Reece W
The invasion of Afghanistan was allegedly justified on the grounds that the Taliban and Al Queda needed to be wiped out. But after seven years of brutal bombardment by the US led invasion, the Taliban continue to fight on. Bin Laden has not been caught.
The real aims of the US in Afghanistan is to maintain it's military dominance over the World. The US has around 730 bases in 100 different nations.
According to DemocracyNOW New figures show Afghan civilian casualties rose to more than 2,100 last year. While President Obama won the election in part due to his opposition to the war in Iraq, he openly campaigned on increasing US troop numbers. He is currently preparing to send around 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan later this year. He has also asked the UK to send 4000 additional troops. The US has also extended parts of the war to Pakistan.
Some serious questions need to be asked about the war in Afghanistan. As New Zealand troops are stationed there, it is important that the public thinks critically of the war. As Howard Zinn wrote "In Afghanistan, we declared 'victory' over the Taliban but [they are] back, with the attacks increasing, and our casualties in Afghanistan currently exceeding those in Iraq. What makes Obama think that sending more troops to Afghanistan will produce "victory"? And if it did, in an immediate military sense, how long would that last, and at what cost to human life on both sides? Is our war in Afghanistan…. ending terrorism, or provoking it? And is not war itself terrorism?"
Yet even the mainstream media have begun to question the logic of the war. Time Magazine (11/12/08) called the war a "an aimless absurdity….. Afghanistan has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the Taliban." The US led coalition has no more of a right to be in Afghanistan than the Soviets did. Occupation is 'corrupt from top to bottom'
Kim Howells, the former foreign office minster responsible for Afghanistan, has described the occupation of the country as corrupt “from top to bottom”.
He said, “There are few signs that the chaotic hegemony of warlords, gangsters, presidential placemen, incompetent and under-resourced provincial governors and self-serving government ministers has been challenged in any effective way by President Hamid Karzai.
“On the contrary, those individuals appear to be thriving, not least because Karzai has convinced himself that he cannot afford to sack or challenge the strongmen who, through corruption, brutality, power of arms or tribal status are capable of controlling their territories and fiefdoms.”
He warned that the British government’s recent pronouncements on the war were “daft”. “People will not accept the notion that British families should send their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters to risk their lives fighting religious fanatics, tribal nationalists, corrupt warlords and heroin traffickers in one of the most godforsaken terrains on the face of the earth.
“The notion is daft, however much we may try to rationalise it by arguing that it is better to fight Al Qaida over there than over here.”
This recent change of heart by one of New Labour’s chief supporters of the occupation reflects growing unease over the Afghan war.
This week four British troops were killed in one day. Three Canadian soldiers suffered the same fate the next day, bringing to 280 the number of foreign troops killed this year.
Now the US is planning to push in 5,000 extra troops to help British soldiers drive back insurgents in the south.
This “mini-surge” comes as the US and its Nato allies are desperately attempting to open peace talks with sections of the Afghan resistance.
Simon Assaf for Socialist Worker U.K. |
