Through media coverage we hear about the military situation but never about the reality of life for the people living under a brutal NATO occupation. Poverty is the real burden of the people of Afghanistan. The economy has been devastated, infrastructure has been destroyed. In Kabul, a city of 5 million people, there is no sewage system. The average life expectancy for an adult is 43. 1 in 5 children die before the age of 5 and every 30 seconds a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth.

 

Civilians Massacred by German Air Force

Last September the Germans ordered an air-strike, bombing an oil tank complex which killed 140 civilians including 26 children. Christine Bucholz, a Die Linke MP in Germany visited the area and met with the families of those killed. She said that, contrary to NATO reports that the depot was being used by the Taliban, it was people from local villages who came there to get oil for their basic daily use.

All this means that it is the resistance and the Taliban that have support; not the occupying forces. The army of the United States, the world’s super-power, is being defeated because people are resisting. In the South and the East of Afghanistan, the Taliban resistance controls most of the villages and the war is spreading to the North and into Pakistan.  The British have been forced out of areas they previously controlled and when the Tory delegation flew there after the elections they were unable to land because of the fighting. A sign of how out of control the situation really is.

 

Imperialists Divided

The Imperialists are divided about the way forward and the stakes are high. They are being forced out, both by the resistance and by public opinion in their own countries.  The global economic crisis is deepening the divisions in the ruling class. Huge austerity measures are being imposed in countries such as Greece but they can still find money for war. The sacking of gung-ho US General McChrystal is another indication of this. McChrystal’s aggressive tactics and ‘surge’ in troop numbers were failing to produce the quick results wanted: local support for the occupation and defeats for the resistance. One of his comments was ‘when you go to protect a people, the people have to want you to protect them’.  Iraq veteran, General Petraeus, replacing McChrystal, is trying to prevent the withdrawal of troops being seen as a defeat for the US. He may try to repeat his Iraq trick of covering up a retreat by bribing the resistance and withdrawing troops to central urban fortresses. Canada and the Netherlands may withdraw their troops sooner than planned; another sign of divisions in NATO.

 

Karzai the puppet tries to cut his strings

Another problem is that Karzai, once the puppet of the US, appears to be splitting from the US. He was re-elected in 2005 and began to have a more popular base because he condemned US bombings and publicly distanced himself from the US by visiting many of the civilian casualties and grieving families. So, for two years, the Americans have been trying to get rid of him. The US had planned an attack on Kandahar this summer, home of Karzai (and the Taliban!) but has postponed it and it may not go ahead at all. Mass bombing from the air would destroy Karzai’s power but nearly 800,000 people also live there and such an attack could provoke riots across Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Building movements to bring the troops home is essential in places like Britain, Germany and the US. But the fight against imperialism is not a separate fight to the fight against bank bail-outs and cuts. Greece is running military hospitals for the US in Afghanistan; the US gives billions to allies such as Israel, Egypt and Pakistan while spending trillions on wars. Linking all these struggles is part of what we must do to get rid of capitalism, the system that breeds war and poverty.