Osama Bin Laden and the legacy of the ‘war on terrorism’

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

As the news of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by U.S. forces inside Pakistan reverberates across the world, it is a good time to take stock of the ‘war on terror’ and what it has brought to the world.

Ten years of the “war on terror”

Just days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush stated, “This crusade – this war on terrorism – is going to take a while, […] And the American people must be patient. I’m going to be patient. But I can assure the American people I am determined.”

A few days later, Bush said, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

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.

Afghan civilians in bus gunned down by U.S. troops

Afghan police and onlookers gather around a bus which was fired upon by foreign forces in Kandahar April 12, 2010. Foreign forces opened fire on a passenger bus in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing four civilians and wounding 18 others, a provincial official said. (REUTERS/Ahmad Nadeem)

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

Kandahar, Afghanistan – In the early morning hours of April 12, U.S. troops fired on a bus in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing five civilians and wounding 18 more. The driver of the bus, Esmate, said, “They opened fire at us and I fell unconscious. The people who were killed were sitting in the seats just behind me.”

Another witness, Gul Mohammad, stated that the U.S. troops “opened fire for no reason.” A woman and a child were among those killed, according to local authorities.

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.

U.S. Out of Afghanistan

The following statement is by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization:

Speaking at a news conference on May 5, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “The main effort in our strategic focus from a military perspective must now shift to Afghanistan.”

With these words, Mullen has condemned the people of Afghanistan to suffer more misery, oppression, and poverty – as if eight long years of occupation were not enough.

On 6th Anniversary of Iraq War More than 10,000 march on Pentagon

The following is from A.N.S.W.E.R.

A “throng of war protesters swelled Saturday as they marched across the Memorial Bridge.” (AP) The protesters marched on the Pentagon and what followed was a dramatic direct action at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR, corporations that demonstrators labeled “merchants of death.” The predominantly young crowd continued to grow as the day proceeded. They marched through the Pentagon north Parking Lot and then into downtown Crystal City, where the leading war corporations’ headquarters are located.

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