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Vol. 73/No. 36      September 21, 2009

 
U.S. troops out of Afghanistan!
(editorial)
 
A debate is growing among U.S. capitalist politicians, top officials at the Pentagon, and in the opinion columns of major big-business dailies over how to advance U.S. imperialist interests in Afghanistan and more broadly in Central Asia.

The debate is rooted in their inability to find a self-confident course to surmount the uncontrollable forces carrying them toward a future of sharpening crises, with its intertwined faces of depression, war, and increasingly violent class battles with higher stakes and risks.

An air strike in Afghanistan that killed up to 90 people, incinerating many of them, shows the consequences of Washington’s “new” war strategy for working people in that country.

The U.S. rulers have waged war in Afghanistan since 2001, going on eight years this October, under the pretext of fighting terrorism. This front in the multitheater war continues to accelerate as the Obama administration gives carte blanche to the Pentagon military brass. Since taking office, Obama has ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. The Pentagon says its goal is to have 68,000 there by the end of the year—nearly double the level when former president George Bush left office.

The debate on a shift in war strategy is in the framework of how U.S. imperialist forces can more effectively wage the war and win. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, issued a report August 31, outlining a strategy that emphasizes holding and securing areas captured from Taliban control and paves the way for increasing troop levels.

There is no course for the war put forward by the ruling class and their representatives that’s in the interests of working people and their allies, in Afghanistan, the United States, or anywhere in the world. It’s only by removing the boot of U.S. imperialism off the necks of the toilers in Central Asia that they will be able to chart their own course along the line of march toward taking political power and effecting their own emancipation.

It’s for this reason that working people in the United States, Afghanistan, and the world over should demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Central Asia. Not one penny, not one person for Washington’s wars!
 
 
Related articles:
NATO air strike kills up to 90 in Afghanistan
U.S. rulers debate course as war deepens  
 
 
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