The Socialist Alliance condemns the Australian government's decision to deploy a 300-strong Special Operations Task Group to Afghanistan and repeats its call for a withdrawal of all Australian, US and NATO occupation forces from that country.
This deployment will help the Bush and Blair governments prop up the puppet regime of President Harmid Karzai, which was installed by the US occupation forces in 2001. US occupation forces in Afghanistan have been involved in killings, torture and other abuses of prisoners according to Human Rights Watch.
As the Socialist Alliance has noted before, the Karzai regime is based on a coalition of reactionary warlords. These warlords and their private armies have ruled much of Afghanistan for years, in the words of independent journalist John Pilger, through "fear, extortion and monopolising the opium poppy trade". Opium production has increased seven-fold under the Karzai regime, while Karzai himself is protected around the clock by US Special Forces bodyguards.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), famous for bravely campaigning for the rights of women even during Taliban rule, has criticised the Western media for ignoring the killing, looting, corruption, bribery, abduction, rape, stoning of women, drug cultivation and trafficking and the stealing of billions of dollars of foreign aid under Karzai. Instead of being put on trial, the criminal warlords have been appointed to key government posts.
Shamefully, the Australian Labor Party "opposition" leader Kevin Rudd has applauded this latest reactionary troop deployment. In a despicable competition to be seen as more aggressive supporter of this war, he has gone further and criticised the Howard government for not sending more troops to Afghanistan earlier.
Socialist Alliance condemns this "shoulder-to-shoulder" bipartisan support for the neo-conservative Bush administration's permanent war policy. The so-called "war on terror" is failing and actually increasing the likelihood of more terrorist attacks, according to several in-depth studies including the latest from British think-tank the Oxford Research Group.
We call upon trade unions, most of which still donate millions of dollars each year to the ALP, to repudiate this shameful stance by the Labor opposition and to demand that Labor commit to a complete and immediate withdrawal of Australian troops from Afghanistan and Iraq should it win the next federal elections.
The Socialist Alliance also rejects the suggestion by Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown that the US send extra troops to Afghanistan, and appeals to Greens members to keep their party within the anti-war camp.
[This statement was issued by the Socialist Alliance National Executive on April 12.]