Fight Back News Service is circulating the following call from the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

Over the past two weeks as Minneapolis and the rest of country have erupted in outrage over the murder of George Floyd by law enforcement—a spark which has ignited the collective experience of police terror across America going back as far as the institution of police has existed here—we have seen law enforcement double down on their crimes. As authorities dragged their feet to charge the four officers responsible for killing George Floyd, demonstrations have been met with such in discriminant violence, repressive curfews, and military force to suppress this popular movement for change. These violent attempts to crush the protests have exposed the intentions of the state and the police towards progressive change and those united in fighting for it, but they have failed to kill this movement.

It is out of this uprising that the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression calls upon all its members, comrades, friends and allies to join a national day of action this Saturday, June 13ᵗʰ to call for direct democratic community control of the police, to continue the call for freedom for those caged in detention centers, jails, and prisons while the pandemic continues to spread, and finally to continue the call for justice for George Floyd and all other victims of police crimes from brutalization, illegal searches, torture, forced confessions, and murder.

Community Control of the Police means more than attaching some new name on the same ineffective review boards filled with law enforcement officers and their sympathizers; it means direct, democratic control of police departments, policies, budgets, and officers with full subpoena power through a civilian council elected by the people of the community served by the police. If these democratic demands are not accepted, then who are the police meant to serve? The cities of America have two choices, give people control over the institutions supposedly meant to serve them, or expose themselves for only being concerned with public relations and maintaining their own control.

#USA #PoliceBrutality #CPAC #NAARPR #GeorgeFloyd #DayOfAction #CommunityControlOfThePolice

Lucha y Resiste está promoviendo una declaración del Presidente de Venezuela Nicolás Maduro al pueblo de los Estados Unidos. El administracion del Trump esta subiendo el nivel de atentados a derrotar el Presidente Maduro y La Revolucion Bolivariana por poniendo cargas de narco-terrorismo al Maduro y otros en el gobierno. El administración del Trump también publicó un plan a alterar el gobierno Venezolano para permitir la oposición de los elites que toman más poder. Eso es a preparar un otro atentado del golpe del estado por los EEUU en apoyo de los no elegidos bobolongos. La semana pasada el Presidente Trump ordenó un grave augmentacion de los barcos de la Armada patrullando en el área del Caribe cera a Venezuela como una provocación. Al Pueblo de los Estados Unidos de América:

Desde hace semanas, el mundo está paralizado, intentando controlar una pandemia que sin duda es el desafío más grande que hemos enfrentado juntos como sociedad y comunidad internacional. Al igual que para el pueblo de Estados Unidos, confrontarla es nuestra prioridad.

Afortunadamente, en Venezuela hemos contado con algunas ventajas. Tomamos medidas muy tempranas de aislamiento y el despistaje ampliado, apoyándonos en nuestro sistema público y gratuito de salud, que cuenta con médicos de familia alrededor de todo el país. Contamos también con la invalorable organización comunitaria para ayudar a elevar la conciencia social y brindar apoyo a los más vulnerables. Igualmente, la solidaridad de Cuba, China, Rusia y el apoyo de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, nos ha permitido obtener insumos médicos necesarios, a pesar de las sanciones ilegales de Donald Trump.

Al expresarles mi solidaridad ante este importante desafío histórico y nuestra consternación y dolor por las consecuencias de la pandemia en EEUU, me veo obligado a también alertarles que, mientras el mundo se enfoca en atender la emergencia del COVID-19, el gobierno de Trump, instrumentalizando una vez más las instituciones para alcanzar sus objetivos electorales y basándose en infamias bajo pretexto de la lucha contra las drogas, ha ordenado el despliegue militar más grande de Estados Unidos hacia nuestra región en 30 años, con el fin de amenazar a Venezuela y de llevar a nuestra región a un conflicto bélico costoso, sangriento y de duración indefinida.

Como antecedente a esta maniobra falaz, el pasado 26 de marzo, William Barr, un Fiscal General de cuestionable independencia (quien recomendó la invasión de 1989 a Panamá contra Noriega y ayudó a encubrir las irregularidades del escándalo Irán-Contra), presentó, sin mostrar prueba alguna, acusaciones de narcotráfico hacia los Estados Unidos contra mí y contra altos funcionarios del Estado venezolano, a pesar de que la información del propio Departamento de Defensa demuestra que Venezuela no es un país de tránsito primario de drogas hacia los Estados Unidos, como sí lo son países aliados de Washington como Colombia u Honduras.

Es claro, que la administración Trump construye una cortina de humo para ocultar el improvisado y errático manejo de la pandemia en Estados Unidos. Desde un principio Donald Trump le restó importancia y la negó, tal como ha hecho con el cambio climático. Hoy la crisis se agrava simplemente porque, pese a contar con recursos, no está dispuesto a transformar el sistema de salud en uno que priorice el cuidado pleno de la población y no el lucro de ganancias de la medicina privada, las compañías de seguros y las farmacéuticas.

Nosotros en Venezuela no queremos un conflicto armado en nuestra región. Queremos relaciones fraternales, de cooperación, de intercambio y de respeto.

No podemos aceptar amenazas bélicas, ni bloqueos, ni tampoco la intención de instalar un tutelaje internacional que viola nuestra soberanía y desconoce los avances del último año en el diálogo político sincero entre el gobierno y gran parte de la oposición venezolana, que desea soluciones políticas, y no guerras por petróleo.

Por todo lo anterior, hago un llamado al pueblo de los Estados Unidos para que ponga freno a esta locura, para que responsabilice a sus gobernantes y los obligue a enfocar su atención y sus recursos en la atención urgente de la pandemia. Pido, junto al cese de las amenazas militares, el fin de las sanciones ilegales y el bloqueo que restringe el acceso a insumos humanitarios, tan necesarios hoy en el país. Les pido, con el corazón en la mano, que no permitan que su país se vea arrastrado, una vez más, a otro conflicto interminable, otro Vietnam u otro Irak, pero esta vez más cerca de casa.

No somos tan diferentes, como nos quieren hacer creer con infamias. Somos pueblos buscando una sociedad más justa, libre y compasiva. No dejemos que los intereses particulares de minorías cegadas por ambición nos separen. Nosotros, como dijo una vez nuestro líder Hugo Chávez, compartimos el mismo sueño. El sueño de Martin Luther King es también el sueño de Venezuela y de su gobierno revolucionario. Los invito a luchar juntos por hacer realidad ese sueño.

No a la guerra de Estados Unidos contra Venezuela No más sanciones criminales Queremos Paz

#Venezuela #Socialism #PeoplesStruggles #PSUV #USA #NicolásMaduro #Trump #Americas

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to the people of the US. The Trump administration is escalating attempts to bring down President Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution, making bogus charges against Maduro and other officials. The Trump administration also published a plan that would radically alter the Venezuelan government's branches of power. This is to prepare for yet another coup attempt by the U.S. in support of unelected scoundrels. This past week President Trump ordered a serious increase of US Naval ships patrolling Caribbean waters near Venezuela as a provocation.

Caracas, April 3, 2020

To the People of the United States of America:

For weeks now, the world stands still, trying to control a pandemic that, without any doubt, is the greatest challenge we have faced together as a society and as an international community. Our priority is confronting it, as is the priority of the people of the United States.

Fortunately, in Venezuela, we have been able to count on some advantages. We took very early measures of social distancing and amplified testing, relying on our free and public healthcare system that counts doctors throughout the country with what we call family. We also rely on the invaluable community-based organizations to help raise social awareness and support the most vulnerable sectors. The solidarity of Cuba, China, and Russia, and the support of the World Health Organization has likewise allowed us to obtain necessary medical supplies despite Donald Trump's illegal sanctions.

In expressing my solidarity to you in this important historic challenge, as well as our consternation and grief for the consequences of the pandemic in the U.S., I also have the obligation to make you aware that as the world focuses on dealing with the COVID-19 emergency, the Trump Administration, once again instrumentalizing institutions in order to fulfill electoral objectives, and based on infamies under the pretext of the War on Drugs, has ordered the largest U.S. military deployment in our region in the last 30 years, with the purpose of threatening Venezuela and bringing to our region a costly, bloody, military conflict of indefinite duration.

In the runup to this fallacious maneuver, last March 26, William Barr, an Attorney General of questionable independence (who recommended the 1989 invasion of Panama against Noriega and helped cover up the irregularities of the Iran-Contra scandal) filed, without showing any evidence whatsoever, accusations of drug trafficking towards the United States against myself and against senior Venezuelan State officials, even though data from the Department of Defense itself show that, unlike Colombia and Honduras, two of Washington's allied countries, Venezuela is not a primary transit country towards the United States.

It is clear that the Trump Administration is creating a smokescreen to cloud the improvised and erratic handling of the pandemic in the United States. The most optimistic forecast shows that close to 240,000 souls will be lost in the United States. From the beginning, Donald Trump downplayed and even denied it, the same way he has done with climate change. Today, the crisis in the United States aggravates simply because, despite having the resources, he is not willing to transform the healthcare system to prioritize full care for the population instead of profit-based private medicine, insurance companies and pharmaceutical industry.

Wein Venezuela do not want an armed conflict in our region. We want brotherly relations of cooperation, exchange and respect.

We canot accept war threats, nor blockades, nor can we accept the intention of installing an international tutelage that violates our sovereignty and disavows the progress made in the last year in the sincere political dialogue between the government and a large part of the Venezuelan opposition that wants political solutions and not oil wars.

Based on the foregoing, I call upon the people of the United States to stop this madness, to hold your officials accountable and to force them to focus their attention and their resources on urgently addressing the pandemic. I also ask, together with the end to military threats, the end to the illegal sanctions and blockade that restrict the access of humanitarian goods that are so necessary for the country today. I wholeheartedly ask you not to allow your country to be dragged once again into another unending conflict, another Viet Nam, another Iraq, but this time, closer to home.

The peoples of the United States and Venezuela are not as different as their lies intend us to believe. We are peoples seeking a more just, free, and compassionate society. Let us not let the particular interests of minorities blinded by ambition set us apart. We, as our leader Hugo Chavez once said, share the same dream. The dream of Martin Luther King is also the dream of Venezuela and its revolutionary government. I invite you to struggle together in order to make that dream come true.

No to a United States war against Venezuela.

No more criminal sanctions.

We want peace.

#Caracas #Venezuela #Socialism #PeoplesStruggles #PSUV #USA #NicolásMaduro #Trump #Americas

Dear Comrades:

We convey our warmest revolutionary greetings on the occasion of the 51st anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Your achievements are many and we stand with you in your struggle to liberate the Philippines from the yoke of U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. We are sure you will win many more victories in the coming period.

The Communist Party of the Philippines is in the leadership of a great people’s war that is inspiration to working and oppressed people everywhere. The people's democratic revolution, with socialist orientation, will triumph over reactionaries of all types.

We condemn the murderous regime of President Duterte and brutal wave repression that he has unleashed against the trade unions, mass organizations and all democratic and revolutionary forces. This repression is a sign of desperation. Like President Trump in the U.S., Duterte is a political representative of moribund system that is facing extinction.

We demand that the U.S. government end all aid to the reactionary and repressive government of the Philippines.

The people of the U.S. share a common enemy with the people of the Philippines: the U.S. monopoly capitalists. Every advance of the revolutionary movement in Philippines, like every advance of the revolutionary movement in U.S., brings closer the day of our common liberation.

Marx spoke long ago of working and oppressed people having nothing to lose but our chains. We place great value on the militant friendship between our organizations and our shared view that proletarian internationalism is a vital weapon in our common effort break the chains of monopoly capitalism that bind the peoples of our counties.

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines! Long live the unity between the people of the U.S. and the people of the Philippines! Together we will win!

With communist greetings,

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

#USA #Philippines #Socialism #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #frso #NPA #NewPeoplesArmy #Asia

May 1, International Workers Day, is a celebration of the heroic struggle for a better world waged by workers and oppressed people around the world. Monopoly capitalism is the system we fight against. This system is everywhere, from our low wages and the lack of affordable health care, to racist and bigoted laws, to the neverending war and oppression felt around the globe.

Monopoly capitalism is a doomed system that is destined to give way to socialism, a system that puts working people before profits. The road to revolution and socialism grows shorter as workers and oppressed people gather together and organize against greedy corporations, against backwards politicians and those who protect their dying system. Their days are numbered – our day will come.

This May Day, Freedom Road Socialist Organization commends all those who fight against a crumbling, rotten system run by the billionaries and their politicians. We ask all those who love peace, equality, and justice to organize and march in the streets demanding a better world. Only a united and well organized force of workers and oppressed people can see us through the endgame and lead us to victory.

Working and oppressed people of the world unite!

Long before the election of Donald Trump, workers and many others in the United States faced oppression. May Day was born on May 1, 1886 when hundreds of thousands of workers marched in the streets across the U.S. demanding a better life for all. Many were immigrants, not unlike the immigrants Trump attacks today with massive deportations and his attempts at “building a wall.” The revival of May Day as a mass, working-class event came on May 1, 2006 with more than a million Chicanos, Mexicanos, Central Americans and others pouring into the streets to protest the racist and anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill.

The working class should stand together and build a strong movement that can beat all of Trump's attacks. The wealthy own the places where we work. The working class is made up of those who own work for others for a living. Our class includes women, Black, Chicano, Latino, Asian, Arab, white and Native people. It also includes Christians and Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and many other groups. Working class organizers seek to unite as many workers as possible to win victories and teach one another a very important lesson – that an injury to one is an injury to all. There is no better way to stop Trump's plans to build a wall than to put that lesson into practice and stand with Latino, African, Arab, and Asian immigrants, along with Muslim immigrants.

Trump's military aggression threatens workers all around the world, especially those in Asia and in countries like Venezuela. Practicing solidarity with the international working class means opposing intervention and war overseas just like we oppose economic cutbacks and rascist police crimes here at home. The U.S. working class will not benefit from regime change in Venezuela, a country with a popular government that looks towards socialism, just like the working class saw no benefit from intervention and mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nations like Palestine need liberation, not more war, and we honor heroes like Rasmea Odeh who face repression. The Filipino people have a right to liberation and independence and the U.S. government should stop supporting repressive military and policital forces there. At home and abroad, wars waged by the rich always cost poor and working people the most.

Organize and fight to win

Activists working in struggles around the U.S. continue to fight and win. The working class has proven that we can push back when forced into a corner by the 1%. Trump's government shutdown was designed to make the working class suffer until he got funding for his rascist wall. It ended after federal workers began withholding their vital labor across the nation. The truth is the boss needs us and our labor as workers, despite trying to fool workers into thinking we need them. Once critically important workers at places like air traffic control centers began fighting back and refusing to work without pay, Trump was forced to end the shutdown. This was a major victory for the U.S. working class earlier this year.

Teachers’ unions have taken the lead in fighting back with one of the strongest weapons in labor's arsenal: the strike. With major victories for teachers in cities like Chicago, the lesson remains clear: organization and building union militancy can defeat the boss's greed and desire to drive wages, benefits and working conditions down. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters also made history when members at United Parcel Service voted to authorize a strike and then voted a terrible two-tier contract down. However, sellout union bearucrats are ignoring the voice of the members and are trying to force the contract through anyway. Rank-and-file Teamsters will see some justice when Hoffa Jr. and his cronies are voted out of international office in 2021.

Around the country, working-class Black people are fighting back and winning victories against police crimes. Police crimes are a serious problem in the Black community after centuries of slavery, Jim Crow and the racist laws of today forged an oppressed nation of Black people in the United States. The Chicago Alliance Against Rascist and Political Repression (CAARPR) has put renewed vigor into the demand for community control of the police. That demand is spreading like wildfire. Organizers fighting police crimes around the country are learning from Chicago and leading important struggles in places like Los Angels, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Jacksonville, and many other areas. Chicano and Puerto Rican organizers deserve recognition for their hard work fighting police crimes in their own communities Students and other community organizations also help fight to end national oppression in all its forms.

Ready for the 2020s and beyond

The year 2019 represents an amazing opportunity to prepare for the next decade of struggle. May Day is a time when we look to the working class for a vision of the future. We remember those who have fallen or been imprisoned because of their beliefs, and put our faith in the working class and in our goal of building movements united under the most advanced working class fighters. We must stay vigiliant in guarding our movements from all enemies who seek to stop us.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization salutes the workers, oppressed nations, students and allies fighting around the world for liberation from the old ways of running society. We will make serious advances through the 2020s along our common road. We insist on the end of capitalism and the establishment of socialism – a system where the political and economic power is in the hands of workers. We are resolved to march ever onwards to victory.

#USA #MayDay #PeoplesStruggles #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #frso #May1st #WorkersDay

May 15, 2018 marks the 70th year since al Nakba, or the Catastrophe, in Palestine. The Nakba refers to the day in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes and off their land by Israeli troops, precipitating the creation of the colonial, apartheid state of Israel. Since then, the Israeli government and its military has continued their attempt to squeeze Palestine into submission. But this attempt has been futile, as recent events in Gaza have illustrated.

Palestinian protesters in Gaza have been gathering outside of the Israeli border fence to protest for their Right of Return, a reference to their inalienable right to return to the homes and land they were forced from. Over 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip (the world’s largest open-air prison) are refugees who cling desperately to the hope of return. It is this hope that keeps thousands of Palestinians protesting at the border fence, despite the scores that have been killed by Zionist forces since the recent wave of protests began March 30.

On May 15, it is expected that thousands of Palestinians will gather at the border fence and attempt to march through it and break through to the other side, in what may be the catalyst that sparks the fire of a new intifada. Those who were born under occupation, raised by behind checkpoints, and trapped behind blockades and apartheid walls are fighting back! And those people deserve our praise, our respect, and our support.

In the U.S., it is our duty show solidarity with this Palestinian resistance. We live in the belly of the beast, without whom Israel would not be able to commit their atrocities against the Palestinian people. The U.S government sends billions of tax dollars to the Israeli government, provides weapons and technology to the IDF and Zionist settlers in Palestine, and even targets Palestinian activists, like Rasmea Odeh and the Holy Land 5, here at home. We must resist these policies that serve the interest of the ruling class only at the expense of everyone else, from here to Palestine. We must resist American imperialism, which wreaks havoc on innocent people in every nation it touches.

We call for a show of solidarity with the people Palestine attempting to return home – may they continue to resist, as we do here, and may they see victory in their lifetime. Free Palestine!

#USA #AntiwarMovement #Palestine #PeoplesStruggles #nakba #MiddleEast

At the start of this month, the whole world was tense as the U.S. proclaimed it was going to start missile strikes against Syria. It seemed likely that the U.S. wouldn’t stop after a few days of war, but would continue to attack Syria and cause as many deaths as the puppet FSA [Free Syrian Army] had caused in two and a half years.

Then Russia proposed a diplomatic solution to take Syria’s chemical weapons and, to the surprise of all, President Obama accepted it.

But then John Kerry said that the U.S. would only go along with putting Syrian’s weapons under international control if there was the threat of force in a UN resolution. Then this Friday, the U.S. had to back down on that in the United Nations Security Council resolution on eliminating Syrian chemical weapons. They had to drop the threat of force if Syria doesn’t comply.

Stepping back, we can see that for two and a half years, the U.S. has funded and directed forces to intervene, with the Gulf Cooperation Council, NATO and Israel playing roles; on the other hand, the U.S. has refused direct military action [such as]bombing, invasion.

What explains this contradiction? Why couldn’t the U.S., the most powerful military might on earth, carry out war on this small nation?

There other developments about the U.S. intervention in Syria that seem contradictory:

The U.S. has spent two and a half years funding and helping to direct an armed attack on the Syria’s government and the people of Syria. They intervened during the Arab Spring, the moment there was a mass protest movement there against unpopular policies of opening the economy to investment and then the resulting austerity measures.

They armed the only forces they found, including forces aligned with the Salafist movement, Al Nusra Front and other Al Qaeda linked groups.

On Sept. 26, we learned that the most significant of the ‘moderate’ armies fighting the Syrian government have quit the U.S. puppet FSA and joined forces with Al Nusra. They have called for an Islamic front, instead.

But in the Sept. 26 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, the most influential publication on the topic in D.C., they put out that they think Assad will go and be replaced by former Defense Minister, Ali Habib. The article reflects thinking in the White House about how to resolve the Syrian conflict, as well as the worries in Washington and Israel that the sectarian, foreign-led and dominated armies aligned with Al Qaeda would come to power if the U.S./Israel succeed in forcing out Assad.

How come the U.S. says that its main mission on earth is to fight Al Qaeda, but then it arms Al Qaeda against countries that have never attacked the U.S. Isn’t this a contradiction, too?

Let’s answer that by looking at some general questions: What is the status of U.S. power in the world today? What factors is the U.S. dealing with? And what determines U.S. policy in a particular country?

U.S. is weaker and there’s a rising trend toward independence from their control

The world has changed since the days after 9/11. The camp of resistance is growing and U.S. influence is in decline.

The economic crisis gets part of the credit for that. Although the capitalists don’t suffer like we do when there’s a crisis, it has weakened the power and prestige of the rich countries and the corporations.

But even before that, Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the Cheney/Rumsfeld plan to go after “Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” had all been an effort by the U.S. to turn back the hands of time, to put the U.S. back on top of the world they had ruled in the 1950s and 1960s.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended in defeat and stalemate. One clear consequence: the U.S. can’t use the method of massive invasions any more.

And the role of Russia in the struggle over Syria shows that the U.S. has to deal with rising powers, like the BRIC nations. Russia and China made it clear the U.S. wouldn’t get a United Nations Security Council vote for this war.

The people of the U.S., Britain and the other members of the NATO are sick of war and they’re sick of being lied to. When the U.S. upped the ante on Syria, things came to a head. President Obama found himself isolated on the world stage and domestically.

So the sudden changes in U.S. plans around Syria are a result of contradictions: first, the U.S. puppet army is losing to Syria’s army and militia; second, there’s a contradiction between the U.S. and Russia, which is no longer standing aside while the U.S. wages war; and third there’s a contradiction between the U.S. and it’s NATO allied governments and the peoples of those countries.

U.S. objectives remain

Of course, the changes in military form haven’t changed the underlying content of U.S. objectives: this place is an empire. The rulers want cheap labor and control of natural resources in other lands. They are like vampires – they have to have it.

On the one hand, the U.S. is weaker and unable to get what they want; on the other hand, they are compelled to keep trying. Rumsfeld’s vision of invading Syria is gone, at least for now.

But the arming of Al Qaeda armies is not a contradiction. U.S. imperialism will back whoever and whatever serves its interests. In one country, Al Qaeda linked is the worst threat to humanity; in the next country, they are recipients of arms and intelligence to fight a government that the U.S. has determined must go.

New focus on Iran

These losses have made the U.S. focus more on Iran. A new president in Iran doesn’t change that. The U.S. has adopted the stand toward Iran that they won’t accept an independent power in the Middle East. Syria is aligned with Iran, and so the fate of the two countries is tied together in the view of the empire.

The Arab Spring: A threat, then an opportunity

But right now the U.S. can’t handle a war of a similar or greater scale than Iraq. That’s why the U.S. was both anxious and excited by the Arab Spring. They used the dissatisfaction throughout the region, which was aimed squarely at U.S. puppets in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, to go after governments with a history of independence from the U.S.: Libya and Syria. The U.S. maneuvered to take control of the situation and develop contradictions in their favor in Libya. With the success of their operation there, they felt they were in a much better position step up their attempts to topple the government of Syria.

As in Libya, they offered support to the Islamists, even though supporting them in Libya resulted in ‘blowback,’ in the attacks on Western oil installation in Algeria and the U.S. embassy.

Summation

The U.S. seems to be acting in a contradictory way in Syria, but something unites their decisions in every action they take: is it in the interests of U.S. imperialism?

They want to go to war with Syria and Iran, but they don’t have the support or the resources for an invasion.

They want to bomb Syria, but they can’t get support at home or in Britain and more countries are standing up to them.

They are willing to back any force against Assad, even though they worry about Israel, for example,being attacked by the mercenary armies they have created.

New Tactics

Invasions aren’t popular, and the U.S. can’t rely on an Arab Spring to emerge everywhere.

If you can’t invade, how does an empire achieve its objectives of punishing independent people or rebellious populations? The answers: proxy armies, drone warfare and special operations. Proxy armies are being used in Syria and before that Libya. Drone warfare first emerged in use against Pakistan, because the Pashtun people that have been the main base of the national resistance live on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. The Obama administration then has taken the technology to Yemen, Somalia, Mali and Iran. We know that they intend to use it even more in the future because one growth area in the Pentagon’s otherwise shrinking budget is the budget for drones.

Conclusion

In our work against U.S. wars, we have to stand against threats to arm puppet armies; to assassinate or back coups; to carry out bombing and missile attacks; and we have to oppose drone warfare, as it is the most popular form of their undeclared wars.

#Chicago #ChicagoIL #AntiwarMovement #Imperialism #Iran #Syria #drones #JoeIsobaker #ArabSpring #MiddleEast #USA

National Call In Day: Call Off the Grand Jury Witch-hunt Against Anti-war and Solidarity Activists!

Stop FBI Repression!

Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300, on Thursday, December 9

1. Call off the Grand Jury!
2. Stop FBI repression of the anti-war and solidarity movements

Fitzgerald Expands Repression with 3 New Subpoenas in Chicago

Under the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, the FBI is expanding their repression of anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists in Chicago. On Friday, December 3, 2010, the FBI targeted three young women who traveled together to Palestine last summer. After the FBI called to question a young Jewish-American woman, Sarah Smith, FBI agents knocked on the door of two young Palestinian-American sisters. One sister was already on the phone with lawyer Jim Fennerty and handed the phone to the FBI, causing the FBI to leave. The FBI agents soon returned with subpoenas to the Grand Jury targeting anti-war and solidarity activists, dated for January 25, 2011. The three are standing strong with the other 14 subpoenaed activists from Illinois, Minneapolis and Michigan. Over 100 people protested in Chicago on Monday against the expanding repression.

Help Keep 3 Minneapolis Women Out of Jail

Fitzgerald’s new wave of repression comes a week after the re-activation of subpoenas for three Palestine solidarity activist women in Minneapolis. Tracy Molm, Anh Pham and Sarah Martin are being asked to appear before the Grand Jury again, despite refusing to speak in October. In Minneapolis and other cities a week of actions demanded “Protest to keep Anh, Tracy, and Sarah, out of jail!” Lawyers for each of the three are meeting with Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox this week. However, on orders from Fitzgerald’s office, the FBI shenanigans continue with visits to anti-war activist’s homes.

So please stand with the 17 subpoenaed anti-war and solidarity activists and make a phone call to Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300.

Also, please sign and circulate our petition at http://www.iacenter.org/stopfbi/

For more information visit www.StopFBI.net or write to StopFBI@gmail.com or call 612-379-3585.

#USA #AntiwarMovement #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression