Shootings: A Symptom of how Afghanis view the Occupation

Many of us have probably viewed long coverage of the funerals of soldiers recently. The most recent deaths involved 5 British soldiers shot dead by an Afghan who they were apparently training as a Policeman.

With all the media pontificating about 'vetting procedures' and 'security', is there any analysis of the likely fact that this incident is a symptom of how the Afghans in general feel about our presence there? The BBC's report described the alleged attacker - an Afghan Policeman the British Forces were training, as an individual who had gone "Rogue". An odd description to make of an individual in his own country being trained as a collaborator of the occupation forces.

One thing must be made clear: occupying armies do not have any rights. They do not have the right to be safe from being killed by someone who they thought they had turned into a pet policeman to serve the interests of a US puppet government and they do not have the right to be called 'heroes'. They are paid enforcers for Imperialistic Aggression - there is nothing 'heroic' about our presence in Afghanistan.

The government and media would have us believe that the war we have started in this enormously ethnically diverse region is a black and white issue of good guys and bad guys: US/Nato Forces good, Taliban bad, Hamid Karzai and his armed forces & Police good, "al Qaeda" insurgents bad. The fact that we are propping up a puppet regime of some of the worst drug dealers and warlords in the region - every bit as unpleasant as the numerous factions of the Taliban - seems to be completely absent from media analysis, as is the salient fact that such a 'government' cannot possibly be described honestly as a 'democracy' - 'Dictatorship Lite" would be more appropriate.

The deaths themselves, and the subsequent funerals, all become the opposite of what they should be: a distorted, drawn out exercise in propaganda to further the war resulting in even more tragic deaths based on nothing but lies, instead of a motive for the media to honestly analyse this conflict and seek a withdrawal. The jingoistic baying for blood in the tabloid press will even further divide the population at home.

The idea that murdering Afghan tribesman and bombing villages, while trampling all over the rights and dignity of the indigenous people will reduce the threat of terrorism in the UK is absurd. The opposite is true. The longer we stay, the more the Afghan people will turn against us in body as well as in mind. It is no argument to say 'we need to stay to get the job done'. There is no 'job' - only the Hegemonic ambitions of the United States who seeks to control Central Asia and its important oil and gas reserves to fuel its continuing world power status and deny Russia and China those same resources.

Today, reports were coming in of the shooting dead of US soldiers in an army base on home soil by one Major Nidal Malik Hasan. What little has emerged indicates that this Muslim American of Middle Eastern origin, was suffering from racial abuse. Is it any wonder that such things happen when our soldiers are encouraged to dehumanise and kill muslims abroad? Is it any wonder that the victim of this abuse begins to see his 'fellow' soldiers as the enemy?

OrwellianUK