The News Line: Editorial
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Get British troops out of Afghanistan now!
PRIME Minister Gordon Brown and Defence Secretary Des Browne yesterday
sent their condolences to the families of four more British troops
killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday. This takes the total number of
British forces killed, since NATO took over the occupation of the
country in 2001, to 106.
Brown told Parliament: =91Our troops are second to none, the best in the
world. They are on the noblest of missions, they are fighting for
freedom for Afghans in their own country and for the world in
protecting us from terrorism.=92
The Defence Secretary also announced a new offensive by British and
NATO forces in Arghandab district near the southern city of Kandahar,
where a force of 300-400 Taleban insurgents have taken control of at
least eight villages.
Browne spoke about the new Kandahar operation while attending a
memorial service and march by troops through Edinburgh for all those
NATO troops killed in Afghanistan.
A few days ago he announced there would be more cannon fodder for the
war with 230 more troops. However, yesterday he bemoaned the fact that
the Taleban were not fighting like a regular army, but as insurgents!
While engaging in the usual rhetoric about the so-called =91war on
terror=92 and draping themselves in the =91Butcher=92s Apron=92, the Union
Jack, both the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary declared that
British and NATO troops would step up =91the most difficult missions in
the most dangerous of countries=92 (Brown).
Flying in the face of the facts, Browne even claimed: =91The Taleban are
losing in Afghanistan. I know it may not appear like that at the
moment, but we are enjoying a degree of success.=92
He was silent about 350 Taleban political prisoners being freed in
Kandahar at the weekend and avoided the fact that nine British
soldiers have been killed in the past 10 days.
The Taleban now control large parts of the countryside in southern
Afghanistan, are defeating the NATO forces and are winning!
Earlier this week, former military chief General Sir Mike Jackson
spelt out the task of British imperialism=92s armed forces in
Afghanistan when he said that a NATO army of 100,000 could make the
occupation work, if it matched its opponent=92s =91strategic endurance=92
and behaved as the British Army had in Ireland.
Brown, Browne and Jackson are spokesmen for British imperialism, which
is playing second fiddle to United States imperialism today, but is
just as murderous as it was in the heyday of the British Empire.
The British capitalist class tops the league of the militarist
merchants of death. The UK=92s Defence and Security Organisation
published figures on Tuesday revealing that Britain is the largest
ex****ter of weapons of mass destruction in the world, outstripping the
US in 2007 by getting =A310bn of new orders.
The Taleban are Afghans, they have nowhere else to go and are
following in the footsteps of their ancestors who fought and defeated
the British Army in the Afghan wars of 1839-42 and 1879-1882.
The NATO forces are imperialist invaders attempting to occupy
Afghanistan in their interests, to have bases in the oil-rich,
strategically-im****tant Middle East, and threaten Iran, the Arab
countries and Russia.
The Taleban insurgents are fighting to send these foreign invaders
packing. It is in the interests of the British and American working
cl***** to sup****t them in this struggle, because Bush and Brown are
making workers pay for their imperialist wars.
Billions of pounds are being thrown into the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, while stringent budget controls and cuts are imposed on
essential public services, like the NHS, education and local council
services, which are also being decimated by privatisation.
Workers must insist that their unions sup****t the insurgents fighting
to liberate their countries from imperialist occupation by demanding
the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.
This issue must be put on the agenda of every union conference.
The government is determined to continue its wars against the Afghan
and Iraqi peoples. This means the trade unions must use every means
necessary, including mass strike action, to bring down the imperialist
Brown regime and go forward to a workers=92 government that will quit
NATO and withdraw all British troops from overseas.
http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/3284
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