Obama's Afghanistan surge

Having begun his run for president of the U.S. as an anti-war candidate, Obama now holds the reins of commander-in-chief. Far from pulling the imperialist U.S. behemoth away from war and militarism, he is the one who is being pulled into repeating Bush's Iraq "surge," this time in Afghanistan. U.S. combat troops will climb this year to 68,000, double the level at the time of Bush's departure--and now comes word that top brass are angling for 12,000 to 27,000 more. Troop deaths have climbed to the greatest death count by far since the war began: 43 U.S. troops and 33 other coalition troops in July 2009.

What has the war brought to Afghan people, besides the deaths of from 8,000 to 30,000 civilians? Not only do Afghans live at daily risk of attacks from coalition troops or the Taliban, but 62% are in debt and ten million in severe poverty. Of Afghan children between 7 and 14 years old, nearly one in four labor for scant pay, most of them for long hours under hazardous conditions. About 60% of girls are married off when only 9 to 15 years old.

AFGHAN WOMEN'S FREEDOM DISREGARDED

In July Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai signed a revised law governing Shi'a women, little changed from the law passed in March legalizing rape within marriage and forbidding women to leave their homes, seek work, get an education, or visit a doctor without their husband's permission (see Afghan women as force and Reason). Is this what U.S. "liberation" of Afghanistan means? Throwing aside Bush's pretense of concern for democracy, human rights or women's status, Obama has repeatedly declared that his "bottom line" is fighting al-Qaeda--period.

Obama has continued Bush's 2008 surge of killings by drone aircraft in Pakistan--with the aid of Pakistan's government--stirring outrage and protests in Lahore and Karachi. The two countries' rulers are allies in a war that has slaughtered an unknown number of civilians, including the June 23 drone attack on a funeral procession, which killed 50 to 80 people.

The conflict in Pakistan's Swat Valley, fought on the backs of working people, reveals the nature of the "global war on terrorism"--which remains the same even if the administration changes the war's name. Like much of Pakistan, Swat has long been controlled by a small elite of wealthy landlords, who exploited the labor of landless peasants. The Taliban appealed to peasants for support in driving the ruling families out, winning favor by taking a smaller share of the peasants' labor than the landlords took.

The support waned when it became clear that the Taliban were another brutal set of oppressors, particularly after a video circulated showing a 17-year-old girl in the Swat Valley, held down by three masked men for a public flogging. At that very time the Pakistani government had inaugurated a deal to impose Islamic law and give the Taliban free rein in Swat. The deal fell apart after the Taliban used Swat as a base for expanding into neighboring regions.

The full force of Pakistan's army came down on the valley, and two million people were forced from their homes. Now victory has been declared, and they are being ordered to return whether they want to or not, with fighting still going on, and many homes and schools in ruins or occupied by the army. What the army aims to re-establish above all is the order of hard labor and squalid living conditions for the vast majority.

The same dynamic is at work in Obama's continuation of the Bush Administration's policies not only on war but on repression, including at home. Secret rendition of prisoners to torture centers in other countries continues. Detention without charge continues. The Obama administration has tried to keep Mohammed Jawad, captured in Afghanistan as a child, behind bars despite the torture-extracted "evidence" against him being thrown out by the judge. And the administration is defending in court the Bush policy of warrantless wiretapping of millions of U.S. citizens.

Whether it is the "democratic" U.S. and allied states, or reactionary groups promising "Islamic justice," none offer any exit from this global system of exploitation, oppression and war.

THE OPPOSITE OF WAR IS REVOLUTION

There is no sharp boundary between conflicts among states--including warlords and would-be state powers organized as terrorist groups--and the wars waged by rulers against their own people. The truly decisive division is that between the rulers and the ruled in each country. The only genuine opposition to war comes from the revolt and resistance of the people, whether that be the uprising in Iran sparked by the stolen election or the mass resistance against the coup in Honduras. As News and Letters Committees has asked since our founding, "Are you with the people struggling for a totally new way of life, or with capitalism fighting to perpetuate itself?"

Our opposition to war must therefore spell out not only what we are against but what we are for: a world of new human relations, beginning at the point of production, and encompassing all the dimensions opened up by humanity's many-faceted struggles for freedom.

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