PRESIDENT Trump has told the US people he has changed his mind about Afghanistan being a futile conflict, and that now the US, and its allies, are going to go for the kill against the Afghan people.
Trump’s administration has now been completely militarised, with Afghan vets in the lead. In the months after the 9/11 attacks Trump’s secretary of Defence, retired Marine four-star General James Mattis, led the deepest assault from a ship in Marine Corps history near the key Taliban city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Trump’s National Security Adviser Lt. General H.R. McMaster served in Afghanistan. Trump’s top military adviser, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, was the commanding general in Afghanistan in 2013. And General John Kelly, who is now Trump’s chief of staff, lost a son in Afghanistan, 29-year-old Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly. They want revenge for past defeats.
Trump said in his speech about the decision to step up the war: ‘After many meetings, over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David, with my Cabinet and generals, to complete our strategy.’
This militarised cabinet decided that: ‘The men and women who serve our nation in combat deserve a plan for victory. They deserve the tools they need, and the trust they have earned, to fight and to win. Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. Third, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense.’
Trump and the generals have also decided that the mistake in Iraq was not the war but the withdrawal: ‘And, as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq.’
Trump added about the US’s internal situation: ‘The young men and women we send to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other.
‘As we send our bravest to defeat our enemies overseas – and we will always win – let us find the courage to heal our divisions within. Let us make a simple promise to the men and women we ask to fight in our name that, when they return home from battle, they will find a country that has renewed the sacred bonds of love and loyalty that unite us together as one.’
Any US citizen who opposes Trump’s reinvasion of Afghanistan – and there will be millions – will clearly be ‘traitors’. US re-intervention in Afghanistan will in fact sharpen the class divisions of US society to the point of revolutionary explosion.
Trump’s message to the Afghan, Pakistan and Indian governments, plus NATO, was crystal clear. To Afghanistan: ‘The government of Afghanistan must carry their share of the military, political and economic burden.’
To Pakistan: ‘We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban and other groups, that pose a threat to the region and beyond. Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan.’
To NATO: ‘We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own.’
To India: ‘India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.’
It is no secret that Afghanistan possesses an estimated $3 trillion of currently untouched natural resources that the US intends to grab and steal. ‘We are going to participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war to us’ says Trump – the fruits of victory.
There is no doubt that the Tories will agree to send armed forces to join any new assault on the Afghan people. US and UK workers must oppose any new invasion of Afghanistan.
This means the TUC, when it meets in Congress on September 11 in Brighton, must carry a resolution that it will call a general strike to remove the Tories if they join Trump’s invasion, and replace them with a workers government and socialism.
