NATO has handed over security for the whole of Afghanistan to the Afghan puppet government for the first time since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
US commanders are insisting however, that there must be peace talks with the Taliban, so that a coalition regime can be formed as the only way of preventing the pro-NATO collaborators being swept away forever.
After being run out of Basra in Iraq by the Shia militia, the UK military has experienced yet another defeat in Afghanistan. Even Tory propagandists and ministers are saying that it has left the ‘country’ with a bad taste in its mouth as far as more foreign interventions are concerned.
No wonder. The UK military marched into Helmand province, with their commanders and Labour government ministers saying that in this campaign not a shot would be fired as the situation had been well prepared in advance – no doubt with attempted bribery of local leaders on a massive scale.
Now, millions of shots later, hundreds of UK corpses and thousands of UK wounded later, and tens of thousands of Afghans dead UK troops are being run out of yet another country, while their political and military leaders seek to put a better face on the defeat by claiming that they have left a better Afghanistan behind them.
Afghans would respond by saying that it is only better because they are leaving it.
At the same time as the nature of the Afghan debacle is emerging, over 4,500 British soldiers are getting the sack, since British imperialism can no longer afford them, racked as it is by the capitalist crisis.
They will have plenty of time on the Job Seekers Allowance to mull over the fact that after all the talk of heroes, they were just cannon fodder, not worth keeping on the job by measures such as taking hold of bankers’ bonuses or by putting up the taxes of the very rich.
However, bloodied and weakened UK imperialism remains imperialism. Having been beaten in Afghanistan they are now seeking to restore their fortunes by attacking Syria, along with the United States, so that they can redraw the map of the Middle East and its oil and gas resources even more in their favour.
Their willingness to arm, supply and provide a no-fly zone for the benefit of Al Qaeda, and see millions of Syrians slaughtered in a major war, spells out the ugly truth that imperialism and capitalism cannot change its nature, it will engage in more and more bloody actions until it is smashed.
These actions are not just against the oppressed nations of the planet, but are also against the working class and the poor at home.
Their programme to destroy Syria and Iran is one part of a programme to try to halt the decline and demise of capitalism.
The other part is to smash the working class at home, by destroying the NHS, the Welfare State and transform a whole nation into paupers for the benefit of a handful of plutocrats and their hangers-on.
British imperialism is weakening and has suffered major defeats, but it will not change its ways – it will offer massive violence to the oppressed nations and the working class at home, as long as it is allowed to exist.
Workers in the UK must decide through their trade unions that they will not allow another imperialist war, this time against Iran and Syria.
The trade unions must demand that all UK troops are withdrawn from the Middle East and the Gulf, and spell out to Cameron that intervention into Syria will be resisted with a general strike to bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government and socialism.
The UK and US workers are in the same trench as the Syrian, Iranian, Lebanese and Palestinian peoples.
We must form a common front of the working people and the oppressed nations and not stop struggling until US and UK imperialism have been smashed and the basis created for a socialist world where nations can live side by side and production be planned to satisfy the requirements of all of the people on the planet.
