Syria: will the West attack?
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Text of Corbyn's anti-bombing letter to his fellow Labour MPs here:http://labourlist.org/2015/11/full-text-of-jeremy-corbyns-letter-to-labour-mps-about-airstrikes-on-syria/It will be interesting to see how many of them are warmongers.
Good article here from an Irish paper under the headline "Bombing Syria may hit some targets, but many innocents will perish" putting in effect a case against bombing which, apparently, and surprisingly, appeared in the Daily Telegraph but with the not so surprising headline "There is a case for bombing Syria. But it's not as simple as Cameron sayshttp://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/bombing-syria-may-hit-some-targets-but-many-innocents-will-perish-34241829.htmlThe main case against bombing is that it will result in the loss of working class lives, both in Syriand here in Britain. But the war-mongers, including, it seems, a majority of Labour MPS. I knew they were a load of careerist shits but not that they would be prepared to sacrifice working class lives just to play internal party politics and/or sway with the media wind.It looks as if the main lesson of the Corbyn experiment is going to be that the Labour Party can't be transformed even into the party it used to be years ago, let alone into a socialist party or a party that can serve working class interests. But we knew that. Perhaps the time has come to say "We told you so".
Do we oppose these wars or has our position changed? Perhaps an EC statement along the lines of the 1914 EC statement on the WW1?
no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood.
Here's UKIP's position on bombing Syria:
Quote:Farage joins Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in voicing his opposition to air strikes in Syria – after David Cameron told the commons that British air strikes were instrumental in defeating ISIS.Just in case anyone interprets a UKIP victory over Labour in Thursday's by-election in Oldham as endorsement for bombing. In fact it would more represent the opposite as the Labour candidate is reported to be a warmonger.
https://twitter.com/Raqqa_SLA twitter account purportedly coming from within Raqqa, seems to be indicating civilian casualties are occuring…
Our blog over a week ago called upon people to remember the inhabitants of Raqqa held as human shields by ISIS in a short post.
Quote:The Syrian city of Raqqa is a crucial power centre for the so-called Islamic State, the “strong-hold of ISIS, important enough that many call it the group’s “capital” and France chose to bomb it repeatedly in retaliation to the Paris attacks.The takeover of the city by IS doesn’t mean all the city’s current residents are behind the group. Instead, many in Raqqa have learned to deal with the strict rules and keep their heads down. This means enduring almost daily executions, lashings, and public displays of prisoners. In addition to the human rights abuses known to be rampant inside the territories that IS controls daily life for civilians in Raqqa is becoming harder. UN agencies and international aid organisations are barely able to provide any assistance to the local population.http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2015/11/remember-raqqa.html
The BBC sems to vouch for the Bona Fides of the twitter account:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-34933679?ocid=socialflow_twitterAt least it does answer the question of how many civilians are being killed by the French bombings…
Quote:At least 44 people were killed and scores wounded on Sunday in a suspected Russian air strike on a crowded marketplace in Idlib province, activists have told Al Jazeera.Also, Russia accused of deploying cluster munitions, also similar claims in Raqqa.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/noam-chomsky-interview-isis-syria-intervention-nato/Tragically, Chomsky talks sense:
Quote:Like it or not, ISIS seems to have established itself pretty firmly in Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria. They seem to be engaged in a process of state building that is extremely brutal but fairly successful, and attracts the support of Sunni communities who may despise ISIS but see it as the only defense against alternatives that are even worse. The one major regional power that is opposing it is Iran, but the Iran-backed Shiite militias are reputed to be as brutal as ISIS and probably mobilize support for ISIS.and
Quote:One can imagine a world in which intervention is undertaken by some benign force dedicated to the interests of people who are suffering. But if we care about victims, we cannot make proposals for imaginary worlds. Only for this world, in which intervention, with rare consistency, is undertaken by powers dedicated to their own interests, where the victims and their fate is incidental, despite lofty professions.The historical record is painfully clear, and there have been no miraculous conversions. That does not mean that intervention can never be justified, but these considerations cannot be ignored — at least, if we care about the victims.Kautsky wrote:It is a dangerous illusion to think that a movement rooted in a given set of circumstances can be destroyed by violence.[…]He who thinks that lasting peace can be brought about by means of war, “the last war,” is wrong. Equally wrong are those who imagine that the working class can be assured prosperity and freedom by organizing economic life an a militaristic basis. No less erroneous is it to strive for a dictatorship for the purpose of crushing the enemy and establishing the proletariat in a privileged position in the state and Society while reducing the rest of the population to the position of pariahs as a means of establishing ultimately socialist equality for all. But most objectionable of all would it be to attempt to build a regime of humanity upon the basis of brutality, seeing that without the former no true Socialist commonwealth can exist. For this commonwealth must represent the realization of the slogan of the French Revolution, which was: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”Dictators may torture or kill us, but they shall not succeed in demoralizing the soul of our movement, in bringing it to a state where for the sake of saving its life it is willing to renounce its ideal. Our cause will conquer in spite of everything, for in economic life as well as in politics the highest ability to accomplish and to advance things belongs to communities and organizations of free men working in free cooperation. These free communities will far outstrip every collective body, every organization that is built on compulsion and that can be maintained only by brute force; and ultimately the communities based on oppression will perish.https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/hitler/ch05.htm
There is quite a lot of this Shiites being horrid to the Sunni’s in Iraqwhich I am not going to dispute. But people seem to have short memories. From 2003 onwards bombs were regularly going off in Shia neighbourhoods, mosques and on Shia religious pilgrimages etc and they were being murdered in the thousands. Someone wanted a sectarian civil war and they got one. Around that time and in places like the Guardian, and from some party members I discussed it with, they were saying there would be no sectarian war because it wasn’t part of the Iraqi social fabric with stuff and data on inter faith marriage etc. Most UK muslims don’t even know what the difference is; and once I found myself in the ‘amusing’ position of explaining to a group of ‘Sunni’ UK muslims what the theological difference was. Most southeast Asian muslims would be considered as apostates and heretics of the worst possible kind by the ISIS whahabi lot. Many of them are really theologically ‘appalling’ in the way they fuse and integrate aspects of polythetic Hinduism into their stuff. A bit like the way the Christians integrated pagan Christmas trees and easter etc. It still goes on and the catholics tend to take a more liberal approach to it than the protestants. There was some stuff on it in a Graham Greene book I read recently A Burnt Out Case re Africa. Graham Greene spent some time there There was this ‘Sikh’ ex peasant communist with me at the time, whilst I was instructing my Sunni audience on the theological evils of polytheism and how Mohammed wouldn’t approve. So I said you see the monotheistic Sikhs would have no truck with this kind of thing. I was floored when she said they did. My next door neighbours are south eastern Muslims and I have seen them daubing the Hindu other way around swastika on the doorstep at appropriate times. My heart missed a beat when I first saw it.
There's a Shiite mosque just round the corner from Head Office. I too have seen swastikas on houses, when leafletting in Tooting where many Tamils live.
ALB wrote:There's a Shiite mosque just round the corner from Head Office. I too have seen swastikas on houses, when leafletting in Tooting where many Tamils live.The swastika is an ancient religious symbol associated with Hinduism and other eastern religions. Tamils, being mainly Hindi, will often display that symbol. Quite why the Nazis adopted the swastika is something of a mystery (though many claim to know), but it can be generally said that Hindi are not Nazi.Lew
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