THE US ruling class, and its UK and German allies have suffered a historic defeat in Afghanistan.
This is the verdict of the former UK Chief of the General Staff General Lord Dannatt. He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Ultimately, Taliban force of arms has prevailed.’
During the 20-year conflict, 454 British military personnel were killed and thousands were wounded. Thousands of US troops have also been killed and wounded, while hundreds of German soldiers have been killed.
The main British mission was concluded yesterday, July 4th. With no publicity it snuck out of Afghanistan. The full withdrawal was initially planned to be completed on September 11, on what will be the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers attack.
Twenty years after invading Afghanistan, US-led coalition troops that include German, Italian and Polish soldiers have now vacated the largest military base in the war-torn country, located in the ancient city of Bagram, about 45 miles north of Kabul.
The massive airfield with two runways, 110 fortified points, three large hangars, a control tower and many support buildings was the main entry point for tens of thousands of foreign troops that came to Afghanistan over the past 20 years. It was also the exit point for nearly 2,000 US service members killed in the fighting. At its peak in mid-2011, nearly 100,000 US troops passed through the compound, plus some 35,000 US contractors.
It is the second time in recent history that an invading army has come and gone through Bagram. The air base was built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, when it intervened in Afghanistan in 1979 to back a communist government, and it turned Bagram into its main military base in the country.
For about 10 years, the Soviets fought the US-backed Mujahideen, who included Osama bin Laden, whom the then-US President Ronald Reagan called ‘freedom fighters’. The Mujahideen would later fight the US as the Taliban, using the equipment that the US had provided for them.
The US and UK forces scuttling out of Afghanistan emphasises that the imperialist powers cannot win a land war in Asia.
Russian presidential envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov has told the RIA news agency that Washington must not transform the withdrawal into the relocation of its military facilities to Central Asia.
He also urged the Afghan government and the Taliban to establish a coalition government, saying that ‘the final decision on the configuration and parameters of the future power structure should be made by Afghans themselves.’
The Taliban have defeated the imperialist powers and have won a major victory. The Taliban said on Friday that this ‘will pave the way for Afghans to decide about their future between themselves’.
The US is also on the retreat in Syria. The so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, commonly known as Rojava, has said it is to open negotiations with the Syrian government which is in the final stages of purging foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists.
The foreign relations department of Rojava, in a statement issued on Saturday, responded positively to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s request for negotiations with the Damascus government, Kurdish Hawar news agency reported.
These defeats for imperialism come at a time when the economic and political crisis of US and UK imperialism is deepening, with a major financial worldwide crash widely predicted, that will see millions of workers sacked.
As the imperialist crisis deepens, the Chinese people and millions of Asians are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. The victory of the Chinese revolution led by the Communist Party in 1949, has seen China hurtle forward from being a victim of imperialist ‘opium wars’ to being able to put vehicles onto the surface of Mars.
China has overtaken the US capitalists in many key areas. The response of the imperialist powers to their humbling by the Chinese workers has been to threaten both Russia and China with war.
There is only one way forward for the working class of the world. That is to build sections of the Fourth International in every capitalist country to organise the working class to complete the smashing of capitalism and imperialism with the victory of the world socialist revolution, that will bring in a socialist planned economy worldwide to satisfy the needs of the people and complete what the Russian revolution began and the Chinese revolution continued. This is the way forward!
