Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the United National Antiwar Coalition.

Hands off Syria and Iran! End the Drone Wars! We Need Jobs, Education and Healthcare, Not Endless War!

The ominous signs of impending war with Syria escalate. NATO holds a special meeting to respond to the downing of a Turkish fighter plane and issues threats of future action.

The U.S. media bombards us with alleged crimes of the Assad government, while the Syrian government claims all the unrest stems from an opposition armed, financed, and directed by the CIA, NATO, and neighboring Arab states to take over Syria.

The ‘facts’ we get are mainly unsubstantiated, sometimes proven to be fabrications and/or overblown. It is hard to sort out the truth about what is happening on the ground in and around Syria today. There are ‘facts’ we do know, however:

• Sanctions harm the people of Syria causing food shortages, power outages, and block the distribution of goods.

• The U.S. is directly involved in arming and training Syrian militias. Supplying arms to opposition militias in Syria contributes to the escalation of violence, the possibility of civil war and/or direct foreign military intervention, and total destabilization. The people who always suffer the most are the citizens not engaged in the armed struggle.

• The U.S. has no interest in democracy or the humanitarian well-being of any citizenry anywhere in the world, especially in areas where the U.S. has economic or strategic interests. We see the results of ‘humanitarian’ U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan today, where the people, especially women and children, are worse off than before, with millions dead, injured, and/or displaced, an infrastructure and economy in shambles, and there is no peace.

• The U.S. government’s goals in Syria are to gain dominance in a part of the world that holds the vast majority of the known oil reserves and to gain strategic advantage as it seeks to isolate and contain competitors like Russia and China.

While activists may hold different views of Syria’s internal political system, we must all agree that the U.S. government has no right to impose its will on other countries, especially those formerly colonized and exploited by the West. In all cases, we must support the right of nations to self-determination – that is to be able to decide on and resolve internal conflicts free from any foreign intervention.

The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) demands:

No U.S. or NATO intervention in the internal affairs of Syria! No War! No Sanctions! No Intervention!

#Syria #AntiwarMovement #antiimperialism #UnitedNationalAntiwarCoalition #MiddleEast