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Trump Kills Iran Nuclear Deal

U.S., Israel Stockpiling Nuclear Warheads

Hands Off Iran!

By Quest Riggs

In early May, the head of the US, our would-be emperor Trump, arrogantly declared he was “pulling out“ of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. The entire world agreed that Iran had completely adhered to the deal, but Trump ignore everyone. This was a move to crush the people of Iran and take over their country for U.S corporate interests.

Trump’s decision also, in violation of all international law, moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. These two actions were also similar because they were both aggressive “stand-alone” actions on the part of the US and Israel, and they were not even supported by their imperialist allies like France and Saudi Arabia.

Both decisions have been met with world outrage by those who see them for what they are – naked imperialist aggression at the expense of the Palestinians, Iranians and all people of the Middle East.

What was the Iran Nuclear Deal?
Iran has always denied having the ability or desire to start developing a nuclear weapons program. Nevertheless, the U.S. used Iran’s small nuclear energy program to start an aggressive sanctions and military campaign against it.

The agreement was that if Iran phased-out its nuclear energy program and allowed regular inspections by international organizations, then the imperialist countries would drop their harsh decades-long sanctions on Iran. Iran accepted the deal despite its obvious unfairness because sanctions have devastated their economy and society since their republic was started. International organizations have inspected Iran dozens of times and certified there is no nuclear weapons program.

What does it all mean?
The US breaking the nuclear deal should be seen as another event in a string of aggressive moves in the Middle East by imperialists that represent their desire for world domination. The U.S. ignores any respect for Iran’s sovereignty and independence and has been planning for decades to destroy the country.

It was the U.S which openly admitted it engineered a coup in Iran which overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953, bringing decades of brutal tyranny and oppression under the Shah (king). Now it wants to destroy the Iranian Islamic Republic and seize their resources.

Who is the real nuclear threat?
The US has 7,000 nuclear warheads and Israel has 80. This makes them the first and third largest nuclear powers. The US government has proven itself barbaric enough to use atomic weapons on people. In 1945, they dropped, not one, but two atomic bombs on Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did this even though they knew the allies had already defeated imperial Japan, which was preparing to surrender. The monsters simply did it to send a message to the people of the world: don’t resist us or we can and will annihilate you. The people of Japan still wear the physical and emotional scars today.

There is no moral or security reason that the US and Israel should be dictating who can and can’t have nuclear weapons. Instead we, the people in the US, should join with the people of the world to demand that both countries suspend their nuclear programs. Our lives and the lives of people everywhere depend on it.

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Why Is the U.S. Targeting Russia?

By Gavrielle Gemma

Like a ventriloquist’s dummy the monopolized for-profit media, with all their ties to the military, repeats lies told to set the stage for bombing one country after another. It must be countered by destroying the collective amnesia that seems to have sunk into some “opposition” quarters. We are all familiar with lies told about Vietnam, Iraq, Panama, and Grenada. Edward Snowden exposed how the U.S. government hacks into every country’s government, as well as our personal email and social media, including under Obama.

Volumes have been written about U.S. interference in the elections of countries worldwide, carrying out coups installing fascist puppet governments. Why single out Russia which is now surrounded by U.S. and NATO bases and warships? Because they want to set the stage for a war with Russia to occupy that country, take their resources, and subjugate the people.  Look at Eastern Europe with extreme right-wing, even openly Nazi governments, which are colonies of the U.S., hosting its bases, destroying the rights and living standards of the people. These governments, like Saudi Arabia enjoy praise from Democrats and Republicans. Does that not expose the fact that it is material aims, not the character of a government that draws U.S. bombers?

IF YOU DON’T OPPOSE IMPERIALIST WAR AND THE MILITARY BUDGET YOU CANNOT FIGHT FOR SOCIAL NEEDS OR AGAINST RISING  FASCISM

During the rise of Nazism liberal legislators kept voting for war budgets and compromise. While workers were sounding the alarm that it was either workers’ revolution or fascism, loyalty to capitalism at all cost governed the liberals.

Nazism was a capitalist government backed by capitalists globally. Capitalism’s (Nazism) aim was to prevent revolution by the European working class, to destroy the Russian revolution, and to enslave countries as colonies.

The U.S. entered the war only after the Soviet Union, which lost 30 million people resisting the Nazis, had triumphed and the Red Army was marching across Europe. (This is seared into the Russian consciousness) The U.S. stepped in as a replacement for Nazi generals with the Marshall Plan to crush revolutions, install military forces and take part in the colonial occupation of large areas of the world. Freedom, democracy and revulsion of the Nazi Holocaust had nothing to do with it. Since then the U.S. under both Republican and Democratic administrations has trained, funded and installed fascist governments in Chile, Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and more.

Ask the Palestinian people being massacred by Israel, a fascist apartheid government backed by billions of dollars and supported wholly by Democrats and Republicans which sees Israel as its closest nuclear ally to threaten all the people in the Middle East. Ask the people of the Ukraine which Obama and Hillary Clinton imposed by coup a Nazi government in Kiev, murdering anti-fascist resistance fighters in Eastern Ukraine. This government is from a party called Svoboda, which honors veterans of the Waffen SS’s local Halychyna Brigade, a unit which was constituted in 1943 to counteract the Soviets.

All the sanctimonious talk by the monsters of imperialism about Putin’s authoritarian regime is hogwash, and blaming Russian interference for Trump’s presidency is self-serving claptrap. The people of Russia are organizing and want no part of U.S. interference or an imperialist invasion. Demonizing a country and its leaders, who used to be its friends, is their script as pretext for war.

Every worker needs to know that both the Democratic and Republicans are the parties of Wall Street, and it’s us against them. We are at a dangerous moment in time internationally and at home. The first weapon we have is truth.

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Hands Off Syria!

In early April, there was hope that the years-long occupation of Syria by the US military might be coming to a close when Trump told media he was ready to “get out.” By mid-April, however, Trump and the entire establishment reversed their position, and they started moving towards a new all-out war on Syria.

On April 7 the entire corporate media reported on a chemical attack on Syrian civilians. Immediately, they suggested that the Syrian government was responsible, even though James Mattis reported months ago that they had no evidence that the Syrian government ever used chemical weapons. Trump and his military cabinet jumped on board and used this as a pretext to threaten Syria with total invasion.

The Syrian government denied any responsibility. They reminded the world that they have always allowed chemical weapons investigations from international organizations, which have always cleared them of using or having chemical weapons. They invited the inspectors to come back once again to try to find some proof for these serious allegations. However, without any evidence, the US, UK and France attacked Syria with over 100 missiles before the inspectors could even arrive.

Most of the missiles were from the US. The attack was ultimately useless, and the Syrian military claimed victory for their defenses, though infrastructure and private research facilities were destroyed. The attack wasted $100 million of our taxes and pushed the world closer to nuclear war.

The Syrian military has emphasized that they had no reason to use chemical weapons. They have only needed traditional warfare to almost completely retake the territories held by the foreign-backed terrorist groups that have ravaged their country for six years.

The US is refusing to accept defeat in Syria. Their goal has always been to overthrow the government to secure oil profits, like they did in Iraq and Libya. And just like in those catastrophic wars for profit, they will gladly lie to us to justify the destruction.

It is ridiculous to believe that the US,UK and France are concerned about the human rights of Syrians. Firing missiles on civilian populations will not bring about peace. And all of these countries are silent when it comes to the long and brutal war on the people of Yemen by their close ally Saudi Arabia. They also supported Israel’s terrible repression of Palestinian protesters in April, where dozens were killed and thousands more wounded, some by chemical weapons.

The hypocrisy is even more evident when you recognize that the US has consistently been the number one user of chemical warfare. From napalm in Vietnam to white phosphorous in Iraq and Syria, not to mention the chemicals used on US protesters from Ferguson to Standing Rock, the US has no moral authority to attack anyone on that basis.

We workers must stand with the people of the world to stop an invasion of Syria that would block peace in the country for years. We should speak out against the war mongering of both Republicans and Democrats, and we should call for the military to leave Syria. A war against Syria would not only devastate that country, but it would also be a war on workers and oppressed communities in the US.

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Ring the Alarm Bells of Global War!

CONDEMN DEMOCRATIC, REPUBLICAN COMPLICITY: BOTH PROFIT FROM WAR, TAKE MONEY FROM OUR CHILDREN! INDEPENDENT POLITICAL
ACTION IS NEEDED!

We hold the US presidents, generals and Wall Street responsible for the endless imperialist wars. After all, they make big money from it.
They carry out genocidal terror on people in other countries, creating millions of refugees and causing the starvation of more. They scapegoat immigrants and breed racism in this country. They lie to cover their deeds. They steal from the public treasury (our taxes) and cut our social programs to enrich themselves. Their bank vaults are overflowing with war profits, blood money. And whichever party is in the White house, Democrats or Republicans, both are parties of Wall Street who pursue profit above all else.

We expect more from progressives. Many people who should know better are following the Democratic Party in a blind stampede to hang their hats on anything that attacks Trump- including a dangerous and deceptive campaign of blaming everything on Russia.

There is no lack of REAL things to expose and attack Trump for (like his war mongering and his criminal budget-cuts that steal from the poor) that the masses of people can understand, as we are his victims. The Democrats have chosen this Russia-blaming path because it is a dead-end that will never lead to any real change.

Now a few Democrats are condemning Trump’s recent brutal bombing of Syria because of its illegality, but not the root-causes of the bombing. If Congress voted to approve the bombing (not done during Obama/Clinton bombings), would that make it OK?

These are all wars of U.S. aggression. Working people have no interest in them; only the rich do. The capitalists use them as an excuse to take away our rights of privacy and expression, in the name of a false “National Security”. Real security comes from having good healthcare, housing and education; all of which is threatened by increasing military spending. War is the greatest assault on the working class: THIS is what we must expose to the people of the U.S.

The U.S. capitalist ruling class has only one goal – maximizing profit at any cost. The system is standing on feet of clay only propped up by trillions of tax payer dollars to bailout banks, shamelessly looting the treasury to funnel profits to war corporations, and cutting taxes to the super-rich. Like a wounded beast it’s charging in every direction raining down destruction across the globe and at home. Congress is a millionaire’s club. Their campaign contributions are nothing but bribes. Some say go slow, others are for ripping the heart out of all benefits at once.

Many believe the hype that working class people are all for flag waving endless war. But if they were to stand on a street corner with a petition and talk to workers they would find there is no monolithic belief in any of it. If we ignore talking with, listening and organizing workers, putting faith instead in the other party of Wall Street and the Pentagon – the Democratic Party, we are doomed.

Even white workers who drank Trump’s Kool-Aid are mired in unpayable debt, low wages, and paying more for every basic need as well as education and health care and can be organized. Sitting in ivory towers and repeating wall street democratic party claptrap will not shake white workers from espousing racism, only organizing them against the capitalist system will.

Recently Trump signed the federal budget. The quick vote was solely for getting more billions to the military. With a few dissenters, Democrats voted for it eagerly as Republicans, (as they both have for decades which is the material basis for the rise of Trump and the right). Why? We all knew that following this would be amendments to the budget calling for sweeping cuts to Medicaid, social security and food stamps.

The government has declared war on the workers at home, seeking to extract every penny from us to put in their bank vaults. Workers can and will stop war and fascism. The Republican and Democratic Party politicians will do anything to prop up profits and their own personal gain. The working class has nothing to gain, and all to lose, from the rich mens imperialist wars.

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International Meetings Foretell Military Buildup

In mid-February, two international meetings cast a dark shadow over the future. First, at the NATO defense ministers meeting European countries agreed to increase their military spending, make it easier to move soldiers and military equipment across borders, further militarize the Atlantic Ocean, setup a NATO training base in Iraq, and other such war-preparations. Then the Munich Security Conference, where all the capitalist world powers were represented by their diplomats and heads of state, put forward a bleak image for the near-future that can be summed up in two words: military buildup (including nuclear weapons). Far from coming up with solutions or reaching agreements about the many conflicts and tensions in our world, the major capitalist powers are only preparing for the worst: a world war where we the workers would pay the ultimate price.

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Syrian Conflict Continues as External Forces Continue Interference

The bloody war in Syria is continuing to drag along, mainly because of the actions of external forces. The main factors that have prolonged the war in recent months are the U.S. and Turkish occupation of Syria and revitalization of their respective terrorist proxies. The U.S. reignited its bombing campaign of pro-government forces, while Turkey and its proxies are fighting their way deeper into Syrian territory in their extermination campaign against Kurdish people. Meanwhile, the corporate media has reignited its propaganda campaign to obstruct the Syrian government’s military operations against terrorists and whip up support for U.S. warmongering against Syria and its allies.

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U.S. Signals Aggression Against Venezuela

At the beginning of 2018, there were hopeful signs that Venezuela could be moving towards peace and stability. The socialist government and the counter-revolutionary opposition were making progress in negotiations that may have fulfilled the Venezuelan peoples’ desires for an end to violence and economic warfare. That is, until the U.S. stepped in with its puppets in Colombia to force the opposition, which they fund, to pull out of the negotiations. Since halt of the negotiations, the U.S. military and the Trump regime has made several statements that signal a move towards invasion. Venezuela is already surrounded by U.S. military bases and hostile governments like Colombia and Brazil, which has been increasing its military budget. Workers and progressives must prepare to fight the military industrial complex in the event of an invasion of one of the few independent governments in South America.

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Trump Threatens World With Nuclear War

DISMANTLE U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARSENAL

By Dylan Borne

It’s very clear that everyone in Korea wants peace. On January 2nd, North Korea offered an olive branch to the South: they asked to attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. South Korea accepted and responded with its own offer—diplomatic talks— which the North accepted. To many Koreans, peace and reunification might be possible.

Yet the United States government, controlled by its capitalist ruling class, continues to press for war. Korea sits on trillions of dollars’ worth of mineral wealth and tens of millions of laborers. The rich that run the US see them like they see their workers— as possible resources. And the US government is stopping at nothing to wage war to take those resources. That’s why:

  • It’s the US, not North or South Korea, that split the country by imposing the 38th parallel in 1945 (a divide and conquer approach)
  • It’s the US that continues to occupy the peninsula with almost 30,000 troops and forced the South to give the US permission in their constitution (Koreans can’t even call their country their own!)
  • It’s the US that continues to make nuclear threats (Trump screaming “my nuclear button is bigger!”)

The corporate media has no right to make North Koreans look like they’re the ones that are war-crazy. Nor does it have a right to make it look like the South supports the US government. The US has over 4,600 nuclear weapons and North Korea has no more than 20. Koreans in the South have been protesting every part of the US military occupation for decades. North Korea pledged that it would never strike first in nuclear war, and it even promised it would stop testing weapons if only the US stopped conducting military drills. But the US refuses when Koreans on both sides ask for peace.

The ruling class in the US wants war for the same reason that it wants to raise our rents and lower our wages: money and wealth. Every bullet, rifle, tank, missile, and warship commissioned by the US military adds to arms contractors’ profits. That’s not even counting all the looting US corporations could do after a war. And our taxes pay for it all. Meanwhile, the rich line their pockets, workers still live from paycheck to paycheck, and the government’s so focused on war that it hasn’t done a thing for our roads or schools.

The Workers Group stands in solidarity with the people of Korea, both for their sake and so we can see money being spent on workers at home.

Let’s see schools built before the next bomb.

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Communist Party of the Philippines

Closing out 2017, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army celebrate the 49th anniversary of the party’s refoundation, vowing to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte has come under fire for the use of arbitrary arrest, torture, indefinite detention, and massacre of suspected revolutionaries and legal social activists, while carrying out a revved-up drug war resulting in thousands of extrajudicial killings. Trump has lavished praise on Duterte, saying that he is doing an “unbelievable job,” while courting the Philippine leader as an ally against North Korea. The CPP calls on all democratic forces in the country to oust the brutal, pro-imperialist regime.

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Jerusalem, the Capital of Palestine

By C. T.

Ahed Tamimi (pictured above) is a 16-year-old Palestinian activist who stood up to Israeli soldiers. The soldiers shot her 14-year-old cousin, Mohammad, in the face with a rubber bullet after firing tear gas canisters directly into the Tamimi’s home. Mohammad had to be put into a medically-induced coma for 72 hours. The Zionist state has jailed Ahed Tamimi, who was unarmed, for confronting the soldiers. She has become an international symbol of Palestinian resistance to occupation and genocide. Free Ahed Tamimi!

“If the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.” — Mahmoud Darwish

On December 6, the current U.S. regime declared Jerusalem, one of the oldest cities in the world, to be the capital of the 69 year-old settler-colony of Israel. Since the illegal occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, the zionist entity has demolished 2,000 Palestinian homes, stolen 35% of East Jerusalem’s land for illegal settlements, and denies Palestinians born in Jerusalem citizenship. 75% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem live under the poverty line. 50% of the city’s tax revenue is generated by Palestinians while they receive little to no municipal services.

Further, Palestinians in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank risk their lives on a daily basis to provide the labor that fuels the city’s industry. In addition to risking their lives by crossing checkpoints and working in neighborhoods where settlers carry rifles and work in collusion with the zionist army to hunt Palestinians, their unregulated labor lack a living wage, benefits and labor rights.

Prior to the arrogant US declaration regarding Jerusalem, which the international community has denounced, the US has played a central role in attempting to erase the Palestinian people and their sovereignty. In James Baldwin’s 1979 essay “Open Letter to the Born Again” he writes that “the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests”.

The West has been successful for decades in perpetuating the myth that this is a religious conflict rather than the active theft of land and resources. In 2016 alone, the Obama regime promised $38 billion dollars in military aid to the zionist entity. The U.S.’s interests in positioning the zionist entity as a military watchdog in the Middle East has been evident since 1948. Unfortunately for Americans who are not the 1%, US interests do not include education, health care, housing or living wages, let alone recognition of indigenous people’s sovereignty abroad and on US soil.

As the American war machine speeds ahead, so does Palestinian resistance. As the Palestinian Authority has consistently proved itself inadequate in representing the full liberation of Palestine and right of return for all Palestinian refugees, now is the time to support grassroots Palestinian movements from Palestine to New Orleans.

One of the best ways to stand with Palestine is to stop the normalization of zionism across every facet of life. This means joining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS) that seeks to stop the normalization of zionism in our government, our universities and our supermarkets. This means proactive measures to build liberation movements and strategies with the global Palestinian community. This means listening to Palestinians and letting them take the lead deciding the tactics we use against zionism and US imperialism.

This current effort to displace and erase Palestinian life, culture and resistance is nothing new to a people steadfast in our struggle. From the river to the sea, Palestinians will accept nothing less than the restoration of our rightful place on our land and the right of all Palestinians to return to historic Palestine, including Jerusalem, which has been and will always be the true capital of Palestine!