Obama is being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yet he announced on December 1 that he is sending tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, escalating the war! Eight years after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the occupation continues to drag on with no end in sight. U.S. casualties are on the rise, with recent months being the deadliest since the war began.
The recent Afghan elections were supposed to legitimize the U.S.-backed government and its democratic institutions but instead exposed widespread corruption. Mass voter fraud, threats of violence, and low voter turnout undermined what little credibility remained for the Karzai government.
These developments have dramatically undermined support for the war. A majority of Americans (57%) now oppose the war. (AP-GfK Poll 10/05/09) Still, Vice President Joe Biden claims that the war in Afghanistan is worth the effort we are making and the sacrifice. (BBC News, 7/23/09)
After eight years, $228 billion have been sunk into Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. soldiers and innocent Afghans have been killed or permanently disabled, and for what?
Malalai Joya, an outspoken 30-year-old womens rights activist who was ousted from her position in the Afghan parliament by right-wing religious fundamentalists and warlords, describes Afghanistan after eight years of occupation: Your governments have replaced the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban with another fundamentalist regime of warlords While a showcase parliament has been created for the benefit of the U.S. in Kabul, the real power is with these fundamentalists who rule everywhere outside Kabul. For women, the situation now is as catastrophic as it was under the Taliban. (Independent (UK), 7/28/09)
The war has exacerbated Afghanistans endemic poverty. 2/3 of Afghans still struggle to survive on less than $2/day (Food and Agriculture Org.). 77% lack access to clean water (UNICEF). Female literacy at 14% has barely improved on what it was under the Talibans ultra-conservative rule (UNESCO).
Yet, according to Biden, the war must go on because Afghanistan is a place that, if it doesnt get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the U.S. However, the brutal U.S. occupation, along with the grinding poverty and oppression faced by the peoples of Central Asia and the Middle East, is only sowing the seeds for future terrorist attacks.
Straightening out Afghanistan will be a long, costly, and ultimately futile campaign. General Sir David Richards, the head of British forces in Afghanistan, believes it will take another 40 years of occupation before there will be stability (Telegraph (UK), 8/8/09).
With a discredited U.S. puppet regime, ruling through warlords and drug-traffickers guilty of all sorts of war crimes, stability means nothing more than a government strong enough to suppress dissent and defend the interests of U.S. imperialism in the region.
All this shows clearly the need to rebuild the antiwar movement. A powerful antiwar movement in the U.S. and around the world is of decisive importance in stopping the carnage in Afghanistan and preventing thousands upon thousands more troops from being shipped off to kill and be killed in this unjust, unwinnable war.
The ground is being laid for the antiwar movement to grow. Millions voted for Obama and the Congressional Democrats hoping they would end the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the Democrats have dashed these hopes – pursuing imperialist foreign policies that are fundamentally the same as Bushs, despite some difference in tactics.
The majority who oppose the war must be mobilized in the streets against the escalation, against requests for war funding, and to demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan.
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Upcoming protests and events:
Minneapolis – Saturday, December 5 – 1pm – Lake St. and Hiawatha Ave.
Seattle – Thursday, December 10, 3:30pm – Seattle Community College