Workers Resistance

Author: Fight Back

  • Protest demands end to U.S. war on Syria

    Chicago, IL – On June 18, the Anti-War Committee – Chicago (AWC) organized a spirited protest against U.S. intervention in Syria. Over 50 people came to Federal Plaza to speak out against the Obama administration’s plans to send arms to the Syrian rebels and threats to set up a No Fly Zone. Speakers included activists from the AWC, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, the ANSWER Coalition and a member of the Syrian American community, who came with 20 other countrymen and women, proudly displaying their Syrian Arab Republic flags.

  • Chicago set to protest escalation of U.S. war on Syria

    Chicago, IL – The Obama administration announced it will arm the Syrian opposition and the U.S. military has made plans to set up a No Fly Zone over Syrian territory. The Anti-War Committee – Chicago (AWC) opposes these measures to escalate the conflict which has already cost 93,000 lives.

    The AWC has called a protest against U.S. intervention in Syria for June 18, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Federal Plaza, 50 W Adams, in Chicago.

    President Obama says the Assad government crossed a ‘red line’ by using chemical weapons. According to Holly Kent-Payne, an AWC spokesperson, “How can we believe this when there is no evidence cited as proof of the Syrian government’s use of the nerve gas, sarin? In fact, Turkey recently caught 12 members of the Syrian opposition with sarin, and the top U.N. investigator in Syria, Carla Del Ponte, stated last month that she found evidence of the rebels, not the government, having used sarin.”

    Joe Iosbaker of AWC added, “The truth is, the Syrian rebels are losing so the U.S. is scrambling for excuses to intervene. Remember when Bush lied about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to justify the war in Iraq? The U.S. and NATO support the Syrian rebels despite their strong ties to Al-Qaeda because they want to replace Bashar al-Assad with someone who will do their bidding.”

    Recently, NATO published a finding that 70% of Syrians support the Assad government. Also, Pew Research Center polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. intervention in Syria.

    According to the Pentagon, the No Fly Zone would cost $50 million a day. Kent-Payne said, “Chicago is closing 50 schools, while the White House thinks nothing of spending $50 million a day. We need healthcare and education, not more war in the Middle East!”

    For more info: antiwarcommitteechicago.blogspot.com

  • Going to Tehran: A must-read for anti-war activists

    The dogs of war in the U.S. media bark and, in true Don Quixote fashion, it’s a sign that authors Hillary and Flynt Leverett are on the move. In their electrifying new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the former National Security Council experts – who were forced out of their positions for their opposition to Washington’s war-mongering and occupation – take on the growing myths told by the U.S. government about Iran.

    Liberals, conservatives and centrists in the U.S. media hysterically attacked Going to Tehran as soon as it came out. The Wall Street Journal derided the Leveretts as “Washington’s most outspoken defenders of the mullahs,” in a particularly nasty hit-piece called “I Heart Khomenei.” Laura Secor of the New York Times called the book “one-sided” and a “mirror image” of the anti-Iran propaganda churned out by the U.S. government. Foreign Affairs claims they “overargue” their case for ending U.S. hostilities. The Weekly Standard accused them of “paranoid dogmatism,” and The New Republic called the book “an act of ventriloquism,” presumably with the Iranian government as the puppet master.

    When I see a book receive universal condemnation from the corporate-owned media, I take it as a sign that I need to read it. And ultimately every anti-war activist in the U.S. owes it to the people of Iran to check out this well-researched, persuasive and highly readable case against war with Iran. After all, we live in a country where Argo, a ludicrous xenophobic hit-piece on the Iranian Revolution, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2012 Oscars. As the Leveretts show in their book, the U.S. government and the corporate media work hand-in-glove to dominate the narrative on Iran, telling and repeating all sorts of myths and falsehoods to build the case for war against a large, independent, oil-producing country in the Middle East. Going to Tehran sets the record straight.

    The book focuses on dispelling three elements of the U.S. mythology around Iran, breaking each into three-chapter parts. First, it challenges the myth that Iran is an irrational state “incapable of thinking about its foreign policy interests,” arguing instead that the Islamic Republic is incredibly rational in its fight for survival as a revolutionary state in a region historically dominated by U.S. imperialism and Israeli militarism. Second, it unravels the myth of Iran as an illegitimate state, by showing the overwhelming popularity of the Iranian government and refuting the unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud in 2009. Finally, it challenges the myth that the U.S. can – or should – topple Iran through sanctions, diplomatic isolation and the threat of war.

    The Iranian Revolution was a strike against imperialism

    The Leveretts devote a serious chunk of their book to tracing the roots and trajectory of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and detailing the history of U.S., Israeli and Iraqi aggression against the Islamic Republic. They contextualize Ayatollah Khomenei’s Shi’a Islam, which strongly focused on social justice and anti-imperialism, and they detail the Iranian people’s history of resistance to the brutal U.S.-backed Shah monarchy. Khomenei’s thought and popularity casts a long shadow, even into Iranian society today, and the Leveretts give him appropriate treatment. Agree or disagree with their analysis, you have to admit that it’s a far cry from the cynical chauvinism of most Western commentators, who paint a crude (and often racist) caricature of the leading figure in Iran’s revolution.

    Equally important is their handling of the Iran-Iraq War – called the ‘imposed war’ by Iranians. In that war, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a U.S.-backed war of aggression against Iran. The Iranian people, inspired by the revolution’s promise of self-determination, sacrificed dearly to defend their country, with well over a million killed from both sides in the eight-year war. The Leveretts show how the ‘imposed war’ still impacts Iranian policy today, seen in the election and re-election of war veterans, like current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for political offices.

    U.S. policymakers constantly refer to Iran as a theocratic dictatorship, but the Leveretts expose this argument as baseless, chauvinistic and out of touch with ordinary Iranians. They write, “Most Middle Easterners do not think that the Islamist features of Iran’s political system make it undemocratic…For most Egyptians and other Middle Easterners, the ‘main division in the world’ is not between democracies and dictatorships but between countries whose strategic autonomy is subordinated to the United States and countries who exercise genuine independence in policymaking. For most people in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic is on the right side of that divide.” The Leveretts argue that this divide between imperialist and anti-imperialist countries explains Iran’s rising stock in the Middle East. After decades of U.S. wars and occupations, people in the Middle East support those forces that resist imperialism, rather than the Gulf monarchies that kowtow to Washington’s agenda.

    Counter-revolution defeated: The ‘Green Movement’ and the 2009 presidential elections

    It does not seem like four years ago that Iran held its last presidential election, which triggered the so-called ‘Green Movement’. With the 2013 elections just behind us, the Leveretts revisit some key facts about the election in 2009 that were overlooked and distorted by the U.S. media. By examining polls, debate transcripts, voting patterns and Iranian election law, the Leveretts prove that Ahmadinejad legitimately won the 2009 election. They write: “The facts were evident for anyone who chose to face them: neither Mousavi nor anyone in his campaign nor anyone connected with the Green Movement ever presented hard evidence of electoral fraud. Moreover, every methodologically sound poll carried out in Iran before and after the election – fourteen in all, conducted by Western polling groups as well as by the University of Tehran – indicated that Ahmadinejad’s reelection, with two-thirds of the vote (which was what the official results showed), was eminently possible.”

    Far from the popular rebellion that the U.S. media portrayed, the Green Movement receded just weeks after its beginning. The Green Movement represents the interests of businessmen tied to Western banks and corporations, well-off students, urban intellectuals and professionals, rather than the majority of Iranians. Many Iranians view the Green Movement as an attempted counter-revolution – backed by the U.S. – aimed at destabilizing a popular government that supports the Palestinian liberation struggle, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other resistance forces which the Leveretts examine in detail. The Leveretts show how the U.S. media wholly fabricated stories of brutality to delegitimize Iran. For instance, social media and the U.S. news heavily covered the supposed death of Neda Soltan by security forces, but they refused to retract the story when proof emerged that Neda “was very much alive and well” and directly asked the media to stop using her picture.

    Even if the U.S. media refused to acknowledge the truth, the Iranian people clearly understood that the Green Movement was a threat to the independence of Iran. A Charney Research poll from 2010 found that “59% of responders said the government’s reaction had been ‘correct’; only 19% thought it ‘went too far.’” According to the opposition’s numbers, about 100 people died in clashes with security forces. The Leveretts show that the protests regularly led to opposition-instigated violence, to which the state then responded. Most insightful of all, the Leveretts compare the hypocritical reaction to the Green Movement by the U.S. to the violent crackdown on African American and Latinos outraged at the 1992 Rodney King verdict. The State of California sent in the National Guard and killed 53 people for demonstrating against this racist miscarriage of justice, but rather than condemning government violence, the U.S. media called the uprising a ‘riot.’

    Why did a solid majority of Iranians support Ahmadinejad in 2009 and approve of the government’s harsh response to the attempt at counter-revolution? The Leveretts argue in chapter four, entitled “Religion, Revolution and Roots of Legitimacy” that the Iranian people, especially poor farmers and workers, experienced real progressive gains from the revolution in 1979. In spite of economic sanctions and external threats, “the percentage of Iranians living in poverty – less than 2% by the World Bank’s $1.25-per-day standard – is lower than that in virtually any other large-population middle-income country,” including Brazil, India, Mexico and Turkey. Iran’s rapidly expanding public and low-income health care services have increased life expectancy by 21.9 years since 1980, according to the UN Development Programme. This serves as a model that even universities and NGOs working in Mississippi are implementing. Literacy rose from 40% under the Shah to 99% in the present-day Islamic Republic; voting suffrage is universal and religious minorities have guaranteed representation in the Majlis (parliament).

    Despite Western Islamophobia, women’s rights in Iran are drastically improved. In addition to six months of paid maternity leave – far higher than the U.S. – “the majority of university students in Iran [and] the majority of students at Iran’s best universities are now female.” Some of the evidence the Leveretts present around issues of gender will genuinely surprise readers. For instance, they say that “rulings from [Ayatollah] Khomenei recognizing transgendered identity as biologically grounded, today provide the legal basis for free elective gender-reassignment surgery.”

    While Iran still has many contradictions, related to gender and the role that working people play in society, the Leveretts argue that the Iranian people elect to build on the progressive gains rather than overturning them. The Green Movement represented a step backwards in the history of Iran, and the majority of Iranians recognized that.

    Setting the record straight on Iran and the U.S.

    The Leveretts won themselves no friends in the political establishment with their chapter entitled “Myths and Mythmakers.” By far the strongest section of the book, they analyze the neo-conservatives, liberal interventionists, the Israel lobby and the Iranian expatriates as four distinct but inter-related groups that fuel anti-Iranian sentiment in the media and in Washington. Many of these so-called ‘experts’ monopolize the corporate-owned press in the U.S., despite having never read a word of Farsi. Although these groups do not all outwardly advocate U.S. military intervention, the Leveretts show how even the more well-meaning liberal critics repeat the same myths told by the neo-cons and war-mongers, effectively strengthening their case for a strike on Iran. It is disturbing to think that the U.S. media still gives a platform for the most vocal cheerleaders of the disastrous Iraq War – Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and the xenophobic CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack – to spew their venom against Iran.

    Even readers convinced that Tehran has nefarious intentions would benefit from the Leveretts’ book. In 1987, current Ayatollah Khamenei delivered a speech to the UN laying out a fundamental distinction between opposition to U.S. imperialism and support for the people, saying, “This indictment is directed against the leaders of the United States regime and not against the American people, who, had they been aware of what their governments have done against another nation, would certainly endorse our indictment.” Facing the hostile threat of a nuclear-armed Israel, and the U.S. military occupation of Iran’s next-door neighbors – Afghanistan, and previously Iraq – the people of Iran want peace and solidarity with the people of the U.S., not another war.

    Going to Tehran is written primarily to persuade policy-makers to abandon the current U.S. strategy of toppling the government of Iran. Throughout the whole book, the Leveretts seem frustrated at the very likely possibility that their well-researched case against war with Iran will go unread by politicians. However, the primary audience that will benefit from Going to Tehran is not lawmakers, but rather anti-war activists. Anti-war organizers could use the book as a starting point for reading groups and teach-ins about the nature of U.S. aggression.

    The disorganized response by the U.S. anti-war movement to NATO’s attack on Libya proves the need for a unified, principled, anti-imperialist opposition to war that seeks to build meaningful international solidarity. And in 2013, Going to Tehran is an important contribution to that struggle.

  • Syria stands firm

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article from the British newspaper, Proletarian. The article, published in the beginning of June, contains a wealth of useful information.

    As we go to press, the manufacture of provocations designed to justify open imperialist intervention against independent Syria is reaching fever pitch.

    Foreign Secretary William Hague plumbed new depths of murderous hypocrisy when, after Britain and France had bullied and cajoled the other 25 members of the EU into lifting their arms embargo on Syria, so they could openly supply weapons to the counter-revolutionary terrorists, he declared that this escalation of imperialist aggression was necessary to force the Syrian government to accept a negotiated political settlement.

    Hague’s statement that supplying yet more arms to the rebels was solely for the purpose of persuading Damascus to attend the proposed Geneva conference ignores the blindingly obvious – that Damascus has already accepted, indeed welcomed, this proposal, whilst the rebels, to date, are refusing to participate.

    Direct and deadly zionist aggression has already violated both Syrian and Lebanese sovereignty, and the bomb blasts in a Turkish border town, engineered by unknown hands, are being worked up into an excuse for all-out war.

    Yet so great are the dangers foreseen in Washington in committing openly and definitively to such a course that disabling splits are opening up within the imperialist camp over the next step.

    The fact that the continuing efforts on the part both of Damascus and of Moscow to stay the hand of aggression and convene a peace conference without preconditions have not yet been dismissed out of hand by the West may be ascribed in part to a cynical calculation – just playing for time whilst the warmongers complete their preparations. However, a glance at the balance of forces on the ground makes it clear enough why some cannier imperialist opinion might urge a step backwards from the brink.

    Rebel reverses

    With every day that passes, it becomes clearer that the legitimate government of Syria, loyally defended not only by the armed forces but also by the overwhelming majority of Syrians, is not about to be toppled by the squabbling rebel factions to whom imperialism had entrusted the task.

    Even some honest bourgeois journalists cannot but recognise this inconvenient reality. Alex Thomson, a foreign correspondent for Channel Four, blogged on 5 May that

    “[I]n the central areas of the country, President Assad’s forces have made some notable strategic gains against the various rebel forces. Alongside that, fighters from Hizbollah, coming in from Lebanon in the west to these central areas of fighting, have made a real impact on the ground …

    “On 24 April, for instance, the Syrian Army seized Otaiba, which is just east of Damascus, after the usual sustained barrage. This punched a hole in the rebel supply lines via which they had been taking much of their fight to the northern, eastern and southern areas around the capital.

    “Across Damascus, other gains too: rebels more or less now pushed out to the far side of the city ring-road zone in most areas. This again is a significant reversal of fortunes on the ground. Just two days later the army took their fight to Jobar, a key northeastern suburb of Damascus and one of the few areas in rebel hands inside the ring-road zone.

    “If they can push the rebels from here then almost all of the gains the rebel forces have made around the Damascus suburbs will have been neutralised.”

    On the rebel side, everything is chaos and dismay. On the ground, rival bands of jihadis, bankrolled and armed by different wings of the Gulf sheikh mafia, alternately squabble over the war booty and alienate the population by displays of sectarian thuggery. In turn, they have nothing but contempt for the so-called ‘transitional government’ that Washington, Paris and London hope to parachute into power.

    The New York Times told us some time ago how “Fahed al-Masri, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army’s unified command, questioned how a government could function when it controlled little territory or money yet would be held responsible for the fate of more than one million Syrian refugees and several times that number displaced inside the country.

    “‘Welcome, government,’ Mr Masri said sardonically.”(‘Syrian rebels pick US citizen to lead interim government’ by Anne Barnard, 18 March 2013)

    The previous head of the so-called ‘Syrian National Coalition’, Moaz al-Khatib, got the elbow because he had the temerity to call for peace negotiations without preconditions. In his place now struts Ghassan Hitto, a Syrian Kurd whose previous 30 years living in Texas have apparently taught him all he needs to know in order to serve imperialism as a quisling ‘prime minister’.

    This ludicrous audition over who to pick to play the pirate king was embarrassing in the extreme, coming as it did at the moment when the Arab League was waiting to see who would fill the seat left vacant when the real Syrian state was suspended last year. Still clinging to the hope that Khatib might change his mind, Arab League spokesman al-Thani expressed the pious wish that “things will get corrected … it’s important for him not to lose this moment”!

    Fat chance: Kerry had already waved him goodbye: “The notion he might resign has been expressed on many an occasion and is not a surprise. The opposition is more than one person.”

    New pretender Hitto instantly distanced himself from al-Khatib’s brief flirtation with the idea of talks without preconditions. Yet the Guardian lamented that the latest aspirant to the throne “has made little progress” in “unifiying civilian and military wings of the revolution”, noting that“Rebel groups inside Syria take few instructions from the political body and have little direct contact with its leaders.”(‘Moaz al-Khatib’s resignation plunges Syrian opposition into chaos’ by Martin Chulov, 24 March 2013)

    Indeed, some of the leaders of the ‘Free Syrian Army’ terrorists have in turn refused to recognise Hitto’s appointment!

    Teetering on the brink

    Though imperialism has been driven ever closer to the brink of outright hostilities, every new provocation designed to bounce public opinion into supporting yet another criminal war seems to have another purpose as well: to nerve up doubting elements actually within imperialist ruling circles to cast caution to the wind and wade into the swamp. The ballyhoo around chemical weapons is a case in point.

    The unsubstantiated claims that the Syrian army was ‘using chemical weapons against its own people’ were manufactured with the obvious intention of justifying in advance another installment of imperialist aggression. Yet as well as hoping to pile pressure on Syria, this scaremongering appeared also to be piling pressure on the White House itself, whose occupant had just a few months earlier waxed so eloquent about the “red line” that would be crossed were President Assad to resort to the use of chemical weapons.

    Now though, with Syria’s national defenses holding up so well, the rebels in disarray and the US’s other pressing business in the Pacific claiming the president’s attention (while the resistance forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have given a strong lesson about what Uncle Sam can expect if US boots touch the ground in serious numbers), the ‘red line’ bravado appears to be somewhat subdued.

    In a White House press briefing on 6 May, Jay Carney tied himself up in knots trying to cover Obama’s retreat, waffling that “What the president made clear is that it was a red line, and that it was unacceptable, and that it would change his calculus … What he never did – and it is simplistic to do so – is to say that ‘If X happens, Y will happen’. He has never said what reaction he would take.”

    So that’s clear then.

    When the human rights investigating team at the UN, led by Carla Del Ponte, produced a dossier that not only failed to substantiate the allegations against President Assad but even included evidence that dared to suggest that the rebels had slaughtered dozens of people with sarin nerve gas attacks in Aleppo and elsewhere, there might almost have been audible from the White House a sigh of relief.

    Whilst John Kerry still kept trying to milk the lie that there existed “strong evidence” of President Assad having used chemical weapons, this was flatly contradicted not alone by UN officials but also by US administration sources. British prime minister David Cameron’s pathetic insistence on flogging the same dead horse long after its death certificate had been signed may have been intended as just another brown-nosing token of fealty to the Special Relationship. Instead, it just underscored the warmongers’ embarrassing inability to agree on a line and stick to it.

    Zionist attack burns Obama’s bridges?

    With or without a green light from the White House, the Israeli jets that twice violated Lebanese airspace to attack Syria’s defenses and inflict death and destruction on her capital city were indeed an “act of war” which “opened the door to all possibilities”, as the Syrian government correctly noted.

    In the raids that took place between 2 and 4 May, Damascus International Airport was hit, as were a number of other locations in and near the capital. A doctor at the city’s Tishreen Military Hospital reported the death of at least 100 soldiers, with dozens more wounded. Residential areas were also bombed, driving citizens to take refuge in their basements.

    A government statement carried on Syrian TV correctly identified the attack as “an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups, which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army”. We might add that it was also an attempt to force the hand of those within the imperialist camp itself who might be having second or third thoughts about stepping over the brink.

    By such a flagrant attack on the sovereignty of both Syria and her Lebanese neighbour, Tel Aviv perhaps hopes to end all thoughts of retreat by pre-emptively burning the bridges.

    Turkish provocation backfires

    Washington’s recent efforts to reconcile Israel and Turkey, even persuading Netanyahu to apologise to Erdogan for the IDF’s murder of nine Turkish peace activists on board the Marmi Marvara, were driven by an urgent need to get Tel Aviv and Ankara into a warmongering alliance against Syria.

    Turkey has long played a major role in facilitating the subversion of its neighbour: opening up safe havens on the border for terrorist forces from which cross-border attacks can be mounted, and assisting with the arming and protection of those forces. Ankara’s shallow ‘anti-zionist’ posture, adopted solely to placate public opinion at home, has, to a great extent, been quietly shelved, enabling Israel and Turkey to work together once again against their common enemy.

    Sure enough, a week after the Israeli attacks, a new provocation was launched by Turkey. On 11 May, twin car bombs exploded in Reyhanli, a Turkish border town in the province of Hatay, killing 51, injuring dozens more and inflicting widespread damage on buildings in the vicinity. The victims included both Turks and Syrians.

    Almost before the smoke had cleared, and well before any serious investigation could even have begun, Ankara was pointing the finger at Damascus and saying it would take “all retaliatory measures necessary”. Yet the allegation flies in the face of the most basic common sense. With the rebels on the run and peace talks in the offing, what conceivable advantage could Damascus hope to secure by such an attack?

    The only possible beneficiaries would be those who want to see the talks fail; those who would like to bounce the world into another war. The chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s Duma got it right: “In the terrorist attack in Turkey, Syria was accused again – as it is always blamed for everything. Someone wants to disrupt the peace conference and to push ahead with the use of military force.”

    It is well known that the car bomb is a favourite weapon of the jihadists, and their feelings about the prospect of talks going ahead with Damascus are also no secret.

    Ankara’s complicity with terror

    Western press reports convey the impression that the Turkish border neatly separates the ‘civil war’ of Syria from the peaceable ‘refugee camps’ in Turkey which provide simple humanitarian relief for Syrians uprooted by the conflict. This simplistic fairy tale fits in nicely with the idea of fratricidal strife in Syria threatening to ‘spill over’ into peaceful Turkey!

    In reality, it is not Syria that destabilises Turkey but Turkey which, by offering a safe haven and free passage to terrorists, is actively destabilising Syria. The West-backed rebellion has long since transformed the whole border area between the two countries into a war zone, making life hell for Turks and Syrians alike.

    Whilst doubtless many of the 200,000 Syrians on the Turkish side are helpless civilian victims caught up in the conflict, others are, with full encouragement from Ankara and the West, using this region as a base area from which to launch attacks against Syria. They certainly do not draw the line at using refugee populations as human shields for their subversion.

    None of this does much to win the hearts and minds of the local Turkish inhabitants.

    Some reports talk of Syrians being beaten up and Syrian businesses attacked by vengeful Turks in the aftermath of the bombing. However, when about a hundred Reyhanli residents responded to the outrage by coming out on the street, it was to the Turkish foreign ministry that they marched and Erdogan’s head for which they called, blaming him for a policy towards Syria which had brought such horrors in its train. Another spontaneous march in Ankara similarly attacked Erdogan for dragging Turkey into war.

    Between the world wars, the region of Hatay in which Reyhanli is situated was part of Syria, and many Syrians were living there long before the present crisis – including a substantial minority of alawites. Whilst there are fewer alawites in Reyhanli itself, the region as a whole has distinguished itself by its opposition to Ankara’s support for the rebellion.

    Perhaps another motive for the outrage could have been to bounce local opinion into supporting open war against Syria. If so, it has miserably failed. Staff at a media office for a Syrian rebel group located down the street from the site of the first explosion were to be observed hurriedly drawing and locking their shutters, fearful of being correctly identified as enemies of peace in the region.

    As for Erdogan, stripped of his phony anti-zionist demagogy and caught red-handed trying to pitch his country into a counter-revolutionary war at the bidding of Uncle Sam and his loathsome brethren in Britain and France, the future does not look rosy.

    Syria stands firm

    By spreading lies about chemical weapons, launching air strikes against Damascus and engineering provocations on the Syria/Turkey border, imperialism perhaps hopes to bounce Syria into confronting all its enemies at the same time; into reacting to aggression in a fashion and on a timescale convenient to the West.

    The New York Times wept crocodile tears recently over what it supposed to be the Syrian president’s dilemma. “He could retaliate against Israel and risk conflict with the region’s strongest military — an option analysts called unlikely. Or he could refrain, in which case he risks appearing further weakened and hypocritical to supporters and opponents alike, many of whom are united in their antipathy for Israel.”

    To back up this dubious speculation, the paper quotes one ‘Basil’ (no second name), a resident living near a military research centre that was attacked, as asking “Why does the regime attack the rebels with Scuds and warplanes while it takes no action on the Israeli raids?” (‘Syria blames Israel for fiery attack in Damascus’, 5 May 2013)

    However much it may frustrate the West to see Syria choose which of her enemies to fight and in which order (meanwhile refusing to be deflected from her support for the peace conference proposed by Russia), it is going to have to live with the fact that the vast majority of Syrians continue to support their president, their constitution and their country – the more so, the more open the aggression with which she is threatened.

    The Syrian masses are well able to distinguish between patriots and rebels; between those who resist zionism and those who collaborate with it; between those who fight for the independence and sovereignty of Syria and those who act as the paid flunkeys of imperialism.

    The sly assertion slipped in by the New York Times that “supporters and opponents alike … are united in their antipathy for Israel”was given the lie even within the same article, when we were told that within hours of Israel’s blitz of the nation’s capital city, “the rebel Damascus Military Council declared that it would try to capitalise. The council issued a statement calling on all fighters in the area to work together, put aside rivalries and mount focused attacks on government forces.”

    Further, we were informed that “Some rebels and activists say they consider Mr Assad a far higher-priority target than Israel, though they still oppose it. The main exile Syrian opposition coalition walked that line carefully in a statement issued after the bombings, blaming the government for allowing attacks by ‘external occupying forces’.”

    The reader must judge for himself what credence should be given to this kind of ‘opposition’ to zionism.

    Peace conference in the balance

    As this is being written, the fate of the proposed peace conference hangs in the balance. The lack of seriousness betrayed by the West is underlined by the refusal to include in the peace process not only the expatriate imperialist stooges of the Syrian National Coalition but also the National Coordinating Body, whose presence at talks Russia has proposed.

    Unlike the SNC, the NCB represents those forces within the country which, whilst opposed to the current government, are also opposed to the armed uprising and to foreign intervention, and would be prepared to enter talks. Again, Washington’s insistence on excluding Iran – or even Saudi Arabia – from talks erects a further stumbling block to genuine negotiations.

    And if the West is in earnest about making a peace conference, why did it choose this moment to gee up Qatar into drafting a UN resolution slandering the Syrian government and condemning its legitimate military efforts in defence of Syrian independence? As Syria’s UN ambasador, Bashar Ja’afari, told the General Assembly, Qatar’s resolution of 14 May “is running against the current, especially in the light of the latest Russian-American rapprochement, which the Syrian government welcomed”.

    Russia and China opposed this mischief-making resolution, as did Iran, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the DPRK and Belarus – as well, of course, as Syria itself. Many other countries that had gone along with a similar resolution last August abstained, including South Africa and Indonesia.

    Whilst a combination of threats and promises served to secure 107 votes in favour of the resolution, this had shrunk significantly from last summer’s 133 votes. Meanwhile, the abstentions had climbed from 31 to 59, whilst others simply absented themselves from the vote altogether. None of this is calculated to bring cheer to imperialist hearts.

    Whichever way imperialism decides to jump, the Syrian people and leadership have, over two long and hard years of battling subversion exported from the West, served as an inspiration to all those engaged in the growing axis of resistance against imperialism. They have many times over earned the right to call upon the working masses of the world to show their solidarity.

    Support for Syria in her hour of need is not a private affair, but a duty that concerns all those oppressed and exploited by imperialism.

    Victory to the Syrian nation and its leader President Assad!

    No co-operation with imperialist war crimes!

  • Chicago in solidarity with striking Walmart workers

    Chicago, IL – On a clear, sunny day here, June 7, over 150 supporters of striking Walmart workers gathered outside the downtown Walmart store. Speakers condemned Walmart’s greed, low pay and harsh conditions at its stores in the U.S. and around the world.

    The Chicago action was one of many that took place across the U.S and coincided with Walmart’s annual shareholder meeting.

    The Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) organized the protest, which received support from members of the Chicago Teachers Union, Jobs with Justice, SEIU Healthcare, and Warehouse Workers for Justice.

  • University of MN clerical workers testify at regents budget forum, say ‘Chop from the top’

    Minneapolis, MN – Members of AFSCME Local 3800, clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, filled the room here, June 5, testifying at a Board of Regents’ public forum on the university budget. The clerical workers spoke about how they have been impacted by administrative bloat and tuition hikes. Some of the 25 workers laid off last week attended the hearing.

    Cherrene Horazuk, President of AFSCME Local 3800, told the regents, “Create a truly world class university that pays all workers a livable wage, not a poverty wage for many and luxury wages for a few. A university that recognizes and respects the work that is done and the people that do it. A university that can’t be called the university of haves and have nots. It’s long past time to chop from the top.”

    In her testimony, Melanie Steinman, chief steward of AFSCME Local 3800, condemned the recent layoffs at the U of M.

    Chris Getowicz of Students for a Democratic Society also testified, saying “Students overwhelmingly voted for our referendum last semester calling for increased budget transparency, student voice in tuition and fee decision, and a 10% salary cut for the 167 administrators making over $200,000. My tuition dollars should go towards education, not administration.”

  • Communist Party of Turkey statement on the mass protest movement

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) on the mass protest movement that is spreading across Turkey.

    Communist Party of Turkey, Declaration of the Central Committee of the TKP on recent developments

    The Choice for the Working Class will certainly be created

    1. For days now Turkey is witnessing a genuine popular movement. The actions and protests, which have started in Istanbul and spread all over Turkey have a massive, legitimate and historic character. The most important of all is the striking change in the mood of people. The fear and apathy has been overcome and people gained self-confidence.

    2. The Communist Party of Turkey has been part of the popular movement beginning from the first day and mobilized all its forces, tried to embolden the proletarian and revolutionary character of the movement, endeavored to pervade a mature attitude of discipline, organized numerous actions and demonstrations. In this process, the police forces carried out a heavy assault on our party headquarters in Ankara. All over Turkey, several party members have been injured and arrested. There have been some attempts of abduction of our party cadres. But the attempts of provocations against our party defeated.

    3. Our emphasis on the role of the TKP does not aim to underestimate the spontaneous nature of the movement or contribution of the other political actors. On the contrary, the TKP stressed that this movement has an aspect that is beyond the impact of any political actor or any kind of political opportunism.

    4. The call of the masses for the government to resign is an absolute truth of this movement. Although it is obvious that a leftist alternative cannot be built ‘right now’, this demand should be expressed loudly. This option for the working people can be generated only through benefitting from the energy that came out at this historical moment. The TKP will focus on this and expose the real meaning of alternatives like “the formation of a national government”, which will most likely be put forward to deceive the working masses into thinking that the crisis can be overcome that way.

    5. Without a doubt, the holders of political power will try to calm the people down, institute control and even attempt to use the situation to their advantage. They can have temporary achievements. Even in that case the popular movement would not be wasted. The TKP is ready for a period of stubborn but intense struggle.

    6. In order to act in concert, different branches of the socialist movement sharing similar goals and concerns need to evaluate the rise of this popular movement immediately. The TKP, without interrupting its daily missions and activities, is going to act responsibly regarding this issue and endeavor for the creation of a common ground in line with the urgent demands below.

    7. In order to nullify the plans of the government to classify and divide the popular movement as legitimate and illegitimate, all forces need to avoid the steps that might cause damage to the legitimacy of the movement. It is the political power that attacks. The people should defend themselves as well astheir rightful action but never fall into the provocation trap of the government.

    8. While the masses are chanting the slogan “government, resign”, the negotiations limited to the future of the Taksim-Gezi Park are meaningless. The government pretends not to understand the fact that the old balances has been upset fundamentally and cannot be restored. Everybody knows that the popular movement is not the product of susceptibility towards the trees in the Gezi Park. The anger of the people is over the urban transformation projects, the terror of the market, open direct interventions in different lifestyles, the Americanism and the subordination to the US, the reactionary policies, the enmity towards the Syrian people. The AKP cannot deceive the people with a discourse of “we will plant more trees than the ones that we will chop down.”

    9. While rolling up our sleeves in order to create an alternative of the working people, the movement needs to lean on certain concrete demands. These demands are valid in the in the case of the resignation of the government or of Erdogan:

    a) The government must announce that the projects that involve the demolishment of the Gezi Park and of the Ataturk Cultural Center are terminated.

    b) Those who were taken in custody during the resistance must be released and all charges against them must be dropped immediately.

    c) All officials whose crimes against the people are proven by the reports of the commissions that are formed by the Union of Bar Associations and local bar associations must be relieved of their duties.

    d) The attempts that hinder the right of the people to get true news on the developments must be stopped.

    e) All prohibitions regarding meetings, demonstrations and marches must be repealed.

    f) All de facto or de jure obstacles that lock the political participation of the people, including the 10 per cent election threshold and the anti-democratic articles of the ‘law on political parties’, must be abolished.

    g) All initiatives that attempt to impose a monotype life style to all people must be stopped.

    10. These urgent demands will in no case affect our right and duty to continue the opposition against the political power. The People’s reaction to the government must be reinforced, and efforts must be concentrated to bring about a real alternative in the political scene.

    11. The star and the crescent Turkish flag that was intended to be used to provide a shield for reactionary and chauvinist attacks against laborers, leftists, Kurdish people after the fascist military coup of September 12, 1980, has now been grasped by the People from the hands of fascism, and given to the honorable hands of DenizGezmiş and his comrades, as a flag in the hands of patriotic people.

    12. The People’s movement, ever since the beginning, has persistently let down the sinister strategy to play one community against another in Turkey. This attitude must carefully be maintained, leaving no room for chauvinism or vulgar nationalism.

    13. Appealing to our Kurdish brothers and sisters, we had already declared that “There can be no peace agreement with AKP”. There can be no deal with a political power to which its own People have turned their back, and the true face of which has been revealed. Kurdish politics must give up “cherishing hopes of proceeding further with AKP”, and become a strong constituent of a united, patriotic and enlightened laborer People’s movement.

    14. Our citizens who have lost their lives through the hands of the police force of the political power, have sacrificed their lives in the name of a just and historical struggle. The People are never going to forget their names, and those who are responsible for their death will pay the price before law.

    Central Committee

    Communist Party of Turkey

    4 June 2013

  • PFLP leader Leila Khaled in solidarity with protests in Turkey

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

    Comrade Leila Khaled, in Amed/Diyarbakir for the First Middle East Women’s Conference, offered the following statement of solidarity and encouragement to comrades in Turkey participating in the mass protests taking place in Taksim square:

    “On behalf of my people, the Palestinian people, we are always against fascism and oppression, against repression. We are the people living with injustice and the occupation of our land, the longest occupation in history, the Israeli Zionist occupation of Palestine. I call on you: You have to stay in the square, in Taksim, until the government accepts your demands. Don’t leave it. Keep there with your peaceful demonstration, your peaceful strike, sit-in. And I call upon women to join it on a wide scale everywhere, in the squares in different cities, not only in Taksim. Long live the people’s struggle for their rights!”

  • Hundreds march in Minneapolis demanding justice for Terrance Franklin

    Minneapolis, MN – Hundreds of people marched through the streets of downtown Minneapolis on May 31 to demand justice for Terrance “Mookie” Franklin, a 22-year-old African American man killed by the police in a South Minneapolis home on May 10.

    Led by Terrance Franklin’s family and friends, the protesters gathered at Hennepin County Government Plaza and then marched through busy downtown streets, tying up traffic during the evening rush hour. They demanded that the police be prosecuted for killing Franklin, who was unarmed, and that an independent investigation be carried out. Franklin was shot multiple times – in the back of his head and in his back – in the basement of a house on 27th Street and Bryant Avenue South.

    The family and supporters of Terrance Franklin vowed to continue organizing until they get justice.

    To keep up-to-date on the struggle for justice for Terrance Franklin, go to https://www.facebook.com/JusticeForTerranceFranklin

  • Milwaukee immigrant rights protest targets Wisconsin Senator Johnson

    Milwaukee, WI – On May 30, activists from Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) and Voces de la Frontera organized a rally of 200-plus outside the Federal Court House in downtown Milwaukee. Inside, Senator Ron Johnson met with delegates from Milwaukee’s Mexican and Latino community to discuss his position on immigration reform.

    An immigration reform bill is making its way through Congress, recently approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In response, immigrant rights groups across the country are making sure that the voices of those directly affected by the unjust immigration system are being heard.
    Johnson repeatedly says that the Senate bill does not put enough emphasis on border enforcement, despite the fact that the bill calls for a total militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.

    As the delegation negotiated with Johnson, the rally outside gained momentum, with speakers energizing the crowd under the slogan, “Family unity – citizenship now.” When the delegation came out of the meeting, after being unable to sway Johnson from his reactionary, far-right position, 18 trained activists took the streets and performed civil disobedience. The protesters linked arms and chanted, “Immigration is not a crime, family unity – now is the time!”

    Francisca Meráz, an organizer with YES, was the spokesperson for the civil disobedience. She stated, “I am so tired of seeing my cousins cry when they get married because their mother or father could not be there, or when they see their mom or dad for the first time in years via Skype. Even worse, when I see their eyes light up with joy at the news of immigration reform, I am angry at the possibility that it will not provide a meaningful path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people in this country. I need a path to citizenship for my family, and that is why I am calling on the president to end the record number of deportations happening under his administration, and calling on Senator Johnson to help keep our families together by supporting legalization that is not contingent on enforcement.”

    The rally and action were part of the week of action called by the Legalization for All Network.