the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 3, 2008
On October 26, four U.S. military helicopters crossed the border between Iraq and Syria. The helicopter bombed a building in a Syrian village, located five miles inside the country. Eight construction workers laboring there at the time were killed and 19 others were wounded.
According to an Iraqi spokesman, this operation was designed to eliminate Al Qaeda militia members who were getting ready to enter Iraq. A U.S. spokesman added that it was easy to infiltrate “foreign combatants,” arms and money across this part of the border to Iraq, where such combatants could engage U.S. troops.
This incursion into Syria is in line with the policy carried out by the U.S. general staff, directed by General Petraeus. The U.S. military had made many similar incursions into Pakistan, with the same official justifications of flushing out “terrorists” from their “dens.” The very same day of the attack on Syria, the U.S. launched another bombing attack in Pakistan that killed some twenty people.
Is this the beginning of a wider war? Or was the Bush administration trying to make a show of force to impress the population at the end of the election campaign?
The U.S. military has been stuck for five years in Iraq and seven years in Afghanistan?
Will this attack on Syria in fact make it easier for the U.S. population to accept 170,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq, the expansion in Afghanistan, the nearly 5,000 dead in the two wars, and the 525 billion dollars squandered? It’s doubtful.