Imperialism’s terrorist war in Syria

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• The Unfinished Revolution: South Africa Today: Patrick Bond, professor at Univer­ sity of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa; Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Black Agenda Organization of Communist Internationalists-Spartacus (Greece); Stan Meunier, New Anti­ capitalist Party youth organizer (France); Christine Marie, Socialist Action (U.S.); Christina The Left Forum will take place on the May 29-31 weekend at the John Jay Law Center in U.S. imperialism’s selective “War on Ter­ rorism” excludes some terrorists that the Obama administration finds more than suitable allies in its effort to bring down the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

On April 25, a combination of these “rebels” captured the city of Jisr alShoughour, the provincial capital and second largest city of Idlib province in northeast Syria. The previous month, alQaeda’s Syrian-based Nursa Front, an or­ ganization designated as terrorist by the U.S. government, occupied other parts of Idlib.

The Nursa front was joined in this ef­ fort by the Islamist “hardline” group, Ahrar al-Sham, and the U.S.-funded and armed “secular” Free Syrian Army (FSA). The latter has been deemed by the U.S. military as a rather ineffective force that more often than not “loses” its U.S.-pro­ vided weapons to al-Qaeda and/or Islam­ ic State (ISIS) groups—who do the lion’s share of the fighting.

To date all Obama administration ef­ forts to lend a semblance of secular cred­ ibility to the Free Syrian Army, via count­ less conferences overseen by Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva and else­ where, have come to naught. Thus, the FSA, which alternately fights alongside the U.S. and Egyptian-sponsored terror­ ist groups or skirmishes against them, has little or no weight in Syria itself.

ISIS itself, largely a creation of the Saudi Arabian monarchy and otherwise en­ gaged in eastern Syria and Iraq, was not a 4 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 2015 party to the recent victories in Idlib. ISIS, yesterday’s U.S. secret weapon in Syria, today seeks to remove the newest U.S.-in­ stalled government of Haider as-Abadi in Iraq. Yesterday’s U.S. rabid dog has today turned to bite the master hand that fed it, albeit with the go-ahead and support of the Saudi oil monarchs.

Observers close to the scene were quick to note that the “key” to the recent “rebel” victories was a combination of “captured anti-tank missiles” (presumably U.S. sup­ plied to the FSA) and the free flow of arms and terrorists through the Turkish bor­ der. This flow has been facilitated by the recent rapprochement between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with the latter mon­ archy, emboldened by its U.S.-supported saturation bombing of Yemen, feeling less inclined to hide the massive financial and military aid that it provides to ISIS.

Indeed, the Saudi oil barons expressed concern that last month’s U.S.-saturation bombing of ISIS forces in Tikrit, Iraq, not take too devastating a toll on its ISIS pro­ tégés.

The imperialist-funded and U.S.-Saudiabetted terrorist military advance in Syria brings these forces closer to Syria’s coastal cities, a current stronghold of the Syrian government. The Syrian press agency Sana reported that Syrian gov­ ernment forces were “facing the terrorist groups flowing in huge numbers through the Turkish border.”

The April 26 New York Times reported, “Saudi Arabia and Turkey, longtime sup­ porters of the uprising against Mr. Assad, are prepared to step up aid to insurgents with or without American support. Saudi Arabia has flexed its muscles lately in the region, most notably with its air war in Yemen to counteract what it sees as dan­ gerous steps toward reconciliation with Iran, its main rival, and the United States.”

What began four years ago in the initial stages of the Arab Spring as a popular uprising—undoubtedly with the clan­ destine encouragement of U.S.-funded NGOs—against the Assad regime’s lack of democracy and corruption, and its impo­ sition of neoliberal austerity measures, rapidly devolved into an imperialist as­ sault on Syria with the “regime change” intention of replacing Assad with a more U.S.-friendly capitalist government.

Today, those radical or socialist forces that participated in the earliest antiAssad mobilizations, which were brutally crushed by Assad, have no significant presence in Syria. We know of no inde­ pendent forces with sizable social weight Report; Marty Goodman, Socialist Action Palliou, OKDE-Spartacus (Greece).

Manhattan. For a full schedule: www.leftforum.org. • The Fight Against Austerity in Europe and the United States: Manos Soufoglo, in the country. The construction of a revolutionary socialist party remains a critical, although long-term, perspective and necessity.

The initial short-lived rising of op­ pressed Syrian peasants and some ele­ ments in the working class has today devolved into a U.S. and allied-led reac­ tionary effort, employing even the most ardent terrorist groups, who off and on ally with imperialism to achieve their own anti-social ends, to further global­ ize U.S. imperialism’s reach and control of the people and resources of the region.

Without equivocation, the central re­ sponsibility of all antiwar and social justice organizations is to demand and mobilize for the immediate and total end to all U.S. and allied intervention in Syria and to fully support the right to self-de­ termination of the Syria people.

The defeat of imperialist intervention is the prerequisite for the Syrian masses to organize their own independent class-struggle forces for the liberation of their nation. n Going to the Left Forum?

Don’t miss the two panels sponsored by Socialist Action Books!

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... Massive protest by low-wage workers (continued from page 1: “Massive protest by low-wage workers”) and workers across industries, and ended with a raucous finale in Midtown Manhattan, where an estimated 10,000 construction workers took the streets against the exertions of both police and union leaders ... warehouse workers at a UPS facility in Canarsie hosted their own rally with state and city elected of­ ficials to demand a $15 minimum wage.

“Workers say the Brooklyn loading facility is operated almost entirely by part-timers who earn a starting wage of $10 an hour.”

The Chicago Tribune centered on ac­ tions in support of adjunct college fac­ ulty: “The Fight for $15 campaign is rallying to unionize an estimated 8,000 part-time professors in the Chicago area, aiming to expand its initial focus on fast-food workers at chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King, to child care, janitors and other service-sector employees.” A Socialist Action corre­ spondent reported that about 5000 participated.

From the Los Angeles Times: “Nearly 1,000 fast-food workers, Walmart em­ ployees and union members in Los Angeles joined nationwide protests Wednesday calling for a $15 minimum wage. The protest, which also called for unionizing fast-food workers, started in front of a McDonald’s on W. 28th and Figueroa streets and ended at USC.

“Protesters chanted “We want 15” or “Sí se puede” (Yes we can) to the beat of drums and the music of a full band that played on a truck parked out­ side the McDonald’s. Many protesters wore brightly colored union T-shirts, and three huge balloons with ‘$15’ or ‘#fightfor15’ drifted above the crowd.”

Minnesota Public Radio said, “Workers and other supporters of a minimum $15 hourly wage, paid sick days and other benefits staged protests across the Twin Cities Wednesday, including at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Air­ port and University of Minnesota. The U event drew an estimated 1,000 people.” Barb Kucera in Workday Minnesota de­ scribed how the action evolved into massive, peaceful civil disobedience:

“At age 17, Keonna Laury attends high school—and works 33 hours a week at Burger King to help support her family of seven. Some nights she does not get home until after midnight, then must do her homework before arising early for school. She earns $9.25 an hour and has 40 percent were workers and students showing solidarity, many organized by unions and Jobs with Justice. Labor Party Advocates was visible with their signature banner and received many thumbs-up.

At the conclusion, most lined up for a march to the University of Missouri Kansas City campus, where they were welcomed by a contingent of UMKC students as well as adjunct professors explaining why they were getting on board with the Fight for 15.

The 15now.org website featured a round up of reports of April 15 actions in many other cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Portland, Ore. 15 and a Union! 15 Now!

These two slogans arise from different perspectives of complimentary move­ ments sharing the same goal for a new wage floor. The testimony of the work­ ing poor makes clear they suffer not only from unconscionable low pay; they also face terrible working conditions, disrespectful and arbitrary treatment from management—and a high rate of on the job injuries. They need a union to effectively address those issues in addi­ tion to winning 15.

The 15 Now movement focuses on es­ tablishing city and state minimum wage laws with a floor of 15 for all workers, organized or not. As the UPS workers the interests of the entire working class.

The newly formed CIO especially went after the low-paid, unskilled factory workers who had been ignored by AFL craft unions in basic industries—build­ ing from scratch what became the Unit­ ed Auto Workers, United Steel Workers, United Electrical Workers, United Pack­ inghouse Workers, and others. They were assisted by generous financial support from one of the oldest unions— the United Mine Workers—who had the vision to understand that organized la­ bor had to grow to remain viable.

All talk about the de-industrialization of America is bogus. U.S. manufactur­ ing production is second to none. But technology has greatly reduced manu­ facturing employment, and industrial union membership has plummeted. Food and Retail are the dominant sec­ tors of job growth today. Walmart is the biggest private sector employer in the USA—and the whole world. More workers toil under the Golden Arches of McDonald’s in this country than are covered by union contracts at General Motors, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Electric and Boeing combined.

With much more vision and honesty than her predecessor, SEIU president Mary Kay Henry has staked her repu­ Tony Savino / Socialist Action tation and the union’s resources on or­ ganizing today’s equivalent of Depres­ sion-era factory hands—again so long neglected by mainstream unions. Re­ ports filed with the Labor Department indicate SEIU has spent $25 million so far on the Fight for Fifteen.

SEIU has also reached out to natural allies in civil rights, women’s rights, im­ migrant worker rights, and student ac­ tivist groups, giving the Fight for Fifteen the character of a movement for social justice. The Guardian article mentioned above quotes Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark Univer­ sity: “In the Fight for $15, unions are helping to organize on a community basis a group of workers who are on the fringe of the economy. It’s not about union members protecting themselves. It’s about moving other people up. This is the whole civil rights movement all over again.”

To be sure, sister Henry is not a par­ agon. SEIU is still politically devoted to the Democrats—a concealed lethal weapon of boss rule. But John L Lewis, who used the Miners union to enable the CIO, was no saint either. It’s still ear­ ly days, but the Fight for 15 is the most promising front for our side in the class war being waged against us today. n