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U.S./Israel Out of Syria!

By Quest Riggs

As Syria fights the last battles of its over 7-year war against U.S. and Israeli-backed terrorist insurgency, it still faces many challenges and a rough road ahead. This long, dirty war which has been fueled by the US and its allies, has cost 500,000 Syrian lives and an estimated $400 billion in damages. The war has driven 10 million Syrians to flee their homes, creating one of the worst refugee crises in the world today. Needless to say, despite their celebrating their victories against terrorism and invasion, the people in Syria will live with the trauma of this war for generations.

However, western imperialism and its puppets in the middle east are still aggressively harassing the Syrian people and the Syrian army. In the past 18 months Israel has shot over 200 missiles into Syria. The U.S. still maintains its illegal invasion of Syrian territory, with 12 military bases and up to 2,000 special operations soldiers. U.S. Generals (Trump’s best friends) continue to regularly threaten Syria with further bombing and invasion.

Syria is now openly engaged in the early stages of what could be the last major battle of the war. Most of the western-backed terrorist forces, Al Queada, ISIS, al-NUSRA, which the U.S. has branded as terrorists are the so called “rebels” receiving support from the U.S. and Israel. They are concentrated in the northwestern city of Idlib, and the Syrian Army is preparing for an offensive with the support if its allies. They have had to make these preparations and conduct negotiations in the face of the aforementioned bombings and constant threats of intervention from imperialist politicians.

But why are the imperialists being so aggressive and threatening when Syria is close to ending its war? The answer is clear if you look at the history of U.S. war-mongering in the middle east: the imperialists make money off of wars and stealing natural resources, so they’ll only allow peace if they can hold a dominant, colonizer position.

Just within my generation, the U.S. has invaded and devastated Iraq, Libya and Afganistan. These countries, home to some of the world most ancient civilizations, had long been victims of western intervention and aggression, but they remained relatively stable until the U.S. and its allies invaded. They all now lay in ruins.

In Libya, the U.S. invasion caused the growth of a domestic slave trade as well as terrible sectarian violence between warlord and fundamentalist groups. In Iraq, the U.S.-installed government is viciously repressing protests where everyday Iraq citizens are demanding basic necessities like food and water and jobs. Afganistan has never seen an end to violence since the U.S. invaded, and NATO today uses the war-torn country as a military training ground. Last year the U.S. even dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb in Afganistan. One thing is for sure: the military industrial complex and the oil executives are laughing to the bank every time workers and oppressed people in the U.S. believe the lies that they feed us on the corporate media to justify these wars.

We should express our support for Syria in in their struggle against imperialism and for their right to self determination. We also must voice our opposition to the threats that U.S. politicians and generals have been issuing and demand that the U.S. & Israel stop their attacks and pull their troops out of Syria. Only then can Syrian workers rebuild their communities and advance their struggles against capitalist and imperialist oppression.

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From Nakba to New Orleans: Coming Home is Our Right

PROTEST CONDEMNS ISRAELI GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS

By C. T.

On May 15, Students and Workers Against Racism and Militarism (SWARM) held an action to commemorate Nakba. This action included speaking out against Zionist atrocities towards the Palestinian people, funded by U.S. tax dollar, and Trump’s decision to open the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, despite an international outcry. ‘Nakba’ in Arabic means ‘catastrophe’. It refers to the mass ethnic cleansing and displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland on May 15, 1948. Similarly, Hurricane Katrina was both a “natural” catastrophe and an artificial one. Just like Palestine, New Orleans has been sold off piece by piece in the name of white supremacy and capitalism.

Palestinians have been demonized and pushed off their land for decades. Claiming it was for a safe haven for European Jews (remember the U.S. refused to allow Jewish refugees from Nazism into the U.S.) the real purpose was to set up a military outpost for Western war interests. Palestinians daily face home demolitions, Israeli terror and death. In only two days, 58 Palestinians were murdered and 2,700 injured by Zionist weapons that are bought and paid for by the US.

Similarly, post-Katrina, Black New Orleanians have been robbed of their land and right to return through the closure of public schools, public housing, and erasure of entire neighborhoods in the name of “progress” and “development”. Over 100,000 Black New Orleanians have yet to return home due to the “conservative recovery agenda”, started by George W. Bush, that makes money off of theft of land and denial of our human dignity. Palestinians and New Orleanians have a common enemy: rich white supremacists trying to profit off our misery. From Palestine to New Orleans our roots run deep and we will return!

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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.