Syria and Libya >
A Geo-political Analysis

Samir Amin, Egyptian born scholar and activist, says that the main struggle in the world today is between countries that need their resources to modernize and the imperialist countries that need control of the resources to maintain their economic supremacy.

By Linda Hoover  August 22, 2012

Editor’s Note: This speech is one of several given at forum entitled ” Is U.S. Military Intervention Ever Humanitarian?” held August 22, 2012 at Mayday Books, Minneapolis.

Humanitarians with missiles, bombs and an agenda:  Every U.S. military intervention seems to be justified with “humanitarian concerns.” In Afghanistan, the war is said to be about rights of women. There are calls for U.S. intervention in Syria over “human rights.”

• What economic and political issues drive U.S. military interventions? 

• Will “humanitarian intervention” be the new justification for waging wars? 

• Can the Pentagon play a humanitarian role?

In the early 1990’s Bush senior announce that the U.S. planned for a new world order. For Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa this has been a U.S. lead destabilization campaign meant to disrupt the energy routes to Europe, India, Japan and South Korea.  In the late 1990’s Clinton led the balkanization of Yugoslavia.

Resource wars could leave the U.S. watching from the western hemisphere before stepping in to claim the economic benefits of devastating wars.

The U.S. sponsored seizure of Syria is part of its attempt to divide Eurasia and to maintain its status as the sole superpower. The working class in Turkey and Saudi Arabia are and will be used as cannon fodder, as they were in Libya. They are either in Syria or amassed along the border.  The U.S. strategy is to turn the area from North Africa and the Middle East to the Caucasus, Central Asian, and India into a black  hole of fighting.  They want to balkanize Eurasia. Some say this balkanization,  or the breaking up of nation states, is moving large sections of the world toward barbarism.

Samir Amin, Egyptian born scholar and activist, says that the main struggle in the world today is between countries that need their resources to modernize and the imperialist countries that need control of the resources to maintain their economic supremacy.

A country that chooses to use its natural resources to build its own economy, even its a capitalist economy, will end up in a conflict with the U.S.—examples are Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Libya was balkanized not only because  it has water.  More importantly, according to Amin…the U. S. needs to occupy a place in Africa as a military command.  Today the command has to be based in Stuttgart!).  The African Union refused to accept it, and until now no African country had dared to do so.  A U.S. lackey in Libya  would surely comply with all the demands of Washington and its NATO lieutenants.  Upon occupation of Libya, the U.S. sent in the military, the IMF and the World Bank.  It forced a so-called  free market and is imposing  a western style dictatorship it calls democracy.

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The goal of toppling the government  in Syria is to balkanize the  country by partitioning it into four regions and to get closer to toppling the government in Iran.

Iran is the stronger regional power opposing U.S. domination. Launching an outright war using nuclear weapons against Iran has been on the drawing board since at least 2005.  Recall that Iran has the world’s third largest know reserve of oil—behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

This scenario, could be demoralizing. Yet, it doesn’t have to be.

Amin argues that the nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (who make up 80% of the human race) are in the second wave of anti-imperialist struggles.  That once the U.S. working class is deprived of the advantages of the money collected by the imperialists that we will be more capable of forming ourselves into a block actively opposing imperialism.

A  great portion of the U.S. budget, as well as the great amounts of wealth stolen from other places around the world,  goes to fund the military so that it can stop other countries from becoming economic competitors. Large sections of the world’s working class , including in the U.S.,  are experiencing extreme poverty and dislocation.  Whole countries are being returned to pre-industrialized conditions, with no regular running water, sewer systems, electricity, hospitals, or functioning schools. These people are considered part of the reserve labor force.  Sections of the U.S. such as Detroit, East St. Louis, Watts, and the reservations have decades of experience knowing what it means to be part of the labor force that is not needed. It is estimated that 1 of every 7 people in the world suffers from hunger.

We in the most advanced imperialist country need to take our place (as Amin says) in the great movement of liberation and carry out the ideological battles necessary to win U.S. workers and others to anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles around the world.  We must identify and  speak directly to possible allies. We must expose the crimes of U.S. imperialists and their military forces as a violation of the interests of the broad masses in this country who oppose these wars.  We must carry out our own propaganda and educational campaign to show the falsification of information used to trick Americans into supporting the takeover of other people and their resources.  We must support the fundamental democratic principle of the right of the nations to self-determination.

We can follow in the tradition of anti-imperialist, anti-war Russian activitist of the early 1900s They said:

1.  our job is to reveal the fact that there exists a  reactionary conspiracy of the  government, the military, the bankers and other imperialists.  They are doing everything they possibly can to hide behind the farce of supporting human rights and popular resistance.

 2.  we should reveal the  results of this conspiracy, namely, the attacks on progressive forces in other countries, the interference in the affairs of other nations, and violation of that fundamental democratic principle– the right of nations to self-determination

3.  we must point out that the major parties support the capitalist foreign policy & these wars of occupation.

Amin argues that the so-called “international community” does not exist.  It amounts to the U.S. embassy, followed automatically by those of Europe.

So, we must continually expose how the lies about supporting human rights and rebel forces are a violation of the interests of the working class.  The sham elections hosted by the major parties in the U.S .ignore the anti-war sentiments of the majority of us who opposed the wars against Iraq, Libya and Syria and we oppose a war against Iran.  In addition, the massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the capitalist class is a violation of our interests and our very survival.

Regardless of what the government spokespeople and the bourgeois media say, the majority of Americans already stand in solidarity with the victims of U.S. aggression.

We must demand that our basic democratic right to stand in solidarity with the victims  be recognized with the total and immediate with-drawl of all occupying forces.  Anything less is tramping on OUR fundamental right of self-determination.  We must help all Americans understand this contradiction.

I believe, along with Amin, that this trampling of fundamental rights is leading the world  toward barbarism, and that the only solution is socialism.  You do not need to agree with me to participate in MPAC.

The Minnesota Peace Action Coalition is just that—a coalition.  People participate in the coalition as members of an organization or as individuals.  Some folks are pacifists, some believe that armed struggle may be a necessary reaction to violence initiated by the system.  People work in the political arena, in their professional/religious/labor/civic organizations, and in organizing street demonstrations and forums.

The thing that binds us is that we oppose the U.S. interference in the affairs of other nations and we support the fundamental democratic principle of the right of nations to self-determination.  That includes the democratic right of the majority of Americans to have our anti-war sentiments recognized with the total and immediate with-drawl of all U.S. occupying forces.

If you are interested in more information, Mayday has books for sale and you might visit the website globalresearch.ca.

Linda Hoover is a member of the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition.