We are truly living in, "The End Times".
Chicken Little got it right, for once. The sky really is falling in.
As the mighty American Corporate Empire digs itself deeper and deeper
into the mire, expanding far beyond its resources, other Empires sit
by waiting for their day in the Sun. We will not be able to save our
Empire, nor should we. It has become rotten to the core. Our hope is
to find a way to make something better out of the broken pieces.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/2/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2015/7940/794003.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 40 November 9, 2015
(front page)
Washington, Moscow step up
war moves in Syria, Iraq
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
After nearly a month of intense airstrikes overwhelmingly targeting
forces opposed to the dictatorial Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria,
Moscow is sending special operations forces to better coordinate
combined ground attacks by the Syrian army, Iranian troops and
Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia units from Lebanon. The Russian
government says it is joining efforts by Washington and others to target
Islamic State forces, but most of its bombardments have not been near
territory IS occupies.
Despite strong objections from Washington, Baghdad has invited Moscow to
conduct airstrikes in Iraq. Washington insists that Assad must
eventually go, but its bombing campaign has been aimed against Islamic
State in both Syria and Iraq. The bulk of the U.S.-led coalition’s 7,300
bombings over the past year have occurred in Iraq.
More than 3,300 U.S. troops are stationed as “advisers” to the Iraqi
military. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Oct. 23 that U.S. special
operations forces will conduct more aggressive raids against Islamic
State in Iraq.
The crisis in Syria and Iraq stems from imperialist domination of the
region. After the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, London
and Paris carved out new, artificial national boundaries and divided
control between themselves. The imperialist rulers split up territory
populated by the Kurdish people between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria,
denying the Kurds their own state.
After World War II, a new “world order” was put into place by
Washington, the new dominant imperialist power. That “order” is now
coming apart.
Paving the way for Moscow’s intervention in Syria and the emergence of
the Islamic State was the political exhaustion of the bourgeois
nationalist forces that rose throughout the Mideast after World War II,
combined with betrayals of worker and peasant struggles by Stalinist
parties in the region. With radical-sounding rhetoric, the Arab Baath
Socialist Party came to power in Syria in a coup. The Assad family took
control in 1970, imposing a brutal capitalist regime backed by Moscow
and often the Syrian Communist Party.
In 2011, hundreds of thousands of Syrians took part in mobilizations
demanding political rights and an end to the regime. Assad crushed the
protests, using bombs, chemical weapons and bloody repression.
Islamic State, a terrorist split from al-Qaeda backed by military
commanders who previously served Saddam Hussein in Iraq, stepped into
the political vacuum this created. They seized a sizable piece of Syria
and then parts of western Iraq.
While targeting opposition fighters, the Russian government’s so-called
precision bombing has taken a heavy toll on civilians. At least 120,000
people living in Aleppo, Hama and Idlib provinces have been displaced
this month, the United Nations reports, adding to the more than 11
million already driven from their homes by nearly five years of civil war.
A report released by Human Rights Watch said Russian airstrikes Oct. 15
killed at least 59 civilians in Ter Ma’aleh, a village in northern Homs.
At least seven medical facilities have been hit since Russian airstrikes
began, according to Physicians for Human Rights, including Sarmin
hospital in Idlib province, killing at least 15.
Some of the heaviest fighting has been around Aleppo, where armed
opposition forces took control after Assad’s assaults crushed the public
protest movement. But intensive Russian airstrikes combined with ground
attacks have pushed them back from a number of surrounding towns and
villages. At the same time, Islamic State has been able to take
advantage of the situation to deal blows against these forces as well as
seize several areas around southern and eastern Aleppo from pro-Syrian
regime forces.
Washington, Moscow confer
On Oct. 23 Secretary of State John Kerry attended what he termed
“constructive” talks in Moscow, along with government officials from
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to discuss how to end Syria’s civil war.
Another gathering is planned soon, perhaps including Tehran. The Barack
Obama administration has dropped its previous call for the ouster of
Assad, calling instead for a political settlement today that can
transition away from Assad’s rule over an unspecified period of time.
That same day Moscow reached agreement with the government of Jordan,
which receives about $1 billion in U.S. aid each year, to coordinate
military actions in Syria. “We have no problem whatsoever with this,”
Kerry said, “and it may even help make certain that the targets are the
targets that they ought to be.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the media Oct. 24 that
Moscow is willing to cooperate with “patriotic” opposition groups like
the Free Syrian Army. “Their words are not like their actions,” Issam
al-Rayyes, spokesman for the Southern Front of the FSA, told Reuters.
“How can we talk to them while they are hitting us?”
Moscow began operating an intelligence center out of Baghdad at the end
of September that the Iranian and Syrian governments also participate
in. On Oct. 23 the Iraqi government authorized Russian airstrikes
against Islamic State within its borders. The decision came days after
Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited
Baghdad to seek assurances that only U.S.-led bombardments would be
maintained.
Turkish rulers attack Kurds
With elections in Turkey just days away, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
is stepping up his government’s attacks on Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and
Syria, hoping to beat back gains made in elections last June by the
Kurdish-based People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and regain a parliamentary
majority to strengthen the president’s powers.
Turkish army units carried out attacks against Kurdish forces in Syria
fighting IS and the Assad regime, shelling People’s Protection Units
(YPG) positions in Tal Abyad near the border Oct. 24.
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