Afghanistan Follow

The packed lecture hall could have been anywhere in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in similar meetings, counter-conferences and teach-ins to build an international anti-capitalist movement. What was crucial about the World Forum on the WTO in Beirut in Lebanon last week was that for the first time the anti-capitalist movement had come to the Middle East.

Three decades ago a mass movement against the Vietnam War shook the US ruling class to its core. At its height 750,000 people marched in Washington and 100,000 in London. The growth of that movement holds vital lessons for the struggle against the US-led war on Afghanistan today.

Despite the repression they suffer from the Taliban, Hilla says all women in Afghanistan oppose the US bombings:

Pretence of 'smart' bombs abandoned Now they just blast the lot The US began carpet-bombing Afghanistan with B-52 bombers last week. It is a tactic straight out of the US war on Vietnam over 30 years ago. It exposes Bush and Blair's claims that this war would be different, using "smart" bombs.

The war against Afghanistan has been going badly for the US and its allies. Every day last week brought news of another setback for Bush and Blair. Tony Blair's tour of the Middle East to shore up support for the "coalition against terrorism" was a complete fiasco.

"Saudi Arabia is a good and dependable friend to the civilised world." That is how Tony Blair referred to the West's key ally in the Middle East last week. The US is desperate to maintain that relationship with Saudi Arabia during the war on Afghanistan.

"It was necessary to destroy the town in order to save it." They were the words of an American major in 1968 after the US military demolished the town of Dentre in South Vietnam. The same crazy logic that was used to defend the Vietnam War is being used again today.

US and British government representatives will make decisions this week which will kill poor people as surely as they are doing in Afghanistan. The key votes will come at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar. This is a meeting designed to defend and extend the multinationals' stranglehold on production and trade.

As Blair demands support for US war Picture of slaughter At last this week some sections of the British press gave a glimpse of the real horror of the war on Afghanistan. The Mirror, the Herald and the Daily Record showed pictures of the slaughter in Kabul when Gul Ahmed and his seven children were killed. Two youngsters were also killed in a nearby house.

Support for Bush and Blair's war against Afghanistan is ebbing fast. Tony Blair tried to claim that the bombing was "moral" in his speech to the Welsh assembly on Tuesday. But what is moral about slaughtering hundreds of people through aerial bombardment?

"The fact is that, whether the government likes it or not, the people of this country remain distinctly unconvinced that bombing the hell out of Kabul will stop Bin Laden carrying out more atrocities." Those words were part of a Mirror editorial on Monday of this week which voiced growing doubts about the war.

The war in Afghanistan has produced a torrent of maps in the media. The British Library's current free exhibition couldn't be better timed. Under the brilliant punning title "The Lie of the Land", it shows how the rich and our rulers have used maps.