>Forward Into The Past: US War Aims
>VIJAY PRASHAD
>
>< http://www.outlookindia.com >
>[snip]
>The US Left needs to speak out not only against the war, but also
>against the slowly formulated war aims, and certainly against the
>restoration of "stability" in the name of capital. The Northern
>Alliance is not "at least better" than the Taliban, as liberals want
>to believe: they are as bad for the people of Afghanistan.
The aims need in schematic terms to be New Democratic. Not specifically socialist, and accepting some capitalist features but opening the door to more socially cooperative activity. They should unite a wide range of classes and strata, and promote individual rights and self-development but more in a social way than the fragmentary form of bourgeois individual rights.
Much of this could be compatible with the sort of liberal democratic settlement that Empire would like to foster. BUT Empire can only bring an economic framework for recovery and reconstruction based on finance capitalism. This could be even more devastating to the quality of life of most of the people than outright military defeat. Progressives outside Afghanistan and inside should press for economic aid to be delivered in such a form as to empower collective local economic activity and initiative, not to make it dependent on supporting franchises for branches of western firms. That would be the fastest way of bringing improvement in quality of life in Afghanistan.
Wider anti-war aims:
Urgent conflict resolution and democratic settlement in
Palestine, Kashmir Chechnya.
Merging of IMF and World Bank and launching of massive Marshall Aid programme to support liquidity in the least developed parts of the world, instead of trying to pump it round the stagnant capital markets of the western heartlands, until they drown in their own liquidity trap.
Chris Burford
London