Robert Mugabe on Libya, Colonialism, and NATO Aggression

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe’s speech at the 66th general assembly meeting in the United Nations in which he condemns the aggressive approach towards Libya, violating the UN-Charter and ignoring the peaceful attempts for negotiations and ceasefires proposed by the African Union.

U.S. / NATO attempt to occupy Tripoli, Libyans fight to maintain independence

The following editorial is from Fight Back! News: 

As the US/NATO-led rebel forces assault the Libyan capital of Tripoli, it is important for antiwar and progressive forces to recognize a few key points. The development of events since the popular North African revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt led to some divisions among progressive forces as the imperialist countries maneuvered to take control of the situation and develop contradictions in North Africa in their favor. In Libya the U.S., France, the U.K., and Italy joined together to take advantage of the discontent among certain sections of the Libyan people, and thereby develop an armed rebel movement to topple the Gaddafi government. This criminal action taken by US and NATO forces should be condemned by all people of conscience. The success of the NATO-led rebels would certainly mean an end to an independent Libya.

Another Look at the Question of Yugoslav Socialism

The following is a comment by May9 from the debate about Slavoj Žižek. As always, posting this here doesn’t imply complete agreement on the part of the editor:

This whole conversation is ironic, considering [Mike] Ely’s earlier protests against the Comintern “universalizing” the Soviet model on everyone, but whatever.

The question of Yugoslav socialism is not as straight forward as the sectarian critique “Is Yugoslavia a Socialist Country?” would have you believe. Indeed, the Maoists themselves never had a clear position on this issue, as they vacillated between recognition of Yugoslavia as a socialist country and sectarian opposition, change which was dependent on Chinese relations with the Soviet Union, not ideology. For example, while Yugoslavia was one of the first countries to recognize the PRC in 1949, Mao didn’t reciprocate due to the split with the USSR. However in late 1954 the CCP reestablished party to party relations with the “renegade” Tito, which effectively meant recognition of Yugoslavia as a socialist country. In 1958, after the League of Communists of Yugoslavia published its draft before its party Congress in April, Yugoslavia came under fire from first and foremost the “revisionist” (or in Ely’s view, “capitalist”) Soviet Union. Following the USSR’s lead, China began polemical attacks against Yugoslavia and broke off party to party relations. In the early 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split began to be open and Yugoslav-Soviet relations improved. Chinese anti-Yugoslavism stemmed from the view that Yugoslavia was too close to Moscow. As a result, relations remained frosty until the late 1960s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. The main reason for this is due to Yugoslav support for Czechoslovakia against the USSR. Relations from 1970-1977 were quite friendly, or at least not hostile. No longer would we hear any complaints about Tito from Mao. In 1977 Hua Guofeng, who most anti-revisionists uphold as a staunch Marxist-Leninist, reopened party to party relations with Yugoslavia – which again meant recognition of Yugoslavia as a socialist country. Not coincidentally at this time, Sino-Soviet relations were cold.

10 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan, U.S. occupation crumbling

The following article by Kosta Harlan is from Fight Back! News:

Ten NATO occupation soldiers were killed by Afghan resistance forces on June 7, marking the deadliest day on record for the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. Seven of those killed were U.S. soldiers. NATO reported that five troops were killed in an insurgent attack against a police training center, two soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing attack and one in a small arms attack. One day earlier, June 6, five NATO troops were killed in small arms fire attacks, a roadside bombing and a car crash. It is unclear if the car crash was related to a resistance attack.

Afghanistan: U.S. military covered up murders of Afghan civilians, investigation shows

U.S. soldiers shoot at Afghans during Operation Mostarak in Badula Qulp, Helmand province, Afghanistan, Feb. 19, 2010. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Efren Lopez/Released)

The following article by Kosta Harlan is from Fight Back! News:

An investigation into the killings of five Afghan civilians by U.S. forces on Feb. 12 has revealed that the U.S. tried to cover up its responsibility for the deaths.

On the night of Feb. 12, U.S. occupation forces entered a home in the Gardez district of Paktia province, east of the capital Kabul. The U.S. soldiers shot dead two Afghan men who were carrying weapons, then shot three pregnant women. The Afghans had been celebrating the birth of a baby. The U.S. initially claimed that the two men were Taliban fighters and that the three women were already dead when they arrived on the scene. In fact, the two men were a local police chief and a prosecutor.

FRSO: No to the Escalation, End the Afghanistan War Now!

March to demand “U.S. out of Afghanistan and Iraq now!” (Fight Back! News/Staff)

The following statement is from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and is being reposted here from Fight Back! News:

No to the Escalation, End the Afghanistan War Now!

Freedom Road Socialist Organization denounces the escalation of the bloody and unjust U.S. war in Afghanistan. We condemn the decision made by the White House and Pentagon to ‘surge’ over 30,000 U.S. and NATO forces into Afghanistan in an attempt to stabilize a failing occupation regime.

Afghanistan: the days of colonial occupation are numbered

The following is from the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist):

Afghanistan: the days of colonial occupation are numbered
Inter-imperialist contradictions are being forced into the open by heroic forces of patriotic resistance.

No sooner had the polls closed in Afghanistan on 20 August than the leading representatives of the occupation regime declared this electoral farce a success. Nato’s Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, praised the Afghan people’s determination to build democracy, while the leaders of the US, Britain, Germany and France – the main participants in the imperialist predatory war against the Afghan people – rushed to pat themselves on the back for facilitating this alleged exercise in democracy.

Afghan ‘Election’: No solution to the problem of occupation

The following is from the British anti-imperialist journal, Lalkar:

The charade that passed for a presidential and provincial election in Afghanistan was staged on Thursday 20th August 2009. According to the information released by the occupation forces and the puppet Karzai regime, 40 candidates contested for the presidency, whilst 3,180 stood in the election for provincial councils. According to the same sources, of the 17 million Afghans eligible to vote, 5 million allegedly did so, that is, just under 30 per cent of the electorate entitled to vote. The resistance for its part has claimed that the actual turnout was less than 10 per cent. This not withstanding the deals that the Karzai authorities had done with some local sections of the resistance for a ceasefire on the polling day.

Afghanistan: A Study Guide for Anti-Imperialists

What follows is sort of an annotated list of readings that should help anti-war and anti-intervention activists understand the U.S. war and occupation of Afghanistan from an anti-imperialist point of view. I may add to this as time goes on.

• “Stop U.S. War in Afghanistan and the Middle East” by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization
  Important statement from September 29, 2001
• “U.S. Out of Afghanistan” by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization
  Statement from May 2009
• “Oil, War, and Afghanistan” by the Emergency Committee Against U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan
  Great analysis from late 2001 at the beginning of the war.
• Obama committed to a hopeless imperialist cause in Afghanistan from Lalkar
  Analysis from Marxist-Leninists in the U.K. of the current state of the occupation
• “U.S. Escalates War in Afghanistan: Obama orders 17,000 Troops to Afghanistan” by Kosta Harlan
  Excellent analysis of the situation in Afghanistan now.
• “U.S. Occupation Faltering in Afghanistan” by Kosta Harlan
  Excellent analysis of the situation in Afghanistan now.
• “Afghanistan: Another Massacre” by Kosta Harlan
  Gives a good explaination of exactly what U.S./NATO occupation forces are doing these days in Afghanistan.
• “Afghan ‘Election’: No Solution to the Problem of Occupation” from Lalkar
  A Marxist-Leninist look at the August 2009 ‘elections’ to occupied Afghanistan’s puppet government.
• “Afghanistan: Mirage of the Good War” by Tariq Ali
  A good exposure of the social-chauvinist ‘good war’ line that has duped some sections of the anti-war movement since 2001
• “On the Military Situation of the Taliban and other Islamic Anti-Government Forces” by the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan
  Gives a good look at the balance of forces on the ground in the present U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan.
• “Afghanistan, Another Untold Story” by Michael Parenti
  This is a good analysis of the Cold War dynamics from which the current situation in Afghanistan arose.

See also the Afghanistan page at Fight Back! News: http://www.fightbacknews.org/news/afghanistan

Michael Parenti: Afghanistan, Another Untold Story

The following article is form Marxism-Leninism Today:

People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Another Untold Story

by Michael Parenti

Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something about recent Afghan history and the role played by the United States.

Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US leaders began an all-out aerial assault upon Afghanistan, the country purportedly harboring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. More than twenty years earlier, in 1980, the United States intervened to stop a Soviet “invasion” of that country. Even some leading progressive writers, who normally take a more critical view of US policy abroad, treated the US intervention against the Soviet-supported government as “a good thing.” The actual story is not such a good thing.