Afghanistan

Anti-Islamophobia, genuine and cynical: a reply to Aaron Kiely on Kurdistan (and Bosnia and Kosova and Afghanistan and Chechnya)

During the recent row in the student movement about Kurdistan, five members of NUS national executive who are active in NUS’s Black Students’ Campaign issued a statement . This article is not a response to that statement as such. What pushed me to write this was who one of the five signatories was: Aaron Kiely, a member of the "Student Broad Left" group, a front for Socialist Action . In the context of the rise of ISIS, the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and Western intervention, the statement talks about “blatant Islamophobia” and “the demonisation of Muslim peoples”. To put it bluntly, this is...

The Russians Withdraw from Afghanistan (1988)

The withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan must be perplexing for those on the left who supported their invasion or did not oppose their presence. They argued that Afghanistan was a different case from Vietnam or other battles against imperialism. The USSR claims to be socialist; and even if we reject this claim we can point to the frankly reactionary prograrnme of the Afghan rebels and the support for them from the United States. In comparison the Afghan government and its Russian backers are , if no more, 'progressive'. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) government which took power...

Discovering what socialism should really mean

Socialism has always been a bit of an odd word for me. Growing up, reading about history I could never really understand what it meant. The Labour Party called itself a “democratic socialist party”, the totalitarian dictatorship that ruled Russia was known as the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” and Saddam Hussein’s thuggish ruling party in Iraq was known as the “Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party”. So in what sense could it mean anything? At the same time it was becoming clearer and clearer to me, the older I got, that society was laid out in a certain way and that socialism was an alternative...

Socialist Worker looks two ways on Islamists

Socialist Worker of 21 January cites approvingly "a statement issued by the Revolutionary Left Current [in Syria which] spoke of 'the double repression' suffered by the popular movement - from the regime and armed Islamist groups". It quotes an RLC activist: "people say we need a second revolution". Until now, mostly, Socialist Worker , and related currents of thought, have been willing to criticise Islamists only when, and on the grounds that, they are neo-liberal, pro-IMF, etc. The Islamist ultras of ISIL/ISIS in Syria are not particularly pro-IMF. They are more "anti-imperialist", if "anti...

When the Weekly Worker Group ("CPGB") Backed Imperialism in Afghanistan (2004). An Exercise in Political Sanitation.

Introduction. Afghanistan: the Russian Invasion and the Left "The Stalinist April 1978 Coup and the December 1979 Russian Invasion "Workers' Voice", the "CPGB's" Turkish Stalinist Mentors Conrad and Fisher on Afghanistan: The Tankies' Tankies -1 The Tankies' Tankies -2 The Tankies' Tankies -3 The Tankies' Tankies -4 The Tankies' Tankies -5 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -1 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -2 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-3 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -4 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-5

When the Weekly Worker Group ("CPGB") Backed Imperialism in Afghanistan. A series of articles.(2004)

Introduction. Afghanistan: the Russian Invasion and the Left "Workers' Voice", the "CPGB's" Turkish Stalinist Mentors Conrad and Fisher on Afghanistan: The Tankies' Tankies -1 The Tankies' Tankies -2 The Tankies' Tankies -3 The Tankies' Tankies -4 The Tankies' Tankies -5 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -1 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -2 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-3 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -4 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-5

Free whistleblower Manning!

Update - 21 August 2013 A military court has sentenced Manning to 35 year in jail for espionage, theft, and violation of military computer regulations. The below article was written two weeks ago, after the announcement of the verdict. Chelsea Manning [formerly Bradley: she has changed her name and gender identity] released military documents to WikiLeaks, documents which included footage of a US military helicopter gunning down a father taking his children to school; evidence of a death squad operating in Afghanistan; and files showing that Guantánamo held dementia patients, taxi drivers and...

American endgames in Afghanistan

Ahmed Rashid, the best-known writer on Afghanistan, thinks a full Taliban takeover of the country “unlikely” after the US and its allies withdraw most of their forces at the end of 2014. The government can retreat to defending Kabul. Its army is surely more fragile than its large numbers would suggest (200,000), but not zero. Kabul’s population has increased from 0.5 million in 2001 to 4.5 million now (out of the country’s total population of 30 million). A large proportion of the increase is refugees returning after the Taliban fell in 2001, so most of the city’s population would support...

A clash of two bigotries

The violence of some of protests outside US and other embassies against the 'Innocence of Muslims' film will have horrified all democrats and socialists. So dismayed were secular-minded Libyans with the killing of American diplomats in Benghazi they organised counter-demonstrations. The protests were relatively small in most cities in the Arab world, Africa, and south-east Asia, but larger in some places (like Kabul, Monday 17 September). The Kabul protest will have been fuelled by resentment against the NATO forces, the corruption of the Afghan government, and much else. But the religious...

The Afghan spiral

According to the United Nations, 3,120 civilians were killed by US, British, other NATO, and Karzai government forces in Aghanistan between 2006 and the end of 2011. A large chunk of those deaths are caused by aerial bombings — 187 in 2011. Despite constant and increasingly hollow claims by US and NATO commanders that there is progress towards peace, the civilian deaths are not decreasing. The UN figure for civilian killings by pro-US forces has increased some years and decreased others, but in 2011 was almost twice what it was in 2006. The figure for civilian deaths overall shows a steady...

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