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| Socialist
Party
USA:
Statements |
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Response to Obama's Surge in Afghanistan
passed by
the National Action Committee, December 3, 2009
On December 1st, President Obama has announced that he will send 30,000
more troops to Afghanistan. The
justification is paper thin. Far from creating security, the
occupation itself has created a state of lawlessness in
Afghanistan.
The
fraud ridden reelection of the puppet Karzai regime has put popularity
for the US mission in Afghanistan through the floor, and further
inflamed anger in the middle east. Far from building Afghan
sovereignty, Obama's policy is to deepen support for an illegitimate
regime with tight associations with oil companies, drug lords, and
warlords. Americans are waking up to the fact that, like the occupation
of Iraq, this occupation isn't making us any safer, nor is it
bringing development, democracy, security, or women's rights to
Afghanistan. Rather, it is killing Afghan civilians and U.S./ NATO troops while
stealing badly needed funds from housing, jobs, healthcare, and
climate protection.
Even
before
the election, Obama refused to counter McCain's assertion that the surge in
Iraq had worked. Instead he said US policy should turn toward
Afghanistan. One year into his administration and we are on course to double
the number of troops in Afghanistan from Bush Administration levels.
The
anti-war
movement is slowly and painfully learning several important lessons.
First, that these occupations do not represent the mistaken policies of
a peace-loving government, but rather are to a global system
emanating from Washington that can only be addressed in their entirety. And
second, the Democratic Party will not move one inch toward a less
belligerent policy.
These
wars
are about seizing natural resources, expanding unregulated markets, and
dominating the middle east militarily, politically, and economically, vis a
vis our competitors in Europe and Asia. These motivations are not
unique to one country or region of the world; nor were they unique to
the Bush administration. Rather, these factors characterize a
decades old global US imperial project. Rather than enjoying a much
sought after “peace dividend” after the Cold War, US military spending and
curtailments on civil liberties continued unabated.
From
this
understanding we can see how deeply radical a true peace movement must be. An
antiwar stance ought to be a point of unity among a variety of
movements, from climate change to health care; workers rights to
civil rights. This broad unity must be matched by a firm commitment to
uncompromising struggle. We can expect that every angle of non-violent
force must be fully leveraged in order to impose such radical changes
on how the US ruling establishment conducts business.
Lastly,
we
should recognize that some elements of the establishment may be split away
from supporting direct military confrontation in favor of “smarter”
more efficient levers of domination. The withdrawal of troops
from any theater of conflict would signal a major victory in terms of
lives saved and the morale of peoples' struggles
everywhere.
But
the peace movement must go further to address military spending and
the power of those who own the war industry, or else we can expect
the unending threats and interventions around the world to continue. We
must not tolerate occupations like that suffered in Palestine, which
is underwritten with US sponsorship. While we make the immediate
demand of “troops home now from Iraq and Afghanistan,” we must
also lay the foundation for a movement that can dismantle US
militarism and demand real alternatives.
As
this
new phase of imperial expansion unfolds under the leadership of the Obama
administration, the Socialist Party USA stands ready to struggle for an
antiwar movement that respects the right to self-determination of the
Afghan people; a movement that is democratic and inclusive; a movement
that involves the participation of broad sectors of society; and
finally, a movement that is truly independent of the partisan interests of
the Democratic Party and the capitalists they represent.
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