Afghanistan
has now been occupied by U.S.-led forces for five years. Despite the claims of
the Americans and their allies that the purpose of the invasion was to bring
peace, democracy and prosperity to Afghanistan none of those stated
objectives have occurred. In fact, the opposite is the case. The imperialist
war against the people of Afghanistan
continues to rage and the resistance to that war continues to grow. Political
power has been handed back to the warlords and drug dealers who raped and
pillaged the Afghan people for much of the 1990s. The Afghan economy is in
ruins and the opium trade has become the main source of revenue for the
country. Thousands of Afghanis have been killed and maimed, and their homes
have been reduced to rubble, all in the name of bringing them “democracy”.
This reality is
the result of the fact that the U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan
had absolutely nothing to do with the rationale presented by the Bush
administration. It had nothing to do with liberating the Afghan people from
Taliban rule, nor was it carried out in response to the events of September 11,
2001. In fact, in the weeks following the events of September 11, 2001 the
Taliban government of Afghanistan offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to U.S.
authorities on presentation of evidence that he was involved in the attacks,
but the U.S. rejected those offers. In addition, it is well known that an
invasion on the scale of that carried out by the U.S. in October 2001 takes months,
not weeks, to prepare. In other words, it was clearly in the works long before
September 11.
The geographical
location of Afghanistan at
the crossroads between the Middle East, South Asia and the Far
East explains the real reason for the U.S.-led invasion. Control
of this region is a key aspect of the U.S.
imperialist attempt to gain control of the oil and gas fields
of the Middle East, as well as the Caspian Sea
area. It is also an important step in American attempts to encircle both Russia and China
and prevent them from becoming major economic and military threats to U.S. hegemony.
Over the past
year, Canadian troops have taken over from American forces as the main combat
force in southern Afghanistan,
freeing up several thousand U.S.
soldiers for redeployment to Iraq.
Despite all of the claims of the Harper government, or of the Martin
and Chretien governments before it, Canadian troops
in Afghanistan
are involved in neither peacekeeping nor reconstruction of the country. They
are there simply in support of U.S.
imperialist geopolitical goals. They are not a liberating force, but an
occupation force. Their presence in Afghanistan
brings nothing but shame to Canada
and the Canadian people. On October 28 tens of thousands of Canadians demanded Canada’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Opinion polls have consistently indicated that this is also the sentiment of an
increasing majority of the Canadian people. Given the fact that the Harper
government is a minority government, it is within the power of the opposition
parties to force it to submit to the will of the people. To date, none of the
opposition parties has indicated any serious intention of doing so. As such,
they all stand in contempt of the Canadian people.