Despite sanctions, occupationSyria will rise again

The author gave the following edited talk during the Dec. 28 webinar entitled “Syria: Exposing the U.S. role – A regime change operation and Israeli occupation of Syria,” organized by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). The entire webinar video can be viewed at youtu.be/2QEn3wllu2Q. Feel free to share it on social media and elsewhere.

I’m proud to be a contributing editor of Workers World Newspaper which has opposed the Zionist apartheid state from our founding in 1959, always defended Palestine’s right to resist and for more than 50 years has defended Syria, opposed the Zionist occupation of Syria in Golan and defended the Iranian Revolution. So check us out at workers.org. 

I’m proud of the work of the SanctionsKill Campaign, a coalition with many solidarity groups that exposes the U.S. crime against humanity of sanctions in webinars, reports and a book. 

Exposing the U.S. role in the destruction of Syria and the Israeli occupation of Syria is a responsibility of the whole anti-war, anti-imperialist movement in the U.S. Each new U.S. intervention uses every form of corporate media to confuse their crime. They throw up reams of false information. Look everywhere else; blame the victim; publicize the role of other smaller countries that they lured into regime change crimes. Repeat the propaganda and claim that everyone is rejoicing at the fall of the government. Lots of talk that this is a new era. Declare U.S. power is assured.

These lies need an immediate response! 

Ask, when has any force tied to U.S. imperialism been a force for liberation or freedom anywhere in the world? This [the U.S.] is the center of the largest empire in history. Our role is to challenge the empire, expose its crimes and educate. Every U.S. imperialist victory is paid for by working people here. Let’s expose the criminal role of U.S. sanctions.

There are more than 40 sanctioned countries, one-third of the world’s population, targeted by U.S. economic sanctions.

I am really shocked and surprised by the number – even among left commentators – who barely mention the impact of over 20 years of strangling U.S. sanctions on Syria. Sanctions are a sinister, calculated effort to starve out entire populations. No transactions for food, medicines, infrastructure or payments to essential employees are allowed. Every financial transaction is banned. Sanctions are an all-out effort to destabilize and recolonize the developing world.

I saw Syria when it was a prosperous, modern country with zero foreign debt and free health care, free education, including at universities. There was subsidized food, modern infrastructure paid from the nationalized oil resources. Syria was a breadbasket and strong defender of Palestine for 50 years. Syria was a proud mosaic of many minority nationalities, religions and peoples. 

Then came the sanctions. Syria was under U.S. sanctions for more than 20 years, since the 2003 Iraq War.

We’ve all seen the same tactics in Cuba, in Nicaragua, in Venezuela. We’ve seen U.S.-funded mercenaries that can rip a country apart. 

U.S. bombed Syria for 10 years 

Al-Qaida, ISIS, Al-Susra and other competing gangs operating without plan or coherent ideology or leadership surged into Syria. All were funded by the U.S. and also by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They were funded to tear Syria apart. There was wild propaganda, a Western media onslaught. Claiming they were fighting ISIS forces, the U.S. military started bombing Syria in 2014. Ten years of destroying all possible infrastructure! U.S. officials brag that 90% of Syrians were reduced to living in absolute poverty; one-third of the population is internally displaced or exiled abroad. I saw Syria during the U.S. bombing, every possible building and neighborhood sandbagged. Every school, community center and government building was housing displaced people in classrooms, gyms and basements. Sanctioned Syria could not gain funds or supplies, even from the United Nations after a devastating earthquake, for reconstruction or emergency relief.

The solidarity of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia helped save Syria and at great cost, regain control of Syria’s unheated, destroyed cities. But one-third of Syria was occupied and remained under U.S. and Turkish control through contending mercenary gangs. This eastern region is the oil and resource rich areas and the agricultural breadbasket. There are U.S. bases in Syria and still in Iraq to this day, with U.S. troops, trainers and contractors in Jordan, along with U.S. and NATO bases in Türkiye. Media around the world are now covering the U.S. role at bases where mercenaries were protected, organized and reequipped. 

In the years of no heat, little electricity, old weapons and constant bombardment, demoralization can take hold. The lines can collapse. The Syrian Arab Army could not withstand another offensive of well-trained, newly-equipped mercenaries.

 As a political movement in the U.S., we have the obligation to expose the U.S. role. Expose the bombings, expose the sanctions, the hunger and defend the resistance!

The imperialist onslaught will fail. There will never be a “Greater Israel.”

 U.S. imperialism and its vicious Zionist proxy — Israel — are already overextended. How many times can billions of U.S. dollars bail out its Zionist proxy force?

Israel is a failed state

Israel failed to gain one foot of occupation in Lebanon. The Israel Occupation Forces have failed to defeat resistance in Gaza. Now Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares a year-long occupation in Syria and plans for a “Greater Israel”!

Israel is already totally unsustainable, totally dependent on constant infusions of weapons and money. The Zionist country’s ports are closed, its industries closed. There are internal divisions. Hundreds of thousands are leaving Israel, and the tourists have stopped coming.

The U.S. occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq ended in failure, ruin, despite committing three million U.S. troops and contractors, with projected costs reaching past $2 trillion. 

Imperialism can create horrific ruin, millions of refugees. But international finance capital cannot consolidate their control. The empire is in decline and decay. Peoples’ movements are on the rise.

The U.S. strategy is to burn the whole region down. But the rage of the oppressed breaks through.

The ruling class in every age has superior weapons. That guarantees nothing.

 We remain confident that resistance will reemerge and will reassert itself.

Resistance is an organic response to repression. Syria is part of decades of resistance. Syria will rise again.