Should the US Intervene in Syria’s Civil War?

Now that we done finished celebrating Dr King 50th anniversary of the  I Have a Dream Speech and the great March on Washington, now its back to business…Many who attended this weekends festivities are now saying, ‘Lets put all that talk about peace and love to the wayside and get ready to do War with Syria’.. Pay close attention to the folks cheer leading the effort and the justification given to jump into what is now emerging to be a Civil War…

As for the use of Chemical weapons.. That’s terrible and we should figure out a way to stop them from being used..For many sending in cruise missiles is not the way to go. It sounds like another excuse for endless war and another way for those who operate within the military industrial complex to pad their pockets.  Destabilization in the Middle East is good for business.

It’s also interesting to note that folks are upset about chemical warfare in Syria while ignoring what many feel is chemical warfare here at home.. Death by chemical misuse come in many forms. It’s the gassing we’ve seen in Syria where death is immediate and  horrific as we have on TV.

Other times it shows up in GMO foods, radiation and oil leakage which compromises our water and fish supplies. It shows up in the pollutants caused by multinational corporations that are allowed to be spilled into our air and water. It shows up in the form of fracking. It shows up in the form of big businesses that often break laws, hide their wrong doings on top of spending billions of dollars in lobbying funds to resist laws and regulations compelling them to be clean.. The end result is millions die prematurely from compromised respiratory systems, heart disease, cancer etc..

And so as we jet off to Syria to stop them from using gas on their own people, we remain silent or in deep denial about the chemicals used on us.. Consider this.. There is  little difference in a king or military being oppressive towards its people and a corporation being oppressive towards its people. It’s all a matter of perspective.

In the clip below I like what Ed Husain has to say about this situation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KGz0bpOIYo

Here’s a recent statement from the AROC Arab Resource Organizing Center

STAND WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE ARAB WORLD 

STAND AGAINST US WARS FOR EMPIRE!

Once again, the Arab people, like the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, and Asia before them, find themselves at the receiving end of US imperialism and ravages of US wars.

The US is preparing to strike Syria at any moment as reports are circulating of the US Sixth Fleet carrying a total of 300 cruise missiles and positioned off the Syrian and Lebanese coasts. This comes on the heels of graphic footage surfacing of another heinous crime committed in Syria’s brutal civil war, where civilians were filmed suffocating and dying as a result of suspected use of chemical agents. The scene is on the outskirts of Damascus and the massacre occurred on the evening UN weapons inspectors arrived in Syria to investigate the possible use of Sarin-like nerve agent or Chlorine gas in the Aleppo area back in May 2013. Even according to some US admissions, the Syrian armed militias orchestrated the attacks in May. It is known that the Syrian regime had decisively scored military victories in Mid Syria and would therefore stand to suffer the most damage if it were to deploy non-conventional weapons on the day UN inspectors arrive in Syria. And yet the US chose to level unsubstantiated allegations against the Syrian regime that it used chemical weapons and mobilized its forces for a military strike, even prior to the UN commencing its investigation.

Ultimately, we know that both the Syrian regime and the US-funded militias are guilty of attacks against civilians. The Syrian civil war is being fought at the expense of Syrian families, workers, political activists, and the long legacy of Syrian cultural production.   It is still the people of Syria that possess the vision for a Syria free of autocracy and US imperialist interests, free of sectarianism and political repression, and their vision is the only true moral compass.

Syrian cultural and political activists have long been demonstrating their steadfastness against political repression and their commitment to self-determination. Time and time again they have denounced the destruction and devastation of the social and material fabric of Syria.  These are the voices absent from dominant narratives plastered across TV screens, radio broadcasts and newsstands.  Their messages remain draped across walls and buildings throughout Syrian towns and villages uplifting voices for change, dignity and liberation.

OBAMA AND THE LEGACY OF US IMPERIALISM

The Obama administration is anything but a passive observer in the deepening of sectarianism and destruction in Syria. For the divisions in Syria and the Arab World only serve to secure US interests as defined by an elite who only stands to profit from war and weaponry. Have we forgotten the infamous “White Powder” scene, where Collin Powell was oddly shaking a vial of biological agent at the UN Security Council as he applied pressure on the voting members to sanction US colonization of Iraq? It was then done under the pretext of preemptive strikes to eliminate the non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Today, Obama perpetuates the same policies of the Bush Administration in deepening the sectarian division, arming and training one group to fight another and exporting the war from Iraq to Syria and to the region as a whole.

The US, along with its client monarchies who brutally rule Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, have reacted to the wave of anti-autocratic uprisings by expanding the Iraq conflict. Today, Iraq bears witness to over 700,000 dead as a result of the US blockade and more than 1 million murdered during the US occupation of Iraq. Today, car bombs and sectarian conflict continue to engulf the country. Obama is clearly perpetuating Bush’s policies by continuing the destabilization of Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Lebanon and now Syria, all of whom are entrenched in a spiraling civil war that directly implicate the US militarily or politically.

THE BANKRUPTCY OF US MORALITY 

On August 26, Secretary of State John Kerry stated that morality compels the US to act and attack Syria. We are left to ask, how would killing more Syrians with 300 cruise missiles decrease the bloodshed? While all atrocities are heinous and must be condemned, let us examine the moral standing of the US. Less than 10 days prior to the surfacing of the Syrian footage, US-funded Egyptian military were shooting unarmed civilians mobilizing throughout the streets. More than 1000 people were murdered in cold blood and Obama is yet to cut aid to Egypt in the hope of maintaining leverage over a continued peace treaty with Israel. In 2009, Israel was using phosphorous bombs on a besieged civilian population in Gaza, killing over 1,200 people and injuring approximately 10,000. Had it been about moral compulsion, we would have seen cruise missiles rain on the Knesset in Tel Aviv. In fact, Israel continues to bomb, kill, displace and steal Arab land on a daily basis while Obama’s policy is to increase financial and military support for Israel by billions of dollars. And let us not forget the US use of depleted uranium in Iraq. Iraqis continue to suffer from devastating mortality and birth defect rates as the ramifications of US war crimes and use of nuclear agents are inherited from one generation to the next. The contemporary record speaks for itself and we need not go back in history to mention the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the two Hydrogen Bombs dropped on Japan and the purposeful deployment of small pox to wipe out whole indigenous American nations.

The US allies itself with monarchies and military dictatorships that are growing increasingly worried by the wave of Arab uprisings and is attempting, in unsubtle ways, to divert the people’s energy into sectarian conflict along a Sunni-Shia divide. It is well documented that the US-funded Syrian rebels are linked to Al Qaeda, the same group the Obama administration uses as a pretext to maintain the march of death in Afghanistan. It is these same groups, with US training and funding, that are planting car bombs in the heart of Lebanon in an attempt to trigger another sectarian war and creating an internal quagmire, allowing for Israel to strike both Hezbollah and Iran in the future.

SELF-DETERMINATION NOT US IMPERIALISM

Join us in condemning in the strongest possible terms Obama’s complicity in these bloody wars and crimes against humanity. Join us in calling for an end to this madness, and end to the perpetual strengthening of theocratic, monarchical and Zionist regimes.

How many wars must be fought and how many people must die before the US ruling industries are forced to cede to the calls for freedom? Exactly fifty years ago-today, Martin Luther King called for ending US imperialist wars in Vietnam and the Indo-China regions. Today, and under the pretext of morality, Barak Obama is planning to expand the Syrian conflict by bombing Syria and in reaction to a massacre of Syrian civilians.

We stand in support of the self-determination of the Syrian people and as such, oppose all attacks on Syria! As Libya and Iraq have so sadly taught us, there is no bigger loss than the loss of sovereignty to empire.

 We condemn any US involvement in the attacks on Syria!

We demand an end to US military, political and financial support of Israel, Arab dictatorships and repressive regimes!

 Join us in the streets at protests planned across the US to stand against any attack on Syria! 

 No to war. No to occupation. No to US-Israeli hegemony in the Arab World.

SUPPORT THE ARAB PEOPLE’S REVOLUTION FOR SELF-DETERMINATION!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXjEWrhkb6g