Stop U.S. Moves to Attack Syria! USPCN Chicago Statement on Syria

The Chicago Chapter of the United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) again calls on all peace-loving people across the world to oppose an imminent U.S. attack on Syria. NBC news reported yesterday that government insiders are saying it could start “as early as Thursday [August 29th].”

There are currently four U.S. destroyers positioned near Syria, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel yesterday told the BBC that, “We are ready to go, like that. The options are there, the United States Department of Defense is ready to carry out those options.”

The dogs of war are barking once again, and once again it is in response to allegations of chemical weapons use by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. But Assad is denying it strongly, and many others, including those who have been advising the U.S. to support the Syrian opposition, like Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations, also wonder about the veracity of the claims.

A top Kurdish leader in Syria, who has been in opposition to Assad for years, also did not believe the regime was behind the attack, according to a report from Reuters. “The regime in Syria … has chemical weapons, but they wouldn’t use them around Damascus, 5 km from the (U.N.) committee which is investigating chemical weapons,” said Saleh Muslim, head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

We cannot allow for the U.S. to use this pretext to attack and destroy another Arab country. This past twenty year period has been devastating to Arabs across the world. We have seen the destruction of sovereign states like Iraq and Libya, a continuous siege on the people of Palestine, demands of “regime change” in every Middle Eastern country that refuses to submit to U.S. control, and attacks on the civil liberties of our people here at home.

Over one million men, women, and children in Iraq have been killed or died as a result of U.S. war and occupation. A U.S. puppet government rules there, and Iraq’s natural resources, which funded world class education and health care systems that were the envy of many nations, are now in the hands of U.S. and European corporations. Misdirected calls for a no-fly zone in Libya led directly to NATO intervention there as well, and with a government hand-picked by the U.S. and continued anarchy in the streets, it is hard to argue that Libyans are better off today.

And of course, the U.S. is still the main patron of Apartheid Israel, which continues its illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian and Syrian land, and since 2008, has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians under siege in Gaza.

All this to say that the idea of “humanitarian intervention” is a lie and always has been. U.S. intervention is meant to uphold and strengthen its empire. It does not export healthcare and education; it exports weapons and destruction. History has shown us that the U.S. empire cares little for the people of the Middle East, or for that matter, people anywhere else in the world, so there is no reason to believe that today’s administration wants to accomplish anything besides crushing another Arab country into submission. The U.S. wants to intervene now for the same reasons it has always intervened in the Arab World—to strengthen its position and the position of its allies in the region vis-à-vis those that oppose the U.S. empire. This intervention today specifically aims to strengthen the position of Israel, the foothold of U.S. empire in the region.

Just as it has been proven that the war on Iraq had nothing to do with “weapons of mass destruction” and everything to do with oil profits, threats against Syria have nothing to do with violations of human rights. If the U.S. cared about human rights, it would demand regime change in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well, or not have waited until Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were almost already booted out of their respective countries by their people’s revolutions before declaring support for the “people’s will.” Instead, it looks the other way, tacitly supporting the Saudi and Qatari repression of popular protests in Bahrain, and explicitly arming the oppositions in Syria and Libya.

No, the U.S. wants to attack Syria because it is a sovereign nation, independent of U.S. machinations; an advocate of national liberation struggles in Palestine and Lebanon; and a close ally of Iran. And even though the Syrian government has violated rights and made some grave and brutal errors over the years, the U.S. government does not care about the suffering of Arabs. Its propaganda machine, with Obama and now Secretary of State John Kerry and Hagel in the lead, cares only about describing states like Iran and Syria, and resistance movements like those in Palestine and Lebanon, as threats to world security.

But in fact, the real threat to the world’s security is the U.S. itself, the country that wants to consolidate its control of Middle East oil and other natural and human resources for the 1% that dictates its foreign policy; the country that wants to divide Iraq and Libya and Syria and Lebanon into many pieces, to make conquering their people that much easier; the country that is directly responsible for the loss of millions of lives in the Middle East and beyond.

Our responsibility as citizens and residents of the U.S., as members of the anti-war movement here, is to oppose and stop all current and new U.S. wars. We do not want another U.S. war against an Arab or Muslim country, especially when an attack on Syria could explode into a regional bloodbath. We do not want to spend billions of dollars more on death and destruction abroad, when we have so many human needs here at home. A new Reuters/ Ipsos poll has found that only 9 percent of respondents want the U.S. to intervene militarily in Syria, and 60% oppose intervention. People here don’t want war, and people in Syria and the Arab World don’t want war. That is why we speak out and protest.

USPCN-Chicago supports the city-wide anti-war movement in its call to protest this impending war on Syria, and calls on friends and supporters to join us this Thursday, August 29th, at 5 PM, at the Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago. There, we will rally with the Syrian American Forum, the Anti-War Committee-Chicago, and other forces to demand that the U.S. stop its warmongering, and allow for Russia, China, Arab states, and others in the community of nations to advocate for a ceasefire and diplomatic settlement.