rebel controlled “safe-haven” on Syrian soil. Nato and feudal Arab arms and money still have to be funnelled across the border with Turkey and it’s increasingly clear that continued support of the imperialists and their Arab lackeys is the only thing that is prolonging the violence.

Imperialist dreams of a Libyan-style “regime change” in Syria have failed because the strength of the Syrian armed forces and the determination of the Syrian people as a whole to resist sectarian violence and foreign intervention.

And that is increasing being recognised by Syria’s Arab foes. The Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt finally dropped its demand for Assad’s resignation this week, in favour of talks between the Syrian government and all the opposition groups to end the fighting. Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamal Amr said his country’s new stance was prompted by the “need to reach a political solution for the Syrian crisis that guarantees the preservation of the unity of the Syrian people.”

In the European Union there’s renewed concern at the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Syria and fears of an Afghan-style backlash when the Nato-inspired revolt collapses. European intelligence chiefs fear that some have joined Al Qaida and could return to Europe to launch terror attacks.

The EU’s own anti- terror chief, Gilles de Kerchove, claimed this week that some 500 European Muslims are now fighting in Syria. Most of them have come from Britain, France and Ireland. “Not all of them are radical when they leave, but most likely many of them will be radicalised there, will be trained,” de Kerchove said.

Meanwhile Russia has stepped up its humanitarian aid to the Syrian people by sending planeloads of supplies to Syrian airports as well as to Lebanon and Jordan to help refugees forced to leave their homes by the armed terrorist groups. At the same time a flotilla from Russia’s Pacific naval fleet is heading towards to eastern Mediterranean. The ships, which include an anti-submarine ship and two landing- craft, are believed to heading to the Russian naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus.

Obama vs. Palestine & Syria

David Sole

President Barack Obama’s four-day visit to Israel, the first since his first election in 2008, began March 20. Worldwide media attention was focused on what the powerful U.S. leader would tell its client regime and settler state. Overall, reports indicated worse news for the beleaguered Palestinian people and for sovereign Syria.

Obama took the gravest step against Syria just before boarding his plane to fly to Jordan on March 22, when he met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During that meeting Obama succeeded in pressuring Netanyahu to call Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and apologize for the 2010 Israeli attack on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. In that raid Israeli troops killed eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish U.S. citizen who were trying to bring supplies to the blockaded people of Gaza.

Until his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu had strongly resisted any apology or compensation to Turkey. For its part Turkey had withdrawn its diplomats from Israel and brought criminal charges against four Israeli military officers involved in the action. Obama forced the Israeli apology to ensure continued Turkish-Israeli cooperation in the war against Syria’s government and people. The New York Times admitted this on March 23 when it wrote that it “would help a fragile region confront Syria’s civil war.”

Military aid to Israel

Right off the plane on March 20, Obama inspected a battery of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. This high-tech weaponry, designed to shoot down short-range missiles, was paid for by $1 billion from U.S. tax dollars. Recent reports by experts challenge Israel’s claims that the weaponry is 86 percent effective. An extensive report in the March 21 New York Times questions whether the actual figure is closer to 10 percent.

Obama also told the Israelis that he was open to a new 10-year military agreement. The U.S. has financed Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year since the Zionist state’s creation in 1948.

On March 21, Obama spoke to Israeli students and then visited Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. In a sharp slap in the face to the Palestinian people, Obama “urged Palestinians to drop their demand for a freeze in Israeli settlement-building as a precondition for peace talks.” (bbc.com, March 23) Instead the U.S. president told the Palestinians to return to negotiations with the Israelis while more and more Palestinian land falls under Zionist control.

The Palestinian response was heard in several ways. Abbas refused to withdraw the demand for an end to new settlement construction in remarks to reporters with Obama standing next to him. When Obama spoke to a crowd of young Israelis, an Arab-Israeli student in the crowd shouted out for an end to occupation and for the liberation of Palestine, before being dragged out of the auditorium. Meanwhile, several rockets from Gaza exploded in the town of Sderot in southern Israel.

On March 22, his final day in Israel, Obama laid a wreath at the grave of Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of the Zionist movement. This action by Obama, as the leader of U.S. imperialism and modern neocolonialism, was appropriate since Herzl had spent years meeting with every colonial leader in his effort to get backing for his movement. Zionism was never envisioned as a progressive movement to fight anti-Semitism and racism. It was sold to colonial powers as a force that could help keep down oppressed colonized peoples.

Encouraged by Obama’s public support for Israeli oppression and occupation, WAFA, Palestine News & Information Agency, reported March 23, “Israeli settlers Saturday smashed windows of cars belonging to Palestinians travelling on roads near Nablus” on the West Bank.

Imperialist assault on Syria

On March 22, Obama moved on to visit Jordan’s King Abdullah II as part of strengthening the imperialist front in the war against the Syrian government. Jordan has taken in an estimated 460,000 Syrian refugees from the fighting, which has severely stressed the small nation’s economy. To keep this ally happy, Obama pledged to give Abdullah an additional $200 million in aid.

The U.S. has been training anti-Syrian rebels in a CIA training camp on the Jordanian side of the Syrian border. On March 14, a Reuters article published comments by a “senior” officer of the counterrevolutionaries that “most of the first contingent of Syrian rebels taught by U.S. army and intelligence officers in Jordan to use anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry have finished their training and are now returning to Syria to fight.”

Official U.S. policy — obviously constructed on lies — has been that it will not directly intervene in Syria. Following charges by the Syrian government that counterrevolutionary terrorists had used chemical weapons in fighting near Aleppo, Obama tried to turn the charges against the Damascus government. While in Israel on March 20, he hypocritically said the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “game changer” and could provoke open U.S. intervention.

The U.S. had just succeeded in getting a Syrian-born, long-time U.S. citizen, Ghassan Hitto, named as the “rebel” coalition’s prime minister at a meeting in Istanbul on March 18. Far from cementing together the dozens of disparate contra fighters, many of whom are extremist terrorists who kill people based on religious affiliations, it provoked the resignation of coalition president Moaz Khatib on March 24.

In addition, the commanders of the killers in the so-called Free Syrian Army said they would not fight under Hitto.

The disarray among the contras makes it even more likely that the imperialists — the U.S. and some of the NATO military powers including Turkey and also Israel — will intervene directly.

Kerry’s Middle East Tour Prepares Endless War for Afghanistan, Syria

Alex Lantier

US Secretary of State John Kerry left Kabul for Paris yesterday, after a Middle Eastern tour to Jordan and Afghanistan to plan broader wars across the region. In Paris today, he is expected to discuss arming opposition forces fighting Washington’s proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with French officials.

During his unannounced two-day visit in Kabul, Kerry held a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai, the leader of the American puppet regime in Afghanistan. He announced that US forces will remain in Afghanistan beyond the Obama administration’s 2014 withdrawal deadline.

Kerry and Karzai both called upon the Taliban to open an office in Doha, the capital of the US-allied Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, from which location they could negotiate with Karzai. To encourage the Taliban to accept the offer, Kerry stressed that the Taliban should not count on a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Currently there are some 100,000 occupation troops in the country, including 66,000 US forces. American officials have reportedly discussed a lasting presence of roughly 12,000 US and European troops in Afghanistan.

Kerry also offered to hand over formal control of Bagram prison to the Karzai regime. This was apparently designed to allow Karzai to posture cynically before the Afghan people, claiming he is restoring Afghan sovereignty over the country. The US-controlled prison, notorious for the killings and torture of Afghan resistance fighters imprisoned there, has become a hated symbol of the NATO occupation.

This action was apparently aimed at smoothing US relations with Karzai, strained after the latter criticized Washington for “colluding” with the Taliban.

The handover of Bagram has nothing to do with ending US rule in Afghanistan, however. Karzai made clear that Washington would continue to effectively control detainees at the prison, promising that an Afghan review board would consider intelligence provided by US authorities before deciding to release prisoners. Afghan officials also reportedly gave “private assurances” that no “enduring security threats” would be released from Bagram.

By threatening to continue the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan, Kerry is pushing the Taliban leadership to negotiate a political settlement with Karzai that would include a lasting US protectorate in Afghanistan. Washington’s control would rest upon US air superiority and a permanent occupation force stationed in the country. It would be based on collaboration between Washington, the warlords backing Karzai and the Islamic fundamentalist leadership of the Taliban to suppress resistance to foreign occupation by the Afghan people.

The American ruling class sees Afghanistan as a launching pad for US operations in Central Asia, such as the hundreds of drone strikes Washington has launched in Afghanistan and neighboring countries. The New York Times commented, “The Obama administration has made a priority of reaching an agreement on an American military presence here after 2014 that will allow the United States to keep tabs on Iran and Pakistan.”

Significantly, Kerry had hoped to visit Pakistan during his tour, but decided against it. There is deep anger in that country over US drone strikes and the collaboration of the Pakistani army and intelligence with Washington. (See also: “UN says US drone war in Pakistan violates international law”)

Instead, Kerry reportedly met privately with Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Sunday, before traveling to Afghanistan.

Washington’s neo-colonial war in Afghanistan—like its proxy war in Syria, Iran’s main Arab ally—aims at establishing US imperialist hegemony over the Middle East and Central Asia. This involves not only controlling and manipulating the conflicts in Pakistan and broadly across Asia unleashed by the Afghan war, but also organizing regime change in Iran, an oil-rich state that Washington sees as the main obstacle to its interests in the Middle East.

Kerry’s visits both to Amman and to Kabul were clearly bound up with Washington’s war drive against Iran and its regional allies. As the Secretary of State left Jordan for Afghanistan, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the US is working in Jordan with Britain and France to train Syrian opposition fighters. These fighters then cross the border into southern Syria to carry out attacks.

The AP wrote that these forces were “secular” forces, apparently in an attempt to distinguish them from Al Qaeda-linked forces that provide the bulk of the Syrian opposition’s fighting forces. The wire service’s description of these forces made clear, however, that they are largely army deserters recruited on a religious or tribal basis.

It wrote, “The training has been conducted for several months now in an unspecified location, concentrating largely on Sunnis and tribal Bedouins who formerly served as members of the Syrian army, officials told the Associated Press. The forces aren’t members of the leading rebel group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which Washington and others fear may be increasingly coming under the saw of extremist militia groups, including some linked to Al Qaeda.”

The AP report came a day after the New York Times published an extensive report detailing how Qatar, Jordan and Saudi Arabia helped finance and arm the Syrian opposition for over a year. This took place under CIA supervision and after General David Petraeus, the CIA director until last November, “prodded various countries” to arm the Syrian opposition. The White House was regularly briefed on these arms shipments. (See also: “The CIA war against Syria”)

On Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed that the US “has provided some logistical nonlethal support that has also come in handy for the Syrian rebels.”

With Kerry now headed to Paris to discuss stepping up the war in Syria, the Arab League also joined in the campaign against Assad yesterday, formally seating Syrian opposition officials as Syria’s representatives to the Arab League.

Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani officially welcomed Moaz al-Khatib, the former imam of Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque who recently stepped down as the Syrian opposition’s official leader, to represent Syria. Al-Khatib was replaced by Ghassan Hitto, a US-based information technology executive. This move apparently aimed to present the opposition as less Islamist and reliant on Al Qaeda-linked forces from Libya, Iraq and Chechnya.

Al-Khatib’s speech at the Arab League made no secret of the Syrian opposition’s continuing ties to far-right Islamist elements. Denouncing Assad and supporting Hitto, he defended the presence of foreign jihadist fighters among the anti-Assad militias—though he awkwardly tried to downplay this by suggesting that if Islamist fighters’ families needed them at home, they should return to their families.

Israel Fuels Syrian Fire, Risking Regional Outburst

Nicola Nasser

The timing of the Israeli air raid early on January 30 on a Syrian target, that has yet to be identified, coincided with a hard to refute indications that the “regime change” in Syria by force, both by foreign military intervention and by internal armed rebellion, has failed, driving the Syrian opposition in exile to opt unwillingly for “negotiations” with the ruling regime, with the blessing of the U.S., EU and Arab League, concluding, in the words of a Deutsche Welle report on this February 2, that “nearly two years since the revolt began, (Syrian President Bashar Al-) Assad is still sitting comfortably in presidential chair.”

Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps saying that Israel is preparing for “dramatic changes” in Syria, but senior Israeli foreign ministry officials accused him of “fear-mongering on Syria” to justify his ordering what the Russians described as the “unprovoked” raid, according to The Times of Israel on January 29. Another official told the Israeli Maariv that no Israeli “red lines” were crossed with regard to the reported chemical weapons in Syria to justify the raid. On January 16 Israel’s National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said there was “no evidence” to any Syrian steps to use such weapons. On last December 8 UN Chief Ban Ki-moon said there were “no confirmed reports” Damascus was preparing to use them. Three days later U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: “We have not seen anything new” on chemical weapons “indicating any aggressive steps” by Syria. On January 31 NATO Chief Fogh Rasmussen said: “I have no new information about chemical weapons (in Syria).” Syria’s Russian ally has repeatedly confirmed what Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 2 that “we have reliable information” the Syrian government maintains control of chemical weapons and “won’t use” them. That’s what Syria itself keeps repeating, and “there is no particular reason why Israel is to be believed and Syria not,” according to a Saudi Gazette editorial on February 3.

More likely Israel is either trying to escalate militarily to embroil an unwilling United States in the Syrian conflict, in a too late attempt to pre-empt a political solution, out of a belief that the fall of the Al – Assad regime will serve Israel’s strategy, according to the former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, (Major general, reserve) Amos Yaldin, or to establish for itself a seat at any international negotiating table that might be detrimental in shaping a future regime in Syria.

Escalating militarily at a time of political de-escalation of the military solution in Syria will not secure a seat for Israel in any forum. This is the message that the Israeli chief of General Staff, Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, should have heard during his latest five – day visit in the U.S. from his host in Washington, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey; the head of Israel’s National – Security Bureau, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Ya’akov Amidror, who was in Moscow at the same time, should have heard a similar message from his Russian hosts.

The Israeli military intervention at this particular timing fuels a Syrian fire that has recently started to look for firefighters among the growing number of the advocates of dialogue, negotiations and political solutions both nationally, regionally and internationally.

The escalating humanitarian crisis and the rising death toll in Syria have made imperative either one of two options: A foreign military intervention or a political solution. Two years on since the U.S., EU, Turkish and Qatari adoption of a “regime change” in Syria by force, on the lines of the “Libyan scenario,” the first option has failed to materialize.

With the legitimate Syrian government gaining the upper hand militarily on the ground, the inability of the rebels to “liberate” even one city, town or enough area in the countryside to be declared a “buffer zone” or to host the self-proclaimed leadership of opposition in exile, which failed during the Paris – hosted “Friends of Syria” meeting on January 28 to agree on a “government – in – exile,” more likely because of this very reason, the second option of a political solution is left as the only way forward and as the only way out of the bloodshed and the snowballing humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli raid sends a message that the military option could yet be pursued. The rebels who based their overall strategy on a foreign military intervention have recently discovered that the only outside intervention they were able to get was from the international network of al-Qaeda and the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood. No surprise then that the frustrated Syrian rebels are loosing ground, momentum and morale.

An Israeli military intervention would undoubtedly revive their morale, but temporarily, because it does not potentially guarantee that it will succeed in improving their chances where failure doomed the collective efforts of all the “Friends of Syria,” whose numbers dwindled over time from more than one hundred nations about two years ago to about fifty in their last meeting in Paris.

Such intervention would only promise more of the same, prolonging the military conflict, shedding more of Syrian blood, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, multiplying the numbers of those displaced inside the country and the Syrian refugees abroad, postponing an inevitable political solution, and significantly rallying more Syrians in support of the ruling regime in defending their country against the Israeli occupier of their Syrian Golan heights, thus isolating the rebels by depriving them from whatever support their terrorist tactics have left them.

More importantly however, such an Israeli intervention risks a regional outburst if not contained by the world community or if it succeeds in inviting a reciprocal Syrian retaliation. Both Syrians and Israelis were on record in the aftermath of the Israeli raid that the bilateral “rules of engagement” have already changed.

All the “Friends of Syria” have been on record that they were doing all they could to enforce a “buffer zone” inside Syria; they tried to create it through Turkey in northern Syria, through Jordan in the south, through Lebanon in the west and on the borders with Iraq in the east, but they failed to make it materialize. They tried to enforce it by a resolution from the UN Security Council, but their efforts were aborted three times by a dual Russian – Chinese veto. They tried, unsuccessfully so far, to enforce it outside the jurisdiction of the United Nations by arming an internal rebellion, publicly on the payroll of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, logistically supported by Turkey and the U.S., British, French and German intelligence services and spearheaded mainly by the al-Qaeda – linked Al-Nusra Front, a rebellion focusing on the peripheral areas sharing borders with Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, after the failure of an early attempt to make the western Syrian port city of Latakia on the Mediterranean play the role the city of Benghazi played in the Libyan “change of regime.”

Now, Israel has stepped in the conflict, publicly for the first time, to try its hands to enforce a “buffer zone” of its own in an attempt to succeed where all the “Friends of Syria” have failed.

On February 3, British “The Sunday Times” reported that Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to ten miles inside Syria, modelled on a similar zone it created in southern Lebanon in 1985 from which it was forced to withdraw unconditionally by the Hezbullah – led and Syrian and Iranian – supported Lebanese resistance in 2000. Israeli mainstream daily Maariv (“evening” in Hebrew) the next day confirmed the Times report, adding the zone would be created in cooperation with local Arab villages on the Syrian side of the UN-monitored buffer zone, which was created on both sides of the armistice line after the 1973 Israeli – Syrian war.

Israel in fact have been paving the way materially on the ground for an Israeli – created buffer zone. Earlier, in a much less publicized development, Israel allowed the UN-monitored buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli – occupied Syrian Golan Heights to be overtaken by the “Islamist” Syrian rebels. The European Jewish Press reported on January 1, 2013 that the Israeli premier Netanyahu, during a visit to the Israeli – occupied Golan Heights, was informed the rebels “have taken up positions along the border with Israel, with the exception of the Quneitra enclave.” Earlier on last November 14 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted by the AP to confirm that the “Syrian rebels control almost all the villages near the frontier with the Israeli – held Golan Heights.” On December 13 Israeli “The Jerusalem Post” quoted a “senior military source” as saying that “The rebel control of the area does not require changes on our part.”

UN observers monitoring the zone number about one thousand. An “Israeli officer” told a Mcclatchy reporter on last November 14 that the rebels in the zone are “fewer than 1,000 fighters.” Canada withdrew its contingent of monitors last September; Japan followed suit in January. In the previous month, France’s ambassador to the UN, Gérard Araud, warned the UN peacekeeping force on the Golan may “collapse,” according to The Times of Israel, citing the London – based Arabic daily of Al – Hayat.

The 1974 armistice agreement prohibits the Syrian government from engaging in military activity within the buffer zone; if it does it would risk a military confrontation with Israel and, according to Moshe Maoz, professor emeritus at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, “The Syrian army doesn’t have any interest in provoking Israel,” because “Syria has enough problems.”

However it would be anybody’s guess to know for how long Syria could tolerate turning the UN monitored demilitarized buffer zone, with Israeli closed eyes, into a terrorist safe haven and into a corridor of supply linking the rebels in Lebanon to their “brethren” in southern Syria.

Israel did not challenge militarily the presence of the al – Qaeda – linked rebels on its side of the supposedly demilitarized zone nor did it complain to or ask the United Nations for a reinforcement of the UN monitors there.

Ironically, Israel cites the presence of those same rebels along the borders of the Israeli – occupied Golan Heights as the pretext to justify “considering creating a buffer zone” inside Syria!

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com

Meet Your New Secretary of State, Just as Bloodthirsty as Hillary Clinton

Butchers of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya

Nina Westbury
Crimson Satellite

Senator and failed presidential candidate John Kerry has been confirmed as the newest Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton. During her tenure, Clinton infamously joked about the murder of Muammar Gaddafi after overseeing the destruction of Libya in addition to human rights atrocities across Africa and attempted regime change in Syria. Her bloody legacy also includes the U.S. ‘pivot’ to Asia, focusing imperialism on containing and destroying China.

Clinton used her status as a feminist icon to shore up support from cruise missile liberals at home for adventures abroad, destroying some of the world’s most pro-woman governments in the process. Her time as Secretary also saw the emergence of what is sure to be a key tactic of all future administrations — using gay rights rhetoric while propping up virulently anti-gay regimes in Uganda, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.

Like Clinton, Kerry supported “Bush’s war” against Iraq. Yet Kerry went one step further than Clinton and the rest of the neoconservative milieu by admitting that even if he had known Iraq had no WMDs, he would have voted to authorize the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Keep in mind that much of the Obama administration’s legacy rests on the fact that Obama opposed the Iraq war. Choosing someone with whom you have major philosophical differences with regards to foreign policy to be in charge of your administration’s foreign policy seems illogical. This is because the goals of U.S. imperialism do not change from president to president.

After the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington and its allies no longer faced a counterweight to their efforts at global expansion of the imperialist system. The wave of “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe allowed for sovereign governments to be replaced with regimes pliant to US/EU interests, with corporations standing to gain millions of new customers, all under the banner of “freedom and democracy.” Efforts to destroy Libya, Syria, and other former allies of the Soviet Union were discussed under President Clinton, solidified under Bush, and implemented by Obama. Far from slowing neoconservative ambitions, Obama has provided an invaluable facelift for drone programs, interventionism, and the destruction of sovereign countries.

The ascent of a privileged white male to Secretary of State is a symbolic reminder that below the surface, the interests of the bourgeoisie shape governmental policy.

The main enemy is at home. Every imperialist aggression, be it “blood for oil” or drones for democracy, must be opposed as part of delegitimizing governments that commit the world’s worst human rights violations and threaten the safety of our planet. Only a socialist planned economy, based on eliminating material scarcity for all, can stop permanent war.

Leila Khaled: Palestine Stands by Syrian Army and People of Syria

Leila Khaled

Leila Khaled, member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was in Turkey to speak in a forum titled “The Dynamics of Transformation in the Middle East” organized by the Socialist Refoundation Party. Khaled talked about imperialist plans in Middle East and the resistance against these plans to the Turkish publication YURT (Liberation translation by Taylor Goel).

What do you think of the latest developments in the Middle East?

The Middle East has been a region of conflicts for centuries. The peoples in the region are waging liberation wars. European colonialists have come and gone from the Palestinian land, Ottomans, the same. Now Israel has come. Lying to the whole world and using religion, they came. They claimed they were given this land by God. We reject this. Why? Is God in the real estate business? Promising land for some and exiling others. We absolutely reject such a thing.

There are imperialist forces in the region that support and defend Israel. There are Arab leaderships in the region that pay homage to Israel. USA has been pushing a carrot-and-stick policy in the region. Reactionary Arab forces went to the White House and prostrated themselves one by one and apologized. “We will do whatever you say, our oil is yours”, they said. But the Arab people refuse to succumb.

Where does Turkey stand at this point?

Turkey leads the group that protects Israel. Israel has brought Turkey to her knees. Nine people from Turkey were murdered on the Mavi Marmara. Later, the Turkish consul was insulted. The Turkish government said that Israel was going to issue an apology but Israel never did. They even explicitly said “We will not apologize”. Despite all this, the Turkish government has further increased economic and military cooperation with Israel. The real defense of Israel is accomplished via Turkey. The biggest military base that belongs to the U.S.A. in the region is the Incirlik Base. My call to you: Get rid of that base. Expand the boycott against Israel.

Simon Peres has a new book “The new Middle East”. Check it out, it exactly follows the “Greater Middle East Initiative” of the U.S. As they will, they draw us like a picture and tear us into pieces. They determine how we shall live. You and us, all of us are in the same trench, targeted by these.

Turkey is an unconditional supporter of imperialism. In Turkey, the Kurds do not have the same rights as the Turks. More than ten thousand Kurds are piled in jail. Like the Palestinian inmates. Whatever Israel is doing to the Palestinians, Turkey is doing the same to the Kurds.

You will now ask why does Turkey draw so much of my attention? Of course it does because Turkey pokes her nose into everything in the region.

Would you explain the position of PFLP on the imperialist aggression in Syria?

Now, they want to establish the “Greater Middle East Initiative” using religious and sectarian conflict. This is what is going on in Syria. According to the last census, there are 11 million, 800 thousand Palestinians. But only a quarter of this population is living on Palestinian land. A huge population is exiled and the only country that has received that population with open arms is Syria. What was done to us is now being done to Syria.

I am screaming with the top of my voice: We stand by the Syrian Army and the people of Syria. We are confident in the people of Syria, who have taken us, Palestinians, under their wings and hosted us on their land for over sixty years. We are confident that they will prevail over this problem.

Is the revolutionary claim of PFLP still on?

Yes. After the death of George Habas, Abu Ali Mustafa was chosen as the General Secretary, to be killed by Israel shortly after. Our third President Ahmad Sa’adat was elected. He is now being held hostage in an Israeli prison. Despite all these hard times, as PFLP, we are still standing strong, continuing our struggle. Our biggest priority is the unity among Palestinians. As the PFLP, we are trying really hard to achieve this unity. I can say that PFLP is in good shape. And we played an important role in the last Gaza war.

What do you say about the cooperation of Hamas with Turkey?

Hamas has accepted cease-fire with Israel. As PFLP, we do not accept this and view this as the wrong attitude. As far as the relation Hamas has established with Turkey, we see it as one between political Islamists. Hamas does not represent all of Palestine.

Do you have any message for the revolutionary women in Turkey?

Continue your struggle, unite, act in unity. Do not believe in lies. It is not the “Greater Middle East Initiative” of the U.S. that will shape the Middle East but only us. All the peoples of the Middle East will rebuild it. together.

Syria & The Global Class War

Caleb T. Maupin

Jobs are disappearing. Homes are ­being foreclosed and families tossed into the streets. Super hurricanes, spawned by climate change, batter cities. Schools are being shut down, and prisons are springing up in their place. Police bullets are taking lives of innocent Black and Brown people. Hunger, homelessness, mass unemployment and racist mass incarceration are becoming “the new normal” in the United States.

At the top of all this are the bankers and bosses. The Wall Street 1% — with their wealth, power and latchkeys to the governments of the world — have no answer to the chaos. Bank bailouts, drone attacks, elections, TV propaganda — none of the capitalists’ usual tricks are working. The chaos and explosions are continuing, because capitalism is at a dead end.

In their desperation, the corporate elites and their governments turn toward a solution they have long utilized: war.

Trillions of dollars are made from militarism. For the capitalists of the world, especially in the U.S., who own all the mechanisms for producing tanks, missiles, drones, fighter planes and other means of destruction, nothing has been more profitable than war.

So in this hour of desperation, as their economic system lurches and grinds its way to a halt, the capitalists bomb and destroy.

First Libya, now Syria

Libya once had the highest standard of living on the African continent. But now the Libyan government that once defied Wall Street and Washington has been destroyed, and the result has led to misery for the Libyan people. Yet, the destruction of Libya did not save capitalism and the crisis continues.

The current focus of imperialism’s wrath is Syria. The U.S.-backed regimes in Saudi Arabia and Turkey are shipping in stockpiles of weapons to a group of “rebels” who slaughter people without pause. These rebels promise that if they are victorious, the Christians and Alawites of Syria will be slaughtered. They have been sent to create death, chaos and destruction.

Numerous videos of atrocities allegedly committed by these Syrian mercenaries have circulated on the internet. They depict killing and torture. One video shows a 10-year-old child being forced to behead a prisoner. These are the so-called “freedom fighters” championed by the capitalist media and funded indirectly by tax dollars from U.S. workers. (rt.com/news, Dec. 11)

Why is Syria a target? Its Baathist government led by Bashar Al-Assad is not a government of Wall Street puppets. Instead it provides health care to the people. It has supported the Palestinian resistance. It allows communists to play leading roles in some levels of the government.

The people of Syria are resisting. Christians, Alawites, Muslims, socialists — people from all sectors of Syrian society are joining together. Community militias are being formed to defeat the U.S.-backed mercenaries who seek to drive the country into ruin. The Syrian people have pushed back these rebels many times, so the imperialists are considering other methods.

U.S. troops are now in Turkey, just across the border from Syria, setting up NATO missile batteries. On Dec. 27, thousands of people took to the streets in Turkey to protest the presence of the NATO missiles. The massive rally was called by the Turkish Communist Party. PressTV quotes one Turkish protester as saying, “Americans are trying to steal all the resources in the Middle East. We, the Turkish people, will do whatever it takes to prevent them.” (Dec. 27)

Some people in the U.S. may feel that Syria and the Middle East are far away and that events going on there have no impact on what happens in the U.S.

But in the U.S., homes are being foreclosed by the same bankers and the government that fund the destruction of homes in Syria. Our schools are being closed by the same forces that fund the Israeli army that kills teachers and school children in Gaza. The drones used to kill people in Pakistan are now being used within U.S. borders to spy on us in a continuing buildup of state repression.

Sam Marcy, the founder of Workers World Party, said workers in the U.S. have no “independent destiny.” The global 1% is the enemy of the people of Syria, the workers and oppressed of the U.S. and all humanity. Just like Syrians are coming together to resist the rebels, and workers in Turkey are taking the streets to protest NATO missiles, workers and youth in the U.S. must stand with Syria.

The chaos unfolding across the world is a life-and-death struggle between the workers and oppressed of the world on one side and their oppressors on the other. In this global class war, which side are you on?

Syrian “Rebels” Increasingly Isolated

“Free Syrian Army” terrorizes Aleppo

Imperialist drive toward intervention increases

Derek Ford

On Jan. 15, two bombs exploded at Aleppo University in Syria’s second largest city, killing at least 80 people and injuring hundreds. Among the victims were internal refugees from the conflict who had been provided shelter in university dormitories by the Syrian government.

The attack came a week after the Free Syrian Army announced that only a military solution can resolve the conflict. The announcement, made by spokesperson Abdulhamid Zakariya, was the opposition’s rejection of President Bashar al-Assad’s Jan. 6 speech, which sketched a political solution to end the bloodshed. Assad’s proposal was premised on an immediate ceasefire and included the drafting of a new constitution.

The government has enacted numerous reforms in an attempt to end the conflict, which began in March 2011. Among these reforms was the drafting of a new constitution that among other things nationalized public utilities and natural resources and related institutions and facilities, and was passed by 89 percent of the vote in Feb. 2012. Additionally, the state has reversed some of the cuts to social programs like food subsidies that provided one of the impetuses for the initial uprising.

The FSA, however, has been consistently unwilling to accept any compromise or political solution to the conflict.

Syrian opposition grows increasingly isolated

As the conflict has worsened and the reactionary character of the opposition has become unmistakable to Syrians, popular support has shifted definitively in favor of the government. This is illustrated clearly in Aleppo, which has long been considered an opposition “stronghold.” By the FSA’s own admission, 70 percent of city residents support the Assad government. (Reuters, Jan. 8) Abu Ahmed, who commands the Tawheed Brigade in the city, attributed the support to the widespread looting and other criminal acts committed by opposition fighters.

Indeed, it seems that Aleppo residents live in a perpetual state of terror, as evidenced by a note passed secretly by a couple to a foreign reporter, which read, “We used to live in peace and security until this malicious revolution reached us and the Free Syrian Army started taking bread by force.” (Reuters, Jan. 8)

While the looting, abuses of power and other reactionary actions are unsurprisingly attributed to a few “bad apples” and unruly military units, official actions taken by the rebels in the city contradict that claim. As one example, in December 2012 the “Revolutionary Military Council” in Aleppo released a statement in which they prohibited women from driving.

The FSA is also becoming isolated in the countryside, where many of the rebel units originated. There have been reports that they have established a religious police force in the town of al-Bab that is enforcing strict religious codes and forcing people to pray.

Throughout the country, the FSA has committed war crimes such as the kidnapping, torture and execution of pro-government civilians that have been documented by Human Rights Watch and other organizations.

Calls for more intervention grow louder

In Assad’s speech this month, he called on foreign governments to cease arming and funding opposition fighters. In response, the FSA called for more intervention from NATO and its allies.

The U.S., British, Israeli, Qatari and Saudi Arabian governments have all been financing the FSA. Saudi Arabia has granted pardons to death row inmates in exchange for undergoing military training and joining the Syrian rebels, according to documents leaked from the Interior Ministry. (Examiner, Dec. 9, 2012)

Turkey, which has already invaded Syrian air space and launched strikes into the country, is in the process of obtaining and deploying Patriot surface-to-air missiles from NATO along the border. On Jan. 14, a spokesperson for NATO announced that the missiles will be operational in early February at the latest.

On Jan. 13, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister called for Arab states to “think seriously about sending forces to ensure security in Syria.”

In the face of the increased possibility of overt foreign intervention in Syria, progressives and revolutionaries in the U.S. and elsewhere must, in both word and deed, unconditionally demand “Hands off Syria!” The war in Syria, after all, is not reducible to “Assad versus the people,” nor is it an “inter-imperialist” conflict between the U.S. and Russia. The struggle in Syria is a struggle over the national sovereignty of a historically oppressed state; it is a struggle between forces fighting to defend the country’s sovereignty, including the Syrian Arab Army, and forces that are openly collaborating and allied with imperialism.

People of Turkey Fight NATO Missiles

Turkish Communist Party stands up to NATO

Taylor Goel

On Jan. 10, the Communist Party of Turkey launched a new campaign against the deployment of Patriot missile batteries in Turkey. Members of TKP have set up a tent in a park in downtown Ankara to gather signatures against the deployment of Patriot missiles and NATO intervention in Syria. They will be on a symbolic and non-stop guard duty until Jan. 20 which is the expected date of arrival for the missiles. The petitioning campaign appropriately named “Stand guard against Patriot Missiles” has been received with great interest and support by the people of Ankara.

Using the so-called threat of a Syrian attack, in December 2012, the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) had requested that NATO deploy missiles along its border with Syria. After the approval of the request by NATO, a total of six missile batteries, from Holland, Germany and the United States, along with hundreds of NATO soldiers, are now on their way to Turkey. They are expected to arrive by the end of January.

While AKP claims the Patriots are needed to protect Turkey against the spillover of the conflict in Syria, as a NATO member and a loyal defender of the imperialist interests in the region, it is in fact the AKP government which has been the aggressive party towards Syria. Since the start of the conflict, AKP has provided shelter, funding and arms to the Free Syrian Army fighting against the Syrian government. Additionally, AKP has more than once attempted to provoke war with Syria, sending a military reconnaissance jet into Syrian airspace in June, and launching an artillery attack against Syria in October and calling NATO to action in each incident.

The Syrian government has called the deployment of missiles a provocation by the government of Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In total contrast to the hostile policies of AKP against Syria, the Turkish population overwhelmingly opposes any form of intervention in Syria. Even those who support the ruling AKP believe that Turkey should not take sides in the conflict.

The deployment of Patriot missiles violates the Turkish Constitution

On Jan. 7, The Communist Party of Turkey sent a letter to the members of the Parliament, pointing to the fact that the deployment of the Patriot missiles and NATO troops in Turkey is unconstitutional and that the ruling AKP goverment is guilty of violating the constitution. According to the Turkish constitution, the authority to grant permission for the deployment of foreign troops and military in Turkey belongs to the parliament. The request from NATO to deploy the Patriot missiles is the result of a unilateral decision by AKP, completely bypassing the parliament, making a total mockery of even any illusion of bourgeois democracy in the process. The letter sent by TKP to the members of the parliament emphasized that the deployment of Patriot missiles has nothing to do with the defense of Turkey against a Syrian threat as claimed by AKP. The TKP’s letter further pointed out that the interests of the people of Turkey dictate that the Patriot missiles and the foreign troops be sent back to where they came from. The letter ended by demanding that the members of the parliament take action and immediately send the missiles and NATO troops back.

March against NATO in downtown Ankara repressed by the police

On Jan. 13, the TKP called for a march against NATO in solidarity with the petition campaign. Held in downtown Ankara and attended by over a thousand people, the march was to be followed by a rally at the site of the petition campaign. When the protesters attempted to enter the park in downtown Ankara where the campaign tent is set up, the police set up barricades to block the march from proceeding into the park. The protesters refused to stop the march and pushed towards the police barricade to proceed forward. The police intervened with excessive force using tear gas launchers and batons to disperse the crowd. In the mayhem that followed, five TKP members were wounded. Despite the police violence, the protesters succeeded in breaking through the barricade and continued on to the rally at the campaign site.

Addressing the militant and victorious crowd, TKP Central Committee Member Aydemir Güler said:

“The police must have forgotten who we are, who the communists and the patriots of this country are. We are not to be told ‘Stop here, walk there.’ Members of TKP are not keen on tear gas but if needed, as we have done today, we will push through and move on. They think patriotism is the Constitution they have been trampling on. TKP will teach them once again what patriotism is all about. If the parliament stays silent, we will do the talking. The deployment of Patriot missiles in this country is illegal. The claim that Syria is a threat against Turkey is nothing but a huge lie. The truth is that there is an attempt to subjugate the people of Turkey and to turn them into mercenaries for NATO and the USA. You can choke us by tear gas but how will you manage to choke the conscience of Turkey?”

The crowd responded to Güler’s speech by cheering the slogan “This country and its people are not for sale!”

If the AKP government and its imperialist masters assume that they will easily be able to march their NATO soldiers to occupy Turkey and point their missiles towards Syria, they are dead wrong. The people of Turkey have opposed and resisted this dirty pending NATO war against Syria from the very start and they will continue to do so. They know very well that their resistance against NATO in Turkey and the heroic resistance of their sisters and brothers in Syria against NATO-backed mercenaries are part of the same struggle, the struggle against imperialism.

NATO, hands off Syria! Hands off Turkey!

Assad Charts a Way Forward

New Worker

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has called on outside forces to stop supporting the rebels battling to overthrow his Baathist-led popular front government.

The Syrian leader also charted the way forward for a peaceful end to the conflict at a rally at the Damascus Opera House last Sunday.

In his first televised speech since June Al Assad spoke behind a backdrop of a huge Syrian flag composed from the images of hundreds of victims of the terror gangs that are funded and armed by the Nato powers and their feudal Arab lackeys.

Al Assad called for a national mobilisation to defeat the “terrorists” and “thugs” who have spread death and destruction across the country over the past two years.

He called for a national mobilisation to defend the republic while mapping out a three-point plan that would start with a ceasefire and a commitment by all parties to end the violence.

The current government would then contact all strata of Syrian society to start an “open dialogue for the convening of a national dialogue conference with the participation of all forces that are desirous of finding a solution in Syria.”

The second phase of this national dialogue, Assad said, would lead to the drafting of a national charter that would map out the future for Syria and this charter would then be referred to a popular vote. If endorsed a broadly based government could be established under the new constitution, Finally a national reconciliation conference would take place followed by a general amnesty and the reconstruction of the shattered economy.

But Assad doubted whether any of the rebels really wanted peace. “With whom should we make dialogue?”

Assad rhetorically asked. “With the sponsors of an extremist thought who only believe in the language of blood, murder and terrorism; or with gangs that get their orders from abroad?”

Assad said that the western powers were the ones who have slammed the doors to dialogue because they are accustomed to give orders and “we are used to sovereignty, independence and the freedom of decision.”

He also slammed the leaders of some of the countries in the Middle East who were “ fully aware that Syria’s emergence from its crisis would destroy them and their political future” as well as the sectarian Islamic fundamentalists who have entered the country to join the rebel cause. Last week the Syrian Foreign Ministry on Friday slammed as “unprofessional and not neutral” a recent report by the UN Commission of Inquiry that accused the Syrian government of huge violations of human rights.

Last month, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria published its latest report on the human rights situation in Syria, concluding that innocent Syrian civilians are bearing the brunt of escalating armed confrontations between the government and rebel forces.