Condemn illegal air strikes in Syria!

Nick G.

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist Leninist) condemns the decision of the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to commence illegal air strikes on ISIS positions inside Syria.

Abbott has cynically linked the start of a bombing campaign to the resettlement of 12,000 Syrian refugees.  Only days before announcing the bombing, he adamantly refused to take in any refugees above current quota levels.  His change of heart, welcome as it is, is simply driven by the need to sell our participation in the US-led military intervention in Syria which has as its ultimate aim the destruction of Syrian national independence.

US has previously sought to bomb Damascus

The US has tried before to launch an air war against the Assad government in Syria.

Two years ago, it alleged that Assad had used nerve gas against government opponents in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the Nobel “peace” prize-winning President, Obama, declared that it was time to bomb Damascus – for “humanitarian” reasons!

The plan came unstuck when the allegations could not be substantiated.  In relation to an earlier use of nerve gas that year, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte stated that “This (sarin gas) was used on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities”.

Combined with mass people’s protests against the proposed bombing, the fraudulent allegations against Assad resulted in firstly, the British House of Commons rejecting British PM Cameron’s wish to join the US in bombing Damascus, and secondly, the US Congress being so opposed to Obama’s adventure that he had to cancel the Congress vote on authorisation.

US groomed religio-fascist Muslims

It is well-known that to topple regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the US imperialists befriended and supported feudalistic and reactionary elements within the Muslim community.

But these people had their own agendas and bit the hand that fed them.  Now the US paints the likes of Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusrah as “moderate elements” with whom it needs to ally in order to defeat ISIS. 

This shows the utter desperation of the US imperialists and their determination to strengthen “their” anti-Assad rebels for a final push to dissolve Syria’s independence and sovereignty.

 

In making his joint “Open fire” and “Open arms” declarations, Abbott told the ABC’s Leigh Sales that “what we want to achieve throughout the Middle East is governments which don't commit genocide against their own people, nor permit terrorism against ours”.  Sales then asked why Assad was not being bombed, to which Abbott replied “at the moment we are not proposing specifically to address (Assad) with air strikes”. 

This was not a reassuring reply, leaving open as it did the extension of the war to an attack on a legitimate government which is fighting not just ISIS but also Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusrah.

Making Australia complicit in another US crime

If the Australian government had a real interest in getting rid of ISIS, and if it had a capacity for making its own independent decisions in matters of foreign policy, it would reopen its embassy in Damascus and offer immediate assistance to the Syrian government to regain its lost territories and to defeat the feudal-religious insurgencies.

Instead it begs the major death cult, US imperialism, to beg us for support in bombing the lesser death cult, ISIS, so that we carry the war into Syria without “at the moment” specifically bombing Assad.

That will come later.  It will come because the US, at the head of another “coalition of the killing”, has all along had Syrian “regime change” as its main objective.

The illegal US-led bombing inside Syria aims to deal with a rogue element which is obstructing the US main game, and to put the US in a position to extend the bombing for “humanitarian reasons” to Assad himself. 

Abbott is making us complicit in this crime.