Once more, the world has been treated to act of capitalist barbarity: The mass murder of the 298 passengers of the Malaysian Airlines MH 17 shot down July 17 in Eastern Ukraine.

It is another horrendous chapter in capitalism-imperialism's unending dehumanization, brutalization and destruction of the working class from Gaza to Iraq to Sudan to the Congo; from the shanty towns of South Africa to the Brazilian favelas to the billions worldwide "living" on less that $2 a day.

It is a horror that only communist revolution can end. No reform can ever change the laws of capitalist development that maximizes profits at the expense of millions of workers' lives, and that must fight for these profits in local, regional and world wars.

World War II crowned US imperialism as the world-dominant imperialist power. Rising imperialist China and resurgent imperialist Russia - lead a bloc of emerging regional powers: (India, Brazil, South Africa, Iran) – are clamoring for a new world order.

They are challenging US imperialism's hegemony on every continent. Every war and every major conflict in the world is related to this rivalry. Eventually, but inexorably, it will lead to World War III.

The working class needs an objective understanding of world events

The bosses and their system create these horrific scenes of suffering, destruction and death. Then they play on our humanitarian sensitivities to try to manipulate us into supporting one gang of them or another.

But we workers have no dog in this fight. Our fight is to organize a mass movement worldwide to destroy capitalism-imperialism. Our task is to mobilize the masses of workers, soldiers and students to turn all the bosses' wars into a class war for communism.

MH 17 incident scripted by inter-imperialist rivalry

In the final analysis, whether the US-Kiev gang or a Russia-Eastern Ukrainian rebel gang shot down the Malaysian plane is irrelevant to workers. What's important to us is to know that this is being used by US bosses to attack their Russian rivals.

Some US imperialists see Russia as a more imminent threat than China. They fear that the European Union's dependence on Russian energy will force these imperialists – especially the Germans, French and Italians – into a tacit alliance with Russia.

This would bring Eurasia under Russian control, further threatening the US imperialists' position. Thus, US bosses must at all costs break up this potential alliance. On Monday, Obama succeeded in convincing his counterparts in Germany, France and Italy to impose new sanctions on Russia.

Besides driving a wedge between Russia and the EU, these sanctions aim to bring the Russian economy to its knees, which would give the pro-Western Russian oligarchs an opportunity to overthrow Putin.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the US think tank Carnegie Moscow Center, said it starkly: "It is no longer the struggle for Ukraine, but a battle for Russia. If Vladimir Putin manages to keep the Russian people on his side, he will win it.[but]… Even if no pro-Western leader replaces a Putin in the Kremlin… Russia will succumb to another period of turmoil, making it  focus on itself rather than creating problems for Washington." 

This might be wishful thinking, and US bosses know it. They therefore are aggressively continuing their military encirclement of Russia. The Russian imperialist elites that are pivoting to China-dominated Asia-Pacific have taken notice.

Putin is circling the wagons

Speaking last Tuesday, July 22, before Russia's Security Council, the highest policymaking body on foreign-policy and security, Putin said:

"Our Armed Forces remain the most important guarantor of our sovereignty and Russia's territorial integrity. We will react appropriately, and proportionately to the approach of NATO's military infrastructure toward our borders… we can clearly see what is actually happening: groups of NATO troops are clearly being reinforced in Eastern European states… And the scale and intensity of operational and combat training is growing. It is imperative to… strengthen our nation's defense capacity fully and on schedule." (Kremlin website)

A communist world or imperialism's unending wars

We can't predict when these butchers will start WWIII, but those drums are beating louder and closer. It's their profits or our lives. With patience but urgency we must build a massive international ICWP to lead our class' fight for a communist world that will put an end to capitalism-imperialism's horrors forever. Join us!

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