Escalation in Afghanistan sparks anti-war protests nationally
Report from Times Square rally by John Catalinotto
Following months of Pentagon pressure to send more U.S. troops to Central Asia, President Barack Obama announced the escalation to West Point Army officers and the country on Dec. 1. He said he had already issued orders to send some 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and that the transfer of troops was already underway.
As Obama spoke, demonstrators from many anti-war groups picketed at Highland Falls, N.Y., near West Point. Another protest took place in Los Angeles called by the International Action Center. By the next day people were out in the streets to confront the drive to a bigger war. Emergency response actions were reported in more than 100 cities. Some hundreds gathered by New York’s Times Square and heard one speaker call Dec. 2 “the first day of mobilization of resistance to the imperialist war against Afghanistan.”
The Times Square action, called by the International Action Center and the Troops Out Now Coalition, had gotten the endorsement of two dozen local and national anti-war, military veteran and community groups and organizations representing different parts of New York’s varied immigrant population. Groups representing Pakistani, Iranian, Philippine, Korean, Honduran, Haitian, Palestinian, organizations spoke. Along with expressing their sharp opposition to the U.S.-NATO occupation of Afghanistan—not to mention the new escalation—speakers raised opposition to U.S. military expansion in Latin America, to U.S. support for the coup regime in Honduras, its support for Israel against the Palestinians and to the U.S. hostility to Cuba, Iran and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
Speakers also drew attention to the economic crisis and the need to take the funds destined for the Pentagon’s war machine and use them for a real jobs program. That issue will be central to a protest called by the Bail Out the People Movement Dec. 3 outside the White House while a “Jobs Summit” is going on inside.
The administration is expediting the deployment of U.S. forces, tripling the U.S. troop strength to nearly 100,000 since it took office in January 2009. It is also asking its NATO allies to send an additional 10,000 troops. Whether the NATO alliance would come through with the additional troops is itself questionable, as the populations of most of the NATO countries oppose the war on Afghanistan. On Nov. 28, demonstrations were held in Madrid and other cities in Spain protesting the war.
Most speakers at the Times Square protest also expressed disbelief of the president’s comment that U.S. troops would begin leaving Afghanistan by 2011.
The president’s task is to sell a big lie: that the U.S.-NATO occupation of Afghanistan is for the good of the Afghan and for the protection of the U.S. population from terrorism. Yet the occupation has brought death and destruction to Afghans and forced U.S. youths to sacrifice their lives as they kill both resistance fighters and civilians. As many speakers pointed out, the Pentagon is the main perpetrator of terror in the world today.
The war aims to expand U.S. imperialist influence and power in Central Asia. U.S. victory n Afghanistan means increasing the power of U.S. and West-Europe-based big banks and corporations, the same ones that have been laying off workers and cutting wages at home.
