Save a Fetus, Kill a Village!
God Bless America!
And of course we're in denial. Did you ever know a Nut who told you
that he/she was crazy?
Carl Jarvis
On 3/27/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2017/8113/811303.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 13 April 3, 2017
(front page)
Washington sends troops to Syria, moves to
outflank rivals
BY PATRICIA MARSHALL
Raqqa, Syria, is increasingly the focus of competing capitalist powers
seeking to defend their economic and political interests in the Middle
East today. The military forces of Washington, allied with the Syrian
Democratic Forces — Arab fighters opposed to the dictatorial Syrian
regime of Bashar al-Assad and their Kurdish People’s Protection Units
(YPG) allies; Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran, with its allied Hezbollah
and Shiite militias; and Ankara are all jockeying for position to take
the city.
Washington and its allies are the closest. The 50,000-strong Kurdish-led
SDF, backed by U.S. troops and air power, is now within six miles of
Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State. Washington’s
goal in reaching Raqqa first — at the same time as U.S. forces and their
Iraqi army allies are moving to retake Mosul — is to push out Islamic
State and establish a strong military and political base of operations
across the two countries.
The propertied rulers in the U.S. are escalating their military
firepower. The Pentagon is sending substantial reinforcements of U.S.
troops to Syria, drawn from the nearly 5,000 Marines and paratroopers
now being deployed to Kuwait. These troops would join Washington’s
warplanes, attack helicopters, artillery and some 1,000 Marines, Rangers
and special operations forces already operating alongside the SDF.
Though President Donald Trump won election by promising to keep the U.S.
out of foreign wars, as well as campaigning in the name of jobs and
economic gains for working people, his administration has put forward a
new draft budget that would sharply increase military spending by $52
billion this year alone.
Iranian-backed forces and troops from the Assad regime are also
converging on Raqqa. And Ankara and their Free Syrian Army forces are
trying to find a way to elbow in on the fight.
In an interview posted on Syria’s state news agency SANA March 11, Assad
described Washington’s troops in Syria as “invaders.”
On March 17, Israeli warplanes crossed Syrian airspace to bomb a weapons
convoy for Hezbollah forces. The Assad regime fired anti-aircraft
missiles at Israel’s jets. The Israeli military shot down one of the
Syrian missiles and denied Syrian army claims that it had shot down an
Israeli jet. Debris was reported in Jordan, 12 miles from the Israeli
and Syrian borders.
Ankara seeks to bolster influence
Ankara, which has dropped its demand that Assad step down, views the
Kurds as its biggest problem. There are some 30 million Kurds divided
between Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran — the largest nationality without
its own homeland in the world.
Ankara’s goal is to prevent the YPG from linking the 20,000 square miles
of Syrian territory it controls along the Syrian-Turkish border with the
fight by Kurds in Turkey for autonomy.
Ankara invaded Syria last year, seeking to prevent Kurds in cantons they
control in the northeastern and northwestern parts of the country from
uniting. Working with Free Syrian Army troops, Turkish forces were
seeking to take Manbij, some 70 miles from Raqqa.
Moscow brokered a deal between the YPG and their Syrian allies in Manbij
for Assad regime troops to occupy nearby towns. And Washington sent
troops to Manbij as a signal to Ankara to keep out.
Turkey is the third largest country in NATO, with a population of 79
million and close to half a million military personnel. It shares
Incirlik Air Base with U.S. military forces, who control “a significant
number of nuclear weapons” there.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a referendum April
16 to concentrate more power in his hands. It would make permanent many
of the regime’s emergency powers since an attempted military coup last
year. Since then some 110,000 civil servants have been fired and over
37,000 people arrested.
Erdogan sent government ministers to Europe to try and rally a big vote
from the millions of Turks living there, where support for his regime is
greater than inside Turkey. This is especially true in Turkey’s Kurdish
regions, where opposition to Erdogan is widespread.
The Dutch government took the unprecedented step of blocking two Turkish
ministers from entering the country. Similar meetings were prevented in
Austria, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. Erdogan then called the
governments of Germany and the Netherlands fascist and Nazi-like.
This unprecedented breakdown of normal capitalist diplomatic relations
can actually work in Erdogan’s favor, stoking a higher turnout from
nationalist forces angered by the European regimes’ treatment of Turkish
government representatives.
Workers across Turkey are being battered by the consequences of the
world capitalist economic crisis. Youth unemployment is running at 21
percent. And in a December report that many agree understates the real
extent of the carnage, the Confederation of Merchants and Craftsmen said
over 6,000 workers have been killed on the job in the last five years.
Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the underlying issues of Kurdish
oppression and working-class politics will not go away in a region
wracked with war.
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