U.S./NATO TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN!

COMMENTARY

END THE FIVE YEAR OCCUPATION NOW!

As mentioned elsewhere in all the recent hoopla over Iraq Study Group reports, Pentagon Middle East strategy reassessments, Secretary of War Rumford’s resignation, the Robert Gates confirmation hearings for that same post and, to many commentators, the seemingly mythical results of the midterm 2006 elections the situation in Afghanistan has received short shrift. That is short-sighted and this writer himself has not written nearly enough about the recurring destruction of that benighted land. He stands chastised. After all this land is where the latest round of American imperialist adventures got its start.

The situation in Afghanistan, moreover, holds importance for anti-war activists in its own right. One of the arguments put forth by many, including leading Democratic Party politicians, is that as a result of the Bush Administration’s bungling of the Iraq occupation the question of troop reinforcement in Afghanistan has fallen through the cracks. Thus, the argument goes, a ‘graceful withdrawal’ from Iraq will free up troops to attempt to salvage the increasingly dire situation in Afghanistan. I, for one, say NO. As unsuccessful as we of the anti-war movement have been in our attempts to get immediate United States withdrawal from Iraq there is no way that those efforts should be used as a screen for troop escalation in Afghanistan.

Even a cursory look at the situation in Afghanistan brings this writer to one conclusion- this is Iraq on a smaller and more drawn out level. In short, another quagmire. The American puppet Karzai government’s writ runs no farther than Kabul, if that. It exists exclusively at the sufferance of the United States government, and no where else. The sectarian fighting among the tribal warlords interspersed with the reemergence of the Taliban makes that quagmire description quite apt. The first time around in Afghanistan the Bush Administration in the aura of the immediate post 9/11 period had tremendous popular support for its revenge invasion. Believe me; one could count the number of publicly demonstrating opponents to that invasion, at least in America, by the handful. This time around let us make no such mistake. As always- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal of U.S./Allied Troops(Are there any left but the British?) from Iraq! But also-U.S./Nato Troops out of Afghanistan!

THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES OF COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!