EDITORIAL
End the Bloody U.S. War for Middle East Domination

Nov 9, 2015

The Obama administration announced it is sending ground troops to Syria for the first time. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained this new war away by saying that the main focus of U.S. troops will be to “advise” Syrian and Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State, or ISIS. Earnest, however, did admit that the introduction of U.S. troops marks an intensification of the war in Syria. “Intensification”–no, it marks a further catastrophe to be rained down on the region. More war planes are going to bomb and launch rockets, bringing about more horrific death and destruction.

This latest U.S. invasion will further inflame the cycle of war and violence in Syria. It will “clear the way for further escalation,” remarked David Ignatius of the Washington Post.

The administration also announced that it is sending more Special Forces to northern Iraq. The U.S. military, along with its Iraqi puppets and Iranian military units, is preparing new offensives in Ramadi and Mosul.

To support these latest escalations, the Obama administration is sending more war planes to Turkey, which borders on Iraq and Syria. The U.S. government is also increasing military supplies going into neighboring Jordan and Lebanon.

For over a quarter of a century, the U.S. has been carrying out an unending chain of wars in the whole Middle East and Gulf region, seeking to impose its domination. During the1991Persian Gulf War, the U.S. and its allies destroyed much of Iraq’s infrastructure, following this up with a suffocating economic embargo of Iraq, accompanied by more U.S. bombing and further destruction. All this organized violence served as the prelude to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Faced with growing resistance, the U.S. worked to divide the Iraqi population against itself, fueling civil war, propping up local sheiks, warlords and religious fanatics. The U.S. also used repressive regimes in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states to help impose U.S. rule on Iraq. All these regional powers have been competing ever since, backing competing armed groups and terrorists in Iraq, fanning the flames of civil war.

The U.S. excuse for invading Iraq was a terrible dictator, Saddam Hussein. But the U.S. installed a puppet dictatorship that was worse. The U.S. also claimed that it went into Afghanistan in 2001 to fight Al Qaeda. But it was the U.S. military and CIA that had created Al Qaeda decades before. Al Qaeda’s terrorist methods had been groomed and instilled by the CIA.

Al Qaeda has now been supplanted by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But it was the U.S. and its allies in Syria, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, that previously armed and supported ISIS also! Does ISIS employ brutal methods? Yes–the same ones the U.S. had earlier supported and encouraged.

The local populations in both countries are paying a horrendous price. After decades of unending war, big sections of Iraq remain a battleground, with regular car bombings and terrorist attacks.

As for Syria, more than 100,000 people have been killed, according to official estimates. And within the last year, six million out of 18 million people in the country have been driven from their homes. It is the fastest growing refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994, according to the United Nations. Four million of the refugees are trapped in Syria. They are literally dodging bullets, shells and bombs, living on the side of roads or huddled in wreckage and bomb craters. Millions are cut off by the fighting from the aid of Red Cross relief workers. What food that is available is so expensive, most cannot afford it. As for the two million Syrians who have managed to flee the country, they are often being “welcomed” by the barbed wire and concentration camps of the European powers.

All this because domination of the Middle East is vital for the U.S. super power, not just for the oil, but also because of the region’s strategic location between Europe, Africa and Asia. The Middle East allows the U.S. to dominate and control the commerce of the world.

This is the product of 21^st century capitalism: wars, conflicts and chaos, that is, growing barbarism.