WAR hysteria dominated the Parliamentary debate on Tuesday, with both Tory and Labour MPs pushing for a full-scale war against Russia over unproven accusations of ‘war crimes’ in Syria.
The three-hour-long frenzy for shooting down Russian planes was instigated by Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, a former international development secretary and ex-military officer, who has for months been calling for a no-fly zone to be enforced by the US and Britain over Syria.
Mitchell whipped up the hysteria likening Russia to Nazi Germany raising the comparison with the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica in Spain in support of the Spanish fascists led by Franco, and called a no-fly zone a ‘feasible’ idea.
He won support from right-wing Labour MPs with Mike Gapes agreeing with him and calling for condemnation of Russia ‘Not just from this government but from the opposition benches unanimously’.
The Tory foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, added his voice saying: ‘I have every sympathy with those ideas and for the motives behind them and we must work through all these types of options together with our allies given that I think this House is not committed to putting boots on the ground.’
His speech deliberately left open the door to a no-fly zone and the prospect of British and US planes shooting down Russian aircraft – a declaration of war against Russia. In a futile attempt to whip up popular support for these war plans, Johnson called for mass demonstrations outside the Russian embassy.
A three-hour emergency debate instigated by a Tory backbencher is a very rare occurrence and it was not just for the right-wing to let off steam. It was designed to further the war aims of American imperialism whose most vocal supporter is the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
During Sunday’s debate with Donald Trump, Clinton was quite open. She said: ‘I, when I was secretary of state, I advocated and I advocate today a no-fly zone and safe zones.’ Her opponent Donald Trump was equally emphatic in opposing their introduction.
This division between the two candidates is worrying the American ruling class and military, hence the instructions have gone out to their loyal lapdogs in the British parliament to try to raise a popular storm of approval for war with Syria and Russia using the old pretext of ‘humanitarianism’ as a cover.
Clinton’s hypocrisy and her long-standing commitment to war to effect regime change was exposed in a secret transcript of private remarks she made during a paid speech in 2013.
Commenting on the practicalities of enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria she said: ‘So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk – you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.’ So much for saving Syrian lives!
The whole issue of humanitarian war and the wild accusations of war crimes levelled against Russia and the Syrian army are just a smokescreen. Not a single shred of evidence has been produced that Russia bombed the aid convoy, an act that benefited the Americans and their Islamist allies, while it is the truth that the US bombed Syrian army positions to aid ISIS and al-Nusra and then called it a ‘mistake’.
The sole reason for a no-fly zone is to try and halt the total defeat of their terrorist allies at the hands of the Syrian army supported by Russia and effect yet another regime change in the Middle East for the benefit of the imperialists.
They are prepared to go to war with Russia in order to achieve this. The working class in Britain and America are overwhelmingly opposed to imperialist war. In Britain, workers must demand that Corbyn gives no support to any war plans and conducts a political struggle to bring down the Tories if they try and use British forces to enforce a no-fly zone.
At the same time, the TUC must be instructed that if these war plans are implemented, they must call an immediate general strike to kick out the Tories and bring in a workers government that will withdraw all troops from the Middle East.
