En Passant

War criminals like Bush, Blair and Howard will never face any court of justice. That is for Western supported dictators who go rogue. The real justice they must face is that of the millions who said no to the war in Iraq before and while it was happening. Let’s build a mass movement that doesn’t fall like a shooting star (as the anti-Iraq War movement did, partly because the ALP supported it once troops were sent.) That means building movements against war, against racism, against Islamophobia, against attacks on unions and on living standards. Most of all it means building a vibrant fighting left. Let’s join together in the fight against war, against imperialism, against austerity, against capitalism.

Socialist Worker UK has ongoing coverage of the Chilcot Report. It is time to try Tony Blair for war crimes. To read the regular updates click here. Chilcot Report destroys Blair’s case for war.

This is a research paper by Christine Buchholz (Die Linke member of parliament) and Frank Renken, translated by Ben Windsor and published on 21 September.

They say in part:

‘Nonetheless, it is the forces at the bottom of society, and not the top, that a left-wing politics must orientate on.

‘Ultimately it is only a revival of the democratic mass movements in the region that can offer a way towards peace and social justice.’

To read the whole article click here.

The last big demonstrations in Australia were against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the lies of our leaders. Maybe it is time to organise protests against the next instalment of that madness, bombing Syria.

Eric Ruder in Socialist Worker US untangles the crisscrossing web of antagonisms in the Middle East and argues that ‘the latest military escalations by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia threaten to further destabilize a Middle East in which open hostilities and humanitarian disasters have multiplied, from Libya to Yemen, and Syria to Iraq .’

The Kurds of Kobanê are the latest victims of a war that arose as a direct consequence of imperialism and oppression. Alan Maass and Tom Gagné explain the background in Socialist Worker US. They argue we must oppose every counterrevolutionary attempt to undermine either Kurdish self-determination or the Syrian uprising. One face of that counterrevolution is the reactionaries of ISIS, with their barbaric war on Kobanê. Another is the authoritarian and undemocratic regimes of the region–even when they oppose each other, as Erdogan’s Turkey and Assad’s Syria do. Last but not least is U.S. imperialism, which bears responsibility for the horrors unfolding in the Middle East today. Whether through direct intervention or support of reactionary forces, the U.S. is intent on maintaining its dominance in order to control the world’s most valuable resource: oil. As anti-imperialists in the U.S., we want to expose the hypocrisy and deceptions of the latest U.S. war drive–and build the forces demanding an end to its wars, so the masses of people in the Middle East can decide their collective future for themselves.

Ashley Smith and Alan Maass in Socialist Worker US provide the facts you need to know about the U.S. war on ISIS – and why it will make the world more chaotic and violent than ever.

Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that in consequence of the persistence by Islamic State in taking swathes of oil rich Iraq, the United States has declared a humanitarian mission against this cult of death and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. Tony ‘Menzies’ Abbott

Today, Obama’s Iraq policy is not about some grand new plan for US domination, but is a desperate rearguard effort to salvage what remains of US power and influence in the Middle East, writes Corey Oakley in Red Flag.