War, terror, recession, poverty…
Global Crisis: Fight for a socialist world
NOOR MOHAMMED, aged ten, lies fighting for his life in an ill-equipped Afghan hospital. Agham, the village where he lived in Eastern Afghanistan, was reduced to rubble at the weekend by US B52 bombers.
Lois Austin
Noor is covered in bloodstained bandages, he has been blinded in both eyes and has lost his right arm and left hand.
A second village, Kama Ado, where the US authorities still try to claim “nothing happened” was also bombed. There are 40 fresh graves and the houses have been reduced to craters cut deep into the ground. It is estimated that as many as 115 men, women and children were killed. In total three villages were attacked by US warplanes at the weekend, killing hundreds.
These are the latest casualties in Tony Blair and George Bush’s war which was supposedly meant to “civilise” the world. A war where the killing of innocents is frequent, as the US administration becomes more frantic to fulfil its spurious war aims and tries to sell this war to people in the West.
It’s also a war where prisoners, who should be protected under the Geneva Convention, have been tortured, fire-bombed and massacred by their Northern Alliance and CIA captors.
Bush and Blair’s war aims are not limited to their murderous campaign in Afghanistan. US military officials are currently discussing extending the war to Iraq, Somalia and other poor countries.
This war won’t end terrorism, nor will it bring justice for the victims of the terrible attacks in the US on 11 September. On the contrary, it will intensify hatred for US and British imperialism and increase terrorism and the likelihood of new conflicts.
Capitalism causes war, poverty and terrorism. The economic crisis that now threatens to engulf every nation will further destabilise the world in which we live.
The collapse of America’s seventh biggest conglomerate, Enron, shows the problems facing the world’s largest economy.
Argentina’s financial system is also at melting point. The savings of thousands of ordinary people could be wiped out. Unemployment stands at an all time high.
Violence is escalating in Israel/Palestine, with the possibility of all-out war. If this is the new better world promised by Tony Blair at the start of the war on Afghanistan, then we can do without it. The Socialist Party is fighting for a world free from war, terror, poverty and economic crisis.
We must end this society run in the interests of a small ruling elite and a few hundred big multinationals. Socialism means planning the resources of the world for the needs of the many. Join us in this struggle.
