Afghanistan

All over the place on Afghanistan

The Morning Star (unlike some other left wing publications) did not hail the fall of Kabul and the Taliban takeover as any kind of “triumph” or “victory” for “anti-imperialism”. In fact the Morning Star of 16 August described the situation as a “disaster unfolding” and quoted a member of the Afghan diaspora now living in Norway saying: “Dark times are ahead as women and ethnic groups like the Hazara will face the same fate as they did in the 1990s”. But it has been completely incoherent on the underlying politics. The Morning Star claimed (editorial 17 August) that any suggestion that the Stop...

Disaster in Afghanistan: why the Taliban won

The peoples of Afghanistan are being overrun. Those who can, will flee; some will submit to a new regime extinguishing women's rights and personal liberties, as well as collective civil rights; some will be massacred. The Afghan army, nominally over 300,000 strong, equipped, funded, and trained by the USA over 20 years, offered almost no resistance to the Taliban advance, even though the Taliban is still mostly a scrappy militia of young men with Kalashnikovs on motorbikes or pick-up trucks. The militia warlords of Afghanistan's north who were able to hold their areas against the Taliban from...

A disastrous invasion and a disastrous withdrawal

We opposed the US invasion of Afghanistan and always refused positively to support the US and NATO military presence there. We have never sloganised for "US troops out of Afghanistan", because that would suggest some support for a Taliban victory. For a long while we have said that further years of the US operation would most likely worsen the horrors when the US would, inevitably, eventually, some time, withdraw. That prediction has been confirmed. Probably an even halfway competently-managed withdrawal relatively soon after 2001 would have produced fewer horrors. Probably any US policy more...

Afghanistan timeline

1921: Britain concedes defeat in Third British-Afghan War (1919-21). King Amanullah begins modernising reforms. From 1953: Mohammed Daoud Khan as prime minister under the monarchy builds ties with the USSR and introduces more modernising reforms, especially for women. 1973: Daoud overthrows the monarchy and speeds up reforms. 1978: The PDPA (Afghan Communist Party) overthrows Daoud in a coup and further speeds up measures to transform Afghanistan on the model of the USSR. It is quickly pitched into civil war with a revolt of the countryside under the leadership of landlords and clerics. 1979...

Afghanistan, the left and the "third camp"

In conflicts between big powers like the USA, and reactionary forces which conflict with those big powers without to any degree fighting for national-liberation or democracy, socialists must support neither side. We instead fight for the "third camp" of the working class and the oppressed, against both the big powers and forces like the Taliban, even if that "third camp" is at present weak and undeveloped. Workers' Liberty has long argued that way. Most other groups on the British left have disagreed. In 2001 some explicitly advocated siding with the Taliban ("anti-imperialist united front"...

Russia's war in Afghanistan and the 1978 coup

Afghanistan’s “Great Saur Revolution”, in April 1978, and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that flowed from it 20 months later, at Christmas 1979, were two of the most important events of the second half of the 20th century. The invasion led to the so-named Second Cold War. Their failure to subjugate Afghanistan in a nine-year colonial war was one of the things that shattered the self-confidence of the Russian Stalinist bureaucracy, and contributed to its downfall. The April 1978 revolution was a freakish event — an army and air force officers’ coup controlled by the Peoples Democratic...

Kino Eye. Afghanistan: the last time

As far as I know there is only one film depicting the Russian intervention in Afghanistan. Directed by Fedor Bondarchuk, 9th Company (2005) features seven conscripts who opt to serve in Afghanistan as this means only a one-year tour of duty and then – assuming you are still alive – you can go home. After several months’ rigorous and brutal training they are sent into Afghanistan. Early in 1988 they take part in Operation Magistral and have to defend Hill 3234, which comes under fierce attack from the Mujahideen. Eventually, of the seven comrades, only Oleg Lyuti (Artur Smolyaninov) is left. He...

Afghans in London protest against Taliban

About a thousand protesters, mostly people of Afghan origin or background, took to the streets in London on 28 August to protest against the Taliban. Placards also called for a more open door for refugees, and support for the rights of the Hazara minority in Afghanistan. Many protesters waved the Afghan flag (dating, with many variants and interruptions, from 1930), which has also been waved on small anti-Taliban protests inside Afghanistan. The protesters included a high proportion of young women, many of Afghan background but never, or only as small children, having lived in Afghanistan...

Afghanistan and the left, 2021

The disaster in Afghanistan makes it even more urgent for the left to recognise that in conflicts between big powers like the USA, and reactionary forces which conflict with those big powers without to any degree fighting for national-liberation or democracy, it is possible and indeed mandatory for socialists to support neither side. We instead fight for the "third camp" of the working class and the oppressed, against both the big powers and forces like the Taliban, even if that "third camp" is at present weak and undeveloped. When I wrote an earlier comment , I thought that most people on the...

An open door for refugees from Afghanistan!

We call on activists in trade unions and local Labour Parties to put motions supporting an open door for refugees from Afghanistan, and to support street protests for refugee rights.

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