January 4th, 2020

The term ‘proxy war’ has no meaning whatsoever & should not be used by anyone with half a brain. If any country plays any role at all in war (covert, logistical, advisory, arms supplies, training, sanctions, etc.), it is at war, not at proxy war. It is a dissembling term which should be rejected in any political analysis of war.

When some of those who oppose the Assad dictatorship applaud the assassination of General Suleimani (as they also supported US military intervention in Syria), they hand the moral high ground to Assadists & fascists who are chanting ‘no US war against Iran’. These war mongers do not have a clue about the malignant character of US militarism, some of them actually calling it humanitarian, & thereby betray the Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani, Yemeni, Somalian, & now Iranian people. There is no excuse for such rightwing stupidity.

One would have to be knowledgeable about the complex military strategies of Syria, Russia, Iran, the 60 member US-NATO coalition, Israel, & Hezbollah in Syria & Iraq to really understand whether it was US-NATO bombers in league with Kurdish ground militias who routed ISIS (as the Pentagon claims) or General Qassem Suleimani’s paramilitary death squads (as Assadists & Stalinists claim). The problem with the claim, whoever makes it, is that the defeat of ISIS was not the preeminent political goal of any of these forces. They worked doggedly & seemingly at cross purposes to defeat the Syrian Arab Spring & to decisively subjugate the people of Iraq & they all did so using the most unspeakable savagery against Syrian & Iraqi civilians.

The several month sieges by US-coalition bombers & Kurdish ground forces of Mosul, Iraq & Raqqa, Syria involved genocide of thousands of civilians. According to reporters after the so-called liberation of Mosul from ISIS, the city reeked with the stench of rotting corpses buried in bombed out rubble. They were mostly civilians unable to flee as well as ISIS militia members. The US used white phosphorous against thousands of civilians & ISIS militias in Raqqa. It might have been a better military strategy to protect civilian lives by cutting off arms supplies to ISIS, arms which came from countries including Russia &, according to a US Pentagon report, the US. That way thousands of civilians would not be forced to flee or be slaughtered in their homes. But that of course would leave the Syrian Arab Spring still standing.

So what part did General Suleimani’s death squads play in all this slaughter ostensibly to defeat ISIS? We don’t know. But they must have used death squads in concert with US bombers. One Assadist said the assassination of Suleimani was “The saddest day of my life. A hero was killed. Soleimani’s murder will be the end of the world as we know it.” Iran has already replaced Suleimani as general of terrorist death squads with another experienced war criminal. It isn’t the ‘end of the world as we know it’. That happened when once progressive political forces sided with the Assad dictatorship against the Syrian Arab Spring. It happened when those supporting Assad & those opposing his dictatorship both decided that choosing an army, like it was a football match, & supporting military intervention in Syria was the only strategy in town. It was a decisive rupture between the forces supporting militarism & those opposed to war, occupation, genocide.

The only principled demands for a new international antiwar movement are the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing, & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Russian, Iranian, US-NATO, Hezbollah, Israeli, & Saudi-coalition forces & mercenaries from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen & no US war on Iran.

Photo is Syrian refugee children fleeing from Syrian & Russian bombing of Idlib.

There is a lot of glib & shallow commentary on the US assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Suleimani. Only Assadists & Stalinists are crying crocodile tears over the death of this monster who organized terrorist death squads against the peoples of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan & exerted destructive influence on Hezbollah & some Palestinians. But those waxing giddy & euphoric about his death willfully refuse to understand that his assassination was an act of war against the people of Iran. It is an infantile political disorder to support this assassination which is not just an electoral ploy by Trump nor is it justice, revenge, karma for a state terrorist. It is a US threat of war, a provocation to Iran which is directed at the Iranian people. Unless you are one of those damn fools who sees US militarism as humanitarian, you will stand four-square against US assassinations as a political method & against this serious war threat to the people of Iran.

It should not be necessary to say that Iraqis & Syrians dancing in the streets at his death have every reason to celebrate since they & their families sustained his unrestrained terrorism. It is something quite different for others not on the front lines of oppression to ignore the threat to the people of Iran.

American nationalists, including Trump, commenting on the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani claim he is responsible for the deaths & injuries of thousands of US soldiers. According to most agencies which track war deaths, only about 16 US soldiers have been killed in Syria whilst the US has dropped about 15,000 bombs a year on Syrian civilians. Against the Syrian Arab Spring, Iran & the US are on the same side.

A US drone strike this morning ordered by Trump has assassinated Qassem Suleimani, the second most powerful figure in Iran & commander of Iran’s Quds forces of militias, special forces, & terrorist groups operating in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, & Yemen. They function similar to the CIA & US special forces only on behalf of the Iranian theocracy. Assadists & Stalinists are mourning him as a martyr who defeated ISIS in Syria. Iraqis & Syrians subjected to the savagery of his terrorist militias are celebrating in massive protests & rallies. Whatever role he did or did not play in routing ISIS, he more than made up for in terrorism against the Arab Spring uprisings. Routing ISIS is not the touchstone of peace in Syria & Iraq. Forcing all foreign military forces, paramilitaries, & mercenaries to withdraw is what matters.

General Suleimani’s death is no loss to humanity. He was a monster who should have been arrested & prosecuted before an international tribunal to answer for his crimes against the peoples of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan. But regardless of his malignant character, the US had absolutely no right to send drones to assassinate him. It is an act of war against the people of Iran & no Iranian protesters against their corrupt leadership would ever invite the US Pentagon to assassinate him on their behalf.

Instead of calling for international protests against this threat of war against the Iranian people, Assadists & Stalinists are writing weepy-assed eulogies to the general as a martyr who defeated ISIS when he was one of the primary organizers of terrorism in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan with destructive political influence on Hezbollah & some Palestinians. The only worthy response is to stand with the people of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, & Palestine by demanding the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces & mercenaries.

This is a photo of Suleimani (on the left) with a Syrian officer strutting around Aleppo in December 2016 after Syrian & Russian bombers combined with Iranian, Russian, & Hezbollah ground forces to crush Syrian Arab Spring resistance in Aleppo. Civilians in Aleppo were being forcibly evacuated to refugee camps in Idlib & elsewhere where they have now faced months of bombing & ground assaults, including by Iranian terrorists. You can call him a martyr if you like but it doesn’t change the fact that he was a war criminal.

No US war against Iran. Demand the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops & mercenaries from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan.

One of the most prominent signs of the corruption of the US antiwar movement–other than its passivity & support for Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians–is that its leading figures are ‘retired’ CIA, FBI, Pentagon, & State Department officials. High level officials, not second-stringers, including Ray McGovern, Coleen Rowley, Ann Wright. They all ‘came to Jesus’ when their pensions were secure & formed a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). In a Mother Jones interview, Ray McGovern admitted VIPS collaborates with active-duty CIA, FBI, & military operatives. They must have decided the best way to destroy the antiwar movement was to take it over with these so-called whistleblowers. Gullibility & political corruption on the part of activists were prerequisite.

Now these VIPS & their associates are still carrying on with their Assad/Putin schtick for Russian propaganda media, loving on Assad & Putin, denouncing Russophobia, promoting Tulsi Gabbard despite her Hindutva ideas (since they share her Islamophobia), vilifying the Hong Kong protesters, hobnobbing with Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore, Caitlin Johnstone, Scott Ritter (a convicted pedophile), & other such unsavory ideologues. It’s not outside the realm of miracles that several high-level spies & generals would transubstantiate all the same time into born-again libertarians. It’s just that only fools would take them seriously as leaders when their politics are so damn corrupt. A rebuilt, principled antiwar movement will have nothing to do with these creeps.

Iltija Mufti, the daughter of Kashmiri politician & collaborator Mehbooba Mufti, claims she’s under house arrest in Kashmir. She has been managing her mother’s Twitter account while her mother is in a posh hotel suite playing political prisoner. We don’t operate by the same ethos as the oppressors. We’re against house arrest & detainment in swank hotels even though they don’t compare to India’s gulag where thousands of Kashmiri political prisoners, including little kids, are housed with dangerous criminals. We are however not opposed to Mehbooba Mufti being charged & prosecuted in a court of law for her crimes against the people of Kashmir.

The house arrest & posh hotel things are a dog & pony show to resurrect the images of these corrupt politicians who played a central part in the use of pellet guns against unarmed protesters, mass rape as a weapon of war, forcible disappearances, torture, incarceration of political activists. Too bad for Iltija Mufti but for now she can get one of her servants to run her errands. She will become credible as a dissident only when she makes an honest accounting of the crimes committed by her mother & other shysters like Omar Abdullah in the repression of Kashmiri resistance.

(Photo is Iltija Mufti)