The warmongers have been delayed in their imperial plans, thanks to worldwide public opposition, and Russian President Putin, but they have not yet been stopped...
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It's not over yet!
Send a letter right now to Congress and President Obama: "I oppose any new war resolution against Syria"
Because of the dedication and tireless work of volunteers, organizers and activists, who were supported by those who made generous donations, the grassroots anti-war opposition scored a major victory when it forced President Obama to go on national TV and announce that he was pulling back from an imminent war with Syria. Members of Congress reported that they were receiving phone calls, emails and faxes that said Vote NO by a margin of 100 to 1. Wherever they went, the politicians were being confronted by people at town hall meetings and organized demonstrations. Even when they went into stores and public shopping areas, they were directly challenged by people who opposed a new war in the Middle East. This was and is a historical moment. It is exceptionally rare that the intervention of an anti-war, grassroots opposition forces the war makers to put the brakes on. This anti-war victory, however, can still be reversed. It is critical that people continue to put pressure on the government. The right-wing militarists in Congress are crafting a new resolution with the White House that would authorize the president to initiate the bombing of Syria if he decides that Syria hasn’t fully complied with UN resolutions. That was precisely the kind of language Congress adopted in 2002 that gave George W. Bush a blank check to launch the bombing and invasion of Iraq in 2003. Send an email right now to Congress and to President Obama telling them that you and the vast majority of the people demand that they listen to the people who oppose a new war against Syria. Tell President Obama that you vote NO to war against Syria, and tell Congress to Vote NO to any resolution that authorizes a new war against Syria. Please help amplify this message right now with your generous donation to the anti-war movement. P.S. Also, please make sure to read the analysis by Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, “Understanding the new stage of the Syria Crisis,” which was written on Sept. 10 prior to the president’s speech. |
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A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/ info@AnswerCoalition.org National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948 Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311 San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-687-7480 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488 If this message was forwarded to you and you'd like to receive future ANSWER updates, click here to subscribe. |
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By Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Has the United States stepped back from the edge of the precipice? Has the catastrophe been averted?
The U.S. war threat against Syria has not ended. But the particular path to war has required a shift because of resounding domestic and global opposition.
The U.S. Congress will now be asked to pass a different resolution than the one originally supported by the White House. The new resolution will be constructed to authorize Obama to carry out military strikes if the U.S. government decides that Syria is not in full compliance with a new UN resolution calling for its chemical weapons stockpiles to be totally destroyed.
This was precisely the scenario used by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney when they launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Even though the Iraqi government complied with UN weapons inspections demands and was actively disarming its own military forces, Bush simply declared that Saddam Hussein was not complying with UN resolutions and launched the U.S. war that toppled the government.
In Syria, like with Iraq, Libya and Iran for the past decades, the U.S. government goal of toppling independent, nationalist governments uses an assortment of tactics, including economic and financial sanctions, funding and arming internal domestic opposition, providing international legitimacy and recognition to the internal opposition, cyber attacks, and in some cases direct bombings and invasion.
Progressive and anti-colonial people should reject and oppose not simply one tactic like direct bombing but rather expose all forms of imperial domination against targeted countries.
In the case of Syria today, any push back or delay of the U.S. bombing of Syria is of extreme importance for the people of Syria. But it is certainly not the end of the struggle.
Russia’s proposal in context
The Russian government has offered a face-saving proposal to President Obama that is seen as a “way out” of the wildly unpopular U.S. bombing campaign against Syria.
It seemed likely that President Obama’s war resolution was going to fail in the House of Representatives and even possibly in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The people of the United States, in vast numbers, oppose the planned war against Syria even as the president and Secretary of State have tried to win them over by assuring them that only Syrians will bleed, which is the actual political meaning of the oft-repeated phrase “no boots on the ground.”
Although no details are yet available, the Russian proposal was immediately agreed to by Syria. The gist of the proposal is to put Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile under the control of the United Nations for their eventual elimination.
Syria said it agreed to the Russian proposal as a way “to uproot U.S. aggression.” Syria has denied that it used chemical weapons on August 21 and suggested that the attack was a staged provocation by those who are seeking to draw in U.S. intervention to topple the regime.
UN as a double-edged sword
There will undoubtedly be another UN proposal put forward that also includes language asserting that the Assad government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack and those responsible for the attack must “be held accountable.” This would lead to the possible indictment and arrest of Assad for war crimes. This is a tack that the imperialists have used in several countries where the government is targeted for regime change by U.S. policy makers.
Such a poison-pill resolution would be unlikely to be accepted by Syria. Hopefully, Russia and China would also openly reject such a resolution, which is designed to lay the basis for open imperialist aggression.
The origins of Obama’s political crisis
Despite global and domestic opposition to the planned bombing campaign, Obama had continued his transition during the past weeks into the camp of John McCain, Lindsey Graham and his neo-con Secretary of State. This was the camp that had argued for direct military intervention because Assad could not be toppled through the civil war.
For the last two years, Obama supported the regime change plan through the agency of a foreign-funded civil war. His CIA, working in Jordan, coordinated the massive shipments of weapons to armed groups that were fighting the Syrian government. They used proxies and partners like Saudi Arabia as the source of the weapons, but it was the Obama administration’s strategy. The weapons go to the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups.
The commanders of the Free Syrian Army are on the CIA payroll, as was reported by Wall Street Journal reporter Adam Entous on Democracy Now. (Sept. 6, 2013)
The announcement of the alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians on August 21 was the pretext used by the interventionists to start the direct military war against Syria.
But from the beginning, the adventure ran into huge hurdles. Substantial sectors of the ruling class and Pentagon brass were unconvinced that another war would not be a disaster for U.S. interests in this oil-rich region. They were afraid that global opposition to the U.S. Empire could reignite and spread, as it had under George W. Bush.
Broadly speaking, public opinion in the United States was opposed to another war.
The whole case was riddled with obvious inconsistencies. They could offer no proof of their claim that Assad ordered the attack. They could cite no law that allowed the U.S. to wage a new aggression. They couldn’t openly identify what the real goal of the military operation was. But Obama , feeling politically trapped, pushed ahead toward the precipice.
Even on September 8, Obama sent his representatives out to the Sunday morning talk shows arguing for war even as they admitted that they had “no irrefutable” proof that Assad had ordered a chemical weapons attack and that their justification was only based on what they called a “common sense test.” That means they have no proof at all.
Obama was ready to blaze away with cruise missiles and bombs against another small country in the Middle East. His feckless, super rich, blue blood Secretary of State was telling the American people not to worry about the coming catastrophe because the Saudi monarchy was standing solidly behind his efforts. When your Secretary of State loudly and proudly proclaims that he has secured the support of the arch-reactionary autocrats in Saudi Arabia, that has to be understood as sign that your war policy is sinking.
Obama, faced with the current circumstances, has been forced to step back, but there will undoubtedly be a Plan B developed using other mechanisms to intensify the war.
Any step back from an imminent bombing of Syria and the certain wider war that would follow should be understood as a result of the global opposition to the planned bombing campaign and the deep division about its possible catastrophic impact on U.S. interests in the Middle East from within the summits of the economic and political establishment.
Syria and Iran have made it clear that if the U.S. undertakes this aggression there will be counter-measures taken. Once such a war is started, it is impossible to know how it ends.
Rather than relying on the United Nations to do the right thing, the most important aspect of the next stage of the struggle against the U.S. imperialist regime change efforts in Syria is for the people of the world to continue to organize all forms of public pressure in favor of a genuine peace that allows the Syrian people the right to determine their own destiny free from threats, sanctions, subversion and war.
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President Obama conceded that his proposal to bomb Syria is unpopular and can’t get through Congress. That was your doing. Members of the House and Senate heard our message loud and clear.
Yet again last night Obama argued for attacking Syria. The threat is still very real -- which is why it’s so important that we tell Congress and the President not to attack Syria.
Now, along with affirming your “No Attack on Syria” message, please:
* Forward this email to friends and ask them to do the same.
* Click here to strengthen RootsAction’s work to prevent an attack on Syria with a donation of $5.
The U.S. public has seen through the illogic of claiming to uphold “international norms” by bombing another country. But top officials in Washington haven’t given up on launching some version of “shock and awe” at Damascus and other parts of Syria.
If this continuing threat is going to be held off, in the face of ongoing advocacy by the president, we are going to have to advance an alternative agenda. Please click this message to send it to Washington right away:
"As a constituent, I am writing to let you know that I oppose a military attack on Syria. Creative diplomacy is the best way to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons. I urge you to work for a ceasefire, to pressure Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey, to halt the flow of weapons, and to pressure Russia and Iran to do the same."
We’ve done so much together already. In state after state, many thousands of RootsAction activists emailed their members of Congress and helped make history.
We need to make this unprecedented anti-war precedent stick! In the aftermath of Obama’s big speech last night, please:
Click here to reaffirm your message to Congress.
Click here to throw a few dollars in the hat so we can strengthen our impacts nationwide.
Thank you for all you’re doing!
-- The RootsAction.org team
P.S. More than 80,000 RootsAction members have already sent emails to their senators and representative saying "No Attack on Syria" -- and we're just getting started. To support our ongoing efforts with a donation of $5, please click here.
Yet again last night Obama argued for attacking Syria. The threat is still very real -- which is why it’s so important that we tell Congress and the President not to attack Syria.
Now, along with affirming your “No Attack on Syria” message, please:
* Forward this email to friends and ask them to do the same.
* Click here to strengthen RootsAction’s work to prevent an attack on Syria with a donation of $5.
The U.S. public has seen through the illogic of claiming to uphold “international norms” by bombing another country. But top officials in Washington haven’t given up on launching some version of “shock and awe” at Damascus and other parts of Syria.
If this continuing threat is going to be held off, in the face of ongoing advocacy by the president, we are going to have to advance an alternative agenda. Please click this message to send it to Washington right away:
"As a constituent, I am writing to let you know that I oppose a military attack on Syria. Creative diplomacy is the best way to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons. I urge you to work for a ceasefire, to pressure Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey, to halt the flow of weapons, and to pressure Russia and Iran to do the same."
We’ve done so much together already. In state after state, many thousands of RootsAction activists emailed their members of Congress and helped make history.
We need to make this unprecedented anti-war precedent stick! In the aftermath of Obama’s big speech last night, please:
Click here to reaffirm your message to Congress.
Click here to throw a few dollars in the hat so we can strengthen our impacts nationwide.
Thank you for all you’re doing!
-- The RootsAction.org team
P.S. More than 80,000 RootsAction members have already sent emails to their senators and representative saying "No Attack on Syria" -- and we're just getting started. To support our ongoing efforts with a donation of $5, please click here.
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