Washington, Paris ramp up war moves, attack rights

BY NAOMI CRAINE

Washington, Paris and other imperialist governments have seized on reactionary Islamic State’s deadly attacks that killed 130 people in France to widen their military and diplomatic efforts to shore up their interests in the Middle East. The war drive is coupled with the capitalist rulers’ deepening assault on political rights and the working class — first and foremost targeting Muslims and Arabs.

Since the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks by Islamic State, French forces have stepped up bombardment of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital, and other targets in Syria. Paris deployed aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle off the coast of Syria, tripling its airpower in the region.

Washington has stepped up bombings against IS targets and says more U.S. special forces are on the way. British Prime Minister David Cameron met with French President Francois Hollande Nov. 23, asserting his “firm conviction” that U.K. forces should join in the bombing.

Moscow has also intensified bombings, hitting nearly 500 targets over the Nov. 21-22 weekend. The Russian government has targeted not only Islamic State, but used most of its firepower to bomb other opponents of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, including forces backed by Washington.

The challenge of putting together a “grand alliance” of capitalist powers with competing interests was highlighted Nov. 24 when a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian warplane that Ankara says entered Turkish airspace. Turkey — a NATO member — had been demanding Moscow stop bombing Turkmen forces on Syria’s northern border opposed to Assad’s rule.

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened “serious consequences,” saying Moscow had been stabbed in the back by “the accomplices of terrorists.”

Hollande met with President Barack Obama Nov. 24, urging closer collaboration with Moscow in the fight against Islamic State. He travels next to Moscow to meet Putin.

Even before the assault in Paris, the White House had been seeking ways to forge a bloc with the Russian and Iranian governments to stabilize Syria and Iraq and impose a new balance of power in the region.

Obama faces bipartisan calls to take more aggressive military action. Democratic Party presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called on Congress to authorize expanded use of military force against Islamic State Nov. 19, saying, “We should get this done.” Three days later Dianne Feinstein, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “I don’t think the approach is sufficient. … We need to be aggressive.” Republican Sen. John McCain called for sending ground troops to Syria, as have many of the Republican presidential candidates.

Paris extends police powers

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on civilians at a rock concert, a soccer game and several restaurants, Hollande imposed a state of emergency, giving authorities broad power to search homes, place individuals under house arrest, ban demonstrations, dissolve organizations deemed subversive and block Internet sites they claim advocate terrorism.

The French National Assembly voted 551 to 6 Nov. 19 to extend the state of emergency for three months. “We believe the extension is warranted and necessary,” said André Chassaigne of the Communist Party, placing the party’s Left Front parliamentary bloc firmly in defense of the French capitalist state.

Heavily armed police have been breaking down doors in Muslim communities across France, interrogating people at will. As of Nov. 23, police say they have carried out 1,072 warrantless searches, detained 117 people and placed about 180 under house arrest.

Cops searched thousands of workers’ lockers at Air France Cargo, FedEx and caterer Servair at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. L’Express reported they found “elements of proselytizing and some signs of radicalization,” such as prayer rugs and copies of the Koran “annotated along radical or fundamentalist lines.” Authorities revoked security badges for 58 workers, effectively putting them out of work.

The state of emergency has been used to ban a large, union-sponsored environmental rally planned for Paris Nov. 29, on the eve of the U.N. summit on climate change in the French capital, and a “Rally with Muslims of France for Peace and National Unity,” organized to oppose both the Islamic State attacks and scapegoating of Muslims, planned for Nov. 20 near the Grand Mosque in Paris.

A similar rally was allowed to go ahead in Toulouse the next day and drew 10,000 Muslims and others.

Most workers who are Muslim despise Islamic State and its terrorist methods. “These people are fanatics and have nothing to do with any religion. My neighbors say the same thing,” Abdel Kheddouma, an auto assembly plant worker near Paris, told the Militant.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve Nov. 16 vowed to increase surveillance and shut “mosques where hate is preached.”

Widespread police raids are also taking place in neighboring Belgium. Authorities locked down Brussels, the capital, closing schools, stores and the metro transit system for several days, after Prime Minister Charles Michel claimed there was a “serious and imminent” threat of an attack.

Scapegoating of Muslims

In Washington the House of Representatives voted by a two-to-one margin to suspend the government program that allows refugees from Syria and Iraq to enter the United States. Governors of 31 states, Democrats as well as Republicans, have said they want to prevent Syrians from coming to their states.

Since the attacks in France, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has put anti-Muslim demagogy at the center of his campaign — calling for registering Muslims in a government database, closing mosques and claiming that “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Rival candidate Marco Rubio said the government should be able not just to shut mosques, but “any place — whether it’s a cafe, a diner, an Internet site — any place where radicals are being inspired.”

Democrat David Bowers, mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, issued a statement Nov. 18 in support of barring Syrian refugees as a security measure comparable to the decision to “sequester Japanese foreign nationals” during World War II. When it got wide publicity, Bowers backtracked, apologizing.

“We must never let another group of people be singled out and punished because of their race or religion,” Roz Tonai, director of the National Japanese American Historical Society, told the Militant Nov. 23.

Mosques in Omaha, Nebraska; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Portland, Oregon, have been vandalized or threatened. Some 200 residents of all nationalities rallied in solidarity with the Islamic Center of Pflugerville, Texas, Nov. 21 after worshipers found the doorway splattered with feces and torn pages of the Koran.

Related articles:
Campaign against imperialist war! Protest attacks on Muslims, mosques!
New York meeting: ‘Join fight against US war drive’

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