Afghanistan Follow

Stop this slaughter NEW LABOUR is worried by the growing resistance to the war Britain and the US are waging on the people of Afghanistan. The government was shocked by the size of the 50,000-strong demonstration in London against the war.

THE MEDIA last week relegated the impact of the bombing of Afghanistan to the third or fourth item on news bulletins, behind gung-ho tales of derring-do by "special forces".

THE MEDIA routinely report civilian casualties in Afghanistan as "Taliban claims". In a growing number of cases the media then quietly admits three or four days later that the claim was in fact true.

THE DEAD bodies are mounting in Afghanistan, but this horror has almost become routine in Bush and Blair's war. The civilians slaughtered by US bombs do not make headline news in most of the media. The warmongers dismiss it with the announcement days later of a "stray" bomb.

WE WANT the bombing of Afghanistan stopped. Our members were devastated by the events of 11 September. There were 343 firefighters among those who lost their lives. We do not want that tragedy to be followed by another tragedy.

AS BUSH ordered the first bombs to be dropped on Afghanistan, a US think tank declared the guerrilla movements in Colombia the greatest terrorist threat in the western hemisphere. The US government agrees and has showered military aid on the Colombian state. The $1.3 billion Plan Colombia package pretends to be about fighting drug trafficking.

The war against Afghanistan has raised many issues about violence in society. Here we answer some of those questions.

BUSH AND Blair don't want to admit their war has slaughtered ordinary men, women and children in Afghanistan. We have only seen a glimpse of the horror of war in some pictures in newspapers and on the television.

US AND British forces had bombed Afghanistan for a week and a half as Socialist Worker went to press. Their "war on terrorism" means killing innocent Afghans in revenge for the attacks on the World Trade Centre-attacks which didn't involve a single Afghan. Yet, despite the carnage Bush and Blair are raining down on Afghanistan, the US and Britain are worried the war is not going their way.

THE ONCE-pacifist German Green Party held a conference two weeks ago where the leadership announced its support for Bush's war against Afghanistan. Green Party leader and foreign minister Joschka Fischer's speech echoed the war hysteria and propaganda of Bush, Blair, and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democratic Party.

GEORGE BUSH and Tony Blair are terrified that the US and Britain's pummelling of Afghanistan will lead to upheaval across the Middle East. That is what is behind all their talk of "losing the media war".

BUSH AND Blair are trying to cloak their war in Afghanistan behind the claim that it is about opposing the threat of "Islamic fundamentalism". The hypocrisy stinks. The US and its allies trained, armed and funded the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. The US has also nurtured the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia.