Afghanistan: Obama ’s escalation begins

[Antid Oto]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Afghanistan: Obama’s escalation begins
17 February 2010

The offensive begun February 13 against the town of Marjah is the
first major effort undertaken by the US military in Afghanistan since
President Barack Obama ordered the intensification of the US war
effort and the dispatch of 30,000 additional American troops. The
attack on Marjah is the largest US military operation in the war since
the initial 2001 invasion ordered by George W. Bush.

Marjah is to be followed by a series of escalating offensive thrusts
across Helmand and Kandahar, the two heavily populated provinces in
southern Afghanistan that have been the focal point of guerrilla
resistance to the US occupation regime. According to figures published
last month, these two provinces alone account for more than 600 of the
1,600 deaths among American and NATO troops in the Afghanistan war.

The methods being employed in Marjah give a glimpse of what the Obama
administration and the Pentagon have in store for the Afghan people
throughout this year, particularly once the spring weather makes
possibly more aggressive deployment of US firepower, especially
warplanes and helicopter gunships whose use is curtailed during the
winter.

The claim by US officials, parroted by the media, that the offensive
would be conducted with minimal civilian deaths was blown apart on
Sunday, when 12 people were killed in a military strike against a
house in the small city of about 80,000 people. Among the dead were 6
children. In total, up to 20 civilians have been killed, according to
media reports.

In addition, the US military says that it has killed about 100 of the
estimated 400 resistance fighters using rifles and rocket-propelled
grenades to oppose 15,000 heavily armed US, British, Canadian and
Afghan puppet troops, backed by warplanes, drones and artillery. The
US routinely refers to anyone resisting the occupation as Taliban, and
it is impossible to determine how many of these dead were actually
combatants.

An Italian medical agency has also charged NATO forces with blocking
injured Afghans from being transported to hospitals in Lashkar Gah,
the provincial capital. In Kandahar Province, east of Marjah, five
civilians were killed in an air strike—another “mistake,” according to
US officials.

After establishing control of the city, occupation forces plan a
door-to-door sweep in search of opponents of the occupation. With one
invading soldier for every five people in the Marjah area, there will
no doubt be many more civilian casualties to come.

The operation in Marjah was launched from the beginning as a
propaganda offensive, aimed as much at the American people as the
Afghan. A “success” in Marjah is intended to demonstrate the viability
of Obama’s surge in Afghanistan and the counterinsurgency strategy of
the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

The American media, consisting largely of reporters “embedded” in
various military units who submit their stories to military
censorship, has dutifully parroted the line of the government—that it
is doing all it can to minimize civilian casualties and win the
“hearts and minds” of the Afghan people. McChrystal has boasted that
NATO forces are bringing in tow a “government in a box” that is ready
to take charge, and, supposedly, bestow peace and prosperity on Marjah.

The civilian deaths are inevitably presented as unfortunate but
inevitable. This is accompanied by discussion about the supposed
constraints placed on US actions to avoid civilian deaths, increasing
the danger facing soldiers. The corollary of this line is predictable:
the unleashing of militarist violence and atrocities on a broader
scale will be presented as the frustrated response of soldiers to
these undue restrictions and blamed on those resisting the occupation.

The offensive to take control of Marjah is only the first step in a
southern offensive in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces, the
heartland of the guerrilla resistance to the foreign occupation and
the corrupt stooge regime of President Hamid Karzai. This is to be
accomplished through widespread killing, the systematic and brutal
repression of anyone who resists the right of the US to occupy
Afghanistan.

Once US control is consolidated in Marjah and central Helmand
province, and as more US reinforcements arrive in the spring, larger
and bloodier campaigns are in store, culminating in an onslaught on
Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city and the birthplace of the Taliban,
ruled by the president’s brother, drug kingpin Ahmad Wali Karzai,
during the day, and by the Taliban at night.

With a population of nearly half a million, Kandahar is comparable in
size to Fallujah, the Iraqi city that was largely destroyed by US
troops in November 2004 and has been citied by military officials as a
model for the present campaign.

The criminal operation being carried out under the direction of the
Obama administration has been accompanied by the silence of the middle
class “anti-war” organizations in the US. These groups have been
thoroughly compromised by their support for Obama and in fact defend
the basic aims of the US in the war.

The flagship of these organizations, The Nation magazine, has not
published a single article on its website on the offensive in Marjah.
What commentary that is published on Afghanistan is concentrated on
tactical questions facing the ruling class, including whether or not
American forces should engage in negotiations with sections of the
Taliban.

The offensive in southern Afghanistan demonstrates that the coming to
power of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party has done nothing to
halt the escalation of American militarism. The Afghan surge has been
combined with a sharp increase in US drone missile attacks on
Pakistan, which killed 123 civilians in January; the opening up of a
new front of the “war on terror” in Yemen; growing threats against
Iran; and increasingly provocative actions against China.

The expansion of war is determined by the fundamental interests of
American capitalism, including establishing control over the
geo-strategically central regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.
War is the outward expression of the predatory interests of the
American financial elite. The ballooning military budgets, like the
massive bank bailouts, will be paid for through cuts in social
programs and the intensification of the exploitation of the working class.

It is necessary to launch a renewed struggle against war, including
the demand for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all US
and other foreign troops from Afghanistan. Such a struggle must
proceed from the basic understanding that the fight against war must
be a fight against capitalism, the Obama administration and both
parties of big business. It requires the independent political
mobilization of the working class on the basis of a socialist program.

Joe Kishore

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f17.shtml

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********