The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on August 28.

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The Socialist Alliance condemns the threatened US-led Western military assault on Syria. We call on the Australian government to reject this latest imperial aggression, to extract itself from its military alliance with the US and end its involvement in all aggressive multinational military operations.

The Socialist Alliance supports the Syrian people’s democratic uprising against the tyranny of the Bashar al-Assad regime but we reject the interventions of the US and its allies in Syria. The Syrian people should have the right to decide their own future.

The horrendous chemical weapons attack on civilians is being used as the justification for this latest intervention. The use of chemical weapons is a heinous war crime and whoever uses it should be brought to account.

However, whatever the truth is about the exact responsibility for this brutal attack, the US and its imperial allies do not have the moral right to be judge, jury and executioner on the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction, chemical and other weapons. These countries have been profiteering from the deadly arms trade (including banned weapons) – and in the process have propped up, and continue to prop up, numerous dictatorial regimes around the world.

The launching of a military attack by the US and its allies in response will result in further civilian casualties.

Whatever justification is offered, a US-NATO war is not in the interest of the people of Syria. The terrible consequences of the Western invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan – consequences that are ongoing and have spilled across many other countries – are proof of this.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan also had brutal tyrants - yet the US-led military interventions made the situation far worse for the peoples of both these countries. Between 1-2 million people have been killed in these two wars and in addition, depleted uranium weapons will continue to cause death and deformities for decades to come.





