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The US empire cloaks itself in the drapes of patriotism to hide from its war crimes abroad. Every July 4th, red, white, and blue spectacles are paraded across the US to reignite the origins myth of the most violent empire in world history. US history is reduced to fables about the struggle for freedom and liberty supposedly waged by the original ruling elites who led the charge for full separation from the Union Jack. Little mention is made during the holiday about the true origins of the US or how the nation’s legacy continues to haunt poor and oppressed people all over the globe. Heroes are made out of mercenaries and thieves while true heroes are buried under the fog of war.
The July 4th holiday celebrates the end of a war led by slave owners and petty capitalists. A consortium of slave traders and owners declared war against the British Crown for attempting to abolish the slave trade in the North American colonies. This was proven by historian Gerald Horne, whose extensive work on the topic is matched by few. Horne traces the desire for “independence” among the colonialists to a string of events that imperiled the global slave network led by the British Crown.
In the late 17th century, the deregulation of the Royal African Company led to a surge in the English slave trade of Africans to the Caribbean and North American mainland. Slave rebellions ignited throughout the English colonies in the beginning and middle of the 18th century. Africans regularly took the side of whatever colonial power would offer freedom (such as Spain) as a way to leverage power. The freedom to enslave Africans was the primary concern of the colonialists, which was demonstrated by their negative reaction to the Somerset case of 1772. The courts declared that chattel slavery was not supported by English Common Law after a slave in Virginia was brought into custody in the British mainland, granting the captured slave freedom. It was the decision by the British Crown to move toward abolition as a means to diminish the costs of the trade that led figures like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to seek separation.
This doesn’t mean real heroes do not exist. Real heroes aren’t glorified slave owners or capitalists of any stripe. They do not wage wars, exploit workers, or create insufferable political and economic conditions for billions of people. Today’s heroes are most readily found in the forces waging resistance to imperialism. In the US, these forces include the prison leaders of the Free Alabama Movement who continue to organize hunger strikes and other actions against the mass Black incarceration state. And outside of the US, one doesn’t have to look any further than the Syrian people for hope that another world is indeed possible.
The Syrian people have defended their nation for over half a century from imperialist interference. After independence was established in 1947, Syrians of all classes were forced to continue their fight against French and US intrusion. CIA operations attempted to break the back of Syrian independence but never could. Coup after coup was thwarted by the legitimate government of Syria. Not even extensive support for the terrorism imposed by the subversive Muslim Brotherhood could achieve imperial plans to institute a government friendly to US and Western interests in the 20th century.
As Stephan Gowans writes in his book Washington’s Long War on Syria, the US-led war on Syria did not start in 2011 as many believe. The US military state has been waging a covert war since the country became independent. This war intensified after 9/11 when Syria was identified as a threat to US expansionist interests cloaked in the War on Terror. In 2014, State Department officials spoke of Syria’s socialist economic development model and independent foreign policy as a hindrance to US regional dominance. Sanctions were placed on Syria in 2004 in preparation for the bloody proxy war that would ignite shortly after Libya was destroyed by NATO in March of 2011.
What ensued was a coordinated assault led by an alliance of imperialist countries. Similar to Libya, thousands of takfiri terrorists have found the warm embrace of NATO, Saudi Arabia, Jordan Qatar, Turkey, and Israel (to name just a few). The US has provided consistent air support for the Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda) and ISIS. Israel has given medical aid and air cover to terrorists in the Golan Heights. Syrians have also come under the attack of chemical and biological weapons supplied to the terrorists. A number of chemical weapons attacks have been blamed on the Syrian government only to be exposed as the work of terrorists inside of the country.
Yet despite all of this, the Syrian people have made advances toward final victory. Russia’s assistance, beginning with diplomatic support in 2013 to military support in 2015 in the fight against ISIS, has been critical in Syria’s success. Russia gave the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) additional support and created a powerful axis of resistance that also included Iraq, Iran, and China. The SAA liberated Aleppo in late 2016, which is seen by many as an important deathblow to the imperialist project in Syria. It has continued to make advances all over the country. Reports indicate that the SAA has regained its link to Iraq along its eastern border, further isolating US-backed forces.
This spells doom for proxy forces operating in Syria as well as for the imperialist objectives that provide the basis of their existence. Of course, it will take an international movement to truly end imperialist ambitions to overthrow the Syrian government. Recent events demonstrate that the closer the Syrian government comes to victory, the closer the US and its allies come to risking a global confrontation with Russia. In the last two weeks alone, the US-led coalition struck down a Syrian jet while the Pentagon “predicted” a future chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government. Many saw these events as both a hint to the terrorists to conduct a chemical weapons attack and a dangerous escalation toward world war.
The war on Syria has cost the Syrian people untold losses. Millions have been displaced or killed in the cross fire. Syria struggles to maintain decent living standards for its people. The country was once considered one of the most developed and prosperous in the region prior to the war, so much so that even the imperialist Atlantic Council had to admit it. Yet through the chaos and the destruction, the Syrian people have persevered. They continue to provide a light in a period where the dominant imperialist system provides only darkness and despair.
So on this July 4th, do not look to the ruling elites in Washington for inspiration and hope. Look to the downtrodden and oppressed in your own community. Then look toward the Syrian people for inspiration the global context. The Syrian people have taught the world that no amount of money, weaponry, and aggression can stop the tide of liberation. In this way, Syria is enmeshed in a centuries long struggle to liberate the lot of humanity from the wretched clutches of imperialist domination worldwide. It would be in the interests of the vast majority of people in the US and West give the solidarity needed to push their struggle to a victorious conclusion.
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