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Afghans Protesting the US
by Jim Ingalls
A recent wave of anti-US protests in Afghanistan indicates widespread resentment of the foreign troop presence, especially US troops, in the country. According to some, this reflects a country-wide sentiment that all foreign troops should leave the country immediately. In my view, it is too soon to tell if this is true. What is true is that, like in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan most likely to take advantage of the anti-US feeling are not progressive secular democrats but right-wing fundamentalist extremists. Those of us who want to work in solidarity with the Afghan people should resist the temptation to see the situation as a choice between freedom-loving protesters and US imperialism.
The Workers World party recently published an editorial advocating “immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops” from both Iraq and Afghanistan. In the case of Afghanistan, WW reports the fact that thousands were on the streets as evidence of a “mass opposition” to the foreign troop presence, thus justifying their call. I agree with their call for US troop withdrawal, with the stipulation that non-US peacekeepers fill the military vacuum until an Afghan army can be put together to counter entrenched local warlords. But just because there are anti-US demonstrations, it does not follow that they are on the side of leftists and progressives. Cries of “Death to America” might provide good copy for the anti-war movement, but we have to be aware of what we’re cheering here.
First of all, let’s realize that the only Afghans who have anything close to freedom of speech are either those that do not question warlords, or those who espouse fundamentalist Islamic values. Consider people like Malalai Joya, whose impassioned denunciation of warlords at the constitutional assembly in January 2004 made her the recipient of death threats. When Sonali Kolhatkar and I met her in Afghanistan this February, Joya could only go outside wearing a full burqa, and her compound was patrolled by armed guards. Other journalists, lawyers, human rights workers, and activists that we met were also operating in relative secrecy. Some of them had been openly threatened, others just feared retaliation for their views.
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It is clear that the most vocal elements in favor of the demonstrations are not progressives but “Islamic clerics,” according to Reuters. Even fundamentalists close to president Hamid Karzai blessed the events. Sibghatullah Mojadedi, president for a few months under the US-backed Mujahideen government that ousted the Soviet puppet Najibullah in 1992, told followers at Friday prayers, “we…support those who demonstrate…But we want peaceful demonstrations.” Mojadedi’s ideology is certainly not in line with progressive activists. When he chaired the late 2003 constitutional convention, Mojadedi told delegates what he thought of women seeking equal rights: “Do not try to put yourself on a level with men. Even God has not given you equal rights because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man.” It was Mojadedi who cut off Malalai Joya’s microphone when she denounced warlords at the assembly.
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Many of us may not see the irony that the men applauding, and perhaps orchestrating, the movement against the US presence in Afghanistan happen to be the same men that the US helped to power, first in the early 1990s against the Soviet-backed regime, and later in 2001 to replace the Taliban. We’ve seen this happen often enough (eg., Osama bin Laden, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). The men who were restored to power by Washington after 9/11 now want the US out of their way so they can run the country. The feared warlord Ismail Khan, returned as governor of Herat by US action (now minister of energy), told his benefactors, “thank you for your help, such as it was, but it is no longer needed.” (New York Times, November 17, 2001)In the past, the United States empowered extremists with little popular support to fight the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. Afghans were in effect forced to choose between two centers of power, both criminal. Today, Afghans (and
progressives in the US who want to work in solidarity with them) are forced into a similar false choice between the imperialist US and its client Hamid Karzai on the one hand; and the fundamentalist opposition on the other. It is important to see the anti-US protests as symptomatic of a real resentment, but without strengthening democratic forces, that resentment is likely to be channeled by reactionary forces, the warlords, drug lords, and the Taliban.
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