Damascus, Syria – On Wednesday, May 26, election day in Syria, crowds flocked to polling places to cast their votes. A delegation of observers from the U.S., South Africa, France and Palestine visited polling locations east of Damascus in the war-torn Ghouta region to witness the voting and celebrations taking place. Occupied by U.S. and Saudi-backed contras for over six years, civilians there were unable to vote in the last presidential election, and many more have only recently returned to finally rebuild their homes. Within Ghouta, the delegation observed voting in the town of Arbin and the city of Douma.

The morning of election day, an antique store owner in Damascus told Fight Back! “I am going to vote as soon as I close the store. It's my right and there are polling places everywhere.” He pointed to the place he planned to vote, a few blocks away from the souq (market) in which his store is located.

Election officials reported that Douma, a city with 70,000 residents, had 20 polling sites. The election boasted a total of 12,000 voting stations around the country and in Syrian embassies that are still open.

In spite of the abundance of voting stations, officials had trouble with the sheer number of voters. The polls were originally set to be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but the large crowds forced officials to keep the polls open until midnight. An observer in Douma from the office of opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah said more than 1500 people had voted at that site by 2 p.m. This location was also where incumbent president Bashar al Assad had cast his vote that morning.

Hundreds of Syrians, including many young people, rallied outside every polling site. Crowds waved Syrian flags and raised pictures of Assad while chanting “Allah! Souriya! Bashar ou bas!” (God! Syria! Bashar! Nothing else!) among other chants in favor of the incumbent. A man celebrating outside a Douma voting station said in English, “We want Dr. Bashar because there are no more terrorists!”

The man continued in Arabic, “It was miserable during the occupation. There was no food, water or electricity. People were killed for smoking. Women were killed for not covering up.” His town was occupied by Saudi-backed terrorist organization Jaish al Islam from 2012 until 2018, when it was liberated by the Syrian Arab Army.

Young people showed off the ink on their fingers, the mark used to indicate that they had already voted, preventing people from voting more than once. An 18-year-old casting his vote for the first time said of himself and his friends, “We want to be doctors and engineers so we can help rebuild Syria.”

Yara Saleh, a Syrian reporter who was kidnapped by terrorists for six days in 2012, stressed the importance of this election for the youth. “The young people grew up during the war,” she said, adding that the youth deserve safety and stability that they were denied for so long. “Every Syrian family has a story like mine,” Saleh added.

The following night, tens of thousands of people gathered in and around Umayyad Square in central Damascus to await and celebrate the results. 19-year-old Aya Jamal Abbas danced with her friends in the crowd, a Syrian flag painted on her face.

“I'm very happy that we're all together. We voted for Bashar and we're waiting for the results,” Abbas said. “This is our victory. We won this war.”

Her sentiment was echoed by people of all ages and diverse backgrounds. Abeer Ali Naif, a Palestinian woman who Fight Back! spoke to outside her home in the war-torn Yarmouk refugee camp, invited the delegation to celebrate the results in her home with her family the morning after the election. “Bashar is a great man,” Naif added.

Many people in Umayyad Square described their feelings of joy. “Damascus deserves joy for all the people who are no longer with us today,” said Aasma Rahme, 27, a lawyer.

“There is joy in Syria,” said Ahmed al Ali, 42. “Everyone around is happy. It's infectious. Congratulate the Syrian people for this joy.”

Deafening cheers erupted throughout the square when the results were announced. Fireworks lit up the sky and celebratory gunshots went off all over Damascus.

Mpho Masemola, member of the delegation and secretary general of the South African Ex Political Prisoners Association, likened the celebrations to those that happened during the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela.

President Assad was re-elected with an overwhelming 95.1% of the vote. Reportedly, 14.2 million people voted out of 18.1 million eligible citizens in Syria and internationally.

The 78.6% voter turnout might have been higher if all Syrians were able to vote where they live. Some areas of Syria are still under occupation by U.S. and Turkish troops and various mercenaries they support. Many Syrians living internationally could not vote due to the Syrian embassies in their countries of residence being closed.

One such Syrian is Johnny Achi, who has lived in the United States for over 30 years. Achi voted in Douma, where he said, “As long as the Syrian embassy in the U.S. is closed, I will travel here to exercise my right and duty as a Syrian citizen.”

Tamer al Jadoua, 33, told Fight Back! in Umayyad Square that he traveled from Kuwait to cast his vote. Al Jadoua and al Ali were celebrating together and responded to questions about the claims in U.S. and allied media that the election was fake and celebrators were forced.

“We are the ones who voted for Bashar because we like him,” al-Ali said. “No one forced all these people to be here. Many came from very far away.”

“When you see all the people come here voluntarily, you see the people of Syria say, 'Bashar is our choice,’” Husam Ayazra said in English. “We don't need anyone to impose anything on us. We want just Bashar. No one else.”

A group of men initially refused to be interviewed by this U.S. based Fight Back! reporter. “You will go back and tell lies about us,” one man said. After some discussion, the man said, “All these people are not being forced to be here. They're here because they support Bashar with their blood and soul.”

The man used phrasing from the ubiquitous chant: “Bi ruh, bi dam, nafiq ya Bashar!” (With blood, with the soul, we are with you Bashar!) The man continued, “These are not just words to us. You have to say them with your soul.”

Accusations of a faked election are another in a long list of slander against Syria in the U.S., UK, Israeli, Qatari and other imperialist-aligned media. Earlier in the day, Naif cited those same governments as being responsible for the destruction of her home in Yarmouk, as well as the ongoing occupation of the land from which her family was forcefully removed in 1948.

When asked what message she has for America, Naif replied, “Leave us alone.”

In response to the same question, Ayazra implored Americans and other people of the world to watch out for misinformation in the media. “I want every journalist to be honest,” Ayazra said. “Ask yourself if you want another country to destroy your country. Why do they do that to us? There is democracy in Syria. They want to destroy it with lies.”

One of the men, who did not want to be named, told Fight Back!, “Tell the truth about what you saw here. And make Joe Biden lift the sanctions.”

The man was referring to the sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Syria through the Caesar Civilian Protection Act of 2019. The Caesar Act put a chokehold on the Syrian economy, causing a currency collapse that inflated the price of basic goods and restricting access to medicine and the construction materials needed to rebuild Syria after the war, among other vital resources.

The man added that it is the responsibility of the American people to fight against their government when it attacks other countries.

The election marks a victory of the Syrian people against imperialism, but imperialism is still detrimental to their lives and the lives of people around the world. The system of imperialism will stay alive until the people living under imperialism rise up and kill it.

#DamascusSyria #Damascus #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #Syria #Assad #HandsOffSyria

New York, New York – About 50 protesters gathered at the U.S. Military Recruiting Center at the heart of Times Square, April 14. The protest was an emergency response to Donald Trump’s escalation of the war on war on Afghanistan. On April 13, a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the “mother of all bombs,” was dropped on what is purported to be “ISIS targets” in Afghanistan. This is a continuation of a conflict started by the U.S. and NATO 16 years ago, the longest imperialist war the U.S. has ever been in. The dropping of the MOAB on the Achin district has death counts estimated to reach up to 94 people, and a blast radius estimated at one mile.

In response to the attacks on Afghanistan, which show Trump is willing to use weapons of mass destruction, the International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS) made an emergency call to action to protest. The action was attended by NYC Students for Justice in Palestine (NYSJP), Anak Bayan New York, the Committee to Stop Repression, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner’s Network and SPARC. The protesters planted themselves in front of the U.S. Military Recruiting Center, calling for an end to imperialist occupation and shouting anti-war chants. Among these chants were “We demand justice! We demand peace! U.S. out of the Middle East!” “Donald Trump what do you say? How many bombs did you drop today?” and “Money for jobs and education! Not for war and occupation!”

Michela Martinazzi of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and ILPS had this to say, “Yesterday a 21,000-pound bomb was dropped in Afghanistan. Last week 59 tomahawk missiles were launched into Syria. We have a fleet encroaching on North Korea, and we just put troops in Somalia after 20 years. Donald Trump is beating his war drum and we have to demand an end to all U.S. wars. Demand an end to the U.S. war machine! Demand money to be spent here for jobs, healthcare and education!”

Ann Wright, of Veterans for Peace, a former member of the U.S. military and noted anti-war activist, also attended and spoke. She stated, “I’ve been protesting the war since I resigned from the military and the U.S. government 15 years ago. If I could resign today, I would.”

The dropping of the bomb is just another example of Donald Trump furthering the U.S. imperialist agenda. With his posturing directed at Russia, the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; Trump contradicts everything his campaign claimed about “non-intervention.”

Trump is simply another warmonger intent on destabilizing oppressed nations in the interests of capitalism. Trump’s actions do not simply mirror the harmful U.S. actions in places like Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam and countless other nations; they are a direct and aggressive escalation. On April 7, Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Al Shayrat Airfield in Syria, a direct act of aggression against the popular government of President Bashar Al-Assad. Rather than condemning an action Trump had himself once warned against, the neoliberal politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties praised Trump’s actions.

#NewYorkNY #AntiwarMovement #Afghanistan #US #MiddleEast #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #Syria #HandsOffSyria #DonaldTrump

Minneapolis, MN – 75 people protested in front of U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar’s office near the intersection of Washington Avenue and Interstate 35W in Minneapolis to denounce Trump’s increasing attacks on Syria, Iraq, and the threats against North Korea. The protest came days after the Trump administration launched air strikes against Syrian military air base.

The protest occurred after a group of organizers met with two aides from Senator Klobuchar’s office. Marie Braun, representing the Twin Cities Peace Campaign, told the crowd about their efforts to pressure the senator, “The aides said that the senator is against the appropriation of a $54 billion increase to the military budget. She agrees that this money should be spent on human needs instead. She does not support the proposed cuts. However, she supports the strike on Syria. She believes that the strike was proportional.” The crowd booed loudly and Braun continued, “She believes it was Assad who used the chemical weapons. She says that they have proof and of course they always claim they have proof. So we raised the question about investigating this. The worst thing we could do is to go to war over a false flag operation like we have done so often in the past.”

Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi-American currently living in Iraq, reported to the crowd about his concerns that Americans are being fed another pretext as a justification for war. Rasouli said, “They needed lies when they sent Colin Powell to the UN to make his case which was a false flag operation. He justified the invasion and of course you know what the outcome was. The U.S. is dismantling the Middle East. The U.S. is playing the major role and keeps killing innocent people including children. These wars of destruction are launched by lies. So we have work to do to end these wars in the Middle East.”

Mary Beaudoin, a member of Women Against Military Madness, told Fight Back!, “There is a lot of terrible propaganda about Syria. People believe that this was actually a chemical weapons attack by [Syrian President] Assad. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s illogical. Previous claims, like the one in 2013, have been disproved. Syria has removed their chemical weapons. The U.S. has been trying to increase its intervention in Syria for years.”

Austin Jensen, a member of the MN Anti-War Committee, agreed, “It’s disgusting that Trump has decided to bomb a region that has been impacted by civil war for the last six years. U.S. involvement is not going to help in any way! We are also really concerned by the hostility with North Korea right now. This could be easily avoided by not trying to intimidate them.”

The protest was initiated by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC).

#MinneapolisMN #International #AntiwarMovement #Korea #US #MiddleEast #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #Syria #HandsOffSyria #MinnesotaPeaceActionCoalitionMPAC #DonaldTrump

Jacksonville, FL – On Friday, April 7, a Peace for Syria demonstration was brutally disrupted by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) in downtown Jacksonville. Community members and activists have wondered about a connection between Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and Gary Snow, the right-wing counter protester seen in several videos harassing and assaulting the five activists, now known as the Jax5, who were beaten and arrested by JSO despite committing no crime. Gary Snow was not interfered with in any way and was filmed sitting on a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office car after the event.

Two important photos have now surfaced. The first photo depicts Sheriff Mike Williams and Gary Snow posing for a photo at a Donald Trump rally in Jacksonville like old friends. The second photo, a screenshot taken before recent changes to individual Facebook profiles, depicts Mike Williams having a prominent seat on Gary Snow’s “Top Facebook Friends.”

This all comes after Sheriff Mike Williams gave a press conference denying any link to Gary Snow.

When asked about connections to Snow on Tuesday April 11, Sheriff Mike Williams responded that there are “None that I know of. I don’t think – I haven’t heard Gary Snow’s name until Saturday. I don’t think he has any real connection to police officers.”

It seems that there is more to this story than meets the eye. It appears that the JSO used Gary Snow as a resource, allowing him to run amok and disrupt the peace demo, before savagely beating and arresting the demonstrators and allowing Gary Snow to go free.

The answer is clear – the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office must be held accountable for their brutality and misconduct the evening of April 7, and all of the charges against the Jax5 must be dropped immediately. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office will not be able to hide behind Gary Snow and his actions, despite anything the JSO tries to accomplish along those lines.

Readers are encouraged to call the office of State Attorney Melissa Nelson at 904-255-2500 and demand she drop the charges against the Jax5. More information can be found on Facebook: Justice for the Jax5.

#JacksonvilleFL #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #Syria #Florida #HandsOffSyria #Jax5 #FreeJax5 #GarySnow

Milwaukee, WI – 40 demonstrators marched through downtown Milwaukee, April 9, in opposition to Trump’s missile attack against Syria.

The action was organized by the Milwaukee Coalition Against Trump. Demonstrators from a variety of groups rallied outside of Grand Avenue mall before marching through downtown to the federal courthouse building.

Some speakers called for an end to military spending and for money to be spent instead on refugee resettlement, health care and education. Others doubted the justification for the latest bombing against Syria, saying the claim of a gas attack against Syrian civilians by the Syrian army without a shred of proof. “Ever since the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964,” Brian Verdin, an anti-war and civil rights activist said, “I have not believed a single thing my government tells me.”

Attendees left the event ready to mobilize if aggressions against Syria or any other nation continues. “There was a common theme in all of our speakers today,” said Maricela Aguilar, co-chair of the Milwaukee Coalition Against Trump. “U.S. intervention in this world is a cancer that brings nothing good to this planet or its people and it must be eradicated.”

#MilwaukeeWI #AntiwarMovement #US #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #Syria #HandsOffSyria #DonaldTrump

Tampa, FL – On the morning of April 7, President Trump ordered the U.S. military to attack Syria, firing over 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian government targets near Homs, Syria’s third largest city. The Russian Defense Ministry stated that only 23 of 59 missiles struck intended targets, with the majority assaulting nearby villages. Syrian media sources are reporting at least nine civilians died in the attack, including four children.

At $1.59 million per missile, the attack cost the U.S. government $93.81 million. But it also instantly added nearly $5 billion to the collective stock value of big American corporations that make missiles and weapons, including Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The Trump administration’s bloated military budget is money robbed from crucial social programs such as education and healthcare, which face significant cutbacks. Trump’s racist attacks on the Syrian people are therefore also an attack on the rights of workers and oppressed people here, and only benefit the wealthiest 1% of corporate owners.

Trump’s attacks are a dangerous escalation of the six-year-long U.S. war on Syria, as it is the first time that Washington is openly announcing military strikes aimed at the Syrian government. Such attacks could create a deadly confrontation between two nuclear powers: the U.S. and Russia. Russia has been assisting the Syrian government against U.S.-funded proxies dominated by al-Qaeda. For years, the U.S. government has spent over $1 billion per year funding and arming right-wing proxy forces that have ripped the country apart, creating millions of refugees. In 2016 alone, the U.S. military dropped 12,192 bombs on Syria, destroying the country's infrastructure and killing thousands. Economic sanctions have strangled the Syrian economy, resulting in massive inflation and poverty. The Syrian health service, one of the best in the Middle East before the U.S. intervention, is now close to collapse.

Bomb first, investigate later: U.S. policy in the Middle East

The U.S. government claims their vicious attack against a sovereign country in the Middle East was punishment for a recent poison gas explosion in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed 70 people, which U.S. blamed on the Syrian army. In Hillary Clinton’s first interview since her presidential election defeat, she eagerly united with Trump’s plan, encouraging the U.S. to bomb Syrian airfields mere hours before the attacks started.

The corporate-owned media immediately began parroting these war-hungry claims, without any independent investigation, even though the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice just two months ago publicly boasted on NPR, “We were able to get the Syrian government to voluntarily and verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile [in 2014].” This is the same racist media that demonize Black and Latino youth as ‘criminals’ in order to justify mass incarceration in for-profit prisons and police murders.

In 2003, the U.S. government used fabricated ‘proof’ of weapons of mass destruction owned by the Iraqi government to publicly defend their invasion and occupation of Iraq. No such weapons even existed, yet the war raged on. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, tens of thousands of American troops suffered life-changing injuries or were killed, and al-Qaeda (a right-wing fundamentalist group, founded by Osama bin Laden and other forces that were funded and trained by the U.S. government in the 1980s to overthrow Afghanistan’s left-wing secular government) in Iraq became ISIS.

U.S. government confirms, ISIS empowered by U.S.-led ‘war on terror’

A recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document written in 2012 exposed plans by Western powers and their regional allies to facilitate the rise of ISIS in order to “isolate the Syrian [state].” The document is confirmation from the highest level of U.S. intelligence that they see ISIS as a tool for overthrowing the Syrian government, and it acknowledges that al-Qaeda dominates the anti-government forces in Syria. Trump’s recent attack targeted a Syrian army base at odds with ISIS, allowing ISIS to launch an offensive on Syrian troops in the area.

It has long been the strategy of the U.S. government to fund right-wing proxy groups to weaken or overthrow governments which do not fully align with U.S. corporate interests. The ‘war on terror’ is effectively a war on the nations and liberation movements that oppose the foreign domination of their country’s land, labor and resources.

Hypocritical lies pave the way for endless U.S. wars

The U.S. government itself is guilty of the same crime against the Syrian people, as well as the Iraqi people, which they claim that the Syrian government committed. In Iraq, the U.S. military has littered the environment with thousands of tons of munitions made from depleted uranium, a toxic and radioactive nuclear waste product. As a result, more than half of babies born in Fallujah from 2007-2010 were born with birth defects. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. military fired thousands of rounds containing depleted uranium in Syria, after they vowed not to. According to weapons experts, the use of depleted uranium is a war crime and an act of genocide, because the civilian population’s exposure to it causes cancer, birth defects, immune system damage and other serious health problems.

During the 2003 U.S. war on Iraq, American soldiers and their contractors also sodomized Iraqi prisoners with broom handles and chemical lights. Furthermore, wherever the U.S. military and their bases are, it is well documented that massive prostitution and sex trafficking follow.

No ban! No bombs! No sanctions!

The U.S. war on Syria is not about ‘democracy’ or ‘humanitarianism,’ especially not after the Trump administration closed its doors to Syrian refugees and enacted two Muslim bans. Rather, it is about the imposition of an economic and political order which protects the interests of Western powers and their regional allies. Syria is a passageway of important oil and gas pipelines, while the U.S.-backed state of Israel perceives the Syrian government as a threat due to its support for resistance against the Israeli occupation of Arab lands across the Levant. Trump’s attacks have allowed Israel to accelerate its drilling of oil and gas from the Golan Heights in Syria, an area which has been under Israeli military occupation for the past 50 years.

It is the duty of all freedom-loving people in the U.S. to organize and mobilize the broadest number of people against all U.S wars. To defend the interests of workers and oppressed people in the U.S. is to demand the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria, as well as an end to the bombings and killer sanctions on the Syrian people.

#TampaFL #AntiwarMovement #CapitalismAndEconomy #US #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #Syria #HandsOffSyria #AntiSyriaIntervention #DumpTrump #DonaldTrump