Editorial: Iraq and Afghanistan: "Horror without end"

Everyday our television screens are filled with images of
horrific bloodshed and carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds die, men,
women and children, in a single day. Some estimate that one million people have
perished since the invasion of 2003. This is the reality after more than four
years of foreign occupation.

George Bush and the Christian fundamentalist clique in
Washington are desperate to hold the line. Bush is like some latter-day King
Canute, hopelessly ordering the waves of defeat to retreat. An extra 30,000
troops were sent to bolster the crisis situation, but the situation is going
from bad to worse. This month a report has been submitted to Congress about the
bleak prospects facing the occupation. It will dress up the failings, but will
also point to an unsustainable position.

Defeat

American officials openly talk about the defeat of the
British army in southern Iraq. They have already been driven off the streets of
Basra. "The insurgents are calling the shots . . . and in a worst-case scenario
will chase us out of southern Iraq", said a senior British officer.

In a pre-emptive counter-attack Bush has drawn parallels
with the Vietnam War, concluding that American army should have stayed and
fought. But American imperialism was decisively defeated in Vietnam, not least
by the massive anti-war movement at home. They were forced to get out or the
army would have mutinied and social unrest would have reached revolutionary
proportions at home. Bush, who is increasingly isolated, is burying his head in
the sand, hoping everything will turn out fine. But the war is unsustainable
economically and militarily. As in Vietnam, the Americans (and the British)
will be driven out of Iraq. It is just a matter of time.

In the New York Times, a recent article written by several
US army sergeants underlined the real situation on the ground. "In a lawless
environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of
life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have
failed on every promise, while we have substituted Ba’ath Party tyranny with a
tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary
preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed,
we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a
few days ago with deep resignation, ‘We need security, not free food.’." (19
August)

This occupation had nothing to do with "weapons of mass
destruction" or a "war for democracy", but everything to do with imperialism
and its drive for resources and its strategic domination of the region. "War is
the continuation of politics by other means", stated Clausewitz.

Western imperialism’s intervention in this troubled region
has a long history. "British commercial influence remains paramount", stated
the British ambassador to Iraq in 1934. Britain is now fighting its fourth war
in Afghanistan in 170 years.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9 removed the Shah of
Iran, US’s most powerful ally in the region, Washington gave military support
to the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein. At that time Saddam was a "good"
dictator and friend of the United States. But all that was to change as the
interests of the United States changed.

In Afghanistan, the US imperialists supported the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden in their quest to remove the progressive government of
President Najibullah. At that time, girls were encouraged to go to school and
university, women accounted for almost half the country’s teachers and civil
servants and the government redistributed land to the rural poor. But that was
all destroyed when the Taliban fundamentalists seized power in Kabul in 1996.
Women were oppressed, left-wingers were systematically eradicated and thieves
were punished by amputating a hand or foot. But the imperialists had created a
Frankenstein monster which was to threaten their interests. 9/11 provided the
pretext for an invasion and laid the ground for war in Iraq – fully supported
by the US Democrats and the Blair/Brown government.

While there is talk of the British withdrawing from Iraq,
they are planning to pour more troops into Afghanistan (classified as a "good
war"). According to the foreign secretary, David Miliband, Britain is in
Afghanistan for the long haul. "We should be thinking in terms of decades,"
stated the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles.

"Liberation"

For the Afghan masses, six years after their "liberation",
life is getting worse. Civilians are suffering the blight of insecurity and
violence in an increasingly dirty war. In the south, 80,000 have been driven
from their homes. The civilian casualty rate has doubled over the past 12
months. More than 200 were killed by US and other occupying forces in June
alone. Meanwhile, the indiscriminate US aerial bombings have played into the
hands of the Taliban and have provoked violent civilian demonstrations.

Afghanistan is turning into a nightmare scenario. The US and
its imperialist allies, in a desperate gamble to extend their support through a
tactic of ‘divide and rule’, have ended up backing different warlords and
turning most of the country into a collection of lawless and brutal fiefdoms.
The British government’s talk of "democracy" is a sick joke. The election of
the Afghan government was marked by large-scale fraud and intimidation that
gave regional warlords pride of place in a government made up of
fundamentalists, assassins and gangsters. Gordon Brown, echoing the delusions
of Bush, now claims Afghanistan is "the frontline against terrorism"!

Despite the fairy-tales of the politicians, there will be no
peace or stability in Afghanistan or Iraq while foreign troops remain. In fact,
there will be no peace on a capitalist basis. Only with the overthrow of
landlordism and capitalism and the creation of a Socialist Federation of the
Middle East, can the horrors of poverty, squalor, hunger and sectarian strife
be eliminated. Only then can the rich resources of the region be used for the
benefit of its oppressed peoples.