Bloodbath in Egypt Exposes Military Rule

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6 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2013 E gypt’s U.S.-backed military, carefully garbed in “democratic” trappings since the massive January 2011 nationwide protests that forced its 30-year dictator-leader Hosni Mubarak from power, was exposed for the world to see on Aug. 13, 2013.

Having arrested the massively discredited Mus­ lim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi a week earlier, the self-appointed regime of the generals, led by Morsi-appointed Defense Min­ ister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, claimed a “mandate” from the people, instantly appointed an “interim cabi­ net,” effectively declared martial law, and unleashed a monstrous bloodbath beginning in Cairo.

According to statistics from the “government” Health Ministry, well over 1000 pro-Morsi sit-in protesters were gunned down in cold blood at Rabea al-Adaweya and Nahda squares and elsewhere by the now un­ masked military dictatorship. Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters put the number of dead at that time at 2000.

CBS News on-the-scene reporters noted with shock that many of the sit-in protesters had been murdered by army snipers with deadly shots to their heads and chests. CNN International reported that medical per­ sonnel at several field hospitals were ordered to im­ mediately depart at gunpoint, leaving the wounded and dying unattended, if not to be murdered outright. Estimates of the wounded early on in the slaughter ranged from 3500 to 4500.

As we go to press, the number of casualties increases daily as Morsi supporters are demonized as terrorists, foreigners, and traitors—to be hunted down, if not exterminated as “rats.” Beginning with Morsi’s July 3 arrest, al-Sisi’s police and military henchman have decimated the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, arresting en masse its secondary and now tertiary leadership throughout the country.

The initial Aug. 13 crackdown saw departing Morsi protesters, arms held high in terror-induced sur­ render, passing through the single cordoned open­ ing allowed by the military—only to regroup in ar­ eas around Cairo including Shubra, Abbasseya, and Ramses squares, among other locations. But the mili­ tary’s mass killing spree was twice more repeated, with horrific results.

In the weeks following these initial massacres the re­ pression has been extended, as to be expected, to any­ one who utters the slightest words of opposition to the wholesale trampling of due process and all other previously presumed democratic rights.

Striking steel workers in Suez have been smashed and their leaders arrested while independently minded trade unionists more generally are hounded and persecuted in increasing numbers. Egyptian and foreign journalists, as well as filmmakers, have been subjected to arrest by a regime now confident that a full return to Mubarak-era repression, if not worse, has the support of significant layers of the still deeply divided population.

Indeed, Mubarak himself, imprisoned on charges of killing hundreds of Tahrir Square demonstrators in 2011, was released from Tora prison on orders from an Egyptian public prosecutor. Eighteen of his heirs and loyalists have been appointed to be governors of Egyptian provinces.

Anti-Morsi forces confused and divided Egypt’s unfolding tragedy initially saw scattered Morsi supporters sometimes taking revenge against those who they deemed to be advocates of their per­ secution, destroying a few government buildings and Coptic Christian churches. A few dozen people, main­ ly Christians, were killed in sectarian clashes. While the attacks on Christians must be unequivocally con­ demned, it is obvious that the damages and casualties were quite minimal when compared with the thou­ sand or more Muslims slaughtered by the Egyptian military.

Following the initial massacres, the vast majority of pro-Morsi protesters gathered in momentary safety at scattered locations for fear of returning home, where the chauvinistic fury unleashed by the capitalistcontrolled media in all its variations all but called for house-to-house attacks to drive the “Islamists” from the nation. To date all such encampments have been decimated. A reign of terror prevails.

The repression employed against Muslims and all others under attack by the military-backed regime must be categorically opposed by all who seek to unite Egypt’s oppressed masses today and in the future, re­ gardless of the Morsi government’s brutal attacks and murderous treatment of Egyptian workers who had struggled to better their lives.

Unfortunately, some groups in the workers’ movement have heedlessly echoed the statements against the Mus­ lim Brotherhood that regularly appear in the jingoistic bourgeois media. In this manner, the Socialist Party of Egypt (SP) released a statement early on that heaped scorn on the “authorities” for not sufficiently arresting and holding accountable the “instigators of sedition and violence.”

Moreover, the multi-class leadership and initiators of the massive June 30 Tamarrud petition mobilization that called for Morsi’s resignation and new elections have largely ignored, if not supported, the current terror employed against the Muslim community.

In fact, the great majority of them, in­ cluding the three parties that ran can­ didates against Morsi the previous year along with barely disguised supporters of the old regime, almost immediately declared their support to General Sisi’s call for mass mobilizations against MB’s sit-in protests and against the Muslim Brotherhood more generally.

These forces, with few exceptions, supported without equivocation Sisi’s call for a “mandate” to use force and violence to eliminate the MB from the Egyptian scene. This “mandate” was nothing less than a call to sanction or express authorization for mass murder.

The whirlwind of events since the mass rebellions that first toppled Mubarak in 2011, and since the even greater mobilization of June 30 demanding an end to the year-old Morsi government, have left Egyptian society deeply divided. Significant layers suffer from what might be defined as “historical amnesia” with regard to Mubarak’s bloody crimes as well as those of his erstwhile capitalist allies, secular and MB alike. Although they were sometimes persecuted and ex­ cluded to varying degrees, the MB leaders neverthe­ less tolerated or were complicit with his decades-long murderous regime, and were among the last to take to the streets demanding Mubarak’s ouster.

Today, ousted president Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief Islamic leader, Khairat Shater, along with daily increasing numbers of MB leaders, remain in prison despite U.S. and worldwide pressure to release them and bring about a negotiated “com­ promise” wherein the MB would be allowed to partici­ pate in new elections and be represented in a future government. Before the Aug. 13 crackdown, Morsi and his leading supporters signaled their agreement with the plan.

The giant June 30 mobilizations demanding Morsi’s resignation and new elections were an explosive ex­ pression of the mass hatred of Morsi’s reactionary and pro-capitalist economic and social measures. He carried out those measures in full accord with the old regime—the still powerful and unchecked felool and the U.S.-backed and economically powerful, if not dominant, military-industrial establishment, which controls an estimated 25 to 40 percent of the Egyp­ tian economy.

While it is true that the old regime exacerbated Morsi’s insoluble dilemma—that is, presiding over a crisis-ridden capitalist state in the context of a world­ wide capitalist economic crisis—Morsi’s solutions, like theirs, could only take effect at the expense of the Egyptian masses. No capitalist government on earth, secular or Muslim, dictatorship or “democratic,” or any other variant, is today capable of significant re­ forms, not to mention improvements, in the quality of life of the oppressed masses.

Morsi remained tied to the old regime and its poli­ cies by his inherent incapacity to break with the ex­ ploitative capitalist social system. He remained tied to this system by a thousand chains and institutions of the old order, which he left virtually intact. Role of the imperialists Obama administration officials continue to pressure the now unveiled military dictatorship to exercise a (continued on page 7)

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SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2013 7 (continued from page 6)

modicum of restraint, if for no reason other than to lend credence to the fiction of U.S. government concern for “democracy.” It is clear, however, that the now unleashed military-led regime—bloated with the de­ lusion that its brutal repression will be ac­ cepted or go unanswered indefinitely by the Egyptian masses, and boosted by the $18 billion promised by the Saudi and Qatari monarchies—feels no need to maintain any pretence of enlightenment.

The U.S. has expressed polite words of concern over the renewed military repres­ sion in Egypt. There is little doubt, however, that behind the scenes the world’s imperial powers intend continued support to their long-time Egyptian allies. Such is the case with the puppet regimes and/or dictators that the U.S. backs with impunity through­ out the Middle East and the Magreb, from Tunisia and Libya to Afghanistan and Iraq— not to mention the racist, Zionist Israeli set­ tler state, whose daily actions portend the “final” physical exclusion of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland.

The leading politicians and top advisers of U.S. imperialism cynically believe that anything and everything can be “negotiated” with their lesser capitalist “allies” if the alternatives (pri­ vately or secretly posed) would be the imposition of imperial power via death-squad governments akin to Mubarak’s, overt military intervention, economic embargo/blockade, or selected drone assassinations. These U.S. weapons of mass destruction have been routinely employed to varying degrees in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere to “stabilize” U.S. imperialist-destroyed states and advance U.S. corpo­ rate interests.

The lion’s share of Iraqi oil profits, however dis­ guised, flow into U.S. corporate coffers; Afghanistan’s resources and strategic geographic location remain under imperialist control; Libya’s oil, and the resourc­ es of poor nations throughout Africa and Asia more generally, are mercilessly re-colonized. It matters not if the new rulers are “elected” or come to power in imperialist-backed coups; the end result is the same. From the new imperialist point of view, unstable re­ gimes and dictatorships of every variety can be toler­ ated—provided only that they are subservient.

The slaughter of the Cairo sit-in protesters—which shocked the entire world—was not the preferred choice of the leaders of global capitalism. Virtually all of them issued perfunctory statements of condemna­ tion. U.S. Secretary State John Kerry said that Egypt’s political reconciliation efforts had suffered a “serious blow.” Kerry added, according to the BBC, “This is a pivotal moment for all Egyptians. The path toward violence leads only to greater instability, economic di­ saster, and suffering.” Similar statements came from the UN Secretary General and the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron.

However, all rejected designating as a coup the mili­ tary’s usurpation of a legitimate and unprecedented mass mobilization against a regime that had lost its credibility. The U.S. government in particular, threats to the contrary, ignored its own law prohibiting aid to regimes that come to power by forcibly removing elected governments. To date, the U.S. has declined to cut off the $1.3 billion it annually bestows on its longtime Egyptian military allies. In fact, this sum has already been allocated to the regime of the generals. Regardless of the formalities, there is little doubt that next year’s payment for the regime’s services to impe­ rialism will continue, perhaps in veiled forms.

Notwithstanding his threats to halt the aid, or to or­ der a temporary face-saving suspension of it, Presi­ dent Obama and his representatives stand ready to facilitate or force a settlement that, for the moment at least, refurbishes the image of Egypt as a “demo­ cratic” albeit blood-stained state. Indeed, shortly after the July 3 coup, top State Department officials pro­ claimed that Egypt would now have “a second chance at democracy.” This “second chance” is by no means to be excluded today. Just as the overtly corrupt Afghan Karzai regime retains “power” with U.S. support, fol­ lowing the present bloodletting, Mubarak’s men may well accede to “democratic” elections once again, hav­ ing vanquished all potential opposition.

Healing the massive divisions that today plague Egypt’s workers, peasants, and the poor is a prerequi­ site to re-focusing the just anger of the vast majority against the horrific conditions imposed by Mubarak and Morsi—that is, against Egypt’s capitalist elite.

The relatively sudden shift of popular sentiment from Morsi to the military, with the latter tragically hailed by many in the streets as national saviors, is far from the final chapter of the still-unfolding revolu­ tionary wave in Egypt today. No wing of Egypt’s capi­ talists offer the slightest solution to the critical issues that have repeatedly brought millions and even tens of millions into the streets demanding fundamental change.

In the United States, antiwar and social justice fight­ ers must begin by demanding an immediate end to all U.S. aid to Egypt and an end to all U.S. intervention in the affairs of that nation.

Need for mass revolutionary party In Egypt the still extremely limited and varied so­ cialist currents have hopefully learned some critical lessons, including rejecting electoral or any other sup­ port to any and all capitalist candidates. In their pro­ paganda and agitation they must also warn against the possibility that the vast majority’s wholly justi­ fied expectation of democratic change may again be manipulated to achieve reactionary ends. This was the case when the U.S.-backed and advised Egyptian military seized the moment to remove Morsi and to posture as national saviors, only to be unmasked as the murderers that they have always been.

The catastrophe that almost immediately followed the June 30 multi-million-person mobilization de­ manding Morsi’s resignation was likely unexpected by the great mass of the participants. But this was certainly not the case with the Tamarrud’s central leadership, most of whom undoubtedly believed that Morsi’s removal would be a mere act of regime change at the top carried out by the military, perhaps akin to Mubarak’s “removal” in 2011. Without doubt, it is in­ contestable that elements in the Tamarrud had previ­ ously consulted with the military regarding the mobi­ lization’s desired outcome, that is, an overt return of the military to power, if not the annihilation of the MB.

The tragedy here lies in the massive disconnect be­ tween the desire of the vast majority to continue the revolutionary process begun with Mubarak’s removal following the historic mobilizations and confronta­ tions at Tahrir Square in 2011 and the almost total ab­ sence of any conception as to what institutions might be imposed or even suggested to replace the Morsi government, not to mention the capitalist state power.

There may have been some barely audible voices among the Tamarrud supporters calling for a general strike to bring down Morsi, but no discussion as to what institutions might replace him, other than per­ haps a new election—presumably to be scheduled and organized by the military.

Whatever aspirations for a general strike might have been expressed by forces with little influence, there was absolutely no response from any of Egypt’s multiple and deeply divided reformist or overtly pro-government trade-union federations. In fact, a central leader of the relatively new Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions accepted a top post in the “interim cabinet” announced by the military following its coup.

This federation, largely a decentralized and uncon­ solidated association of local unions with little or no authoritative centralized leadership, as well as all other trade unions that endorsed the June 30 mobili­ zation, acceded to the Tamarrud leadership’s request that they not march under their own union banners and instead accept those of the Tamarrud.

In short, June 30 was an unprecedented and justified mobilization of the Egyptian masses for fundamental social change. But it was also lacking in any coherent leadership other than those controlling elements that looked to the military as the only force to, at best, or­ ganize new elections, and at worst, to be the agency for the literal extermination of the MB and the open restoration of the old regime.

From the earliest emergence of class-divided societ­ ies, the historic struggle for liberation from the rule of the few over the many has been marked by great ad­ vances as well as tragic defeats. In the modern era no capitalist regime has ever been replaced by a majori­ tarian socialist-oriented social order without the ac­ tive participation of the masses of the oppressed and exploited and without a previously organized massive and deeply rooted revolutionary party.

Such a party would be prepared to challenge the ex­ ploiters for power and prepared to bring into being a new social order based on the emergence of fun­ damentally new institutions created by the working class and their allies themselves. In the revolutionary Russia of 1917, these institutions were the workers, peasants, and soldiers councils (soviets is the Russian term).

These democratic organizations represented the vast majority of the working masses. They were based on direct election of delegates from the organizations of the people where they worked or toiled as well as among the soldiers’ regiments themselves. All elected delegates were subject to immediate recall, thus as­ suring that they reflected the political consciousness of the masses on virtually a day-to-day basis.

The revolutionary aspirations of Egypt’s working masses have been at least momentarily thwarted. The same is the case with virtually all the momentous up­ risings of the Arab Spring. They have been hampered by a profound crisis of leadership. History once again teaches with a vengeance that the world is not lacking in the capacity of its peoples to rise up to challenge the most demonic regimes. It is lacking, for the time being at least, in revolutionary socialist parties that are capable of channeling the power of these repeated mass mobilizations for profound social change into a challenge for state power itself.

History teaches that there is no straight line to this revolutionary transformation of society. The great Russian Revolution of October 1917 had its roots, at least in part, 12 years earlier when the St. Petersburg masses had marched, religious icons in hand, to the Tsar’s Winter Palace, demanding bread. They were met with gunfire and death, but their illusions in the “great monarch’s” benevolence were shattered. They came back twice again in 1917, the first time to re­ move the Tsar and the second to remove the “liberal” provisional capitalist government that had proved in­ capable of meeting their elementary needs.

In the course of those 12 years in Russia, revolu­ tionary fighters carefully constructed a deeply rooted and massive revolutionary socialist party, which was free from any illusions in capitalist self-reform, and was prepared to storm the heavens to bring into be­ ing the world’s first state based on the direct rule of the working masses and the expropriation of the ex­ propriators—that is, the ruling capitalist minority. Nothing less will meet the challenges posed by the uprisings that the Arab Spring ignited throughout the Middle East. n

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Fourth International youth camp hosts revolutionaries from around the world By DANIEL ADAM and LISA LUINENBURG On Aug. 3-9, some 400 young revolutionaries from around the world gathered in Greece to attend the Fourth International’s 30th annual youth camp. The authors of this article, members of Socialist Action (U.S.), were able to participate in the camp this year and share their experiences in the United States while learning from other young socialists.

Socialist Action is a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International (FI) since reactionary legis­ lation in the U.S. prevents its being a formal member.

The gathering comes amid years of world economic crisis and a series of mass uprisings throughout the globe, most notably in Greece itself. This context made the camp a highly fertile ground for broad ranging political discussion. The central debates in the camp concerned the very political direction of the Fourth International and its member parties.

Representatives from every country reported cuts in health care and education, youth unemployment rates sometimes above 50%, and attacks on teach­ ers and students. In Denmark, 70,000 teachers were locked out, and in Greece teachers recently went on strike. Students in Denmark, Canada, Spain, the UK, and Mexico are fighting back against education cuts and tuition hikes. Delegates frequently discussed the increase in precarious work. The increases in political repression and surveillance in a number of countries were also striking.

At the same time, the young delegates reported that trade-union leadership in most of their countries has proved incapable of leading a pushback. Social demo­ crats and other reformists have taken office in many countries but have only continued the austerity cut­ backs and attacks on workers.

The spontaneous protests, workers’ and students’ struggles, and even general strikes unfolding in coun­ tries like Greece, Tunisia, Brazil, and Turkey still have not been able to overcome the absence of a revolu­ tionary leadership. Frequently these struggles have been dispersed after a few months; some political movements are beginning to face grave threats.

In Greece, Golden Dawn, a fascist party, has targeted immigrants and other oppressed groups with violent attacks and racist propaganda. By all accounts the group appears to have cooperation from the police. In Tunisia, two leaders of opposition currents have been assassinated, including the leader of the alliance sup­ ported by the FI section there. Even in Germany, where the struggle has been at a much lower level, delegates said that over 150 people, including immigrants and people of color, have been killed by fascists.

Still, members of the Greek section made sure to caution visitors against overestimating the present strength of the Golden Dawn. Their new socialist of­ fice, for instance, rests in a neighborhood controlled by the left, where the fascists never set foot, and the police enter only in large armed contingents.

Two young women from Turkey described their 8 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2013 work within the recent uprisings centered on Istan­ bul’s Taksim Square. They described the persecution that many left groups underwent in Turkey in the 1980s, and the opportunities they have had to work together again during the recent protests. Despite weeks of protests they believe that a lot of work still needs to be done to unite the different groups that make up the left in Turkey.

A young socialist woman from Ireland spoke about the struggle for reproductive rights in her country. She described how her pro-choice group helped break the recent story about Savita Halappanavar, a dentist living in Galway, who died after she was refused an abortion when she was miscarrying. Her death led to protests of thousands in Ireland and provoked an in­ ternational outcry.

The Mexican delegation from the PRT (Partido Rev­ olucionario de los Trabajadores) is working in the SME (Sindicato de Electristas Mexicanos, or Mexican Electrical Workers Union) to help form an alterna­ tive labor party. Unfortunately, the leadership of the new party supported a bourgeois candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in the last election. The SME is one of the most combative unions in Mexico. Some 44,000 workers were fired several years ago during an attempt to privatize the Mexican electrical system, and 16,000 of those workers are continuing to strug­ gle. The young comrades have also been active in Yo­ Soy132, a recent student movement.

According to long-time participants, the discussions in the camp dealt far more directly with the political direction of the Fourth International than in previous years. The sharpest expression of this debate grew over the direction of the NPA (New Anti-capitalist Party) in France.

The NPA was founded in 2009 by the LCR (Revolu­ tionary Communist League, the former French section of the Fourth International), by drawing in its periph­ ery and a few much smaller tendencies to create a far more heterogeneous grouping. The formation was initiated in order to build a larger left party, and grab the political space that the social democracy had lost when it began implementing austerity measures on behalf of the capitalist class.

The NPA was founded with over 9000 members— an increase of 6000 over its predecessor, the LCR. Now the NPA’s numbers have fallen down to 3000 or fewer. Losses include a split of some 700 who left to join Jean-Luc Melanchon’s reformist Left Front, taking with them a major layer of young leaders, including many staff.

This crisis, coming as mass uprisings around the world are bursting in wave after wave, has bolstered opposition tendencies within the party. These tenden­ cies were represented at the NPA’s last convention as W, Y, and Z. (the X platform represented the positions of the incumbent leadership).

Members of the Y platform believe that the launch of the NPA was necessary, but argue that the sharp fall in membership expresses a crisis of orientation and political clarity. They oppose the orientation of seiz­ ing the space formerly held by reformists. In their ex­ perience this has meant preventing many key debates from reaching a conclusion, and failing to systemati­ cally educate the ranks in revolutionary politics.

The mass exodus towards Melanchon’s Left Front demonstrates one obvious weakness of the present approach: The membership increase that is won at the expense of clear politics can just as easily be taken away by a new, larger reformist party.

The Y platform has come to see the focus on elector­ al strategy itself as a distraction from building inde­ pendent mass action in the streets. In a formal panel debate on the question, a Y representative empha­ sized that the recent uprisings around the world have underlined the need to prepare for a revolutionary crisis. The Y platform will establish itself as a formal tendency of the NPA in the coming months.

The Z platform originated in a tendency founded by followers of the Argentine Trotskyist Nahuel Moreno. Its members at the camp agreed with many points of critique laid out by the Y platform. Members of the Z platform presented a relatively finished program, while the Y platform’s members expressed a wider variety of perspectives, reflecting all levels of politi­ cal sophistication. The W platform represents an an­ archist tendency that did not appear to be present at the camp.

The debate surrounding the NPA touched upon burning questions for practically every section. Many countries now have more than one affiliate to the Fourth International, each with a different approach­ es to party organization, electoral strategy, or even revolution and reform. The FI section in Italy split down the middle, with one portion rejecting parties altogether, and possibly even trade-unions as well.

Many sections have experimented with NPA-like for­ mations, joining reformist parties, or joining electoral alliances. For quite a few it has involved serious errors and betrayals, including votes for austerity measures, for imperialist war credits, and often the complete disappearance of the FI section. It is certainly heart­ ening that many of these turns are facing increasing scrutiny.

Nonetheless, at a time when mass upheavals are becoming the norm, the question remains: How will revolutionaries make contact with the radicalizing masses? The conscious seizure of power by the work­ ing millions requires a mass revolutionary party. Of course, the question of alliances or entry into other groups was not at all off the table for anyone. The is­ sue was the political orientation expressed by such projects.

The women’s space and the debate on feminism were highlights of the camp. Every day included a separate women’s space, where young women from the camp met to discuss issues that affect them all as women and as Marxists. Women and LGBT people led workshops and participated in panels and discussions throughout the week and were given ample time to contribute their unique perspectives on all issues.

The numerous perspectives and experiences shared by the participants were invaluable. This meeting con­ cretized for participants the understanding of what it means to build an international party of the working class. n

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SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2013 9 ... SYRIA (continued from page 1: “U.S. hands off Syria!”) able “transitional national council” with a semblance of credibility among the Syrian masses. Syria’s most principled and effective fighters oppose Assad, U.S. intervention, and reactionary fundamen­ talist or other “rebels” forces armed and beholden to imperialism.

Obama has prescribed “limited” and “precise” Tomahawk Missile strikes, per­ haps 300, launched from four “ready on the alert” U.S. warships stationed in the Mediterranean Sea in order to “punish” Syria. However, the British Parliament’s vote to reject support to U.S. military ac­ tion against Syria, followed by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that Germany would not become involved militarily (at least for now), has slowed the U.S. war machine’s desire for an immediate strike.

Moreover, despite the enormous pres­ sures they have exerted, U.S. diplomats failed to announce any significant sup­ port from Middle Eastern nations, includ­ ing from the Arab League and countries that are even more intimately aligned to U.S. policy.

Although he lacked UN, NATO, or Mid­ dle Eastern support, or even a partner among the ranks of top U.S. allies, and despite the fact that national polls dem­ onstrated majority American opposition to a war against Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry nevertheless pressed on for a “go it alone” military strike.

But Obama’s rush to war was at least temporarily stalled when bipartisan Congressional opposition indicated that even in the legislative belly of the impe­ rial beast the president might not have majority support.

Obama virtually taunted Congress to defy him, declaring at the White House on Aug. 31, “I am ready to give the or­ der.” However, a section of the ruling rich no doubt believes that little or nothing would be accomplished with Obama’s proposed adventure, and much more might be lost with regard to the already severely diminished U.S. credibility.

The matter will supposedly be decided when Congress resumes on Monday, Sept. 9. In the interim, antiwar and social justice forces are mobilizing for protests across the country—in almost in every instance, properly focusing on the de­ mand, “No U.S. War on Syria!”

Socialist Action fully supports this criti­ cal focus and the efforts of the United Na­ tional Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) to unite and mobilize the broadest sections of the antiwar movement and all social justice fighters in mass actions to stop any U.S. attack on Syria. UNAC co-coordinators Joe Lombardo and Marilyn Levin have ... March on Washington (continued from page 12: “Washington march organizers fritter away fightback potential”)

was ignoring all those who told him to just stay in his lane, just stick to talking about civil rights. Yet here I am decades later, staying in my lane. I have not been speaking publicly about the relationship between drones abroad and the War on Drugs at home. I have not been talking about the connections between the corrupt capitalism that bails out Wall Street bankers, moves jobs overseas, and forecloses on homes with zeal, all while private prisons yield high returns and expand operations into a new market: caging immi­ grants.

“I have not been connecting the dots between the NSA spying on millions of Americans, the labeling of mosques as ‘terrorist organizations,’ and the spy pro­ grams of the 1960s and 70s—specifically the FBI and COINTELPRO programs that placed civil rights ad­ vocates under constant surveillance, infiltrated civil rights organizations, and assassinated racial justice leaders. I have been staying in my lane.

“But no more. In my view, the most important les­ son we can learn from Dr. King is not what he said at the March on Washington, but what he said and did after. In the years that followed, he did not play politics to see what crumbs a fundamentally corrupt system might toss to the beggars of justice. Instead he connected the dots and committed himself to build­ properly made explicit their coalition’s view that everyone opposed to U.S. im­ perialist intervention, regardless of their views on the civil war in Syria, must take to the streets in united efforts to stop the proposed U.S. military strike now.

Socialist Action stands squarely op­ posed to all U.S. intervention in Syria while simultaneously supporting the right of the people of Syria to self-de­ termination. Socialist Action was among the first to hail the massive and repeat­ ed popular and peaceful uprisings that challenged the dictatorial regime and neoliberal economic policies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. These mobi­ lizations were regularly met with brute military force.

Today these forces, organized largely in Local Coordinating Committees that provide a modicum of defense and sig­ nificant vital social services to Syria’s beleaguered people, if they prove capa­ ble of sinking deep roots into the entire population, can become central to any working-class challenge to Assad’s pow­ er, or that of any other tyrant who might follow. The critical need to build a revo­ lutionary socialist party and associated mass working-class formations, however limited the opportunities today, remains essential to any successful challenge to Syria’s capitalist order.

Socialist Action rejects support to the U.S. or Saudi-Qatari-funded forces, or to any others in the region that funnel aid to achieve U.S. objectives. Many of these semi-secret U.S. weapons providers, while advancing U.S. corporate interests, simultaneously seek to impose on the popular opposition, and on Syria itself, a reactionary fundamentalist ideology and practice that would have Syria ruled by clerical reaction rather than the op­ pressed working masses.

It is not at all peculiar that the fun­ damentalist forces that are militarily backed, directly or indirectly, by U.S. im­ perialism are the same forces simultane­ ously deemed as terrorists by the Obama administration. U.S. imperialism has no qualms about supporting the most hei­ nous elements provided only that they are subordinate to its global pursuits.

Tragically, Syrian society is deeply di­ vided, with even a portion of the secular forces in the diffuse Free Syrian Army demanding and receiving U.S. imperial­ ist aid, acceptance of which never comes without agreements to subordinate the interest of the vast population to the rich and powerful in Syria or their U.S. bene­ factors. However fraught with immense difficulties at the present juncture, Syria’s future rests in the capacity of its working masses to chart a revolutionary and inde­ pendent course—the only political and social orientation capable of effectively defeating Assad’s dictatorship and impe­ rialist efforts to re-colonize Syria.

The U.S. antiwar movement in the main has courageously and properly stood above Obama’s effort to justify a U.S. war based on the unproven charge that the Assad regime used Sarin gas to murder hundreds of Syrians. So deep has been Tony Savino / Socialist Action ing a movement that would shake the foundations of our economic and social order, so that the dream he preached in 1963 might one day be a reality for all. He said that nothing less than ‘a radical restructuring of society’ could possibly ensure justice and dignity for all. He was right … I’m getting out of my lane. I hope you’re already out of yours.”

Frankly, Alexander is being a little hard on herself Tony Savino / Socialist Action the exposé of previous U.S. pretexts for war, that there are few takers who today automatically jump to the conclusion that the evidence produced by U.S. spy agencies is true.

From “Remember the Maine!” (the 1898 pretext used to conquer Cuba and take Guantanamo Bay), to the Tonkin Bay fabrication that was employed to justify escalating the Vietnam War that killed four million Vietnamese, to Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” a deep skepticism has permeated the American conscience.

No doubt the massive spying on the emails and all other phone and electronic communications of virtually all Ameri­ cans, revealed by Edward Snowden, add to the ever deepening questioning by millions of people as to the truth of anything put forward by U.S. politicians. A Jan. 1, 2013 report on a recent Gallup poll is headlined, “Congress begins 2013 with 14% approval: Average approval for 2012 is the lowest in history.”

Even if the Assad government were proven to have employed Sarin gas, vir­ tually no one in the U.S. antiwar move­ ment would argue that the U.S. would-be “cop of the world,” whose routine torture and imprisonment of prisoners without charges or access to counsel has been universally condemned, has the moral or political standing to attack anyone.

Syria’s future resides in the will of its people to deal with their oppressors. In that endeavor, U.S. imperialism is a false ally. It should be recalled that the U.S. funded and helped orchestrate Iraq Pres­ ident Saddam Hussein’s 1980-88 war against Iran. With the full knowledge and consent of the United States, Hussein’s government employed sarin gas against Iranian Kurds—which killed thousands. That secretly U.S.-funded war is estimat­ ed to have taken the lives of well over a million people.

U.S. imperialism’s aim then was to pun­ ish the Iranian people for their revolu­ tionary ouster of the U.S.-imposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi regime, in­ stalled in 1953 by a U.S.-orchestrated, CIA-led coup. Today, no one doubts that the overriding objective of the U.S. in the Iraq-Iran War was to recoup the oil re­ sources of the region.

Each and every U.S. war in the Middle East has been met with, and continues to be met with, the concerted opposition of the people of the occupied nations. How­ ever distorted this opposition may be at any given time, it is clear that the recolonization of the Middle East today by the world’s top superpower is detested by the world’s people. n No U.S. war on Syria! Self-determina­ tion for the Syrian people! Money for jobs and education—not for war!

(Left) March leaders ignored the fact that Dr. King was an unflinching activist against U.S. war policy.

and minimizing the crucial voice she has provided around the New Jim Crow, enabling millions to think anew about connections between issues. But we stand squarely behind her call for all of us to deepen our understanding of those connections. And as so­ cialists we see those connections as part of a system, one governed by a ruling class that combines class ex­ ploitation with national and gender oppression, with wars and repression, to maintain its profits.

For that reason we trace the similarities noted by Professor Jones between the Kennedy and Obama Administrations (and, we would add, that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, target of Randolph’s first “March on Washington Movement”) back to the ruling-class dominance of this country’s two major parties.

And the conclusion we draw from all that, when viewing this year’s March, is the dire and pressing need for independent politics free of the Democratic and Republican parties, an independent politics root­ ed in the working class, especially in communities of color and among women workers. Only then will we be able to unleash the militant and creative spirit manifested in the Trayvon Martin rallies, a spirit la­ tent in this year’s March on Washington but shrouded under its organizers’ spirit-damping agenda of sub­ servience to the powers that be. n

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The terror employed against Muslims and others by the military-led regime must be categorically opposed.

In the United States, anti­ war activists must demand an immediate end to all U.S. aid to Egypt.