War rejected by Afghans and growing numbers inside the United States

PSL, October 8, 2010

On Oct. 8, the U.S.-led war and occupation of Afghanistan will enter its tenth year. Despite numerous attempts at spinning a justification for this war from both the Bush and the Obama administrations, there is no hiding the colonial nature of this enterprise.

Both Afghans and U.S. soldiers have seen a recordbreaking increase in deaths in the past year. As of Sept. 16, at least 1,178 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since 2001, according to the Associated Press. By August of this year, the total number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan under the Obama administration exceeded the number of troops killed during the Bush administration.

Reflecting the chauvinist character of the U.S. media coverage, statistics on Afghan casualties are much harder to come by. However, according to a United Nations report issued in August, in just the first six months of this year, 1,271 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,997 were wounded, most of them severely. This represents a 31 percent increase over the same period in 2009. A majority of those killed by U.S. and NATO forces were killed by airstrikes.

There are presently some 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. While U.S. troop levels have surged, so has the resistance, which has spread to formerly "quiet" areas of the country.

The resistance, unlike the picture painted by the corporate media, is not fueled by ideological allegiance to the Taliban. In his 2009 resignation letter, Matthew Hoh, a high-level State Department official in Afghanistan, wrote that he "observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul." Hoh has said that hundreds or maybe thousands of resistance groups fight independently, moved by the common desire to rid their villages of foreign occupiers.

Much has been said about improving the plight of women in Afghanistan, yet today domestic abuse and rape are commonplace occurrences. Attempted suicides among Afghan women have increased by as much as 50 percent, with an estimated 2,300 women and girls attempting to kill themselves each year. Women in Afghanistan have nothing to celebrate as the occupation starts its tenth year.

Of course, improving the lot of women in Afghanistan was never a goal of the U.S. occupation. The Taliban and its reactionary social program emerged as an outgrowth of the brutal U.S.-funded and trained Mujahedeen. U.S. officials saw in the Mujahedeen the means to overthrow the progressive, Soviet-supported Afghan government. Upon coming to power in 1978, that government had prohibited the selling of women into marriage and their execution for "marital infidelity." It cancelled the debts of peasants and invested heavily in schools and hospitals.

The legacy of U.S. intervention, war and occupation is telling. Today, the United Nations ranks Afghanistan last in the Human Poverty Index which "focuses on the proportion of people below certain threshold[s] in regard to a long and healthy life, having access to education, and a decent standard of living."

The Taliban, which governed Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, continued to receive U.S. funding up until the 9/11 attacks. It is distinct from al-Qaeda, a state-less network dedicated to global jihad. There is no evidence that the Taliban had a role in the 9/11 attacks, and they in fact offered to extradite bin Laden to face trial. The Taliban’s leaders have repeatedly maintained that they have no interest in launching international attacks against the United States. They are fighting to drive out a colonialtype occupation by foreign invaders. Senior U.S. military intelligence officers report that today fewer than 100 alQaeda fighters remain in Afghanistan.

What, then, could be the motive behind this ongoing occupation?

The answer is empire and geopolitical control. Afghanistan is home to strategic natural gas and oil pipelines and is a critical crossroads to deal with the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, as well as Pakistan and Iran. Afghanistan is now also being called the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," the metal used in cell phone and computer batteries. Considering the importance of these technologies, the country's mineral wealth is estimated around $1 trillion. The economic stakes and potential for mass looting are so high that the U.S. government still dreams of establishing a neocolonial relationship with the impoverished nation.

It is clear, however, that U.S. forces cannot secure victory. The goal now is to avoid the appearance of a catastrophic defeat that could inspire resistance among other targets of the U.S. empire. In the meantime, Afghans and U.S. troops will continue to die and important social programs at home will continue to be slashed so that the Pentagon and White House can minimize the political blow of losing the war.

Support for the war is at an all-time low, at only 37 per cent; 58 percent of those polled by CNN opposed the war. The war and occupation currently costs an estimated $126 billion a year. That is approximately $2.5 billion a week. Meanwhile, poverty in the United States is at record levels, and state and local services are experiencing drastic cuts.

The U.S. working class has nothing to gain from this criminal occupation. The Afghan people have the right to self-determination. The U.S. government and its allies must withdraw their forces immediately and unconditionally, and pay reparations to Afghanistan for the years of occupation and, decades of intervention before that, all of which are directly responsible for the state that Afghanistan is in today. U.S. out of Afghanistan!