Left Radical of Afghanistan (LRA) denounces the Russian-Putin invasion of Ukraine at the same time that we condemn the U.S./NATO military presence and expansionist policy in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
The working class and revolutionary Marxist organizations and parties around the world should not support any side of the war in Ukraine under any excuse. This is because the victim of the war is the working class — not the governments that waged the war to meet their plundering goals.
Although the imperialist media are publishing fake news on the war in Ukraine, the people around the world know the bloody nature of the capitalists who, to make profit, wage wars and shed the blood of innocent people in every corner of the world.
We have witnessed the U.S./NATO wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen and how, in the name of so-called democracy and human rights, they have attacked and killed millions of people, while destroying all the infrastructures of those countries.
In 2001, the U.S. and NATO attacked Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime because the Taliban were not obeying their commands. The U.S. and NATO during 20 years of war used all their modern mass-destruction weapons in Afghanistan and even unleashed the “mother of all the bombs” in Nangarhar province in April 2017.
After 20 years of war, the U.S. and NATO neither ensured security nor restored “democracy” and “human rights” in Afghanistan. Instead, around 20 terrorist groups emerged between 2009 and 2019, and the security situation continued to deteriorate. Following the defeat of the U.S. and NATO, they agreed in Doha in February 2020 to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and hand over the power once again to the same group that they called terrorist and anti-women.
Today, the people, the workers, the women and the secular forces in Afghanistan face a human tragedy under the Taliban regime. They suffer from hunger, poverty, severe restrictions and tyranny. The poor people, in order that their families can survive, sell their children and their home accessories. In some cities a lot of people sell both their kidneys, ending their lives.
Since the very first day the Taliban took power, on August 15, 2021, they kicked out all women from government offices and stopped the girls from going to school. They imposed restrictions on women’s appearance when out of their homes. The Taliban savagely repressed the women’s protests and demonstrations in Kabul and other cities, and they detained, tortured and killed tens of women activists. The secular and socialist forces have had no option but to go into hiding and bear the hunger and no access to basic living facilities.
Under the shadow of the Ukraine war, there is no attention to the disaster in Afghanistan, where the Taliban openly violate women’s rights and civil rights — and millions of children remain abandoned to suffer from hunger and die.
The U.S. and NATO submitted their power to the Taliban to make sure that their strategic interests in the region were preserved. According to the Doha Agreement between the Taliban and the U.S., the Taliban promised to guarantee the U.S. strategic interests and to promote the U.S. agenda and goals in the region — including Central Asia, Iran and China.
Meanwhile, thousands of people are leaving the country every day because of the brutal actions of the Taliban, the poverty, and the lack of work opportunities. The U.S. and NATO only helped and granted asylum to those people who served them and implemented their projects and agendas in Afghanistan. In addition, the U.S., Germany, France and the UK accepted Afghan commando pilots and other highly skilled workforce that they needed. On March 1, 2022, Ambassador Philip Kosnett proposed to form “a comparable American initiative — an Afghan Legion within the U.S. Army” to be used in any war — including in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine once again showed the double standard of the U.S. and its allies regarding the issue of the refugees and immigrants. The U.S.- and NATO-backed media showed and reported on how the Western governments behaved toward the refugees or immigrants from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and African countries, on the one hand, and now how they are treating the refugees from Ukraine. The refugees that flee from the countries where the U.S. and its allies waged the war were confronted with closed borders and brutal behavior by the police, but now the refugees who migrate as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine are welcomed with open borders.
The racist nature of the capitalist regimes that seek to profit in any crisis is clear. By this double standard and hypocritical conduct, they are seeking to separate and divide the working class or people from different national and ethnic origins. We cannot allow this. We, as victims of the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan, can fully feel the pain and suffering inflicted on the people of Ukraine in the war waged by the Putin administration.
Therefore, we demand an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of the Russian troops from Ukraine and at the same time, we demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Eastern Europe. We support the call for building a united front of all anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-war activists around the world to save the world from the claws of the imperialist warmongers.
Statement by Left Radical of Afghanistan (LRA)
