Note:This article is mistaken. We are leaving it up because we don’t want to pretend that we’ve never made mistakes, including serious ones like this one. Assad most definitely was responsible for the different poison gas attacks, including the one referred to here. We think Clay Claiborne for bringing this mistaken article to our attention (see his comment) and we recommend his article which sets the record straight. In our own defense, we can only say that as time passed by, Oaklandsocialist completely changed its view of the events in Syria and came to recognize that what was happening there was a counterrevolution.
It makes no sense for Assad to have used the poison gas. He was winning the war without it, and he knew that using it would likely provide the excuse that the Obama administration has been seeking to bomb his forces.
One article analyzes the claim that Assad did it and shows that this claim, as presented by US Secretary of State Kerry, is similar to the one made by Colin Powell on Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. It then goes on to analyze the allegations that the “rebels” did it.
“A Jordanian freelancer and journalism grad student… “spoke directly with the rebels, their family members, victims of the chemical weapons attacks and local residents.” The article reports that “many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out” the chemical attack. The recipients of the chemical weapons are said to be Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda-linked rebel faction that was caught possessing sarin nerve gas in Turkey, according to Turkish press reports (OE Watch,7/13).
Here is the article.
One must consider what is at stake here. Energy policy and access to oil has always been central to foreign policy of every major capitalist nation. How else can they dominate the world if they can’t power their ships and fly their planes? As world oil supplies dwindle, an increasingly bitter struggle for access to and control over those dwindling supplies is being waged. No crime is too great, no tactic too dirty in gaining the upper hand.
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Categories: environment, war, world relations
A military action of any kind by the United States against Syria is not wrong because there isn’t proof that Assad launched a chemical weapons attack. It is wrong instead because such a military action is driven by U.S. imperialism. There is abundant evidence that Assad did use chemical weapons. Assad is a dictator and a thug. He deserves absolutely no endorsement. By maintaining that Syria did not use such weapons when there is plenty of evidence to suggest they did, places the antiwar movement in the untenable position of being an apologist for vicious repression. The real reasons the U.S. should not take military action against are as follows:
1. The U.S. strategic political agenda is to obtain dominance and control over a Syrian government that is to its liking. The U.S. is indifferent to whether such a government is sectarian in nature. It’s only concern is whether suppression of popular democratic revolutionary forces can be assured. The U.S. articulates through its propaganda that it is worried about what a popular overthrow of the Assad regime by the rebels would look like because of the role that Al-Qaida would play in such a government. But the U.S. is equally afraid of the LLC which represents a truly democratic revolutionary movement because the United States understands it would not be able to control such a government.
2. A military action by the U.S. would embolden Assad in the region as a so-called “anti-imperialist.” Others in the middle east are likely to rally around Syria and this could result in an escalation bringing Russia, China and Palestine into a proxy war.
3. A military action would guarantee a military response by Syria and this could encourage Assad to use chemical weapons against his own people again. Thus, a military action is likely to cause the very actions by Assad that a so-called “limited strike” is supposed to stop.
4. The assertion that a military strike would not be followed by an escalation of U.S. involvement including “boots on the ground,” is delusional. There is no middle ground for the U.S. Their actions would be partisan because the rebel forces would be the beneficiaries of any action taken by the U.S. against Syria. Pressure for the U.S. to increase its military commitment would be very great from Israel, the rebel forces and the imperialist allies of the U.S. The U.S. would increasingly find it in its own interest to commit more to the war because it would want to ensure the kind of governmental take over that would guarantee U.S. domination. Working men and women in the U.S. would become the pawns in this military adventurism just as they were in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
5. The U.S. stance condemning Syrian use of chemical weapons is hypocritical. Since the beginning of the civil war raging in Syria, over 100,000 people have been killed and the U.S. never saw a need to respond militarily. Furthermore, when Iraq was regarded as a U.S. ally in the 1980’s, Saddam Hussein conducted chemical warfare against the Kurds and yet the U.S. did nothing. It had a blind eye to these attacks and remained silent.
The actions of the Assad regime to gas its own people is criminal and abhorrent. It should be condemned by all antiwar activists and leftists. Doing otherwise will result in a loss of credibility in their just cause. The link below provides an analysis of this issue that all socialists and leftists should read. http://socialistworker.org/2013/09/04/us-bombs-wont-save-syria
Whether it was Assad or the rebels as supplied by Saudi Prince bin Sultan is secondary, but not irrelevant. Even if it was Assad, that is not the real reason for a US attack, as some of what Thomas Wells says. The real reasons have to do with access to and control over oil supplies and world domination, as the article posted today (Sept. 6) shows. However, if it was done by the rebels – of which there is some evidence – this makes things all the more blatant. It would be relevant as far as the views of most in the US is concerned, among other things.
This article doesn’t age well. A friend of mine was tortured by Assad’s security forces to produce the proof of Assad’d innocent that you demanded. https://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2023/08/ten-years-ago-today-how-left-supported.html 11 years later, Assad is still fighting the war you repeat his line that he was winning w/o sarin.
you are absolutely right. I could just delete the article, but I don’t want to pretend that I’ve always been right on everything. Instead, I will add an explanation. Thank you, Clay, for pointing this out.