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US Ambassador to the UN and well-known warmonger Samantha Power relentlessly blamed Russia for the US coalition airstrikes that killed 62 Syrian soldiers. She accused Russia of "grandstanding" and diverting attention from the crimes of the "Syrian regime" for calling an emergency UN Security Council meeting after the US violated the infant ceasefire agreement. Her comments exposed the US military state's long time goal of regime change in Syria. The US regime change initiative in Syria is part of a global war on self-determination that threatens to send the planet into a World War III scenario. Last week's bombings were yet another heinous crime inside of a larger war.

These bombings show quite clearly that Syria's self-determination, and not ISIS or any other terror group, is what really threatens US imperialism and its allies. US imperialism has historically sought to undermine Syria's secularism and Pan-Arab nationalism. The CIA has attempted to destabilize Syria numerous times since its inception in 1947. But through struggle, Syria has built a truly independent state that is not beholden to anyone but the Syrian people. This was evident when the Syrian government rejected a pipeline deal with Qatar in 2009 that would have forced Syria to place the interests of the Qatari monarchy, Turkey, and Europe over its own.

The imperialist states, led by the US, have a long history of viewing national sovereignty as an impediment to continued economic expansion. Many establishment economists believed that the US and its imperial allies would enjoy unfettered freedom to dominate all corners of the globe after the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Yet only a decade later, the US was compelled to wage another global war in the name of terrorism. In his book, US General Wesley Clark revealed that seven countries were marked for destruction by the US after 9/11. Syria made the list alongside Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran, and Sudan.

The US made good on its word by waging ceaseless war. The expansion of war has only raised the stakes, with Russia and China increasingly finding themselves in the cross hairs of the US military state. It has also given way to an intensified drive by the US and its allies to use so-called "rebels" to achieve imperialism's aim of destabilization. Billions of dollars have been siphoned to so-called "jihadist militants" operating in Syria and throughout the region. Groups such as Al Nusra Front continue to commit unspeakable crimes yet are called "moderates" and given protection by the US and its allies. The coalition bombing of Deir ez-Zor is blatant proof that the US fights terror in word but supports it in deed.

The support of terror groups and so-called jihadist militants is part and parcel of the imperial war on self-determination. There are two choices in this war. One is to stand with the imperialists that have converged on Syria. The other is to stand with the Syrian government and its allies in the progressive struggle to preserve national sovereignty and international law. American and Western minds have been poisoned by chauvinistic, racist dogma about Syria's government and people. We have been told Assad is a butcher, dictator, and a tyrant, anything but Syria's rightful, democratically elected leader.

Imperial lies alter perception, not reality. The reality is that President Bashar Al-Assad was voted in by almost ninety percent of all Syrians in 2014. International law mandates that Syria's sovereignty be respected with no exceptions. However, US imperialism has never respected international law because it sees itself as the law. President Obama recently stated that the US is the only indispensable nation in the world. That means any nation or people that chooses its own path of development is dispensable in the eyes of the Commander in Chief.

The notion of indispensability applies to peoples all over the world. Black Americans oppressed within the borders of the United States have been fighting a war of their own. A movement has ignited in response to the daily murders of Black Americans at the hands of the police. The police occupation of the Black community is ultimately facilitated and protected by the same state forces waging war in Syria. The police see Black lives as disposable in the same way that the military sees the world’s people as "collateral damage." US imperialism's war on self-determination targets any oppressed people who choose to exercise it.

There was once a period not too long ago when US imperialism's war on self-determination around the world brought benefits to a select section of workers in the US. After World War II, a number of white workers were able to advance themselves from the spoils of global war and domestic racism. This has changed in a significant way. Capitalism is at a dead-end. The benefits of war go exclusively to the military contractors and corporate executives that wage them. What hasn't changed is how hundreds of years of imperialist war have conditioned racist chauvinism into the fabric of US society.

The war on self-determination will not stop unless people in the United States join the fight against it. The fight must be international in scope. Movements against police brutality, racism, and economic misery must join in solidarity with the Syrian people in the fight to preserve their sovereignty. If they lose, then we all lose. However, a victory for the Syrian government would be a victory for all of us who seek justice, peace, and a world where need comes before profit. Join the fight to demand the US and all of its partners eject themselves from Syria and anywhere else they rear their ugly heads.