Out with the Taliban! Long live the struggle of the people of Afghanistan!

Statement of La Marx International 8/20/21

Out with the Taliban! Long live the struggle of the people of Afghanistan! Down with the US, China and Russia agreements to support the regime!

On August 19, 2021, in the celebration of the independence of Great Britain in 1919, mobilizations broke out throughout Afghanistan against the Islamic group Taliban that is once again in power. A crowd moved to the central square of Jalalabad to lower the Taliban flag and raise the tricolor of the Republic of Afghanistan. In Khost, Kabul and other cities in the country, thousands of Afghans with black, green and red flags came out to challenge the repression of the Taliban.

In turn, protests against the regime multiplied around the world as the Taliban government prepared to report on the appointments of ministers. A wave of indignation and deep solidarity with Afghan women, workers, peasants and youth travels the world, with acts, declarations, petitions, and all kinds of actions that prepare the struggle that the Afghan people are beginning to lead against the reactionary Taliban. 

The mobilizations of the Afghan people against the Taliban in Kabul. Khost, Jalababad and other cities in the country, the Tricolor flag, against the Taliban flag

The women of Kurdistan have already launched the campaign of solidarity with their sisters of the Afghan people, confronting the reactionary Islamic fundamentalism, Sharia law, and all the macho Talibana legislation that represents a danger to Afghan women and all over the world. But in addition, the indignation extends globally against the imperialist government of Biden, the other governments of NATO, the governments of China, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the other capitalist governments of the region, which are supporting and supporting the reactionary Taliban.

The reactionary Doha accords put the Taliban in power

There are a number of wild theories that explain why the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. From propositions that "the Taliban comes to power because they defeated the US", through "the Taliban comes to power by expanding China's interests", or the Taliban comes to power by "bidding on the global geopolitical board", etc. and a whole chain of charlatanism that seeks to hide reality, and confuse the peoples of the world.

Much of the world left echoes these quackery. But the Taliban did not come to power "because it defeated the US", or because of "Chinese interests", or because of "geopolitical bidding". The Taliban came to power through an agreement with the United States, it is US imperialism that puts the Taliban in power, and leaves the people of Afghanistan at the mercy of a band of fascist criminals.

More than a year and 6 months ago, more precisely on February 29, 2020, the United States government, chaired by Donald Trump, and the Taliban signed the "Agreement to Bring Peace to Afghanistan" in Doha, Qatar. The Doha agreements set a timetable for the withdrawal of United States troops, the release of the prisoners of the Taliban who ruled in 1996-2001, their return to power, in exchange for repressing anyone who violates the interests of the United States American imperialism.

All capitalist governments, from the European imperialists, to China and Russia joined the "US-Taliban Agreement". The high representative of the European Union Josep Borrell, reported that the European Union is part of the dialogue with the US and the Taliban to form a coalition government. China, Russia, and Iran agreed with the Taliban on a diplomatic tour led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, founder of the Taliban.

The agreements were signed in meetings with representatives of the Ali Khamenei government in Iran, the Putin government in Russia and the Turkmen government. The tour ended with agreements with the Chinese government, where Foreign Minister Wang Yi received Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Tianjin, after which China said in an official statement that the Taliban "will play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction "of your country.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, founder of the Taliban, agreeing with the US, China, Russia and Iran

That is, the Taliban has come to power in Afghanistan through a counterrevolutionary agreement, a "Holy Alliance" between the US, the EU, China, Russia, and Iran. The reality of the existence of this "Holy Alliance" for Afghanistan, buries the "Decoupling Theory" that maintains that China and Russia are facing the US, to dispute the "global hegemony". The reality of Afghanistan shows that the Taliban comes to power because the imperialist countries, and the capitalist sub-metropolises of China, and Russia have united to support and jointly carry out the policy dictated by US imperialism towards the Middle East.

In turn, the Doha agreements are part of a round of negotiations currently being undertaken by all political regimes in the Middle East, locked in a feverish search for agreements. The semi-fascist dictatorships and sinister regimes such as Erdogan in Turkey, Al Assad in Syria, or Ali Khamenei in Iran, together with the sinister regimes of the capitalist sub-metropolises of China, and Russia, are negotiating at full speed with the countries. imperialists.

In addition to the Taliban's negotiations with the United States that began in 2011, and culminated in Doha in 2020, are added the current processes of negotiations and the search for ongoing agreements between Iran and Saudi Arabia, between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which together they include negotiations on Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestine. All these negotiations and searches for agreements are a real danger for the workers and peoples of the world.

Women of the world in solidarity with Afghan women

Thousands of Afghans seek to flee the country in fear of the Taliban regime. In the first press conference given by the Islamic fundamentalist group, the Taliban declared: "The rights of women in Afghanistan will be respected within the framework of Islamic law." During the Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001, the application of Islamic or Sharia law led to the stoning of women accused of adultery, bloody corporal punishment, and the absolute loss of rights.

This has been explained by the companions of La Marx Mujeres in the book "The Women's Revolution of the XXI Century" "Under the Taliban regime, women have suffered the most horrific humiliations, which, like the tunnel of time, is the one back to medieval times. ... they are forced to wear a burqa in public, because "a woman's face is a source of corruption for men who are not related to her", they are not allowed to have a job or be educated beyond the eight years of age, women who want an education higher than this, must go to clandestine schools where both female students and teachers risk being executed when discovered. Women were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless they are accompanied by a man who acts as a guardian, having to undergo public flogging or execution in case of breaking the laws ... 80% of Afghan weddings are carried out by force"

The humiliation of Afghan women under Islamic law

But it was not only under the Taliban that the situation of Afghan women was dire. After the NATO invasion, the situation of women worsened even more: "After the military invasion of the United States ... and the establishment of the puppet government of Hamid Karzai ... the situation of women worsened ... 65% of the thousands of widows living in Kabul considered that suicide is the only way out of their miseries ... the serious situation of health conditions due to the lack of hospitals ... raised the rate of maternal mortality from 1600 to 1900 women out of every 100,000 women in labor, which made it the highest rate on the planet ... the average life span of Afghan women was 20 years lower than in the rest of the world" (The Women's Revolution of the 21st Century, Part II, the World Women's Revolution. Submission of Women and the Taliban regime) (1)

The Afghan people have been left to their fate by the imperialist governments, in their agreements with the Taliban and the sinister regimes of China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc. The situation of helplessness is stronger in the most vulnerable sectors such as women, youth, peasant workers, native peoples, who have always suffered brutal oppression. But also the Afghan people have also been betrayed by their leaders, and organizations.

Fawzia Koofi, deputy and vice president of the National Assembly from 2005 to 2014 for the Movement of Change for Afghanistan party, was one of the five women who participated in the negotiations between imperialism and the Taliban. The pacts made by her and her parties endanger all Afghan women. His betrayal expresses the limits of bourgeois feminism, a false feminism that ends up being led by the UN, and imperialism. Koofi's capitulation is a demonstration that bourgeois feminism is a reactionary movement, which only strengthens machismo, patriarchy and capitalism.

Why did US imperialism carry out the Doha 2020 agreements? Why did you agree with the Taliban to return to power? And why are so many agreements being carried out between dictatorial and reactionary regimes such as Iran, Russia, China, with North American and European imperialism? Why are governments, and countries that were once considered "archenemies", are pushing deals at full speed?

Fawzia Koofi Afghan leader who signed the agreements for the return of the Taliban to power. Right next to Condoleezza Rice, minister of the reactionary Bush government, a demonstration that bourgeois feminism ends up betraying the women's struggle

The Middle East is going through the "Second Arab Spring"

The answer to why all dictatorial regimes and imperialist governments negotiate at full speed is that they need to stop and defeat the profound revolutionary process that has shaken the Middle East for 15 years. Negotiations are also taking place within Afghanistan between the Taliban leaders, with the former Afghan president during the NATO occupation Hamid Karzai, and the representative of the Ashraf Ghani government who fled the country when the Taliban took power.

All the capitalist factions, including the Taliban, seek to close the crisis, and stop the mobilization of the people, establishing a government of capitalist "National Unity", which appears before the eyes of the masses as an Afghan government that represents all sectors of the population. But the situation in Afghanistan, like that of all the countries in the region, is explosive.

Imperialism prefers to leave the people of Afghanistan at the mercy of a corrupt band of mercenary fascists, rather than having to endure new revolutionary uprisings that threaten its rule and that of the reactionary capitalist regimes in the region. But the Middle East is experiencing a huge and deep revolutionary process expressed in what is known worldwide as the "Arab Spring", a complex of revolutions that developed from 2010 to 2011, and that had a huge impact on the world situation.

This revolutionary wave covered more than 20 countries on different continents, in addition to Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria it also reached Mauritania, Algeria, Western Sahara, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Lebanon, Kuwait, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Palestine, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The revolutions caused the fall of dictatorial regimes that were over 40 years old, in which civil wars, processes of self-organization, dual power, crisis and division in the armed forces, expropriations, council democracy, mass mobilization, general strikes, armed struggles, the emergence of new states and new armies. An unprecedented change that is changing the Arab world forever.

In 2019, a second chapter of the Arab Spring began, a "Second Arab Spring" that brought down the capitalist Madhi government in Iraq, rocked the capitalist dictatorship of Ali Khamenei in Iran, hit governments in Sudan, Algeria, Western Sahara, brought down the pro-Iranian government in Lebanon. In January of this year, powerful mobilizations took place in Tunisia, while in Palestine, the III Intifada struck hard inside Israel, led by Palestinian youths (2)

images of the II Arab Spring mobilizations in Palestine, Lebanon. Iraq, Tunisia, between the years 2019, 2020, and 2021, urban struggles, led by youth, with a large working-class presence, that overthrow governments and confront Islamic fundamentalism

This Second Arab Spring highlights the tiredness of the masses towards Islamic fundamentalism, the political current that has controlled the masses in the region for more than 40 years. This political current is based on the Iranian religious dictatorship of the Ayatollahs, after the 1979 revolution overthrew the pro-imperialist dictatorship of the Shah of Persia. For years, activists and fighters in the Middle East trusted that Islamic fundamentalism would free them from the oppression of imperialism and Israel.

However, in the II Arab Spring a growing feeling of fed up with Islamic fundamentalism develops, which has not turned out to be an alternative that lifted millions out of poverty, misery and backwardness. On the contrary, Islamic fundamentalism began to be hated by the new generations of young people fed up with hunger, poverty, unemployment, and inequality.

Religious leaders and Ayatollahs live in luxury, like the Vatican, or other religious leaders, while oppressing millions under the strict racist, anti-scientific, macho, oppressive norms of religious fundamentalism. Following the defeat of ISIS at the hands of the brave Kurdish guerrillas of Rojava, an anti-fundamentalist sentiment invaded the entire region.

In turn, the capitalist dictatorship of the Ayatollahs of Iran suffered another blow when the Lebanese government of Saad Hariri fell, supported by Hezbollah, the Islamic fundamentalist political force that is Iran's representative in Lebanon. On October 29, 2019, the Lebanese protesters sang in the marches a song similar to the "Que se vayan todos" that was heard in the Argentine revolution of 2001, only in the chant of the masses "Everyone means everything" in Lebanon , the Islamic fundamentalist current Hezbollah, and its allies, were included.

The struggle against "Islamization" and in favor of secularism is a struggle undertaken by the youngest, but also a democratic aspiration of sectors of the masses who are fed up with religious oppression. The struggle for secularism has a great example in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, also known as Rojava. Kurds, Ottomans, Armenians, Shiites, Chechens, Turkmen, Assyrians, Sunnis, etc. live there. in complete cooperation and harmony, and women have conquered enormous freedoms that they do not know throughout the region, and even in western capitalist countries.

What was the origin of the I and II Arab Spring? An event of the transcendental class struggle that marked the trend of the entire 21st century: The war of national liberation in Iraq and Afghanistan in which the revolution of the masses in the region and around the world defeated the NATO troops. between the years 2006/2007. The mobilizations against the invasion of Iraq worldwide surpassed those that had taken place in the Vietnam War. Let's see in a synthetic way how this process occurred.

The Middle East region is the epicenter of great revolutionary processes such as the 1st and 2nd Arab Spring

From Neocon to revolution

21 years ago the Bush Administration came to power in the United States. This was one of the most reactionary governments in history, made up mostly of officials from the neoconservatives, a fascist group known in political jargon as the "Neocon." That group got into the Bush Administration promoting the "Project for a New American Century" which tried to install a global anti-democratic regime, and practically the closest thing to a military regime within the US For this they used the global impact caused as an excuse. for the attack on the Twin Towers of September 11, 2001.

As we explained in the book "The American Revolution of the XXI Century" (3) in those years the Neocon launched the so-called "World War against Terrorism" proclaiming the fight against Osama Bin Laden and "the terrorist secret cells". Thus George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld promoted the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, massacred millions of people, promoted the sanction of the Patriot Act and all kinds of antidemocratic institutions, in the service of trying to inflict a profound defeat that would open the doors to a counterrevolution that would give stability to capitalism.

With that objective, they criminalized the fighters, and activists, the parties and organizations that faced capitalism, and declared them "terrorists." The Bush Administration unleashed a real witch hunt, persecuted immigrants, minorities, intellectuals, the press.

Finally the Neocon strategy was completely defeated between 2006 and 2007 thanks to the War of National Liberation of the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan that crushed NATO. The military invasion, massacres and genocides ran into a revolutionary process superior to that of Vietnam in the 20th century. While in Vietnam, imperialism had invaded a backward country with a majority peasant weight, which detonated a guerrilla movement in the countryside, the invasion of Iraq took place on a country with large cities, with a strong urban concentration, and a powerful oil working class. .

This is how the most modern of the known revolutions arose: urban guerrilla warfare. The situation of the NATO troops became untenable from the first minute they entered Baghdad, and the resistance organized in permanent ambushes in every corner, house, or corner of the cities. The losses of the NATO troops and especially the North American ones soared, and the coffins with the US flag began to cross the Atlantic, each time in greater numbers.

From left to right, Julian Assange, the founding journalist of Wikileaks, today faces imprisonment for denouncing from the website the Pentagon war crimes in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Edward Snowden, the NSA agent who went bankrupt and denounced the global espionage that the Pentagon and the CIA were carrying out, today asylum in Russia. Bradley Manning the gay corporal who leaked secret army papers to denounce the crimes of the Armed Forces, suffered imprisonment and persecution by the US army

In turn, the morale of the invading troops broke down, and the rejection of war within the United States and in the world grew exponentially as deaths increased, and the news of the NATO massacres spread. The Fallujah Massacre left the NATO troops without any support, since the Iraqi masses who were divided because some had supported the invasion fed up with the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, united against the invader as a result of the impact of the horror of thousands of families murdered.

Thousands of fighters from across the Middle East enlisted to fight NATO. And the mass revolution in the Middle East was combined with a huge global mass mobilization that shook all countries in opposition to the war, surpassing the level of mobilizations that took place against the Vietnam War. At the same time important activists such as Julian Assange from the wikileaks site denounced the crimes of the Pentagon. Officials of the espionage services such as Edward Snowden went bankrupt and also denounced how security and rights were violated globally.

The armed forces of the United States entered a deep crisis, which lasts until today. The military commanders began to clash publicly and the Pentagon now offers a spectacle of internals and clashes between different wings, which made it visible and popularized among the American people as the debate on the existence of a "deep state." After the defeat of NATO in 2006, the Neocons were ostracized, and the entire attempt to impose a global dictatorship went down in history.

The IV American Revolution

The revolution of the North American and Middle Eastern masses precipitated the outbreak of the sharp peak of the world crisis of capitalism between 2007 and 2008, as well as triggered the wave of revolutions that since 2011 has been at the center of the world situation. The world went from the counterrevolutionary rise of the Neocons, to the revolutionary rise of the masses against capitalism, which we live today.

The Bush administration collapsed completely in 2007. Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon chief who had devised the entire murderous military strategy in Iraq, resigned, and the country was left with virtually no government. A bicameral commission headed by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties supported the government of the country, and made possible a transition to the Obama administration, which began between 2009 and 2010 with the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fall of the Twin Towers, the fascist attempt of the Bush Administration, the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mobilizations against the war, the Obama Administration, the fall of Wall Street in 2007-2008 are the beginning of the North American Revolution of the XXI century (Spanish version cover)

The Obama Administration left detachments in both countries, but began the withdrawal of most of the troops, and the return home of the soldiers. There began the negotiation process with the Taliban that ended with the Doha agreements signed in 2020. But when NATO troops withdrew, a political vacuum remained in the region that led to the outbreak of the 1st Arab Spring in the 2011, without an army, or a gendarme who could put out the fire.

The defeat of imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan was brought about by the masses of the Middle East, in unity with the masses of the United States and the world who mobilized against the war. In the United States, the generations that had mobilized against Vietnam met the new generations that were mobilizing against Iraq, a union that developed a powerful anti-war movement that knew how to collect and combine the traditions of the anti-imperialist struggle of the 70's, and of the present.

In turn, the defeat of imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan represent the IV North American Revolution. The 1st revolution was National Independence from the British Empire led by George Washington in 1783. The 2nd was the Civil War that destroyed the racist confederate slave state of the South in 1865. The Third North American Revolution was the mobilization for civil rights led by Martin Luther King and Malcom X, who liquidated the racial segregation regime in the southern states, the apartheid of blacks in the US, and allowed the defeat of imperialism in Vietnam in 1971. The IV North American Revolution is what we are experiencing nowadays.

But since the US is the imperialism that dominates the world, and all the countries belong to a globalized capitalist world under the rule of the US, European, and Japanese Global Corporations, we are somehow provinces of a single country. . So, the IV North American Revolution is not an event only in the US, it is a global event. We are all living the IV North American Revolution of the XXI Century, no matter what country, region, or continent we are in.

That is why the events in Afghanistan impact and move us globally. And just as the events in Afghanistan impact us, we are impacted by the Yellow Vests of France, the Kurdish guerrillas of Rojava, the Palestinian Intifada, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the First Line of Chile, and then in Colombia, the general strike of the India, etc, as well as all global revolutionary movements. The American people, rich in anti-war traditions, are beginning to raise their voices in outrage at what the Biden Administration does to the Afghan people.

The headline of The Economist headlines "The Biden debacle", on the situation in Afghanistan

When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, much water has already flowed under the bridge of the world revolutionary process. The world is no longer the same as when they ruled between 1996 and 2001. In the 70's, Afghanistan was going through a great revolutionary process, the government of the USSR decided to invade to stop a revolution that was developing on its borders. All the people of Afghanistan united against the counterrevolutionary army invasion of the USSR, and defeated it. Afghanistan was "the Vietnam of the USSR." 

The imperialism of the United States took the opportunity to finance the guerrillas that faced the invasion of the USSR. Thus arose the "modern mujahideen", and Afghan warlords, referents of the different tribes, and original peoples. When the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan, the veterans of the Afghan guerrilla war decided to form permanent military formations to control some of the "dirty business" typical of the decomposition of capitalism, drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, smuggling, etc. 

Several military formations were formed. First the Taliban, based on the "Pashtun" ethnic group, the name Taliban means "Students" in Pashtun. Later Bin Laden formed the Al Qaeda group. All of these groups are armed thugs, criminals, and mercenaries with a reactionary ideology, who are financed, armed and used by imperialism until they become annoying or uncontrollable. So, they must destroy them like ISIS did, or "tame" them like the Taliban.

US-funded and armed warlords and mujahideen On the left the Taliban meeting with the reactionary government of Ronald Reagan, on the right: Bin Laden, who was later blamed for carrying out the 9/11 attacks presented as an "anti Soviet Union warrior"

We must not confuse the fate of these bands of sinister armed thugs with the Afghan people. The people of Afghanistan are not defeated, on the contrary, they are part of the immense triumph that the defeat of NATO meant between 2006 and 2007. For That, more than ever, it is necessary to support the Afghan people against the "Holy Alliance" of the US, European, Chinese, and Russian governments that agree against them.

Together with the people of Afghanistan, and the peoples of the world, we shout very loudly: Out with the Taliban! And together with the women and oppressed of Afghanistan we say Long live the struggle of the Afghan people! Down with the US, China and Russia agreements to support the regime! Spurred on by the capitalist crisis, misery and poverty, the oppression of women, the development of pandemics such as the coronavirus, the poorest and most oppressed come out to fight. Their struggle is our struggle!

The North American Revolution of the 21st century is the fundamental political event of the world situation, because its development combines the rise of the masses with the collapse of the capitalist mode of production. Because it is the engine of the global revolutionary process, of the struggle for Global Socialism. And of the construction of a world revolutionary organization so that the revolution triumphs, and ends with capitalism.

Notes

1) To read "The Women's Revolution of the XXI Century" click on "Read"

2) To read "Long Live the 3rd Palestinian Intifada, Long Live the Palestinian Revolution" click on "Read" English Version

3) To read "The North American Revolution of the XXI Century" (spanish version) click on "Read"

Leave your comment! Send us your adhesion, signature, note, or join as an activist!