From CAPJO
Dear friends,
Immediately following this message you will find a call to demonstrate this Saturday 6 September against the sending of troops to Afghanistan. So many citizens have been appalled by the propagandistic lies that have been hammered away at us day after day concerning the “role” of NATO troops, supposedly to “defend our civilization, freedom, women”, all the while that NATO has been dumping bombs upon the civilian population and contributing to the destruction of a
country already decimated by numerous foreign invasions. The so-called “war on terrorism” is in fact contributing to nourishing and developing terror around the world.
When the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, declares (today on a French radio) : “Yes, this conflict in Afghanistan is going to last, because its reasons are very deep, they deal with the opposition between the muslim world and a large portion of the rest of the planet”, we do have to worry.
Beyond the 67% of French people who oppose the sending of French troops to Afghanistan (last poll), let us remind ourselves that it is a crime to organize and pay youngsters to go and kill people who have not done anything to us. As Naomi Klein highlights in her excellent book, The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism, all of these wars serve only to make money for the arms merchants and other companies which form part of the military-industrial complex. These “businesses” profit from the chaos that they have installed, for such chaos allows them to loot and pillage energy resources. These “businesses” are destroying countries so that they make money “reconstructing” them.
On 22 September the National Assembly is poised to declare the role of France in this war. It is urgent that our voice be heard. Those who defend the Palestinians against their terrible fate cannot accept occupations of Irak or Afghanistan, and even less so when such colonial pursuits are carried forth by an army paid to do this dirty work with our tax money.
CAPJPO-EuroPalestine is currently being sued by the military and is the object of various attacks for having seized the words of the officers and redefined them. They say “well-organized ambushes” by Afghan combatants and we say that without such actions by the Afghans, we would have never been aware of the deaths of hundreds of Afghan civilians.
It is distressing enough to repeatedly hear the Afghans presented as snipers and ambushers who go into hiding, when in fact they are doing what occupied peoples have done throughout history, defending themselves against the foreign invader that calls itself “civilized”. In this case the “civilized” armies courageously drop bombs from a safe altitude of 17,000 feet, bombs which more often than not fall upon civilians. But it is the ultimate hubris of our leaders to invert the roles; they are the ones who send youngsters to the war front, and say that “we must be ready for more losses”, as Kouchner declared. Yet, “we” are presented as if we were hideous and without a heart.
So we will say it and repeat it, if French soldiers do not want to die, they should leave Afghanistan immediately. They have no reason for being there.
Following next Saturday’s demonstration (which leaves from Place du Chatelet at 2:30pm), we invite you to come to a debate at Résistance Bookstore, where we will feature Eric Margolis, American war chronicler and Viktor Dedaj, independent journalist.
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