The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, announced that on July 31, 2022, through an airstrike, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, was killed in Kabul, and with this historic feat, he spoke about peace and the “delivery of justice.” The American government, which itself is the producer and supporter of terrorism around the world, can never be the hero of the fight against terrorism. Didn’t Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. Secretary of State, admit that “The people we are fighting today, we funded 20 years ago”? Didn’t John Bolton, former National Security Adviser of the U.S., admit that he organized coups in various countries, including in Latin America?
Didn’t we witness war and bloodshed and terrorist operations by the U.S. and its allies in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan just a few years ago? Didn’t the U.S. create Islamic fundamentalist and Mujahideen parties during the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviets, and then didn’t they create the Taliban? Isn’t ISIS the new version of Al-Qaeda produced by the U.S.? Were not more than 20 Islamic terrorist groups created in Afghanistan during the occupation of Afghanistan by the United States? So, isn’t the U.S. talking about “the delivery of justice” and fighting against terrorism ridiculous and demagogic?
The truth is this: on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Taliban coming to power and the shameful defeat of the U.S. in Afghanistan, paired with the economic crisis and unprecedented inflation in the United States and the decline in the popularity of the Joe Biden administration, the U.S. government and the Democratic Party initiated the scenario of killing the leader of Al-Qaeda in order to divert the attention of the American people.
The people of Afghanistan will never forget and will never forgive how the U.S. handed over power to the most brutal, anti-women and anti-science group called the Taliban during a deal in February 2020 in Doha, and made them dominate the fate of 40 million people, including 20 million Afghan women. The people of Afghanistan will never forget how the American planes took off and dropped dozens of young people clinging to the outside of the planes, trying to escape from the hell created by America in Afghanistan. Today, the disastrous situation in Afghanistan and the deprivation of education, loss of jobs and torture of women by the Taliban is the result of the self-interested policy of America and its major allies such as England, France and Germany.
Capitalism is ready to commit any kind of crime and violate every human and moral value for the sake of profit, and U.S. imperialism for the sake of maintaining its hegemony over the world. They use religion, especially Islam, as a tool to attack their strategic enemies. Sometimes they create radical Islamic forces and makes them heroes, but when their expiration date comes and a certain group can no longer fulfill the goals set by America, they stamp them as terrorists and eliminate them in some way.
In Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalist parties and the Mujahideen were used in the war against the Soviet Union and Najibullah’s government (1979-1992), and then the Mujahideen were ousted from power by the Taliban in 1996. In 2001, the U.S. attacked Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government under the pretext of the Taliban’s support for Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. America both benefits from creating and supporting terrorist forces, and when they destroy them, it advertises itself as anti-terrorist.
The war in Afghanistan contrary to its prediction turned out to be long and expensive for the U.S., which became disgusted with its corrupt and puppet government in Kabul. It tried to enter into a deal with the Taliban and the Haqqani network in order to achieve its own goals and agenda against Russia, Central Asia, China and Iran through the Taliban instead of Ashraf Ghani’s government. These were the aims that caused the U.S. to ignore the thoughts and actions of the Taliban as an extremist, terrorist, anti-science and misogynistic religious group and delegate power to it. It was based on these motivations that the United States gave most of the Taliban leaders, who were blacklisted by the United Nations and the United States, facilities to travel abroad and political legitimacy. Sirajuddin Haqqani is the leader of the Haqqani network and responsible for organizing 1,100 suicide attacks in Afghanistan, and the United States has set a $10 million reward for his identification, arrest or murder. Yet he easily acts as the Taliban’s interior minister in front of the eyes of the United States. But 71-year-old al-Zawahiri, who has not had any serious anti-American activities in the past twenty years, is considered the most dangerous and has been eliminated by special operations!
This U.S. terrorist operation in Kabul proved that U.S. intelligence and military forces are still present in Kabul and defend U.S. interests at a lower cost. Contrary to their claim of independence, the Taliban do not have sovereignty over Afghanistan’s land or space. According to research by Airwars, over the last 20 years and after more than 91,000 airstrikes in seven war zones, “At least 22,679, and potentially as many as 48,308 civilians, have been likely killed by U.S. strikes.”
For the people of Afghanistan, it does not matter whether the murder of al-Zawahiri took place as, on one hand, a result of a deal between the CIA and the ISI of Pakistan or between the Haqqani network and another part of the Taliban so that Pakistan could obtain huge loans from the IMF and the United States and thus save itself from the acute economic crisis and popular uprisings temporarily or, on the other hand, so that the Taliban could take the frozen money of Afghanistan from the U.S. and pave the way for the recognition of their totalitarian government. The important thing is that all this clamor to kill a person from the terrorist network will not be beneficial to the American and Afghan people and will not be considered as “elimination of terrorism” and “justice delivery” in any way. These James Bond-like actions may be appreciated by political children to applaud, but they can never deceive the peace-loving and anti-war and anti-capitalist people of the U.S. and the suffering people of Afghanistan.
The people of Afghanistan and the U.S. know very well that peace and justice are only possible with unity and solidarity between the workers and toilers of the world and their joint struggle against the capitalist system. It is only by abolishing private ownership and communalizing the means of production that justice and equality can be ensured and a world free from war and the threat of religious and state terrorism can be brought to humanity.
Statement by Left Radical of Afghanistan (LRA)
