US sails towards all-out mid-East war STOP REAGAN!
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-11-10Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 1 →
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Paper of the Socialist Organiser Alliance No. 54 November 10 1983 25p Claimants and strikers 10p
A LARGE fleet of United States warships is moving, ominously, towards the coast of Lebanon. Why? Nobody knows for sure, yet, except the US government. But Margaret Thatcher has failed to get an assurance from the White House that the US government will not "retaliate" for the recent killing of "Retaliation" would be the 'good reason' to feed to the American people. The real reason is more likely to be the fact that all efforts to find a solution in Lebanon have so far failed. 230 US soldiers in Lebanon.
The US is said to believe that it is mainly Syria and its Lebanese clients who stand in the way of a deal between Lebanese politicians, to put the shattered Lebanese state back together US Tomcat jets are active over the Chouf mountains, stronghold of Syria's allies, the Druze, who recently defeated the forces of the Maronite Christian government which the US, Britain and France are in Lebanon to support.
It is expected that some of the American fleet will veer off and go to the Gulf, far to the East.
That could mean that Reagan's target is Iran.
In the fifth year of the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq has just had its first supplies of the French Super-Etendard aircraft and Exocet missiles.
The US Navy may be getting in place to stop Iran if it responds to Iraq's Exocets - or to an American attack on its Shiite Moslem allies in Lebanon - by trying to block the Hormuz Straits, which are considered an essential lifeline by the United States.
*Possible Concerted action by Iraq and the USA against Iran would be a new departure, but it would serve both their immediate interests.
What are the possible US actions?
*To strike at selected targets inside Lebanon. The Druze? Or the Shiites, who are considered most likely to have carried out the suicide bombing attacks on the Americans and the French?
*To occupy all or parts of del Sy1 atin stre sca fac are tio! wh larg dog eni Irai alli fro bri in 1 wei wa!
ing can selv JOHN HARRIS Worried - Thatcher When the Americans occupied Lebanon in October 1958 it was one of the three or four occasions in the '50s when the world teetered on the very edge of nuclear war.
It is clearly insane for the British people to allow themselves to be tied to a military alliance with the USA in which the US government can involve Britain in an annihilating war without needing even to consult the British government.
A Daily Mail National Opinion Poll shows that 94% of British people now want British control over cruise missiles. 47% of those questioned are completely against cruise, while only 37% want it.
Most significantly 68% of those questioned thought that America would fire cruise missiles from Britain against the wishes of a British government. Only 18% thought they wouldn't.
The lessons of Reagan's warmongering is for Britain to reject cruise missiles and US bases,. to get out of NATO and to abandon its own nuclear weapons.