The Biden Administration Just Broke International Law. 

Why Doesn’t Anyone Care?

Joe Biden just authorised airstrikes on Syria without congressional approval.

by Aaron Bastani

5 March 2021

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

In January 2020, Iran’s most powerful general Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike along with four members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces. Authorised by Donald Trump, the attack took place near Baghdad International Airport, with the US claiming Soleimani was in Iraq to coordinate attacks on US diplomatic and military personnel. Soon afterwards, however, Iraq’s prime minister disclosed that the major general was in fact delivering Iran’s response to a letter Iraq had despatched on behalf of Saudi Arabia.

At the time, leading Democrats criticised Trump for authorising the strike. Joe Biden accused the president of having “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox”, leaving the region “on the brink of a major conflict”. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, said Trump risked escalating tensions with Iran, while Pete Buttigieg declared there were “serious questions about how this decision was made”. Nancy Pelosi echoed such sentiments, saying the president was wrong to authorise the attack without first consulting Congress.

Yet last week, after president Biden approved his first military action, leading Democrats appeared by and large unconcerned. This is especially notable given that Biden, like Trump, authorised the action without congressional approval. 

What was the Biden administration’s motivation here? Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby claimed the strikes, which were aimed at “infrastructure utilised by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria” in response to attacks against US and coalition personnel in Iraq, were intended to punish the militias – but not escalate tensions with Iran. A separate official attempted to justify the action by claiming it may have killed only a “handful” of people, while the targeted “compound” was also, according to the US, previously used by Isis. 

Independent sources, however, now put the death toll from the strike at at least 22. Moreover, given those militias now subject to US bombing helped defeat Isis, a perennial question re-emerges: whose side is the US on in Syria? And what does it actually want from its westernmost ‘forever war’ in Asia?

Questionable grounds are accompanied by dubious legality, with the White House claiming the strikes were an act of “self defence”. In so doing, it cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states nothing “shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.” 

But what they neglected to mention were the words that come after this: “…until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”. Given the attack wasn’t on American soil – and the US had adequate time to work with the Security Council to punish Iran through diplomacy – the attacks had no legal basis. “They are citing the correct sources of law,” a leading scholar in the field told Vox, but “are wildly misinterpreting them.”

What’s more, if Iran is the target of Washington’s ire, then what is the basis for strikes in a neighbouring state? Assad is a brutal dictator. But Syria is a sovereign country.

Before you call me an apologist for the Syrian president, these were in fact the words of Jen Psaki in 2017 after Trump authorised a similar attack without congressional approval, when Psaki was a political contributor for CNN. In her new job as White House press secretary, however, she doesn’t pose such questions, but rather deflects them. Such hypocrisy also applies to vice president Kamala Harris, who tweeted in 2018 that she was “deeply concerned about the legal rationale” for strikes in Syria. Similar comments in recent days, unsurprisingly, have not been forthcoming.

Even more galling than the double standard from senior Democrats – from Psaki and Harris to Pelosi and Buttigieg – is how behaviour reminiscent of Trump is actually celebrated by some of his biggest critics. “So different having military action under Biden,” tweeted Amy Suskind, who worked on Wall Street for two decades before rising to prominence opposing the former president. “No middle school level threats on Twitter”. One reply to that tweet read: “Such a quiet attack. No drama, no TV coverage of bombs hitting targets…what a difference!” This was in response to seven 500-pound bombs and significant loss of life.

The idea that US drone strikes in Syria constitute “self-defence” would be funny were it not so serious. The strikes were undertaken, after all, in response to events in Iraq – a country whose elected government requested the withdrawal of US forces a year ago. There is a term for when a foreign power remains in a country despite being asked to leave by its legitimate government: it’s a military occupation. Appeals to “self-defence” are doubly strange when one considers that the city of Erbil is 6,000 miles away from Washington, while Iran, which has denied any involvement in the attack, shares a land and sea border with 11 countries that are home to US military bases.

Despite having denied involvement in the Erbil attack, Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the groups targeted, was allied with the US air force in 2015 during the capture of Tikrit. As with Soleimani, their reward for helping neutralise the world’s most dangerous terrorist organisation was for the US to then turn on them. As late as last year, the Washington Post described the organisation as “part of Iraq’s conventional security forces since helping Iraqi and coalition forces defeat the Islamic State”. Six months on, they are a foe whose deaths are an afterthought.

Rather than self-defence, the truth is that the targeting of militias in Syria – in response to events in Iraq – was done to avoid inflaming a volatile situation in the latter, with the US military already asked to leave. As with the execution of Soleimani, the Pentagon would not disclose the threat US forces faced in either country, saying instead the attack was to deter future Iranian assaults on Americans – although not a single Iranian national was among the 22 dead in Syria. Last week showed that for Biden, like Trump, making a political statement matters more than any loss of life or international law.

Murdering people in the name of ‘deterrence’ isn’t just immoral, but illegal too – and if those who criticised Donald Trump as commander-in-chief wish to enjoy a shred of credibility, they should say as much. As one tweet put it: “We got an airstrike before we got a stimulus check.” Continuing America’s forever wars isn’t just ethically disastrous – it may also allow a Republican back into the White House in 2024.  

Aaron Bastani is a Novara Media contributing editor and co-founder.

International Women's Day 2021: when is it, what is the theme, inspirational quotes - and why is it celebrated?

International Women’s Day is celebrated all over the world, including in the UK

By Jenna Macfarlane
Friday, 5th March 2021

International Women's Day has been observed since the early 1900s through protests and strikes (Getty Images)

Countries all over the world band together on International Women’s Day to celebrate the achievements of women and campaign for gender equality

The international awareness day has been observed since the early 1900s - yet this year the celebrations will be like no other.

Due to the coronavirus crisis, many events all over the globe will be taking place virtually.

So, what is International Women’s Day, when is it in 2021 - and what is this year’s theme?


Here is everything you need to know.


What is International Women’s Day?

First celebrated in 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global day celebrating the achievements of women - whether that be social, economic, cultural or political.

It’s also a time for commemorating women who have made history and nodding to those who continue to champion gender equality for future generations.


But perhaps most significantly, the political roots of the day mean strikes and protests are organised to highlight continued inequality across the world.


Despite there being more gender equality than ever before in 2021, the IWD website concludes that there is still “urgent work to do”.


And data from UN Women has revealed that the coronavirus pandemic could wipe out 25 years of increasing gender equality.

Women are doing more domestic chores and family care due to lockdown restrictions, which in turn can impact upon career and education opportunities.


According to the World Economic Forum, “gender parity will not be attained for almost a century”.


It says: “None of us will see gender parity in our lifetimes, and nor likely will many of our children".


How did the day begin?


The day started with a march that took place in New York City in 1908.


Over 15,000 women took to the streets to campaign for shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.


The first National Women’s Day was then celebrated across the US on 28 February 1909.


But the idea to make it an international celebration came from Clara Zetkin, who floated the idea at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910.


There were 100 women in attendance, from 17 countries, who unanimously agreed on her suggestion.


The United Nations started celebrating the day in 1975, and its first ever theme was "Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future" in 1996.


What are the colours of International Women’s Day?


The official colours of International Women’s Day are purple, green and white.

These originated from the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the UK back in 1908, according to the International Women's Day website.


"Purple signifies justice and dignity. Green symbolizes hope. White represents purity, albeit a controversial concept,” it states.


When is International Women’s Day 2021?


International Women’s Day always falls on 8 March, which this year is a Monday.


Zetkin’s idea for an international awareness day had no fixed date, and there was no formal one until a war-time strike in Russia in 1917.


During the strike, women demanded “bread and peace”, until four days into the protest the Tsar was forced to abdicate and the provisional government granted women the right to vote.


The date when the strike began was 23 February on the Julian calendar which was used in Russia at the time.


In the Gregorian calendar, that was 8 March, which is the date International Women’s Day is celebrated today.


How is it celebrated?


The awareness day is a national holiday in many countries, including in Russia where flower sales double during the days around 8 March.


And in China, many women are given a half day off work as advised by the State Council - although some employers don’t always pass the half day on to female employees.


Meanwhile, in Italy, the day is celebrated by the giving of mimosa blossom. The tradition is thought to have started in Rome following the second world war.

In the US, the entire month of March is Women’s History Month and a presidential proclamation issued each year honours the achievements of American women.


However, this year will look different across the globe due to the pandemic.


More events are expected to take place virtually, including in the UK.


There will also be a virtual event on 8 March run by UN Women, with the theme: “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”.


“The pandemic won’t dampen our spirits in the pursuit to connect communities around the world to collaboratively forge positive change for women,” the IWD website reads.


What is the International Women’s Day 2021 theme?


There’s a different theme for International Women’s Day each year to help to raise awareness.


In 2021, that is #ChooseToChallenge, according to the International Women’s Day website.


“We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world,” organisers said.


To show their support for the theme, people can post an image of themselves on social media with their hand raised high to show they choose to challenge and call out inequality.


The images will be shared around the world in the lead up to the day, using the hashtags #ChooseToChallenge and #IWD2021.


What are International Women’s Day quotes?

Here are some inspirational quotes from famous women:

“I raise up my voice—not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard… We cannot succeed when half of us are held back.” – Malala Yousafzai


“The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you’re very courageous: be strong, be extremely kind, and above all be humble.” – Serena Williams


“I think every woman in our culture is a feminist. They may refuse to articulate it, but if you were to take any woman back 40 years and say, ‘Is this a world you want to live in?’, they would say ‘No.’” – Dame Helen Mirren


“The best way for us to cultivate fearlessness in our daughters and other young women is by example. If they see their mothers and other women in their lives going forward despite fear, they’ll know it’s possible.” – Gloria Steinem


“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made … It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg


“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” – Maya Angelou


“There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice.” – Michelle Obama


“Women feel like we need permission … We need to lead and change that.” – Emma Watson

March 5th 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg's birth. A Polish-born Jewish revolutionary, she was one of the greatest theoretical minds of the European socialist movement.  Rosa Luxemburg Library - Marxists Internet Archive Aug. 19, 2020 — Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive. “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party –  THAT REVOLUTIONARY FEMINIST JOURNAL; TEEN VOGUE Rosa Luxemburg: Who Was the Revolutionary Socialist and ... www.teenvogue.com › story › who-is-rosa-luxemburg Mar. 5, 2020 — During her 47 years, Luxemburg was indefatigable in her commitment to building an international proletarian movement and encouraging ... Rosa Luxemburg | Jewish Women's Archive jwa.org › encyclopedia › article › luxemburg-rosa Rosa Luxemburg was a socialist revolutionary known for her critical perspective. Born in Poland, Luxemburg had become an important figure in the world ... 150 years since the birth of Rosa Luxemburg - World Socialist ... www.wsws.org › articles › 2021/03/05 › pers-m05 18 hours ago — Rosa Luxemburg, who was born on 5 March, 1871, was among the most important revolutionary Marxists of the 20th century, and her work ... Happy 150th Birthday, Rosa Luxemburg - Jacobin jacobinmag.com › 2021/03 › happy-150th-birthday-ro... 14 hours ago — One hundred and fifty years ago today, the Polish Marxist thinker and organizer Rosa Luxemburg was born. She is, without question, one of the ... Rosa Luxemburg and the German Revolution - Rosa ... www.rosalux.de › dossiers › rosa-luxemburg-and-the-g... In marking the 100th anniversary of both the Revolution and Luxemburg's murder, the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung seeks to commemorate her legacy, the legacy of ... Rosa Luxemburg at 150: a revolutionary legacy by James Plested RED FLAG SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE AU 05 March 2021 Rosa Luxemburg, one of the great leaders in the history of the socialist movement, was born in Poland (then a province of the Russian empire) 150 years ago this month, on 5 March 1871. Luxemburg cut her teeth in the Polish revolutionary underground, but as an immensely talented political leader, she was drawn to the centre of the European workers’ movement in Germany, where, from the late 1890s, she became the driving force of the revolutionary wing of German socialism. In the pamphlet Social Reform or Revolution?, the first part of which was published in 1899, she took up the fight against those in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) who rejected revolution and argued instead for a focus on the gradual reform of capitalism through parliamentary and trade union work. The leading figure within this “revisionist” current, as it came to be known, was Eduard Bernstein. In The Preconditions of Socialism and the Task of Social Democracy, he argued that, as capitalism developed, the tendency to economic crisis identified by Karl Marx was being overcome, raising the prospect of a permanent and peaceful advance towards universal prosperity. Read more  What's the way to get to socialism? In response to Bernstein, Luxemburg argued that, far from the contradictions in capitalism and its tendency to crisis being overcome, as the system developed, these contradictions would intensify. The period of growth and prosperity experienced in Germany in the last decades of the nineteenth century was only the calm before the storm. It wouldn’t be long, Luxemburg argued, before the contradictions inherent in the system broke out in the open again. Only this time, with the greater concentration of industry and the heightened competition between states for markets and resources, the crisis would be deeper and broader than ever before. A little over a decade later, with the outbreak of World War One in 1914, the correctness of Luxemburg’s account was clearly demonstrated. The dream of universal capitalist prosperity was replaced overnight with the nightmare of industrial-scale slaughter in the trenches. Further, the behaviour of the SPD’s parliamentary leaders, who junked all their long-established anti-militarist principles to vote in favour of funding the war effort, showed the truth of her insight that, rather than changing the system, the reformists would end up being changed by it. “People who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution”, Luxemburg wrote, “do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal”. In the face of a renewed crisis of capitalism, of war and brutality on an unprecedented scale, the reformists’ professions of faith in the long-term achievement of a socialist society gave way to a more or less straightforward defence of the existing order. In her 1906 pamphlet, The Mass Strike, Luxemburg once again assailed the reformist currents of the SPD, this time contrasting their top-down, bureaucratic conception of the socialist movement with Marx’s idea of revolution as “the self-emancipation of the working class”. The pamphlet was written in the aftermath of the first Russian Revolution of 1905. Events in Russia were greeted with a wave of enthusiasm in the Western European socialist movement. In particular, the central role played by mass strikes of workers in the revolution gave confidence to the radicals within the SPD and the trade unions. For the reformist SPD and trade union leaders, though, the new enthusiasm among workers for the mass strike was a cause for deep concern. It went against all the rules of the game—blurring the boundary between political demands, which they believed were the exclusive domain of the party, and economic demands, which were the responsibility of the unions, and risking the struggle moving beyond the carefully mapped paths of reform. For many trade union leaders, parliamentarians and party officials, the development of union organisation and the advance of the SPD’s parliamentary activities had become ends in themselves. The attitude of many trade union leaders is summed up nicely in the words of Theodor Bömelburg, a building union leader, who said, “To develop our organisations further, we need peace in the labour movement”. Read more What coronavirus taught us about the ruling class Strikes were a drain on union funds, and risked provoking the wrath of the capitalist state, which could impose punitive measures that would disrupt the unions’ operations. To the extent that a mass strike might be useful or necessary, it was a tactic to be employed carefully and precisely by the leaders, at the appropriate time and in the right conditions. We can see many of these same attitudes, and worse, in union leaders today. In contrast to this, Luxemburg considered that the mass, unruly, revolutionary strikes that occurred in Russia in 1905 provided a reminder of where the true wellspring of the socialist movement was to be found. To her mind, the strength of the movement lay, not in the increasingly gigantic bureaucratic machinery of the unions or in the carefully thought-out manoeuvrings of the SPD’s parliamentary wing, but in the self-activity of workers in struggle. For Luxemburg, the direct involvement of workers in struggle was the key to the advance of the workers’ movement, in both its economic and political dimensions. The relationship between the economic struggles of workers for better wages and conditions, and the struggle to advance the political goals of the workers’ movement, was highly reciprocal: “After every soaring wave of political action, there remains a fertile sediment from which sprout a thousand economic struggles. And the reverse also applies. The workers’ constant economic struggle against capital sustains them at every pause in the political battle”. To maintain a hard and fast divide between the economic and political spheres, as was the case with the reformists, is to shut off the mutually reinforcing dynamic that gives the movement as a whole its strength. Further, in line with Marx’s insistence that the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a socialist society can succeed only on the basis of the self-activity of workers, Luxemburg drew out the way in which mass strikes support the political and organisational advance of the working class. The spontaneous emergence of the Russian soviets (workers’ councils) during the events of 1905 provides the clearest illustration of this, showing that even the most astute and engaged party or trade union committee could be no substitute for the experience of the mass of workers in struggle. The task of a revolutionary party is not, therefore, to set out an ordained path or schema that workers obediently follow toward the achievement of socialism. It is, rather, to be immersed in the everyday struggles of workers, and to develop the political experience, with and alongside workers, that alone provides the foundation for leadership in a period of revolution. Luxemburg spent the majority of the years from the outbreak of World War One in 1914 to the revolution of November 1918 behind bars, imprisoned for being one of the very few people in Germany with the courage to speak out against the slaughter unfolding in the trenches. In the Junius Pamphlet, written from her cell in early 1915, she painted a vivid picture of the choice she believed humanity faced in those years: “Either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration—a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war”. Luxemburg saw clearly that imperialism was part of the core logic of capitalism and that its inevitable consequence was war. Her words, written amid the carnage of World War One, provide a reminder of the consequences for humanity if the imperialist rivalries of today, such as that between China and the US, break out into open war. The tragedy of Luxemburg’s life is that, by the time she realised the necessity of breaking with the SPD and of building a clearly revolutionary organisation, it was too late. The weakness of the revolutionary left during the war meant that, in the decisive battles of the postwar years from 1918 to 1923, revolutionaries were always running to catch up, giving the SPD leaders and other reactionary forces in Germany the time they needed to regroup. The true cost of these defeats is shown in subsequent German history, as it rushed headlong toward the catastrophes of the 1930s and 1940s. Luxemburg herself was murdered, along with her comrade Karl Liebknecht, on the night of 15 January 1919. They were among the main leaders of the insurgent movement of workers, sailors and soldiers that had brought World War One to an end and which was threatening to topple the entire capitalist order of Germany. Captured by a division of the reactionary Freikorps on orders from SPD leader (and professed “socialist”) Friedrich Ebert, Luxemburg’s skull was smashed by a rifle butt and her body dumped into Berlin’s Landwehr canal. Read more Human nature is no barrier to socialism The murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht were a major blow to the immediate hopes of the German (and by extension, the world’s) working class. But Luxemburg’s legacy as a revolutionary activist and theorist couldn’t be extinguished so easily. Her ideas, whether on the question of reform versus revolution, the significance of the mass strike or the civilisation-threatening barbarism of imperialist war, are as relevant today as ever. Increasing numbers of young people are being drawn to anti-capitalist politics. But just as in Luxemburg’s time, there are competing understandings of the word “socialism” and suggested strategies for winning a better world. There are many today who argue along similar lines to the right wing of the German SPD in the years leading up to World War One—that we should give up on the idea of revolution and be content simply to fight for a better deal for workers and the poor within the framework of capitalism. There’s no reason to think, however, that if we follow the advice of today’s reformist socialists, we’ll end up with anything much different to the kind of carnage that overtook Europe from 1914 on. Nothing fundamental has changed about capitalism in the intervening period. Capitalism’s tendency to fall into crisis remains. In fact, the crises are deepening and proliferating. If imperialist tensions between China and the US were, at some point in the coming decades, to break out into a direct military conflict, the consequences for humanity would be even more devastating than in the case of World War One. And today it’s not only the threats of economic devastation and war we need to worry about, but also the potentially existential threat posed by climate change. The choice we face today is no less stark than that which Luxemburg saw confronting humanity at the height of World War One. Will we allow the continuation of a system that’s propelling humanity into one catastrophe after another? Or will we range ourselves against this system and its defenders (even those supposedly “on our side”), and set a course for revolution? Do we want merely to win a somewhat friendlier version of capitalism, or will we fight for a society and economy democratically and collectively controlled by workers, in which the vast capacities and resources of humanity are no longer sacrificed on the altar of the market, but can be turned to restoring our damaged relationship with nature, and to providing the things we need to live a decent life? If we want to overcome the barbarism of capitalism, then the need for the kind of clear, intransigent revolutionary politics that Rosa Luxemburg’s life and thought exemplify is more urgent today than ever. James Plested is an editor of Red Flag.                                                                     ROSA'S HEIRS For a Humanist Alternative to Capitalism https://imhojournal.org/