Little girls wounded by occupation forces in the Afghan war.
They give the figures, 700, for the occupying forces killed in the wars and occupations in the Middle east. They do not give the figures for the local fighters killed. They do not give the figures for the civilians killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Yemen. But with 700 occupying troops killed in 2010 so far then overall we are talking about tens of thousands of people dead in these wars and occupations being carried out by US capitalism and its allies to seize the wealth of the area and control the territory. This is a catastrophe. US capitalism and its allies are bringing slaughter and suffering to the area. US capitalism is in a vicious conflict which they cannot win.
Just yesterday one of the coalition parties pulled out of the Pakistan government which is central to the strategy of US capitalism in its wars in the area. They are dependent on the Pakistan government to fight the Taliban in the border areas. So the Pakistan government which is already undermined from within by its own intelligence services and which US capitalism needs to fight the Taliban is further weakened. One of the reasons the party, the MQM, which represents mainly urban voters in Karachi, a port of 18 million and Pakistan's financial hub, pulled out was because the Government is trying to implement a general sales tax which will hit the working class base of this party hard. Meanwhile the large rural landowners which mainly support the PPP are exempt from an agricultural tax. US capitalism and its allies are directly associated with the attacks on the local working class and clearly seen to be so.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and millions of civilians are caught up in these wars and occupations of US capitalism. And there is no end in sight. It is in this context we have to see the information being made available by wikileaks. These young people who are in the armies of US capitalism and its allies, the local fighters and the civilians who are being bombed and shot, they have the right to know how they got into this predicament, they have the right to know about the meetings that took place where the war criminals of US capitalism, its allies, and the world's military industrial complex plotted to bring these wars about. They have the right to know about the meetings of the oil and resource companies which were involved in these and led the way in getting the youth of the allied countries to go and fight for the corporations wealth and power and to slaughter the peoples of the Middle East.
This is what wikileaks is about. It is about letting people know what is going on and especially the soldiers and people on the front line know what is going on and how they ended up in the terrible heat and conditions and the fighting of the Middle East. This information can then allow the fighters to make an informed decision. Do they want to continue making the sacrifices they are making. Do they want to end their military activity in the Middle east. This is what Bradley manning did. He said he would not longer participate in the seizing and torturing of local people in the area. If what we know is correct he then publicized this. For this he is in solitary confinement facing trial and possibly decades in prison.
We must not let this happen. We must build a movement that will be so powerful that it will force the organizers of these wars to back off and release Bradley Manning. And also to end these wars and occupations. We must link this struggle to the attacks on working class living standards in the US. US capitalism cannot afford to fight wars abroad and maintain living standards at home. It is in the common interests of working class people in the Middle East, in the US, worldwide, to end all wars and occupations and concentrate our resources in building a new society which is not ruled by the corporations and their vicious profit addicted capitalist system. We must step up the struggle for a democratic socialist world.
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