December 3rd, 2017

Proposed public statement on US LaborAgainst the War

Brothers and Sisters, union activists and organizers of US Labor Against the War,

We are writing to express our deep concern over the public support US Labor Against the War (USLAW) is providing for the Assad regime's genocidal scorched earth campaign of bombing and sieges, and USLAW's public hostility towards the democratic struggle for human rights in Syria. USLAW's webpage repeatedly posts reports, articles and videos that either directly or indirectly support the Assad regime's claims that the hundreds of thousands of Syrians incarcerated, raped, tortured and executed, the millions driven from their homes, and the millions more driven into exile are "terrorists" and their sympathizers. The USLAW webpage consistently posts material that supports the Assad regime while ignoring campaigns by Syrian families of political prisoners and the disappeared, and appeals by Syrians for international action to secure humanitarian relief and to bring an end to the systematic destruction of their homes and communities by the regime and its allies. USLAW's pro-regime public stance is ostensibly presented as opposition to US intervention in Syria, but instead of a position that critically examines US imperialism's attempts to control a popular democratic revolution, USLAW has been publicly supporting a regime widely condemned for mass human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity! A change of course is urgently needed!

At its foundation, USLAW adopted the principled position of support for the Iraqi working class and its unions as part of its anti-war opposition to the Bush administration's drive to war. The focus on direct solidarity with the Iraqi people--not support for the Hussein regime--was a huge step forward towards building the international solidarity required to defeat imperialist adventures, invasions, occupations and wars. USLAW's current public support for the Assad regime is a disappointing step backwards. If anti-war labor activists are to continue with the principled approach of building international solidarity with working people, as USLAW did in its efforts to build an opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, our efforts in Syria must begin with the grassroots organizing by activists fighting both the violent sectarian forces and the regime for democracy and human rights.

The mass demonstrations that erupted in Syria beginning in March of 2011, as part of the wave of democratic struggles of the Arab Spring (which USLAW acknowledges in its decision to join the Coalition to End the US-Saudi Alliance), were driven by deep popular resentment at the corruption, stagnation and economic crisis, and the privatizations and neoliberal structural reforms that enriched the Assad family and its close associates. Unfortunately, a trade unionist looking to the USLAW webpage for education on events in Syria could very well come away with the impression that the Syrian regime is comparable to the Sandinistas of the early 1980s, and not a brutal repressive apparatus at the service of a crony and nepotistic capitalist class. We encourage our fellow anti-war trade unionists to look elsewhere for information on Syria, starting with Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila al-Shami's crucial book, "Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War". An introduction to these issues is available in an article by Alice Bonfatti, "The Socio-Economic Roots of Syria's Uprising." (https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/authors/alice-bonfatti)

Despite horrendous repression, the struggle for democracy and human rights continues in Syria. Families for Freedom is engaged in a struggle to win freedom for hundreds of thousands of political prisoners and those disappeared - some by armed groups, but the overwhelming majority by the regime (https://syrianfamilies.org/en/). We strongly encourage USLAW to take up support for their struggle.

It is clear that the pro-regime position of the USLAW webpage is driven by opposition to the perceived threat of a US-engineered "regime change", and that as a result USLAW has adopted a public position that ignores the democratic aspirations and revolutionary struggle of the Syrian masses, and instead defends the "sovereignty" of the Assad dynasty.

Support for democratic struggles against corrupt and brutal regimes does not mean support for US imperialist interventions to carry out "regime change"; US imperialism is opposed to democracy in Syria as much as it has been in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, or anywhere else. Perhaps the Obama administration and Clinton campaign flirted with the idea of "regime change", but objectively, US policy towards Syria, despite contradictory public statements, sometimes coming from the same politicians, was to attempt to control the opposition while allowing the regime and its allies in Russia and Iran to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Syrians, including through the repeated use of chemical weapons, and to drive millions of Syrians into refugee camps, and many to drown in the sea. If USLAW is going to oppose US policy in Syria, we believe it should oppose the policy objectively carried out, not the grandstanding by politicians shedding crocodile tears for the Syrian people suffering genocidal repression.

USLAW's commitment to oppose Islamophobiais seriously compromised by the material it carries on Syria. Giving props to pro-Assad political figures like TulsiGabbard and offering support for the Assad regime's "sovereign right" to carry out repression only exposes the underlying assumption that millions of Syrian Muslims don't have democratic aspirations and are all gripped by the ideology of "radical Islam", to use Gabbard and Trump's catch-phrase.

Opposition to the violent sectarian politics of Al Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) is a matter of principle upon which we can all agree, as is the defense of religious and ethnic minorities, among them Syrian Christians. A principled defense of minority rights, however, has nothing to do with justifying the regime's crimes against the many, which include sectarian cleansing: the regime's sieges and bombing have forced millions of Syrian Sunni Muslims to flee their homes. In this regard, we note with concern that USLAW's webpage includes material that parrots the Assad regime's claims of being the defender of Syrian Christians. A more critical appraisal of the Syrian regime's propaganda would be much more helpful for labor activists. It should be explained that this particular pernicious piece of propaganda serves two purposes: first, it places the Christian community at the mercy of the regime, which demands loyalty for the "protection" it offers; second, it supports the regime's claims that it is crushing a foreign-backed "Islamist" conspiracy, not a popular democratic struggle. By offering support to the regime's propaganda, USLAW does a disservice to oppressed minorities and to our opposition to Islamophobia and the Islamophobic rhetoric of the "War on Terror". Labor activists looking for a Syrian Christian voice opposed to the regime and in support of a democratic, multi-ethnic and pluralistic Syria might consider communicating with Syrian Christians for Peace (https://www.facebook.com/syrianchristiansforpeace/).



Many apologists for Assad claim the only choice is between Assad or violent sectarian forces. Not only is that not true given the continued grassroots opposition: even if it were, we would still have a moral duty to condemn the bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure and hospitals! It is no less a war crime for Russian and Syrian Air Force jets to kill large numbers of civilians and to target hospitals than it is for US airstrikes and drones to do so. The Syrian-American Medical Society, which has organized multiple aid efforts to Syria and lately Yemen and Puerto Rico, offers regular reports on regime and Russian airstrikes on hospitals (https://www.sams-usa.net/).

Yet, we cannot find any mention of the regime's systematic war crimes on USLAW's webpage. On the contrary, USLAW's webpage posts on Syria give the false impression that only US imperialism is killing civilians in Syria, but this is simply not true. Moreover, how can USLAW consistently oppose the rhetorical justification offered by the US government for its own war crimes, that it is only killing "terrorists" and the civilians are only "collateral damage", if the same rhetoric from the Assad regime and Russia is uncritically accepted? How can USLAW build an alternative to the bloody farce of the "War on Terror" while supporting the state terror of the Assad regime? 

We must turn back to the tried and true methods of solidarity if we are to build upon internationalist and international opposition to sectarian violence, state terrorism and imperialist wars and occupations. Despite the apparent dominance of pro-regime stances among many sections of the formerly “left” institutions that were central to our collective global anti-war efforts to oppose the Bush-era wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, we posit that there remain significant forces among the principled left, including organised labor, around the world ready to be rallied into a united fight against dictatorships and against the endless, phony “War on Terror”.One recent clear demonstration of this potential emerged from the recent conference in Brazil of the Latin-American CSP-Conlutas confederation of trade unions: our friends in the FraccionLeninistaTrotsquistaInternacional (FLTI) presented a recent petition of ours (demanding urgent solidarity and support for 500 political prisoners on hunger strike and facing imminent threats of a massacre by the regime in the notorious Homs Central Prison) to the congress, and obtained signatures from more than 60 labour activists and leaders of over 300 unions representing more than two million workers from across Latin America, as well as the US, Tunisia and Syria. This is an incredibly positive development for anti-war labor internationalism! But it is only one small example of the potential impact that an active and principled anti-war labor organisation could have through consistent engagement on the correct side of history!

We must not turn our back on Syrians fighting tremendous odds, against the state and violent sectarian forces as well as multiple imperialist and regional powers, for dignity, human rights and democracy.

An injury to one is an injury to all!

In solidarity,