Letters

Stop war now

It is time to stop this war now.

Make no mistake - future conflicts and events will happen in Europe. Who will be helped if the thousands of deaths in New York are followed by tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world? Certainly most of the options on offer seem less than adequate.

?Bomb them back to the Stone Age? - that has already been done. Besides, wars are not won in the air, especially against diffuse enemies. An air war will be spectacular but unlikely to get its human targets. Besides, after the Gulf War and the Kosova intervention we found the military had exaggerated the accuracy of its toys. That means ?collateral damage?.

?I want his head on a platter? - fine, but network structures are resistant to attacks in ways hierarchical structures are not. The cells and groups linked to the prime suspect are probably relatively autonomous, and it is even possible that this year?s public enemy No1 did not know that these attacks were going to happen when they happened. Assassination is very likely to make bin Laden a martyr.

?Support an anti-Taliban faction to overthrow them and establish peace, justice, and the American way? - but the west made bin Laden and the Taliban. How is it that this group has become so much more sophisticated than other terrorist formations? How is it that a rag-tag collection of warring factions armed with Enfield 303s and a few captured Kalashnikovs kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan? And how did all those Stinger hand-held anti-aircraft weapons get into Afghanistan?

We trained them. We armed them. We funded them. And now they are coming after us. If there is a lesson here, it is probably that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. The former enemy of the Soviets is definitely not our friend. Surely the same should go for the Taliban?s enemies?

In consideration of the Palestinian question we can see a couple of strains. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Palestinian inspired terrorism was substantially supported by the Soviet Union. As its influence waned, groups like Hamas gained in strength. These movements ran schools, did work in refugee camps and trained fighters and bombers.

But most mass religions are simply not the overarching focus of life for most of their adherents. Religious fervour has to be constructed - most people, especially in the developing world, are far too concerned with basic survival. When these issues seem to be beyond their control, religion and religious groups fare much better.

Nominally socialist Algeria managed to avoid a serious problem with fundamentalist rebellion until the IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s forced the state to withdraw significant social services from the poor. This pattern can be seen elsewhere and, at least partly, fundamentalist ideas has some roots in the western dominance of the embattled secular regimes.

So what should we do? I suggest a massive peace offensive. More people, not just young men who have volunteered for military service, will die, and die horribly.

Most people do not like or want war. This includes most muslims, most people in the west, and most people everywhere. Body bags, atrocities, economic devastation and the continuation of a cycle of intolerance ought not to be the legacy of our or anyone else?s civilisation.

Rather than trying to figure out how to turn the other militias and armies against the Taliban, we should figure out how to turn the world?s people against all armies. In this specific case, we might think about how to help a destitute people rise up against narrow-minded leadership.

Prosperous people who feel that they can live according to their own lights rarely instigate rebellions and wars.

?Follow the money? - this is a good idea for a number of reasons. More specifically, the last wave of terrorism in Europe slowed drastically when Soviet funds dried up. It sounds easy to stop the current groups from getting access to their funds but ? but the ?freedoms? we in the west enjoy, including tax havens, offshore accounts, and the freedom to move money anywhere in the world are exactly the tools these people are using.

Much of the international financial system exists so people can move money around the globe. Reorganising this so ?it can?t be used by terrorists? is harder than it sounds, since closing any money-laundering loopholes will affect banking and finance from Luxembourg to Leavenworth in Texas.

?What are we defending?? - lives and property, of course, but this conflict is increasingly being drawn in terms of values and ways of life. The Taliban?s harsh and unpleasant style is said to ?inevitably clash? with our liberal western values. In the unlikely event that this political conflict can be reduced to cultural hatred, there would be an even stronger case for preserving our values. These include personal freedom, individual mobility, presumption of innocence, freedom of association, openness of borders and civil liberties like free speech and the lack of guilt by association.

This means we cannot become a society watched by Big Brother all the time. This also means resisting the ?Talibans? in our own societies - many societies have self-proclaimed guardians of old and better ways who would legislate morality. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the US are only the easiest examples, invoking god to explain the wickedness of man.

Hindu nationalists in India, various orthodox Jewish sects and christian fundamentalists who condone the bombing of abortion clinics are all ?little Talibans? waiting to happen. We must also watch out for authorities who will monitor our every movement, financial transactions, phone calls and e-mails ?for our own safety?.

We must be vigilant against such forces. Life is too complex for this nonsense. But if you do feel the need for a short, simple certainty to see you through these troubled times, try this one - stop this war now.

Stop war now
Stop war now

Arming our struggle

The letter of comrade Martin Thomas illustrates that on the attitude of Marxists to the developing world situation there is a significant degree of common ground between the CPGB and Alliance for Workers? Liberty (Weekly Worker September 27).

However, his criticisms of the CPGB motion are flawed and in fact expose the weaknesses of the AWL?s own positions. He says that we are guilty of ?wild extrapolation? when we point to the danger of the Bush-Blair ?declaration of war? being perhaps extended to ?all those forces opposing capitalism?.

Of course only time and the course of struggle will decide whether there has been ?wild extrapolation? on our part. However, events prior to and after September 11 suggests that we are right to warn of the danger of increased state repression of movements perceived as a threat. Repression of the anti-capitalist movement was visibly being ratcheted up before September 11; Blair used exactly the same language in condemnation of those who carried out the attacks on September 11 as he used in condemnation of the protestors in Genoa.

The common European Union definition of terrorism now covers any that seek to fundamentally change the social structure of the states that constitute the EU. A definition that of course can easily be made to apply to revolutionaries. New ?anti-terrorism? laws, etc indicate that the state is seeking to equip itself legally against any forces, including those of the working class and revolutionary left, that oppose it.

It is only the weakness of the left and the working class movement that gives the comrade?s views some credibility. We are not of course regarded right now by Bush and Blair as the main threat, and the CPGB does not claim that they are about to launch ?an all-out, brute-force drive ? to suppress us? at this time. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that all opponents of the new world order will be a ?target? to one degree or another. If comrade Thomas?s position were accepted, it would disarm the working class in the face of state clampdowns.

He is right to say that there was no indication that the US wanted to attack Afghanistan specifically before September 11. It is also probably correct that the US will not want to establish a colonial regime in Afghanistan. As the comrade says, we simply don?t know. However, he cannot deny that the ?war against terrorism? is not just going to be concentrated on Afghanistan. Speculation about splits in the US government between ?hawks? and ?doves? is rife, with the former wanting to complete what they see as the unfinished business of toppling the Iraqi regime. Bush himself has said time and time again that this is a long-term project.

Prosecution of the ?war on terrorism? will take many forms. We must recognise and warn that imperialism will ultimately turn its guns on the working class and the oppressed masses across the globe. The precise forms this ?war? will take - domestically and in terms of the foreign policy of imperialism - is of course impossible to predict.

We will not win the argument against reactionary anti-capitalisms, and those that tail them on the left, in the abstract. We must link our critique to our concrete tasks in Britain, and to arming the working class in its necessary struggle against the British state.

Arming our struggle
Arming our struggle

Afghanistan

The US left a mess in Afghanistan after retreating from that country when they achieved their negative mission of destroying a Soviet satellite state. Pakistan fostered the Taliban, which is a reactionary neo-fascistic regime. The Pakistani ruling class has been in crisis for decades, and seeks to divert attention away from their own domestic problems by fostering war and instability abroad, like in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

The so-called ?islamic? project in Pakistan and other countries has been a monumental failure. The fundamentalists that support a pre-feudal version of islam, across the muslim world, do not want social progress. They cannot be called progressive bourgeois, but feudal reactionaries, that want to stop historical development. Therefore the likes of the Taliban, and the governments of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc, are not worthy of our support. We must, however, support those in the muslim world that advocate human rights for all their citizens in accordance with the UN charter.

The fundamentalists are fascistic and cannot be given any support. That is not to advocate indiscriminate bombing of muslim countries by the US. But what the Anglo-Saxon capitalists have created, they can bear the cost of clearing up the mess. Osama bin Laden and others like him are training thousands of guerrilla fighters, who will be sent to destabilise countries like China, India and Russia who want to curb these terrorists. They want to repeat the WTC mission elsewhere in the world. The potential anarchy they can create will lead not to opportunities for revolutionary advance, but rapid moves to an abyss and totalitarianism.

The best course of action is to get rid of British imperialism by undermining the Labour Party totally as a vehicle for any progress or peace. All peace-lovers, activists and socialists should be leaving the Labour Party, which continues to provide bad leaders for the working class: ie, people who are content with the very little or nothing that British capitalism is offering to the proles of this nation.

This so called ?war against terror? is a sure sign that Anglo-Saxon imperialism is in crisis. The first course of action is to stoke up the ashes of working class consciousness into a flame that burns up the vestiges of the petty bourgeois mentality which is an affliction of so many.

It is time we told the proletariat here that the rule of the middle classes must end and be replaced by the rule of the majority based on the tenets of ?liberty, fraternity and equality? which are the fruits of the class war waged by our class against the bourgeoisie.

Afghanistan
Afghanistan