Build the movement to....

STOP THE WAR

THESE ATTACKS will not bring justice to the victims of the World Trade Center atrocity - neither will they destroy terrorism or the conditions which breed support for terrorism.

The streets of New York and London cannot be made safer by responding to terrorist attacks with the launch of war.

By Dave Nellist, Socialist Party councillor Coventry and Socialist Alliance National Chair

Innocent Afghan civilians have already been killed and many more face death, starvation and injury. People remember the Gulf War, when US cruise missiles hit a civilian refuge in Iraq, burning to death 300 Iraqis, most of them women and children. They also remember the war in Kosova, when 'smart' missiles missed their targets, killing fleeing refugees.

Bush and Blair say this is a 'humanitarian war' because they're dropping food as well as bombs. But their bombs - at $1 million each - have killed four Afghan workers employed by the UN on land mine clearance operations.

Aid workers agree that this is a propaganda exercise to try and shore up support for the war. More than seven million Afghans are threatened with starvation. These food drops are only a fraction of what is really needed.

There's talk of these attacks contributing to the bringing down of the Taliban government. If that happens and the Northern Alliance take control that will not bring democracy to Afghanistan.

In their three years of running Afghanistan, from 1992, those who now are in the Northern Alliance outlawed all opposition and swept aside democratic rights. Both the Taliban and Northern Alliance were funded, armed and trained by America, Britain and other countries in the 1980s.

Socialists would welcome the fall of the Taliban government but that is the job of the ordinary people of Afghanistan, not for the West to re-install either a discredited former king or help the Northern Alliance back into power on the basis of "my enemy's enemy is my friend".

Socialists throughout the country will be working hard to build a broad and inclusive anti-war movement. But ending support for terrorism requires ending the conditions which breed the methods of terrorism - global poverty, inequality and repression.

We need to fight for socialism world-wide. Join us now.

National anti-war demo

Saturday 13 October

Assemble 12 noon. Hyde Park,

central London.

March to rally in Trafalgar Square.

International Socialist Resistance

No to war!

Public Meeting

Tuesday 16 October,

7.30pm. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1.

nearest tube: Holborn

Donate to the Socialist Party

Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.