The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, announced that on July 31, 2022, through an airstrike, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, was killed in Kabul. On the basis of this ‘historic feat’, he spoke about the delivery of “peace and justice”. The American government, which itself is the producer and supporter of terrorism around the world, can never be the hero of the fight against terrorism. Didn’t Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, admit that “The people we are fighting today, we funded twenty years ago”? Didn’t John Bolton, former National Security Adviser of the US, admit that he organized coups in various countries, including in Latin America?
Didn’t we witness war, bloodshed and terrorist operations by the US and its allies in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan just a few years ago? Didn’t the US create Islamic fundamentalism and Mujahideen parties during the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and then didn’t they create the Taliban? Isn’t ISIS the new version of Al-Qaeda produced by the US? Were not more than 20 Islamic terrorist groups created in Afghanistan during the occupation of Afghanistan by the United States? So, isn’t the US talk about “justice delivery” and fighting against terrorism ridiculous and demagogic in the extreme?
The truth is that on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Taliban coming to power and the shameful defeat of the US in Afghanistan, as well as the current economic crisis and unprecedented inflation in the United States, and in view of the decline in the popularity of the Joe Biden administration, the US government and the Democratic Party initiated the assassination of a leader of Al-Qaeda in order to divert the attention of the American people.
The people of Afghanistan will never forget and will never forgive how the US handed over power to the most brutal, anti-woman and anti-science group called the Taliban during a deal in February 2020 in Doha, and enabled them to dominate the fate of 40 million people, including 20 million Afghan women. The people of Afghanistan will never forget how the American planes dropped dozens of young people who wanted to escape from the hell created by America in Afghanistan. Today, the disastrous situation in Afghanistan and the deprivation of education, work and the torture of women by the Taliban is the product of the self-interested policy of America and its major allies such as England, France and Germany.
Capitalism is ready to commit any kind of crime and violate every human and moral value for the sake of profit and for the sake of maintaining global US hegemony. They use religion, especially Islam, as a tool to attack their strategic enemies. Sometimes they create radical Islamic forces and present them as heroes. Sometimes radical Islamic forces create and make heroes out of them. But when their expiry date comes and certain groups can no longer fulfill the goals set by Washington, they stamp them as terrorists and eliminate them.
In Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalist parties and the Mujahideen were used in the war against the Soviet Union and Najibullah’s government (1979-1992). Then the Mujahideen were ousted from power by the Taliban in 1996. In 2001, the US attacked Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government under the pretext of the Taliban’s support for Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. America’s rulers benefit both from creating and supporting terrorist forces, and when they destroy them, it advertises itself as anti-terrorist.
When the war in Afghanistan, contrary to predictions, turned out to be too long and expensive for the US, it showed disgust with its corrupt puppet government in Kabul, and tried to enter into a deal with the Taliban and the Haqqani network. This was in order to achieve its own goals and agenda against Russia, Central Asia, China and Iran via the Taliban, instead of by Ashraf Ghani’s government. It was due to these factors that the US ignored the policies and actions of the Taliban as an extremist, terrorist, anti-science and misogynistic religious group, and delegated power to it. It was based on these propensities that the United States gave most of the Taliban leaders, who were blacklisted by the United Nations and the United States, facilities to travel abroad, along with political legitimacy. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network a which was responsible for organizing 1,100 suicide attacks in Afghanistan, for whom the United States had set a $10 million reward for his identification, arrest or murder, now is the Taliban’s interior minister, openly and before the eyes of the United States and the world. But 71-year-old al-Zawahiri, who has not initiated any serious anti-US activities in the past twenty years, is considered the most dangerous and has been eliminated by special operations!
This latest US terrorist operation in Kabul proved that US intelligence and military forces are still present in Kabul and defend US interests there, but at a lower cost. Contrary to their claim of independence, the Taliban do not have sovereignty over Afghanistan’s land or space. “According to research by the Airwars, over the last 20 years, and after more than 91,000 airstrikes in seven war zones, at least 22,679 and potentially as many as 48,308 civilians have been killed by U.S. strikes.”
For the people of Afghanistan, it does not matter whether the murder of al-Zawahiri took place as a result of a deal between the CIA and the ISI of Pakistan, or between the Haqqani network and another part of the Taliban so that Pakistan could obtain huge loans from the IMF and the United States and thus be saved from acute economic crisis and popular uprisings temporarily. Alternatively, the Taliban may take the frozen money of Afghanistan from the US and pave the way for the recognition of their totalitarian government. The important thing is that all this clamor to kill a person from the terrorist network will not be beneficial to the American and Afghan people and will not regarded as the “elimination of terrorism” and “justice delivery” in any way. These James Bond-like actions may be applauded by political children. But they can never deceive the peace-loving, anti-war and anti-capitalist people of the United States and the suffering people of Afghanistan.
The people of Afghanistan and the US know very well that peace and justice are only possible with unity and solidarity between the workers and toilers of the world and their joint struggle against the capitalist system. It is only by abolishing private ownership and socializing the means of production that justice and equality can be ensured, and a world free from war and the threat of religious and state terrorism can be realized for humanity.
Left Radical of Afghanistan (LRA)
August 4, 2022- Afghanistan