It’s hard to know what to say, but in response to recent events everything else seems to have dried up, hence my silence. Even so, there’s a case to be made for ignoring current affairs if you can given the slant of the narratives.
In recent decades, Afghanistan came into public consciousness in the West when an apparent military coup established a régime describing itself as Communist in April 1978 – the Saur Revolution. This followed on from a previous coup in 1973 which was relatively bloodless but, as I understand it, did involve the establishment of a one-party state. History goes back and back of course, and it should be mentioned that Britain fought two wars in Afghanistan in the nineteenth Christian century, against Russia and also to consolidate our position in India, as I understand it, but the extent to which I do understand it is woefully limited. In 1912, the military strategist Homer Lea predicted both the attack on Pearl Harbor and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, so the situation is clearly easily analysable in terms of the country’s position. I can remember thinking when the Soviets first got involved overtly that they wanted sea ports, which is ridiculous because the country is landlocked. One conveniently omitted piece of information about the situation there from 1978 was that the government asked the USSR to intervene. It was only an invasion in the sense that the government may have been a puppet installed by Moscow. While denying that it was Communist, the government introduced universal education and equal rights for women, and women were publcly involved in politics for the first time. Forced marriage was ended. However, a number of mistakes were also made. The prohibition of usury was not accompanied by any other source of finance for peasants and there was also a general resistance to the idea of centralised government. The leader, Hafizullah Amin, who had changed his mind about the personality cult he had helped create around Nur Muhammad Taraki and attempted to foster a wider spread of power at the top, was unpopular with the Politburo and Andropov wanted to send troops to overthrow him and replace him with Babrak Karmal. When Amin was told about this plan, he dismissed it as imperialist propaganda and continued to trust Moscow, but was killed by their army at the end of 1979.
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan happens to be at the precise moment when I decided to become Stalinist, so my perception of it is perhaps somewhat distorted, but you could also look at it as being free from the clutter and confusion of Western lies about the situation. Karmal committed himself to end executions, create a constitution, hold free elections and allow other parties, but because he had previously said he’d protect private capital a year or two earlier and failed to do so, he wasn’t trusted by the people.
I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of the situation in Afghanistan at the turn of the decade was that the official Afghan government was on the side of progress and socialism, n Like otably promoting equality between the sexes and the confiscation of private capital, but that the general public didn’t agree with this, for both good and bad reasons from an external perspective. Bear in mind that at the time I had very little belief in democracy and that I was only twelve. I was just starting to be interested in politics. However, it still seems to me that the Western intervention in Afghanistan involved support for elements in that society which were fundamentally opposed to egalitarianism or social justice, a situation which reminds me of right wing populism. The Mujahedeen resistance to the Soviets was funded surreptitiously by the CIA and Sa`udi Arabia, and it doesn’t seem likely that anything positive could’ve come out of that combination. Nonetheless they were described as “freedom fighters”. Funny definition of freedom.
The Taliban rise to power reminds me of the Khmer Rouge. They seem to have been a predominantly rural organisation which took over the towns, like them, and were similarly opposed to what they saw as Western, though the definitions and superficial ideology was different. Like the Khmer Rouge, they retain their ideology when in power. This is unlike the Colombian FARC, to which they’ve been compared. Also like them, they’re ethnocentric – the Khmer Rouge targetted the Vietnamese and the Taliban non-Pashtuns. There is no evidence other than their own statements that the Taliban have improved, as we see it, because they continued to behave as they had before in the areas they had taken over.
The real question to ask is, what are NATO forces still doing that fosters the same kind of situations in other countries? It’s very common for the media to cover events when they have deteriorated to the point where they become newsworthy, but the seeds were often sown decades before. What, then, are we doing now which we should stop? Or is this actually the end of us doing anything like that due to such an obvious and abject failure? Not if the so-called “War On Terror” continues.
It’s been said many times that the name “War On Terror” makes no sense because it’s a war against an abstract concept. It’s actually worse than that because it’s a war on “terrorism”, a concept useful only to the powerful. Terrorism is the pursuit of political ends by violent means which is not overtly sanctioned by any government. This is as opposed to the monopoly on violence states attempt to maintain and the negligent mass murder which is an inevitable result of capitalism. A genuine “war on terror” would involve addressing the roots of the issue, such as poor education and capitalist exploitation. Hence the words are just a name for an Orwellian permanent state of war which actually needs violent resistance to continue so that it can continue. It’s more like the war to promote “terrorism”.
Another point about this is that the names of apparent groups are often used to associate violence with particular causes. I long found the description of Al Qaeda to be baffling as it appeared to be a hierarchical organisation, unlike many other cell-based groups. Hierarchy in such organisations makes them vulnerable to infiltration and decapitation. It doesn’t mean there aren’t people who label themselves as such, just that it’s an invention of the US government and certain people have decided it’s in their interests to use the name to make claims about their violence which links it to a larger movement.
That’s it really. I haven’t got a lot to say about this but I thought I should say something.
A Box Of Chocolates 