December 2009
Imperialist Chief Obama: Deeper Into the Quagmire
U.S. troops on patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, February 2009. (Photo: Reuters)
Break with the Democrats – For Workers Strikes Against the War!
On December 1, President Barack Obama officially announced a massive escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan. The 30,000 troops to be dispatched will bring U.S. forces in the country to 100,000, tripling the number of American military personnel there since Obama took office last January. Add in 36,000 NATO and other “coalition” troops and more than 100,000 “contractors” employed by the U.S. Beyond the sheer numbers, this move marks a decision by Washington to continue the colonial occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely, and with it the bloody slaughter of the Afghan people. Obama’s claim that he would “begin the transfer” of U.S. forces by mid-2011 was just sucker bait for gullible liberals, and a useless “signal” to the terminally corrupt and ineffectual Afghan puppet government. Key was his vow a couple of days earlier that he would “finish the job” in Afghanistan. Since the feckless Afghan “army” will not be battle-ready any time soon, if ever, what this means is that the U.S. will be bogged down in an Afghan quagmire, the dreaded “Q-word” that the bourgeois media didn’t dare utter.