News on the Afghanistan front from the Marxists, Maoist Afghanistan resistance

From AWorldToWin NewsService <aworldtowinns@ yahoo.co. uk> wrote: To go to www.aworldtowin. org or http://uk.groups. yahoo.com/ group/AWorldToWi nNewsService/• Afghan revolutionaries: “The resistance needs an ideological- political weapon superior to the invaders and their flunkies”• Afghanistan: Canada’s reasons for going to war------------ ---------Afghan revolutionaries: “The resistance needs an ideological- political weapon superior to the invaders and their flunkies”15 October 2007. A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts are from a leaflet put out by the Revolutionary Youth Movement of Afghanistan on 7 October, the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of that country. Let’s put all our efforts into laying the groundwork for launching a revolutionary and popular national resistance!Let’s turn the resistance against the occupiers and puppet national traitors into a nationwide and decisive force!It has been six years since the imperialists headed by the US launched their campaign of aggression against Afghanistan. These years have been full of criminal acts and deception. The imperialist “crusade” of Bush & Co that started with the lying clamour about the “war on terror” on 7 October 2001 is still in its beginning and its strategic course is still unfolding. This hated and inhumane dynasty has already created many terrors.The imperialists and their local elements in the whole region of the Middle East, stretching all the way to Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite their repeated false promises of peace, security and social progress, have produced widespread corruption and are laying the ground for more vicious operations. The crimes and terrorism of the imperialist invaders and their flunkies have not gone completely unanswered. They have encountered hard and intensified resistance. But it must be noted that the resistance against them has resorted to an old and outmoded ideological- political weapon. Even if such a weapon inflicts immediate blows on the invaders, the struggle it guides cannot have a positive outcome for the people. The resistance against the current imperialist campaign needs an ideological- political weapon that is historically superior to invaders and their flunkies. This old and outmoded ideological- political weapon suffers from an inherent and incurable limitation, from the social point of view. It is too narrow. In the best case it can only unite a section of a particular nation that corresponds with the interests of a small section of feudals and comprador bourgeoisie who oppose the invasion but in the final analysis are connected by a thousand strings to world imperialism and foreign reactionary powers. The whole reactionary resistance in dealing with the present occupiers has a historical weakness. The forces that are in this resistance were trained by the very same occupiers and they may go back into the arms of their masters at any time.But in Afghanistan there is another problem. The puppet regime officially is a theocratic and religious state. This has been institutionalised with its constitution, which states that Sharia [Islamic] law is the basis of all of Afghanistan’s laws. It is natural that in such a situation a reactionary theocratic resistance would have much in common, ideologically, with the puppet regime. Karzai’s efforts to lure the Taleban into becoming a part of the regime through peace negotiations are based on these common grounds.Launching and advancing a revolutionary and popular national resistance is the only way to build a decisive and uncompromising struggle against the imperialist occupiers and their puppets. Without it, launching a nationwide struggle is impossible. Only a decisive and uncompromising nationwide resistance will be able to drive out the occupiers, overthrow their puppet regime and lead Afghanistan on the path of liberation and real freedom from the grip of imperialism and social injustice.- end item-Afghanistan: Canada’s reasons for going to war15 October 2007. A World to Win News Service. The following article “Afghanistan: reasons for war” is reprinted from Notes on Afghanistan, Spring/Summer 2007, published by the Winnipeg, Canada local chapter of the World People’s Resistance Movement (www.wprmwinnipeg. blogspot. com). Canada has one of the largest and most active contingents in the occupation of that country. This article focuses on the reasons behind Canada’s eager participation, an approach that by extension sheds light on why other “second-tier” imperialist countries like the UK and Germany are deeply involved, and more broadly on the war itself. Since early 2002, Canadian troops have been in Afghanistan both in support of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, as well as part of NATO operations. The motives that led to Canada’s participation in military operations have gone under- or unreported. Mainstream media, when not out-rightly cheering on the occupation, have refused to dig at all into the deeper reasons why Canada has immersed itself in the bloody occupation of Afghanistan, glossing over the subject and narrowing the framework of debate to simply an issue of “helping out our friend to the south” or “taking on our responsibilities as peace keepers”. But there is more to the situation than that. Due to Canada’s location, its economy is closely tied to that of the United States. Because of this, it is in the interests of Canada’s ruling class, the group of people that control the bulk of Canada’s wealth, to ensure that Canada maintains close and friendly ties with the United States. Maintaining friendly ties often means supporting American foreign policy, which can come in the shape of adhering to American embargoes and sanctions imposed on other nations, or sending troops to support American military operations overseas. The latter is what we are currently witnessing with Canada’s presence in Afghanistan. Currently, the United States is the world’s only superpower. Its foreign policy works to maintain and spread the current imperialist world order. This is a difficult and costly task. Because of this, the United States expects other second-tier imperialist countries that benefit from this world situation (i.e. Western industrialized countries like Canada, Great Britain, etc.) to help with its maintenance. If these countries do not foot their share of the costs of maintaining the imperialist system, they run the risk of being excluded from sharing in the spoils of plunder. Canada, being the world’s fifth biggest foreign investor (New Socialist #54), cannot risk losing access to the cheap labour, as well as oil, gas, and mineral deposits that form the foundation of the Canadian economy. According to the Mining Association of Canada, mining, quarries, and oil and gas extraction inject nearly $40 billion into the Canadian economy each year. Compare that to $15.4 billion from agriculture and $7.2 billion from forestry and logging, and it becomes clear that mining, oil, and gas are of great importance to the Canadian economy, and thus the Canadian ruling class. What is more, other industries like electric/gas/ water utilities ($262 b/ year), transportation ($51.9 b/year), and manufacturing ($184 b/year) could not function without base materials like oil, gas, and metals. It is in this context that we begin to see how strategic Afghanistan is to the particular needs of the Canadian ruling class. Afghanistan has world-class mineral deposits. According to the government of Afghanistan, the Aynak copper deposit alone holds approximately 240 million tons of material. On 14 November 2006, the Government of Afghanistan released a short-list of firms it is considering for the development of this particular copper deposit. Making the list of nine was Canadian mining firm Hunter-Dickinson, Inc. Canada is a world leader in mining. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), one of the world’s largest stock exchanges, “is home to the largest peer group of mining companies in the world,” with “trading activity of TSX stocks in 2005 [exceeding] $167 billion” (mining.ca, Mining Association of Canada). 88% of the global mining industry’s 1,611 public financings in 2005 were conducted on the TSX. London, England ranked second with 9%. Overall, Canadian companies do 40% of world mining exploration. But Afghanistan is not only important for the resources found within its borders. Geographically, Afghanistan is the gateway to a region of the world that is becoming increasingly important to the world’s developed and developing industrial powers: the Caspian Sea region. The strategic importance of the Caspian Sea For the past 10-15 years, the world’s economic powers have been eyeing the Caspian Sea region for its potential natural gas and oil wealth. The Energy Information Administration (US) estimates proven oil reserves in the Caspian Sea to be between 17 and 49 billion barrels. It also estimates proven natural gas reserves to be approximately 232 trillion cubic feet. These resources are of vital importance to any industrial power. As mentioned above, oil and gas are absolute necessities for the manufacturing and transportation sectors, and are of vital importance to a country’s military as well. All of this indicates that the Caspian Sea region is very much a strategically important area of the world, with oil and gas reserves easily outstripping that of the North Sea. The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest land-locked body of water. Five countries border on the Caspian: Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. Afghanistan shares borders with Turkmenistan to its north, and Iran to its west.Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have significant oil reserves, and Uzbekistan’s natural gas reserves rank in the world’s top ten. Canadian firms have been in the thick of things in this region for years. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) website, a Canadian trade mission in May 2004 saw 10 Alberta firms travel to Kazakhstan to meet with the operating company responsible for North Caspian Sea deposits, as well as Canadian companies already active in Kazakhstan. “Almost all of world’s largest oil and gas companies have a presence in Atyrau, the country’s oil and gas capital”. Canadian firms have been active elsewhere in the region. In 2004, former Canadian Prime Minister, and advisor to PetroKazakhstan (a Canadian firm based in Calgary), Jean Chretien, headed a Canadian delegation that met with Turkmen officials to negotiate a deal on behalf of Buried Hill Energy of Edmonton to develop the Serdar block of the Caspian Sea (18 January 2004, News Central Asia). On the same trip, the delegation met with officials from Oman and Turkmenistan to discuss the construction of the Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP) (4 September 2004, News Central Asia). The TAP is a network of pipes that would lead south transporting extracted oil and gas from Turkmenistan, though Afghanistan, Pakistan, and ending in India. This pipeline was finally agreed to on 21 November 2006. In 2004, another Canadian firm, ThermoDesign, was awarded a $42 million contract to build an LPG and gas condensate plant in Turkmenistan (20 October 2004, News Central Asia). The interests of the Canadian ruling class are deeply invested in the energy resources of the Caspian Sea region. It is in the Canadian bourgeoisie’s direct interests to keep the region open to Canadian capital. Afghanistan is strategically important in achieving this in that, geographically, it lies exactly where pipelines need to run to export Caspian oil and gas. Containing Iran and turning off the tap to China Iran adds an interesting twist to things in the region. First, it is already one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, and it stands to gain access to more oil and gas reserves from Caspian Sea deposits. Currently, how much it will be given access to will depend on whether the Caspian Sea is legally declared a sea or a lake. If it is a lake, all bordering nations would have to equally share its resources, and Iran would have access to 20%. If it is a sea, each country will have access according to its coastline, reducing Iran’s share to 13%. Iran also has the second largest natural gas deposits in the world. The world’s largest deposits lie in Russia and Central Asia. According to the EIA website eia.doe.gov, almost three quarters of the world’s natural gas deposits are in the Middle East and Eurasia, with Russia, Iran, and Qatar accounting for 58% of the world’s reserves. Geographically, Iran lies at the crossroads between Central Asia and Europe. Thus, pipelines heading from the east to Europe in the west would likely need to pass through Iran, effectively giving Iran influence over nearly half of the world’s natural gas reserves. This would be unacceptable to the US, who aspires to control crucial energy resources and thus maintain leverage over any potential rivals. According to the Washington Post, in 2004 China signed deals with Iran worth approximately $90 billion to purchase Iranian oil and gas, and help develop Iran’s Yadavaran oil field. In exchange for oil, Iran receives many products produced by China, such as computers, appliances, and automobiles. With China rapidly developing, its voracious energy needs are running into limitations imposed on it by the current global political situation… For this reason, it is important to the American ruling class that they control the world’s energy deposits, so as to satisfy their own energy needs and prevent the emergence of any competing military and industrial powers. This necessarily means containing Iran and building alternative pipeline routes that are acceptable to the American ruling class. Any pipelines connecting the Middle East and the Caspian Sea region to rivals such as China or Germany would be wholly unacceptable. Thus, we can see how Canada’s role in Afghanistan is not by chance – some kind of foreign policy quirk or blunder. Canada is in Afghanistan with the aim of defending Canada’s national interests, interests which are rooted in its desire to enrich itself through the natural resource industry as well as maintaining close amicable relations with the US, the country currently playing the leading role in defending the world economic order. And the “national interests” of Canadian capital, it demands to be said, are in sharp contradiction with the interests of the people of the world, including the vast majority of people in Canada