The bourgeoisie is laying a trap. For the past five years, in some form or another, the forces of global capital, which take (in part) the form of the governments that form the EU and the USA, have been calling for a war of annihilation upon the people of Syria. “Human rights are being violated!” they wail. Human rights! Coming from the class that keeps the masses of the world in penury and misery, such yelling is less than empty. The United States and its partners in the European Union wish to destroy the institutions of the Syrian state and replace them with quisling dogs amenable to the capitalist class of the exploiter nations. The Democrats, Republicans, the whole of the capitalist class line up behind the landlord Donald Trump and chant with him: Human rights for Syrians—at the barrel of our guns!

When an A-10 Warthog shoots a thousand bullets a second into farmland, poisoning the soil with depleted uranium tips, who exactly is being gifted these vaunted “human rights?” When NATO member Turkey invades Afrin, causing a massive amount of the population to leave or face arrest and torture, do they bring “human rights?” When the US blocks importations of cancer medicine into Syria to punish the people, do they think this perverse cruelty is going to somehow bring about “human rights”?

Do these rights include housing, a job, a fair wage, food, medicine? Or do “human rights” for the US and NATO mean just one thing: The right to be exploited by transnational companies assisted by a puppet government dependent upon the forces of US capital? It isn’t necessary to melt down and inject 50 hours of Parenti lectures to come to the conclusion that these so-called “human rights” don’t mean a thing when they’re brought in on the wing of a warplane. Our decimation of Libya, our free-market regime change in Iraq, not to mention our wars of annihilation upon the Koreans and Vietnamese people (remember their story of nuns being killed in South Vietnam, and ghost boats off of Tonkin!) make it clear: America brings only death, destruction, and punishment if it is denied a market.

The War on Syria, which has for years been waged by America and it’s NATO & EU allies, has been drawing to a close. To many Syrians, peace is almost on the horizon, and the task of rebuilding can truly begin. To America, a country is slipping out of reach, and must be brought into line.

We, as socialists, must stand and repeat the slogan: No to War! Any war America wages is unjust, no matter what humanitarian smokescreen is used to obscure the true reasons. We live in the belly of the beast, the heart of global capital and imperialism, and in order to fulfill our duty as socialist we must bite the intestines, piss on the guts, and clog the veins of this grotesque animal.

No to Imperialist War! No to murder and decimation!

This essay was written by a member of DSA SF. Thank you to the DSA members and many other community members who turned out to anti-war rallies this weekend.