DEMOCRATIC presidents and prime ministers such as Obama and Brown have rushed into the Afghan breach to rubber-stamp their stooge Karzai as the president of Afghanistan.
Their just-appointed president was found guilty by them, only weeks ago, of rigging the first round of the Afghan elections.
Senator Kerry spent a week in Afghanistan forcing Karzai to agree to a rerun of the rigged election. He was assisted in this task by Premier Gordon Brown.
Their efforts were in vain. Karzai’s opponent in the rerun, Abdullah Abdullah, refused to go through with it, saying that the forces that rigged the original election were busy at work rigging the rerun, and that there was no point in him assisting them by standing.
The US and UK imperialist powers, famous for their ‘democracy’, ignored the claims of Abdullah Abdullah, took no action against Karzai, and then insisted that there would be a rerun, with Karzai as the only candidate.
They then had to change their minds, since organising such a head-on affront to democracy could well cost them the lives of a lot of their soldiers.
They opted for an imperialist diktat, announcing that the election rigger, and the sponsor of local war lords and drug runners, was the president for another five years, with Brown and Obama sending their congratulations.
The fact that he was not elected by the Afghan people, and was selected by the US and UK, did not matter to them.
What was revealed, once again, is that the leaders of the alleged western democracies, are in reality the ruthless representatives of the bosses and bankers, who will ditch democracy at home, as quickly as they have done in Afghanistan, if the outcome of an election threatens the interests of the ruling class.
Far from seeking to bring democracy to Afghanistan, Karzai was always their frontman for an imperialist war to gain control of a strategic area in the middle of the enormous gas and oil resources of central Asia.
Afghanistan is the victim of imperialist barbarism. It is being occupied by the imperialist powers, who support a stooge regime of brigands and drug runners. Tens of thousands of Afghans and thousands of young US and UK soldiers are being slaughtered, some getting their legs blown off solely for this goal and no other.
The propaganda of a war to bring democracy and a good life to the Afghan people has collapsed along with the Afghan elections.
The whole world can only agree with the Taleban when they observe: ‘What is astonishing is two weeks ago they were arguing that the puppet president Hamid Karzai was involved in electoral fraud. . . but now he is elected as president based on those same fraudulent votes, Washington and London immediately send their congratulations.’
Once again, tens of thousands are being slaughtered for oil and gas and nothing else.
We urge the trade unions in the UK to take action against the Brown government to end this imperialist war and to support the Afghan people.
We urge British troops to follow the lead of those soldiers who are refusing to serve in Afghanistan and to support the liberation struggle of the Afghan people.
The TUC must declare its full support for all British troops who will not serve, and will not take part in the murder of Afghans for oil and gas interests.
In fact the enemy is at home. The same bosses and bankers, and their political representatives who are seeking to colonise central Asia, are plotting to smash the Welfare State at home.
Workers must take action to bring down the Brown government and to bring in a workers government.
This will carry out socialist policies including withdrawing all British troops from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.