 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Prol Shop
Prol TV
Prol Radio
Lalkar
Red Youth
Photos
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| >>back to Leaflets index |
>>view printer-friendly version |
|
|
End the imperialist occupation of Afghanistan
Issued by: CPGB-ML
Issued on: 27 September 2009
|
|
|
|
 What are British and American troops doing in Afghanistan? Why is the resistance to them so fierce? Why are dozens of soldiers being killed and even more being maimed for life?
The media put forward a variety of ‘reasons’ for the military intervention of US and British imperialism and their allies in Afghanistan, ranging from it being necessary to suppress al-Qaeda and keep the streets of Britain safe, to bringing democracy to Afghanistan, to stopping the oppression of women by the Taliban, to wiping out the cultivation of opium poppies
In fact, these are all just excuses to gull the gullible. The US’s real interest in Afghanistan is the construction of pipelines to carry oil from the Caspian Sea out to the Persian Gulf without crossing Russia or Iran, in line with the wider US strategy to have several alternative pipelines under its effective control.
Only this explains why the US pumped billions of dollars into supporting fundamentalist muslim elements in their war to drive out Soviet influence from the region – muslims who have now become US enemies. US imperialism, once the Soviet Union withdrew, expected cosy cooperation with these mullahs as regards pipelines, and it was only when this failed to materialise that the ‘war on terror’ began.
The war was launched very shortly after the events of 11 September 2003, when Saudi and Egyptian patriots destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre and severely damaged the Pentagon. George W Bush’s administration took advantage, and, using these attacks as a pretext, led the invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, although there was no obvious connection between ‘9/11’ and the Taliban regime.
Actually, the war against Afghanistan had been in preparation in Pentagon circles for some time before the fatal date, precisely because of the oil interests involved.
Unwinnable anti-people war
It has become increasingly clear that nearly all Afghans oppose the imperialist aggression against their country. Top military brass estimate that it would require 500,000 troops to subdue Afghanistan.
Presently there are 100,000 imperialist and 62,000 Afghan ‘National Army’ soldiers. Leaving aside the cost, such an increase in numbers would mean a resort to conscription, which would run the risk of jolting the populations of the imperialist countries out of complacent toleration of their rulers’ wars.
The fierce Afghan resistance and the mounting imperialist casualties have made this war very unpopular among the masses of people in America and the other imperialist countries waging the war.
There are increasing demands for the withdrawal of troops, which are now being taken up even by some bourgeois elements.
A corrupt and failed regime
Following the overthrow of the Taliban government, a puppet regime was installed, with Hamid Karzai as president at the head of a transitional government in 2001. During the elections staged by the occupation forces in 2004, Karzai was declared the winner, having allegedly secured 54 percent of the votes.
Since then, his administration has failed totally on every front, from security to basic services. There is no electricity; education and health care are in a worse condition than ever before; the position of women has deteriorated further; life expectancy has registered a steep decline; infant mortality has risen; a third of the population has no access to clean water and 7 million Afghans receive less than their minimum food requirements.
Opium poppy cultivation, banned under the Taliban, has been revived, especially in the areas occupied by British forces. All this, along with the amassing of huge riches by wealthy merchants, criminal gangs and drug traffickers, corrupt officials and foreign monopoly corporations, has completely alienated the Karzai administration from the Afghan masses, while the promiscuous use of force by the armies of occupation has made their soldiers the much-hated targets of the wrath of Afghan people and their resistance forces.
The occupying powers are keen to portray the 20 August election farce, marked by a 10 percent turnout and massive electoral fraud, as a success, but their blanket endorsement of the exercise, entirely bereft of legitimacy in Afghan eyes, runs the risk of widening further still the chasm dividing the Afghan people and the occupation regime.
Support the Afghan resistance
The anti-imperialist struggle waged by the many strands of the Afghan resistance is undermining Anglo-American imperialism and, as such, deserves the support of progressive humanity.
Imperialism is just as much the enemy of the workers in the imperialist countries as it is of the Afghan people. In the current imperialist economic crisis, millions of workers are being thrown onto the scrap heap as so much rubbish. The workers in the imperialist countries, instead of condemning, need to support the Afghan resistance as a force standing up to the common enemy of humanity - imperialism.
Whether it intends it or not, the Afghan resistance is weakening imperialism and thus assisting the cause of proletarian revolution – however backward be the ideology and social practice of those carrying it out, and however impeccably ‘democratic’ may be the words of their ‘civilised’ opponents, sheltering under the bloodstained Stars and Stripes or Union Jack.
Troops out of Afghanistan!
Victory to the resistance!
|
|
| >>back to Leaflets index |
>>view printer-friendly version |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|