For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
communications@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is hosting a webinar at 7 p.m. ET to help raise the consciousness of the U.S. public on the contradictions surrounding U.S. President Joe Biden's recent announcement that he would pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11.
As we have stated in previous statements, the United States is violating an international peace agreement signed with the Taliban by not abiding by the May 1 deadline for a troop pullout. Further, the September 11 date once again is symbolically tied to the September 11 attacks that had nothing to do with Afghanistan.
The U.S. war is part of its 40-year-long attempt to prevent other global powers from rising—namely, China, Iran and Russia. Keeping the region destabilized may hinder China's Belt and Road Initiative. Encircling Iran by destabilizing countries around it is another reason for the United States to stay in Afghanistan. And keep the neighbor of former Soviet satellites in a flux would keep Russia on its toes. In fact, the United States used Afghanistan as a proxy battleground against the former Soviet Union during the 1980s when it aided and armed reactionary mujahideen forces who fought against the government of Afghanistan, which was then supported by the Soviet Union.
"U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is nothing new," says National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. "U.S. officials already have indicated their plans for staying in Afghanistan past September 11 via military personnel and mercenaries known as 'private contractors.'"
The United States also has indicated other ways it sees to keep an eye on the country and be in close range for missile strikes, as BAP has laid out in its latest fact sheet. All of these plans are yet another violation of the U.S.-Taliban agreement of 2020, which stipulates no military attacks or threats of attacks on Afghanistan.
"The United States long ago privatized the war in Afghanistan with a current 7-to-1 ratio between private contractors and U.S. military personnel," says Solidarity Network Coordinator Julie Varughese. "The conversations taking place out in the open make it clear this war now will be completely privatized."
BAP's Principles of Unity include the Right to Self-Defense, Self-Determination and Anti-Imperialism. It is based on these principles that we call on the U.S. public to demand the U.S. government completely end all involvement in Afghanistan.
For decades, the United States has used disingenuous humanitarian interventions and the Responsibility to Protect as reasons for invading and occupying country after country. BAP demands an end to this policy and an end to all U.S. wars, subversions and sanctions from Latin America to the borders of Russia to the African continent and the Indo-Pacific region.
We invite members of the public to register for a 7 p.m. ET webinar, #MayDayAfghanistan: Building a People's Movement to End U.S. Imperialism in Afghanistan and Around the World. BAP has chosen to draw the connection between May 1, International Workers' Day, and the troop pullout deadline for that same day. We call on the working masses of the world to rise up to demand true democracy, transparency and self-determination for the people of Afghanistan.
Banner photo: U.S. Marines board a transport aircraft headed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, as British and U.S. forces withdraw from a complex in Helmand province in 2014. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)