Afghanistan Three centuries of imperialism A Scottish socialist party pamphlet
Contents: 1 Introduction p4 2 Britain & Afghanistan: Round One p7 3 Britain & Afghanistan: Round Two p10 4 Britain & Afghanistan: Round Three p12 5 After Independence p13 6 The Cold War & the Soviet Invasion p15 7 Fall of the Soviet Union & the Rise of the Taliban p23 8 9/11 & US Imperialism p27 9 Al Qaeda & Bin Laden’s Strategy p31 10 Since 2001: Evolution of the War p33 11 A Better Future for Afghanistan p38
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Section ONE:
INTRODUCTION among the few protestors, demanding that America and Britain be stopped. We argued the people of Afghanistan were not responsible for 9/11, and should not be punished by yet more years of war. Why are British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan? What have over 300 people from the UK given their lives for? After tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have died as a result of the war, is it really true that the occupying NATO forces are helping Afghanistan? More people than ever before are now asking themselves what the real reasons behind the war are. When it was launched in 2001, there were few voices speaking out against the bombing and invasion. Most believed the US had the right to avenge the attack on the Twin Towers. The Scottish Socialist Party and Scottish Socialist Youth were
Officially, Britain took part in the war to stop terrorism, and capture the leaders responsible for 9/11. Now the occupying armies have been in Afghanistan for nine years, the USA’s second longest war after Vietnam. Now, supposedly, our mission is to destroy the Taliban and bring democracy to Afghanistan. As a group, al Qaeda in Afghanistan was virtually destroyed in the months following the invasion, under a campaign of intense bombing. Although they have never been able capture Osama Bin Laden, the US cannot truthfully claim that Afghanistan is still a base for international terrorists targeting them.
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Of course, that doesn’t stop them doing it, as both in the US and Britain we are constantly told we should be in a state of mild to severe panic all the time, depending on which colourcoded level of fear they’ve decreed this week. So why are British and American troops still fighting there? The idea that our aim is to bring democracy and development is a bit of a joke when the last election was rigged by western puppet Hamid Karzai, who controls virtually none of the country and is implicated in smuggling heroin. Less than 38% of Afghans voted in the election he claimed to have won in 2009. Meanwhile ferocious fighting throughout the country has destroyed far more
infrastructure than the occupation’s “reconstruction” efforts have built. The real reason British soldiers are dying in Afghanistan isn’t because the government has decided out of their goodness of their heart to spend billions of pounds making Afghanistan a great place to live. To understand why the war is really happening, all you have to do is look at a map. Afghanistan lies right at the heart of Eurasia, the largest chunk of land in the world. The leaders of the US are determined that America and American corporations should dominate the world for the rest of this century. To do that they need to control Eurasia, and the dwindling resources of fossil fuels that it contains. Central to US plans is the control of oil and natural gas pipelines. They want to make sure that these are under their control, rather than that of rivals for world power like Russia or China. The British government has for decades now seen its own best interest as being a junior partner in the American empire. This means that Britain can carve out a 5
slice of the wealth to be gained from imperial exploitation for British companies, and Britain can remain a powerful country in the global hierarchy. In the 19th century a British geographer and geostrategist, Halford John Mackinder, developed the idea that if a power was to control the world, it had to control what he called ‘the heartland,’ that is, central and northern Asia. This theory was highly influential on strategists of the Nazi regime, and the US during the Cold War. Since 9/11 the US has stepped up efforts to undermine the influence of Russia and other powers over this region, and increase its own military presence, as part of a strategy that has domination of the entire planet as its ultimate goal. However, the US strategy is about more than just control of oil and natural gas. The war in Afghanistan is about cementing US control of this key region as it attempts to neutralise any country, such as Russia or China, which could potentially challenge its global control. The ultimate
“The history of Afghanistan is our history: the story of imperialism and what it’s done to the world over the past 200 years” aim of the US is to expand the capitalist world, and to draw all regions into a global capitalist economy that is dominated economically by the US. The US needs Afghanistan to be run by a stable, pro-western government to achieve this. Throughout most of its history, Afghanistan’s strategic location has made it a battleground between empires seeking to control the world – British, Russian and now American. The history of Afghanistan is our history; it’s the story of imperialism and what it has done to the world in the last 200 years. To understand why the war in Afghanistan is happening now, and why we should fight to bring British troops out of it, we need to understand this story. 6
Section two:
Britain & Afghanistan: round one Afghanistan is a country inhabited by at least 7 different ethnic groups, and over 30 languages are spoken within its borders. Historically one of the most powerful groups has been the Pashtuns, who mainly live in the south of the country, near to where the border with Pakistan is now. Many Pashtuns live in what is now Pakistan, and the border runs through what was traditionally all their land. The word Afghan itself has the same origin as the word Pashtun. Afghanistan’s modern history begins in the 18th century, when a local military commander for the Persian Empire was elected by an assembly of elders to be their leader. Ahmed Shah Durrani, a Pashtun, founded what was known as the Durrani Empire, the first Afghan state. But with such a diverse groups of peoples in Afghanistan, the country has never been fully united. What truly brought them together were the attempts by foreign powers to control their
country for their own ends. In the 18th and 19th centuries the British Empire had expanded rapidly into India. By the 1830s the British controlled (either by direct rule or through puppets) most of the territory of what is now India and Pakistan. Every European power aiming to build an empire had had a try at colonizing India, but the British had faced most of them down, and now dominated the subcontinent. The vast wealth that they were able to plunder from this whole region allowed Britain the wealth to have an industrial revolution, and go on to be the dominant power on Earth in the 19th century. At the same time, the Tsarist Russian Empire was expanding rapidly into central Asia, conquering the territories of the local khans. The British fear was that Russia’s ultimate aim was to invade their Indian empire. In 1838 the British GovernorGeneral of India, Lord Auckland, put forward a manifesto 7
demanding British intervention in Afghanistan, in order to make sure that it was ruled by a stable government allied with Britain. In 1839 a force of 21,000 British and Indian troops invaded Afghanistan, with the aim of restoring pro-British ruler Shah Shuja to power, and deposing his rival Dost Mohammed Khan, who had previously overthrown him and been friendly to Russia. The story of the first AngloAfghan war is spookily similar to more recent years. At first the
British army was highly successful, capturing key fortresses and returning Shah Shuja to power. After this, most of the troops were withdrawn, leaving an occupation force. But Shuja was only able to stay in power because of the British troops, and British bribes paid to local leaders. Meanwhile, the people became increasingly angry at the deaths and attacks caused by the occupation, and began to come together to fight back. A crucial turning point was reached when the British realized they were paying more in subsidies to 8
keep their man in power than the money they were bringing in, and cut the bribes. By 1841, several leading British officers had been killed by the rebels, some of them having their bodies dragged through the streets. Their commander was forced to negotiate for safe passage of his armies out of Afghanistan. Although this was granted, Afghan warriors continued to harass the British as they marched across the high mountain passes back into British held territory. When they left Kabul there were 16,000, but by the time they arrived in Jalalabad there were only 40 survivors.
their interests. Their invasion initially has great success, but as the invasion turns into an occupation the empire is bled slowly until it is forced to leave in disgrace. The humiliating defeat in the first Anglo-Afghan war led the British to start calling Afghanistan “the graveyard of empires.” The other thing that it’s important to remember is that it’s easier to forget history when you’re not the victim of it. Most people in Britain have very little idea about the history of the British Empire in Afghanistan, but the Afghan people have not forgotten.
There was a revenge expedition sent by the British to loot, rape and burn, destroying the Kabul bazaar as an act of retaliation. However, it also withdrew after a few months, leaving Dost Mohammed in power. What’s important about this story is that it shows the pattern that would be repeated again and again down to the latest British occupation of Afghanistan: an invading empire attempts to impose a government friendly to 9
Section tHREE:
Britain & Afghanistan: round TWO Britain continued to pay a subsidy to Afghan rulers after their retreat to try and maintain their loyalty to British interests. But meanwhile the Russians were advancing steadily, and by 1868 controlled virtually up to the border with Afghanistan itself. The British were alarmed, and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli wrote to Queen Victoria to say he would “clear Central Asia of Muscovites and drive them into the Caspian [sea]�. In 1878 Russia sent a mission of diplomats into Afghanistan, against the wishes of the ruler Sher Ali. The British demanded that they also be allowed to have a mission in Kabul, and again Sher Ali resisted. When their diplomats were turned back, the British sent a fighting force of 40,000 to force their acceptance. This led to a treaty where Afghanistan ceded territory to the British Empire, and gave control of its foreign affairs to Britain. This achieved, the army
withdrew leaving 300 diplomats and guards in Kabul. An uprising in Kabul led to the killing of the British ambassador, his staff and guards. The British then deployed another large invasion force to Afghanistan. This was able to defeat resistance to the pro-British ruler Abdur Rahman Khan, and withdrew in 1881. The result of the second AngloAfghan war was that Britain retained control of Afghan affairs, but was forced to abandon their hopes of a permanent presence in Afghanistan and rule through a local puppet. They supported Abdur Rahman Khan with arms and money. Known as the Iron 10
Emir, with British support he was able to deal ruthlessly with any internal enemies.
LINES ON THE MAP With no direct presence in Afghanistan, the British watched helplessly as the Russians continued to expand their control of Central Asia, seizing the oasis of Merv and control of territory that was historically part of Afghanistan. The British reaction shows just how much interest Britain had in Afghans or what they thought. Negotiating with Russia, without including Afghanistan, they reached a deal in which Russia gave up its furthest new territory, but kept control of much of what had been Afghan land. Following this the British wanted to have their own firm border with Afghanistan, making it a buffer zone between the Russian and British empires. In 1893 they dispatched Mortimer Durand, the Foreign Minister of British India, to negotiate with Abdur Rahman Khan.
The result was a classic example of what the British empire did all over the world, from Ireland to Iraq to Palestine to ultimately India itself - they drew a border on to a map that hadn’t been there before, partitioning peoples in two. In this case, the Durand line was drawn down the middle of traditional Pashtun territory, cutting the people in two. Within the British Empire this led to the creation of the North West Frontier province. Today, the Durand line still marks the boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the reasons that the forces fighting the American/British occupation today are so successful is that they don’t recognise the Durand line, a border drawn through the middle of Pashtun lands. They can move freely back and forth across a poorly guarded frontier, and the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan is home to Islamic political movements that are determined to transform both Pakistan and Afghanistan. As a result the Pakistani military today are at war with the peoples of this area. 11
Section FOUR:
BRITAIN & AFGHANISTAN: ROUND THREE For the last years of the 19th century Britain was able to control Afghanistan by paying lavish subsidies to the rulers. This was helped considerably by the fact that Russia was allied with Britain from 1907 in preparation for the First World War. Russia agreed to let Britain control Afghanistan in return for their assurance that they would prevent Afghanistan attempting to regain any of its territory taken by Russia.
see Afghanistan as a country in its own right and demand full independence from British control.
However, throughout the early 20th century the Afghan ruler Habibullah (pictured) continued to play with outside forces, trying to balance them against each other. During the First World War the Turkish Sultan, the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world, took the Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of Germany and called on Muslims to fight against the allies. Turkish and German agents in Afghanistan tried to get the Afghans to attack the British, and although they were unsuccessful, they did persuade Habibullah to
Although the attack was repulsed, there was no decisive victory for the British. Unwilling to invade and occupy again, they conceded Afghanistan’s right to conduct their own foreign affairs, and in 1919 Afghanistan became a fully independent state.
When Habibullah was assassinated by rivals, his sons had a struggle for power. The winner, Amanullah, had little support among the most conservative landlords and local leaders, and so he launched an attack on the British to try and unite the people under his leadership.
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Section FIVE:
AFTER INDEPENDENCE Looking back at Afghanistan’s history shows a few things. Its strategic position has meant that several different empires have tried to influence or control it. Divided between different ethnic groups, and several competing classes, the most unifying force has been resistance to outside control. The other long-term impact of foreign attacks during the 19th century was economic weakness. Destruction and isolation through war had a big effect, and as rulers became dependent on British subsidies for almost all of their income, there was almost no economic development. While countries around them built railways and factories, most Afghans continued to live in rural villages, dominated by traditional leaders and landlords. After independence the Afghan kings could no longer rely on British subsidies to pay their armies. Throughout the 20th century the army played a major role in politics, deposing rulers
when they could not be paid. This also made it very hard for any Afghan government to institute any kind of reform, as the traditionally minded leaders in the countryside remained powerful, and without a loyal army to protect the government, formed the heart of opposition to any attempts to bring about change. Meanwhile, the British eventually left India, and India and Pakistan became independent in 1947. The partition of the subcontinent created huge suffering as Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs left on the wrong side of the border moved in their millions. Muslims tried to reach the Muslim state of Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs tried to leave it. Tens of 13
thousands were killed in riots and massacres. The long-term legacy was a permanent state of hostility between India and Pakistan. In Pakistan the military began to play a huge role in politics. There were military coups in 1958, 1977 and 1999. The Pakistani military, and their powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, were obsessed with one thing – defeating India. As far as they were concerned, they wanted the same thing from Afghanistan as the British had always wanted – a stable, friendly government that wouldn’t distract them from their bigger objectives.
“The most unifying force in Afghan history has been resistance to outside control”.
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Section SIX:
THE COLD WAR & the soviet invasion From the 1950s onwards the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and America put Afghanistan back on the agenda of those that ran the planet. The Soviets and Americans competed for influence, and foreign aid began to take the place that had once been filled by British subsidies. This allowed the government to at last build up a powerful army and air force. Within the elite, some favoured the Soviets and some the west. The west bankrolled a large university in Kabul, and shortly afterward the Soviets followed suit. The students at these new institutions were exposed to new ideas being imported from abroad, including Marxism. Some began to protest for democracy, human rights, and fewer restrictions on women.
The leader of the pro-Soviet part of the country’s ruling class was
Mohammed Douad (pictured), the cousin and brother-in-law of the King. He took power in a coup in 1973, and declared Afghanistan a republic. But the Soviets did not increase aid as he had expected, leaving his government vulnerable. With this lack of Soviet support, Daoud looked for aid from other quarters within the Muslim world such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, alongside the United States. But Daoud's government remained weak and vulnerable. In 1978, fearing the influence of pro-Soviet forces, the government had Mir Akbar Khyber, a member of the left-wing Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) murdered. His funeral drew 15,000 mourners, which encouraged a worried Daoud to eliminate the PDPA entirely. Before they could be wiped out, the PDPA used its members and supporters in the Afghan army to stage a coup d'etat and overthrow 15
Daoud's Government. The PDPA called the coup the “Saur Revolution” after the month of the Persian calendar in which it took place. They renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The PDPA had a programme of transforming Afghan society, but the reality was that they were forced to take power to avoid being slaughtered and were extremely unprepared for governing Afghanistan.
Afghanistan out of the Middle Ages and in to the twentieth century. As such the PDPA had an ambitious programme of land reform, education, and support for women's rights. The PDPA had significant levels of support among the army and intellectuals in Afghanistan's cities, but despite their position on land reform had little backing in Afghanistan's rural population, which made up the overwhelming majority of the country.
THE PDPA AND THE SOVIET INVASION
Among Afghanistan's peasant majority the PDPA were viewed with much suspicion, and attacked as atheist and pro-Soviet. Their attempts to revolutionise Afghan society, however laudable, were based on the use of the army. Afghanistan's peasants were still influenced by deeply conservative
The Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a left-wing Afghan political party founded in 1965, whose stated aim was to modernise the country and bring
“Afghanistan’s peasant majority viewed the PDPA with much suspicion, attacking them as atheist and proSoviet”.
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forms of Islam, and the PDPA were isolated to the cities of Afghanistan. The PDPA's policies on land reform also brought them into conflict with tribal chiefs and Islamic scholars in the countryside, as farmers’ debts were cancelled and the abolition of usury attacked the wealth of the landowners. Despite its limitations, the PDPA did build infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals, and tried to do much to improve rights for Afghan women. They brought women into government, as well as banning the paying of bride prices and forced marriages. They did much to promote education throughout the country. The PDPA's programme of supporting education for girls was the pretext used by conservative tribal chiefs to begin a jihad against the central government, the start of a brutal and bloody war that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives and goes on to this day. The rebellion began in the Afghan city of Herat, where Ismail Khan, a captain of the Afghan National Army, mutinied and led his
forces to slaughter Soviet advisers alongside their families. Khan today is a warlord in the proNATO Northern Alliance. The insurgency against the PDPA Government grew, with the CIA funneling arms and aid to the anti-communist rebels, who became known as the Mujahideen, Arabic for freedom fighter. This support for the rebels began before, not after, the Soviet invasion. The US embraced the anticommunist rebels, because they saw it as an opportunity to trap the Soviets into an unwinnable guerilla war. The fact that the US was intervening with arms and aid in Afghanistan before the Soviet Union did was kept secret from the American people for years as part of a propaganda effort to show that the Soviet attack as unprovoked. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, put it: “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is 17
completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the proSoviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” Asked if he had any regrets about their actions, Brzezinski replied: “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
Some of those “stirred up Muslims”, who the CIA armed, funded and trained, would of course go on to later found al Qaeda, and attack the US on September 11 2001. The PDPA appealed to the Soviet Union for help, but the Soviets were reluctant to intervene in Afghanistan, correctly fearing that the aim of US aid to the rebels was to trap them in an unwinnable guerilla war. The Soviets advised the PDPA to compromise with the rebels, and privately expressed doubts about the President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Taraki. Taraki had created his own personality cult, styling himself as "The Great Teacher" and was engaged in faction fighting with other members of the PDPA. Taraki was eventually overthrown and shot by forces in his own party and replaced by his rival, Hafizullah Amin. The Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, had kept in contact with both Taraki and Amin, but was now concerned with the direction Amin was taking. Amin had been meeting US diplomats in secret, and had been a member of the 18
Asia Foundation, an organisation with links to US intelligence, when he lived in New York. The Soviets feared that Amin was a CIA mole in the PDPA, and was going to pull Afghanistan into the US sphere of influence to end CIA support for the anticommunist rebels.
and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to remove rebellious leaders and they did not see why this could not be done in Afghanistan. Like NATO today, they were to face extreme disappointment in their belief that their intervention in Afghanistan would last only a few weeks.
Afghanistan as a US ally was unacceptable to the Soviet leadership, who felt threatened enough by Pakistan without an unfriendly country right on the borders of the Soviet Union. After repeatedly refusing to provide the PDPA with Soviet troops, the Soviet Union finally invaded Afghanistan determined to secure their southern borders once and for all. The Soviets invaded with ground forces from the north, and deployed a crack team of special forces to hunt down and kill President Hafizullah Amin. The Soviets believed they could replace Amin with a reliable leader, and use their military force to crush the anti-communist rebels once and for all. The Soviets had invaded Hungary in 1956
The United States was eager to bleed the Soviets in Afghanistan the way they themselves had been bloodied in Vietnam. But as the war developed, the CIA and the US Government's aims in Afghanistan expanded from merely damaging the Soviets to expelling them from Afghanistan outright. The US President at that time was Ronald Reagan, who had described the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire". He and many other figures in the US Government saw 19
“The US saw Afghanistan as a battlefield where they could cause maximum damage to the Soviet Union, regardless of the implications for the Afghan people” the Cold War not as a simple conflict between two superpowers but a battle between good and evil. Along with funding anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan, he authorised aid to Contra terrorists trying to overthrow Nicaragua’s Socialist Government, alongside aid to the anti-communist Solidarity Union in Poland, and the development of new nuclear weapons in Europe. The US Government therefore saw Afghanistan as a battlefield where they could do maximum damage to the Soviet Union regardless of the implications for the people living in the country. The CIA pumped millions of dollars into assisting the anticommunist rebels, but needed
help from a local ally to help get their aid to the rebels, so looked to the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI, for assistance. Pakistan had previously been out of favour with the US Government due to its human rights record and quest for nuclear weapons - these concerns were dropped by the Reagan administration who now recognised that an alliance with Pakistan was necessary to support the Jihad against the Soviets. At this time Pakistan was ruled by a military dictator, Zia Ul Haq, who had come to power through a military coup and had executed Pakistan’s democratically elected leader. Haq began a campaign of Islamisation, introducing aspects of Islam into law throughout Pakistan. He saw this as a way of increasing the legitimacy of his regime in the eyes of the people. His support for Islamic fundamentalism, and fear of a Soviet puppet state on Afghanistan’s border put Haq firmly in support of the Muhjahadeen. Pakistan was ready and willing to accept US aid to supply the Muhjahadeen, but it had conditions - the ISI, Pakistan’s 20
a man that the Pakistanis could trust to keep a stable Afghanistan together and allied with Pakistan.
intelligence services were to have control over who the arms went to. Pakistan was determined to have a friendly neighbour, so as to allow it to continue its own cold war with India. This meant in practice that the CIA's funds were being used to promote Pakistani foreign policy in Afghanistan, with the lion’s share of the arms going to warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was aligned with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Hekmatyar cut his teeth in Islamic fundamentalist societies in Kabul’s universities, killing a Maoist student in faction fights with the left. His hardline Islamist politics would have made him an unlikely ally of the US but he was
Alongside fears of Soviet influence, Pakistan’s military leaders were concerned about Pashtun nationalism inside their country. Pashtun tribes lived in Afghanistan and Pakistan and disregarded the artificial borders Britain had put in place. Some sought to establish an independent Pashtun state, carving its territory from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The PDPA funded Pashtun separatists to try and undermine Haq, so Pakistan’s military leadership turned to Islam to unite the country. Alongside Pakistan the Muhjahadeen had another important regional backer – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The US and the Saudis both believed the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was part of a push toward the Middle East in an attempt to seize control of its oil reserves. The Saudi Royal Family felt threatened, not only by direct Soviet intervention but also by Soviet support for secular Arab nationalist movements in the 21
region. They also naturally saw the conflict between the Muhjahadeen and the Afghan government as one between Islam and immoral atheism, and that they had a religious duty to assist the Muhjahadeen. Saudi Arabia pumped millions into the coffers of the anticommunist forces, pledging to match the CIA's aid dollar for dollar. Like the Pakistani Government, the Saudis also chose to fund hardline Islamists like Hekmatyar. Alongside their fear of the Soviets, the Saudis also feared Iranian influence. The Islamic revolution in Iran had brought Shia Islamic clerics to power, who were opposed by the hardline Sunni Islam leadership of Saudi Arabia. Iran's desire to export its own Islamic revolution persuaded the Saudis to support their own foreign Islamist clients. However, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was not the only warlord fighting the Soviets. In the Panjshir valley, Ahmed Shah Massoud was fighting his own guerilla war against the Soviets. Like Hekmatyar, Massoud was also a member of an Islamist student
organisation in his youth. Unlike Hekmatyar, Massoud was not the favoured client of the Pakistani Intelligence Services and was starved of aid. Despite this disadvantage he was still able to fight a fierce guerilla war against the Soviets in the Panjshir valley, earning him the nickname ‘The Lion of Panjshir’. Massoud was viewed with suspicion by the Pakistanis and the Americans due to his willingness to negotiate with the Soviets – he struck a temporary truce with them, allowing the people of the Panjshir valley to enjoy a brief period of peace, and time for himself to mobilise his forces to fight Hekmatyar. This truce enraged the US, who saw the whole point of the war as a campaign to do as much damage to the Soviet Union as possible, regardless of the fate of Afghans. Despite these concerns Massoud found supporters in the West after the collapse of the truce, as he was recognised as being a ‘moderate’ Islamist – one the US and its allies could do business with.
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Section SEVEN:
THE FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION & THE rise of the Taliban The war in Afghanistan exacerbated a crisis in economic and political life in the Soviet Union. The planned economy was stagnating, and Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to reform the political system to appease dissent while keeping the Communist Party in control. This meant that for the first time Soviet citizens could express their opposition to their involvement in Afghanistan, as many of their brothers, sons and fathers returned home in coffins. The strategy pursued by the Reagan Presidency was to escalate the arms race to the point where the Soviet economy would collapse, and it was working. In 1989 the Soviet army left Afghanistan, but continued to provide aid to the PDPA Government, just as the US continued to fund the Mujahideen. The CIA estimated the PDPA would not last long without the
backing of the Soviet army, predicting a victory for the Mujahideen within 6 months to a year. To the surprise of the US and the Soviets, the Afghan Government was still able to hold on to power for a variety of reasons. While the Soviet aid acted as an important prop they were able to stay in power basically because they were a united force - while the Mujahideen had begun fighting each other. This last stand against the rebels did not last long however, as the Soviet Union formally dissolved both the Soviets and US formally ended aid to both of their clients. For Pakistan though, the war was not yet over until they could secure a friendly and stable Afghanistan. Pakistan also had another reason for securing Afghanistan - the collapse of the Soviet Union had produced a massive new market in oil and natural gas in Central Asia that was previously unavailable to multinational 23
companies. If Afghanistan could be secured, Pakistan would be able to get a cut of the massive oil and gas profits that would be transported across Afghanistan in pipelines. But the ejection of the Soviet army did not stop the fighting, or stabilise Afghanistan. When Hekmatyar and Massoud's forces entered Kabul and overthrew the PDPA, the peace was short-lived. The warlords’ forces quickly turned their guns against each other, and without the justification for fighting an invading army, their war was nakedly one for personal control and power. The warlords were to face a challenge to their power from an unexpected quarter, and within 10 years be driven out of their powerbases, forced out of Kabul, and, for Ahmed Shah Massoud, ultimately killed. The people who would do this were not known throughout the world during their victory over the warlords but today very few people in the West cannot have heard of them. They were the Taliban, an ultraIslamist Pashtun nationalist group dedicated to destroying the
power of the warlords and shaping Afghanistan along their interpretation of Islam, producing the world’s strictest Islamic state. The word Taliban is Pashto for "student", outlining the origins of the Taliban in Pakistan's religious schools, the Madrassas. During the war in Afghanistan millions of Afghans became refugees, with many of them seeking shelter in Pakistan. As part of Haq's programme of Islamisation, money was pumped up into setting up these religious schools. The Madrassas taught students extensive and intricate details of the Koran, but taught them practically no useful skills. These Madrassas produced a group of die hard Islamists who would go beyond any other Islamic state in the restrictions they enforced on their people. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan they did not just introduce all the corporate and capital punishment of Sharia law, similar to Iran and Saudi Arabia, such as beheading, flogging and stoning. They also banned singing, dancing, television, music and even 24
the flying of kites. That even Osama Bin Laden can see a use for TV in producing his propaganda videos shows the extremes to which the Taliban went. Despite this extreme and medieval form of religious law the Taliban were still able to achieve support from some sections of the population. Hamid Karzai, the current President of Afghanistan supported the Taliban along with many other Pashtun notables. Any force that could bring order to Afghanistan and end the war would also receive backing from Pakistan, and potentially, the US. Despite the Taliban's effective control over the majority of Afghanistan only 3 countries in the world recognised the Taliban as the legitimate Government of Afghanistan - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Nevertheless, the possibility of a unified government in Afghanistan was an attractive one for the US. US oil company UNOCAL was aiming to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, through Afghanistan. To
do this they needed strong control of Afghanistan, and, in support of this, the US government was prepared to consider the Taliban as the force to do it. In 1997 the US government and UNOCAL entertained a Taliban delegation in America to discuss the possibility of US recognition of their control. Pakistan had supported the Taliban as a force they believed could unify Afghanistan by forcing the warlords to the negotiating table, and was happy to drop support for Hekmatyar in exchange for an attempt to stabilise Afghanistan. The Saudis also supported the Taliban as an Islamist client of their own, and were also happy to cease funding to Hekmatyar due to his attacks on the Saudi royal family for hosting US troops during the Gulf War. The United States was reluctant to recognise the Taliban Government however - due to its harbouring of Osama Bin Laden, whose organisation had attacked the US even before 9/11 with the bombings of US embassies in Tanzania in Kenya in 1998, and the suicide attack on the US warship the USS Cole in 2000. 25
Al qaeda & the Taliban Throughout the war in Afghanistan, western propaganda has referred to the Taliban and al Qaeda as if they were one and the same thing. In fact they are separate and distinct organisations. AL QAEDA, which means “the base” or “foundation”, was founded in the late 1980s. Its members were predominantly Arabs who had come from various countries to fight the Soviet Union, with the funding and support of the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It is not an organisation interested primarily in Afghanistan, but rather in overthrowing the pro-western governments of the Arab countries, bringing the whole Islamic world under their strict definition of Islamic law, and the complete removal of non-Islamic influence from Islamic countries. Osama Bin Laden is a leading figure in the organisation due to his vast wealth, which he uses to bankroll al Qaeda. They have operated across the Islamic world, but moved their main base of operations back to Afghanistan in 1996 after being expelled from Sudan. Although the Taliban government allowed them to operate in Afghanistan, they remained separate organisations. THE TALIBAN by contrast, are a purely Afghan organisation, centered on the Pashtun part of the country. They emerged from the Islamic schools established by the policy of Islamisation in Pakistan. They rose to power on a wave of revulsion at the crimes of the warlords who had devastated the country. In power, they allowed al Qaeda to operate in Afghanistan, but had their own agenda. In 2008, they cut their remaining ties with al Qaeda in order to focus on fighting the foreign occupation of Afghanistan. 26
Section EIGHT:
9/11 & us imperialism Any reconciliation between the US and the Taliban leadership was made impossible after the attacks on September 11th 2001. The US began immediately to use these attacks as a way to justify a new aggressive campaign of military expansion around the world. From September 11th onwards, it was clear the US was gearing up for war in Afghanistan, with American media outlets referring to the attacks as “the new Pearl Harbor”, and focusing the public’s attention on the formerly little known Bin Laden and his base in Afghanistan. Within a month the US military was attacking Afghanistan, while at the same time they rapidly reached agreements to establish massive bases in most of the (formerly Soviet) Central Asian countries surrounding it. This expansion was officially branded as the ‘War on Terror,’ but it’s clear that it was following a plan that had been developed long before September 11th. In the aftermath of the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the US saw itself as the world’s last superpower. Many political figures advocated that the US expand its military presence around the world to establish “global hegemony”, that is, US control of the planet. One of the most influential of these groups was the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which was composed of many figures who went on to be part of the government of President George W Bush. In 2000 the PNAC wrote a document called ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses.’ In a section called ‘Creating Tomorrow’s 27
Dominant Force’ they argued for a process of creating the military force necessary to control the planet:
will be very difficult to produce enough oil to meet the needs of the global economy, and what oil remains will be very expensive.
“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” It is therefore no accident that the American media began immediately to refer to the terrorist attacks as a new Pearl Harbor – the implication being that the US was about to enter a military buildup and period of war comparable to World War Two. There were several reasons for this military expansion. The most obvious is growing concern about the future of supplies of oil and natural gas. An increasing number of scientists believe that the world is approaching peak oil. Peak oil is the point when the world has reached the maximum rate of oil extraction, after which the rate of oil production will enter terminal decline. Many believe that we will reach this point very soon, after which it
In this context, the control of the world’s remaining supplies of fossil fuels is a way of guaranteeing a key position in the global economy. If the US can control the reserves that are in the Caspian Sea, and also controls the pipelines that carry it out, then they will have immense power over their economic and political rivals in Russia and China. The old project of building a pipeline via Afghanistan was back on the agenda. However, the Caspian reserves of fossil fuels are not the whole reason that the US was so determined to expand control in Central Asia. Russia is now completely capitalist, and although the Communist Party still officially 28
rules China, it is now a major capitalist power. Far from removing rivalry and potential conflict with the US, this has made them both powerful countries that are potential competitors for US control of the global economy. Central Asia borders on a number of important countries, including Russia and China, as well as India (another emerging capitalist power) and Iran. The US aims to expand capitalism fully to these countries. They want fossil fuels reserves to be traded in exchange for the products of American companies. But they also want to remain economically dominant, with the expanding capitalist world subordinate to its own economy. To facilitate this process it has used the war in Afghanistan to help build a system of alliances and bases throughout the countries of Central Asia. In Afghanistan itself, the US sees the total control of the country under a friendly puppet government as a key part of this strategy. With regard to Russia and China themselves, it has a hybrid strategy of trying to make partnerships on some issues,
while at the same time maneuvering to a position where it can exert greater control over them and undermine the basis of their power. The theory of the heartland in geopolitics has been influential over the people making US foreign policy for decades, and the control of Central Asia is a key part of this. The theory also states that control of Eastern Europe is vital in order to control the heartland itself. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the US has expanded membership of the Cold War military alliance the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to the countries of Eastern Europe that were formerly military allies of Russia. Russia sees this, correctly, as part of a plan to undermine their power and weaken their global position. It is no accident that NATO has had a key role to play in the wars in the former Yugoslavia (which is now full of American/NATO bases) and now in Afghanistan. European countries like France and Germany opposed the war in Iraq, seeing that US control of Iraq’s oil would help undermine 29
their own position in the global hierarchy. But, as NATO members, they support the war in Afghanistan because Europe and the European Union also want to see Russia weakened. Russia’s control of natural gas supplies that heat homes and cook dinners across Europe gives them a powerful lever to try and control European policy. Many European countries have supported the war militarily because they also have an interest in gaining greater western control over Asian fossil fuels, and undermining Russia. Britain’s own role is clearer. Britain remains separate from French and German attempts to build up an alternative global power to the US in the form of the EU. Successive British governments have seen the role of Britain’s still powerful military and economic power as being intimately tied to US success. Britain supports the US in Afghanistan. Britain is committed to using support for the US as a means to carve out a piece of the pie for itself, in gaining access to the fossil fuel wealth of the region, and by getting access for
British companies to emerging capitalist markets. An important part of the process of building alliances is not just getting political support for Britain and the US - military alliances with countries that have oil money to spend are also a tremendous business opportunity. Both Britain and the US are massive manufacturers of weapons and war materials, which are sold at immense profit to countries which the government has struck deals with. Russia and China have reacted to this threat by coming closer together, and forming alliances with other countries throughout Asia, in order to try to build up a powerful economic and military bloc that can oppose US control. In 2001 they established the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation, a group that builds military and economic alliances between Russia, China and the Central Asian countries, with India and Iran as observer members.
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Section Nine:
Al qaeda & bin laden’s strategy Having been part of the US-allied Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s, in the 1990s Osama Bin Laden and those Islamist militants around him turned their attention from the Soviet Union to the US. Bin Laden was angered that the government of his homeland in Saudi Arabia had used American help to fight Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, when he had offered his own fighters as an alternative. After the war the US had established bases in Saudi Arabia, the homeland of the Prophet Mohammed and the original cradle of Islam. Bin Laden saw this as sacrilege. He was also angry about continued US support for Israel, and began to see it as the main threat to his goal of re-unifying the Islamic world under a hardline religious leadership. After the defeat of the PDPA government in Afghanistan, many of the foreign Islamic fighters had returned to their own countries to try to overthrow their leaders and establish their
own brand of Islamic governments. Bin Laden had moved too, basing himself in Sudan. However, in 1996 he moved back to Afghanistan, and began to pursue a close relationship with the rising Taliban movement. The veteran journalist Robert Fisk wrote an article in the Independent newspaper on September 16th 2001, under the headline “Bush is walking into a trap.” He wrote that Bin Laden had told him in an interview four years earlier that he was going to lure the US into a trap in Afghanistan, and then bleed them through a protracted guerilla war. In other words, he intended to repeat the strategy that had been used against the Soviet Union, this 31
time to weaken the US and help him achieve his goals of overthrowing the US-allied governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab countries. If this was his plan, it has worked spectacularly well so far.
“Bin Laden intended to repeat the strategy he had used against the Soviet Union”.
More evidence that this was the al Qaeda strategy can be found in the fact that Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated in a suicide bombing on September 9th 2001. Many see this as a move by Bin Laden to solidify the Taliban’s support by killing the man who had become their most powerful enemy. This would mean the Taliban would not expel him from Afghanistan after September 11th, and it also removed the man who would have been the most credible figure to head an anti-Taliban government after the US invaded.
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Section TEN:
SINCE 2001: evolution of the war The initial attack on Afghanistan by the US and its allies was justified on the basis of destroying the terrorists who had carried out the 9/11 attacks. What is not that well known is that this objective was largely accomplished very quickly, by massive bombing of al Qaeda strongholds. Despite the fact that Osama Bin Laden individually has not been captured, many of his key commanders have been, or killed. In other parts of the Islamic world more and more young people have moved towards the politics of al Qaeda, but in Afghanistan they have been almost totally wiped out. The Taliban cut all remaining ties with al Qaeda in 2008, focusing their efforts instead on fighting the British and Americans.
who the Taliban had overthrown. They provided the ground troops while the US and UK bombarded Afghanistan from the air. However, unlike al Qaeda, who had a relatively small fighting force, the Taliban were not wiped out completely in 2001-2002, and went on to regroup and later put themselves at the heart of the insurgency against the foreign occupation. It’s important to remember that, while the Taliban were incredibly harsh, the warlords were just as hated by ordinary people, if not more. They were people only interested in power for
The Taliban government in Kabul was rapidly deposed in 2001 because virtually no one in Afghanistan was willing to fight for it. The US coalition allied itself with the Northern Alliance, a group of the brutal warlords 33
themselves, who didn’t care who got in their way. They had brutally exploited ordinary Afghans for years, and killed them without compassion. Many of these competing warlords funded their continuing struggle for power, and with each other, with the massive profits generated by growing opium. The prohibition of drugs in Europe, Russia and the US makes the sale of heroin incredibly profitable. The massive profits made by Afghan warlords who control the production of heroin allows them to continue buying weapons and paying soldiers. The global heroin trade is estimated to be worth $64.82 billion a year, and over 90% of that heroin is produced in Afghanistan. Much of this money is eventually laundered through western banks. Since the global financial collapse, it is almost certainly true that massive profits from the drug trade have helped keep some major banks afloat. Although not a major motivation, this should not be overlooked as a reason the US continues to fight to support some of its drug dealing allies in Afghanistan, and
allows them to continue to produce opium in their territory. In December 2001 the occupying forces and their Afghan allies decided to impose Hamid Karzai as the head of a western puppet government. Following this, the war rapidly evolved from an antiterrorist bombing operation into a long-term fight against an insurgency dedicated to expelling the foreign occupation. The aim of the US led coalition was to keep Karzai in power, even though he has often been described as ‘The Mayor of Kabul’ because of how little control he has of the country outside the capital. Karzai’s government has now stood in two elections; however, they have been plagued with allegations of fraud. His government has grown increasingly unpopular due to widespread corruption of its members. Karzai’s own brother has been directly linked to the lucrative heroin trade. In 2009 his legitimacy faced a crisis after his main opponent in the Presidential elections withdrew, saying he would not participate in the face of widespread vote rigging. Less than 38% of Afghans voted in the 34
fraudulent election. The Afghan government continues to use violence and torture against its opponents. The US and UK have become increasingly disenchanted with Karzai, and they have been examining if they have alternative options, including even the possibility of a negotiated return of the Taliban to power if they were to give sufficient assurances to the west that they will represent their interests. Meanwhile, Karzai himself has grown increasingly unreliable as a western client, even recently threatening to join the Taliban. It should be remembered that he was at one time a Taliban supporter during their rise to power in the 90s, before the US had suddenly discovered their great concern for women and human rights in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the war in the countryside has had an absolutely devastating impact on the population. 50, 000 civilians have been killed, as the foreign occupiers continue to rely on air power to destroy enemies from above, killing everyone around them in the process. The US is
increasingly dependent on the use of drones and other unmanned deadly robots, which frequently make mistakes. There have also been numerous documented cases of foreign forces using brutal tactics against the civilian population, such as the 2009 German airstrike in Kunduz that killed at least 79 civilians, including 24 children. A recent investigation uncovered the existence of the Joint Prioritised Engagement List (JPEL), a list of tribal leaders who have refused bribes and intimidation trying to force them to support the occupation. Once on this list, they are considered legitimate targets for extra-judicial executions by US special forces, who are acting as death squads. The result of this is that 80% of Afghans want foreign forces to leave their country, seeing them, correctly, as a dangerous force. The more civilians who are killed by the occupiers, the more of their outraged relatives join the insurgency against the occupation. Like so many times before in history, Afghans are uniting in the face of a foreign enemy. The insurgency is using the tried and 35
tested guerilla tactics that have driven so many foreign armies out of their country. They avoid pitched battles, hiding from the larger and better equipped armies of the occupation. They strike where and when they can, using roadside bombs to pick off American and British soldiers when they get the opportunity. The insurgency has its heartland in the Pashtun areas that straddle the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fighters largely ignore the border, and move freely between the two states. The Pakistani government’s participation and support for the war in Afghanistan has led to a huge growth for Islamist political forces, particularly in the mountainous border region. Pakistan has been engaged in its own brutal war in the North West against the peoples of the region. The US has also begun to disregard the border, extending its aerial attacks into Pakistani territory, killing ever more civilians. In the process, the future stability of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, has been put in doubt. The war in Afghanistan is increasingly
referred to by US strategists as the AfPak war, pointing to the risk that it could become a full blown conflict in both countries. The insurgency strategy has led, at the time of writing, to over 280 UK military personnel being killed, and almost 1000 Americans. The war has become incredibly unpopular in Britain as a result, and around 70% of the population wants British troops to come home. US forces have suffered an epidemic of suicides as troops struggle to cope with the impact of what they had to do in Afghanistan, and the long term impact of the damage to the mental health of soldiers on themselves and their communities will last for decades. Despite this, no major party supports withdrawal. Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and the SNP are all committed to continuing the war. The continued role of Britain as a world imperial power is more important to any potential British government than public opinion, as was also shown in 2003 when the biggest demonstrations in British history were ignored in the run-up to the war in Iraq. 36
In the US, Barack Obama made it clear throughout his election campaign that his desire to pull back from Iraq was to allow the US to focus on Afghanistan, and he has continued to escalate the war. Both the USA and Britain cannot face up to the fact that they can’t beat this kind of guerilla war, but only continue to let it slowly grind them down month in, month out until the truth becomes clear: the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. The cost of the conflict is also completely unsustainable for the current Afghan government. In 2011 the government’s spending on the army and police is projected to be $11.6 billion, which is a staggering 61% of Afghanistan’s projected GDP! For comparison, the U.S. Department of Defense budget – bloated as it is - is about 5 percent of GDP; and spending on police is less than 1 percent of GDP. Billions of dollars of aid has been poured into Afghanistan, most of which has vanished into the pockets of corrupt warlords. While most Afghans continue to live in abject poverty, the government spent $4.2 million on a luxury apartment in the
“Compared to today, Afghanistan in 1979 was a paradise. It welcomed 120,000 tourists a year”. Trump Tower, New York, for their permanent representative to the UN. Afghanistan in 1979 was a relatively stable country. It was poor, but compared to today it was a paradise. The land produced food, not opium. It exported food (being the world’s 4th largest producer of raisins) and natural gas, and welcomed 120,000 tourists a year. Today it is a devastated wasteland after being battered by foreign powers who care little for the impact of their actions on the people.
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Section eleven:
A better future for Afghanistan Many of those who continue to support the war in Britain argue that our troops must “finish the job they started� and establish a stable and peaceful democracy in Afghanistan. They argue that if we were to leave the Taliban would return to power. What this argument ignores is that the forces we have supported in Afghanistan are not democratic, and in many cases have committed human rights abuses as bad as anything the Taliban did during their own reign of terror. The Taliban today is only a powerful force because people see it as the main way they can fight the occupation, in many cases to avenge the wrongs that have been committed against them by foreign troops. Indeed, if the relationship between the US/UK and their puppet Hamid Karzai becomes even more strained, it’s possible
the Taliban may even return to power with western blessing. What the people of Afghanistan want and need most of all is peace. To achieve that, the huge foreign armies that are fighting in the country must be withdrawn immediately. How can we claim to be fighting for democracy when the majority of Afghans want our forces to leave? If British and American forces left Afghanistan, there would not be a total and immediate end to violence, but its level would be much reduced without the bombings and attacks of our armies, and with the insurgency left with no enemy to fight. How 38
then could we help bring real peace to Afghanistan? The British and American governments could begin restricting our own bloated arms trade, and stop pumping more weapons on to the global market. Our hugely profitable arms trade fuels conflict around the world, including in Afghanistan, while British companies get rich on the blood money. We could cut all ties with some of the brutal figures in Afghanistan which taxpayers’ money has armed and funded for years now. We could also begin to tackle the huge problems caused by drugs prohibition, by making clean pharmaceutical heroin available on prescription for addicts, while at the same time providing them with properly funded health services to overcome their addiction. This would begin to cut the massive profits of the illegal heroin trade, cutting off the major source of funding for continued conflict in Afghanistan.
We could also stop providing arms and training to the regional forces that have helped the violent warlords and Taliban to rise to power, such as Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence. As Afghan MP Malalai Joya (more on her shortly) has put it: “Afghans face three enemies: the occupying forces, the Taliban and the warlords. When the US pulls out, the Taliban and the warlords will lose their guardian. It will be easier for Afghans to unite and crush these internal enemies. The US government doesn't want a democratic Afghanistan, so it counts on its puppets who are antidemocracy and anti-woman to the marrow of their bones. Today, friends of the US in Afghanistan are darkminded, criminal people. Afghanistan will never see democracy and freedom when such dirty elements are real power-holders and policymakers.” We could also begin to use some of the huge amounts of money saved by ending the war to support the people who are really 39
fighting for a stable, democratic and multi-ethnic Afghanistan. Among the main forces we should support is the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Since the 70s RAWA have fought for the rights of women against the brutal oppression they have faced at the hands of successive Afghan governments and the horrendously misogynist warlords. They operate schools for girls, which in the past have often needed to be underground since girls’ education was illegal. They also operate their own hospitals and orphanages, both inside Afghanistan and for the millions of Afghans living as refugees in Pakistan. They support a nonviolent strategy to build a secular democracy in Afghanistan. Someone else who we should support is the Afghan MP Malalai Joya (pictured, p39). Unlike most members of the Afghan parliament, she was elected in 2003 with the overwhelming
support of the people of the people of Farah province. As one of the very few women elected, she showed incredible courage by speaking against the western-allied warlords and drug dealers who sat around her. She has called consistently for the withdrawal of the occupation forces, who support these same oppressive warlords, in order to allow the Afghan people to begin deciding their own future and building a multi-ethnic democracy. For her courage in speaking out, she was suspended from parliament in 2007. This has not stopped her however from tirelessly speaking out in favour of the silenced majority of the Afghan people. The idea that British troops are in Afghanistan to bring peace and democracy is a cruel lie. They are there to allow the British government to guarantee its place in an American dominated global hierarchy of control over the entire planet. They are there to allow British oil and weapons 40
“The idea that British troops are in Afghanistan to bring peace and democracy is a cruel lie�.
interested in the people of Afghanistan. They have other priorities. These ideas about changing Afghanistan’s future might seem unrealistic, but are they really more unrealistic than to expect Britain and the USA, two countries that have done so much damage to Afghanistan in the past, to give it a better future?
companies continue to profit from the expansion of capitalism in Asia and around the world. And they are there to prop up a corrupt and brutal regime that abuses human rights and cares little about democracy. The best way you can help the people of Afghanistan overcome poverty and oppression is to join the growing fight to bring all foreign troops home from Afghanistan. Only the people of Afghanistan can solve their own problems, free from foreign interference. No one is pretending it will be easy for them. It will be a long and difficult road for them to begin rebuilding their country and start to progress towards a better future. But to allow them to do that, we must see through the lie that our government is 41
WHO IS HE? AHMED SHAH MASSOUD BACKGROUND: Ahmed Shah Massoud was one of the most competent anti-communist rebel commanders in Afghanistan. Like Hekmatyar, Massoud also came from an Islamist background and was a member of Jamaat Isalmi as a student in Afghanistan. Unlike Hekmatyar however, Massoud did not receive the lion’s share of US, Saudi and Pakistani military aid as he was not the favoured client of the Pakistani regime. Despite this disadvantage, Massoud was still a major thorn in the side of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan and earned the nickname “The Lion of Panjshir” for his guerrilla attacks in the province. After the collapse of the pro-Soviet Government in Kabul, Massoud was embroiled in a civil war with his rival Hekmatyar, who was acting on behalf of the Pakistani government to secure its Afghan flank. After Hekmatyar proved unable to conquer Afghanistan however, Pakistan gave support to a movement against all the warlords, both Hekmatyar and Massoud – the Taliban. Massoud became the Commander in Chief of the warlords’ anti-Taliban front, the Northern Alliance.
WHERE IS HE NOW? Massoud was killed on September 9 2001 by two Tunisian Islamists posing as cameramen affiliated with Osama Bin Laden. The timing of the assassination, two days before the September 11 attacks, indicates Bin Laden knew the likely response to his atrocity – the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies. Removing Massoud – the one strongest potential unifying figure for a pro-western government in Afghanistan – wasn’t just a favour to the Taliban for the war to come, but a calculated act to make Afghanistan harder for the west to control.
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WHO IS HE? RASHID DOSTUM BACKGROUND: A member of Afghanistan's Uzbek minority, Dostum studied military training in the Soviet Union in the early 70's. Dostum later became the commander of a pro-Afghan Government militia during the war between the Soviets and anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan. When the Afghan Government collapsed, Dostum switched sides and joined in an alliance with Ahmed Shah Massoud to fight against Hekmatyar. Dostum later switched sides again, this time in Hekmatyar's favour and against Massoud. Dostum was later forced to compromise with Massoud against a larger enemy - the anti-warlord forces of the Taliban. Dostum ran his territory like a small country, with it's own army and currency. He led the second largest party as part of the warlords antiTaliban front the Northern Alliance. Dostum allied himself with the United States during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. His forces took thousands of Taliban soldiers prisoner, and slaughtered hundreds if not thousands of them, by suffocating them in steel containers. Dostum later kidnapped Akhbar Bai a former ally who had since become his rival. Dostum was expelled from Afghanistan for the kidnapping, and sacked from his post as Chief of Staff of the Army.
WHERE IS HE NOW? Dostum was later invited back into Afghanistan by President Karzai, and reinstated as Chief of Staff of the Army. He has not faced any charges over kidnapping Bai, or the massacre of Taliban prisoners. Karzai believes Dostum can help win Uzbek support for his Government, and that Dostum's record of brutality will help him defeat the Taliban.
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The Scottish Socialist Party is the only Scottish political party that has campaigned against the war in Afghanistan since it began began in 2001. Recently this campaign has been stepped up, with a nationwide series of meetings demanding withdrawal of the troops that have attracted hundreds of people across Scotland. They have been addressed by representatives of the Afghan community in Scotland, as well as SSP member Joan Humphreys, whose grandson was a soldier killed in Afghanistan. If you you want to fight against the warwar-mongering British government, and for an independent, socialist Scotland, then join the SSP today.
I would like more info on the SSP I would like to join the SSP I would also like join Scottish Socialist Youth
Name:………………………………………………………………….. Address:………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………. Phones:………………………………………………………………........ Email:……………………………………………………………………. Return to SSP, Suite 370, 4th Floor, Central Chambers, 93 Hope St. Glasgow G2 6LD
Why are British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan? … … What have over 300 people from the UK given their lives for? ….. …..
Over 10,000 afghan civilians have died : Are the NATO forces REALLY helping Afghanistan?
More people than ever before are now asking themselves what the real reasons behind the war in Afghanistan are. This pamphlet, produced by members of Scottish Socialist Youth, aims to answer these questions, and explore the history of a country scarred by war, occupation and centuries of imperial conquest.
Scottish Socialist Youth is the youth wing of the SSP. We fight for young workers’ rights, for free education, and against war, racism and poverty. We’ve got active members and groups across Scotland – you can get in touch with us at scottishsocialistyouth@gmail.com, or by checking out our website at… P&P: Scottish Socialist Youth, Suite 370, 93 Hope Street, Glasgow G2 6LD Design & layout: Liam Turbett. Published: September 2010