Afgan Villagers Kill Taliban Fighters.

[Spear Of Sankara]

Four Taliban militants were killed as locals clashed with militants loyal to the fundamentalist outfit in Bilcheragh district of Faryab province in north Afghanistan on Saturday, police said.

"A group of Taliban rebels attempted to enter Qurchi village in Bilcheragh district this morning, but the locals resisted and after three hours of firefight, four insurgents were left dead, forcing the intruders to flee," deputy to provincial police chief Mohammad Afzal Imamzada told Xinhua.

Three villagers were injured in the firefight, he further said. This is the first time that locals resisted Taliban insurgents and forced them to retreat. Taliban militants who have vowed to intensify their activities this year in Afghanistan have been forcing men to sport beard and confine women and girls to their houses.

So Who do you support, these villagers who fight fuedal zealots, but support the invasion, or the resistance made up of religeous extremists?

I support the villagers, capitalism over fuedalism anyday.

[Ravachol]

Four Taliban militants were killed as locals clashed with militants loyal to the fundamentalist outfit in Bilcheragh district of Faryab province in north Afghanistan on Saturday, police said.

"A group of Taliban rebels attempted to enter Qurchi village in Bilcheragh district this morning, but the locals resisted and after three hours of firefight, four insurgents were left dead, forcing the intruders to flee," deputy to provincial police chief Mohammad Afzal Imamzada told Xinhua.

Three villagers were injured in the firefight, he further said. This is the first time that locals resisted Taliban insurgents and forced them to retreat. Taliban militants who have vowed to intensify their activities this year in Afghanistan have been forcing men to sport beard and confine women and girls to their houses.

So Who do you support, these villagers who fight fuedal zealots, but support the invasion, or the resistance made up of religeous extremists?

I support the villagers, capitalism over fuedalism anyday.

I don't think the villagers can be classified as 'Capitalists', they're just people resisting invading religious rebels.

Also, the Taliban is far from Feudalist. Whilst their social model is a revival of feudalist social relations, they're just as Capitalist as any other force in the region. Their social system is a combination of ultra-strict Sharia (with a Wahhabist tint) and Pashtun tribal practices.



[Sharia law] recognizes private and community property, as well as overlapping forms of entitlement for charitable purposes, known as waqf or trusts. Under Sharia law, however, ownership of all property ultimately rests with God; while individual property rights are upheld, there is a corresponding obligation to share, particularly with those in need.


So in the best case, they want something simliar to social democracy and slight redistribution of wealth according to the whims of 'God' (ie. the religious authorities) and in the worst case it's just going to be plain ol' capitalism with ultra-conservative social morals.

Choosing 'a side' here is nonsense, I, for one, am with the afghan working class. Simply because their self-organs are nearly non-existing and class consciousness is very low doesn't mean we have to root for reactionary forces to side with.

[Spear Of Sankara]

But the Taliban advocate stoning women for cheating on their husbands, where as the pro Government villagers want a capitalistic democracy, they do not embrace cutting off womens heads, or raping 8 year old girls, then forcing them to stay in the house, not have education.

They do not want to force all men to have beards, or believe in Allah, they want peace.

The taliban are semi fuedal, they are a mix of free market, fuedalist, theologans.

I would support them being overthrown by the afgan people, and the next stage, ie capitalism, being installed, then after the people experience true capitalism, they would after time be ready for socialism.

But I Cannot bring myself to support the pro pupet gov villagers or the Taliban.

Its too much like picking the evil of two lessers.

Also, many normal people join the taliban just to remove the occupation, not because of religeous extremism.

[danyboy27]

the people of course.

[Spear Of Sankara]

But the people are not fighting, we have to be realistic about the situation.

I mean i wish there were marxists knocking back the occupation and the Taliban, but there is not, there is reactionary pro puppet government locals, the occupation forces, and the Taliban

Noneof them want socialism, none want a working class revolution.

So realisticly, without compromising, what should we do

Support none?

What about supporting anyone who fights the occupation, saying it is their right to fight a foreign invasion, but denouncing them as reactionary dogs?

[Ravachol]

But the Taliban advocate stoning women for cheating on their husbands, where as the pro Government villagers want a capitalistic democracy, they do not embrace cutting off womens heads, or raping 8 year old girls, then forcing them to stay in the house, not have education.


While I despise the Taliban and they adhere to some despicable gruesome practices, they aren't the hordes of Mordor raping and torturing innocent 8 year olds for 'teh lulz' all day long. The occupation forces (including the Northern Alliance) have commited a fair share of attrocities as well.



They do not want to force all men to have beards, or believe in Allah, they want peace.


Are you shitting me? They don't force people to 'believe in Allah', they force them under the yoke of Capitalism and being a NATO puppet state in The New Great Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game).

Also, there is no 'peace' under Capitalism, only compliance with the blows that are dealt to us each day. There is a constant, instrinsic violence inherent to Capital's logic and operations.



The taliban are semi fuedal, they are a mix of free market, fuedalist, theologans.


Their economic practices will be solidly capitalist. For feudalism to exist, this would require a completely different economic model than Afghanistan has today. Private ownership of the means of production of various factories, which is the case in Afghanistan (and most likely will be the case in Taliban-controlled areas) is not Feudalism at all, it's plain old Capitalism.



Its too much like picking the evil of two lessers.


Indeed, hence why I'd pick neither side and opt for the Afghan working class instead.

[Spear Of Sankara]

Again, the working class is not standing up as one and fighting for freedom and socialism, so your answer iS fantasy.

If we support no one the war will continue and the people of afghanistan will continue dying.

This type of thing is why the left is so impotent, we look at things in the big picture way, even if it results in millions of dead people, just saying, wait fore the working classs to rise up is stupid, as there is no marxist presence in Afghanistan, the working class is also small, with most being peasant farmers who rely on selling poppy.

[Ravachol]

Again, the working class is not standing up as one and fighting for freedom and socialism, so your answer iS fantasy.


Does that mean we suddenly have to support a reactionary force? It isn't like our moralist lip-services are going to change anything about the situation so we might as well be consistent and argue for a class-based approach to the situation.



If we support no one the war will continue


And if a few leftist are going to support the Taliban the occupation will suddenly stop? Or if we support the occupation, the Taliban will suddenly be crushed? The best thing we can do is not make fools out of ourselves and mix up class-politics with mindless anti-impie (the Dutch/German term, not general Anti-Imperialists mind you!) positions supporting the Taliban or weird Platypus positions supporting the invasion.




This type of thing is why the left is so impotent, we look at things in the big picture way, even if it results in millions of dead people


Whatever way we 'look' at it, we are not going to change SHIT unless the Afghan working class organises along class lines and builds it's own alternative so we might as well choose that option all along.



just saying, wait fore the working classs to rise up


Who says we have to 'wait'. I, for one, cannot do anything about the situation in Afghanistan but oppose participation in the occupation here and prevent 'leftists' from paying lip-services to the Taliban. But there might be comrades with connections and a foot-hold in Afghanistan who are actually capable of organising alongside the Afghan working class (which is pretty small though).



with most being peasant farmers who rely on selling poppy.

Most of those 'peasant farmers' are peasant-proletarians who do not own their land and are just agrarian laborers. That being said, the Afghan working class isn't that big but that doesn't mean we suddenly have to start abandoning working-class politics in some cross-class front fashion.

[Spear Of Sankara]

So is the situation hopeless then, seeing as there is no class conciousnes and no workers movements, is the working class/ peasantry of Afghanistan doomed to war, if only the USA had not of funded the Mujahadeen to carry out a guerrilla war against the Revolutionary government of Afghanistan, who in turn asked the soviets to prop them up, who agreed reluctantly, then the Mujahadeen and the Soviet and Afghan forces fought a battle of attrition, ending with the Government falling and the USSR retreating.

Now master and apprentice are facing off in some twisted reverse of happening.

[BeerShaman]

I support the villagers. Either by prefering capitalism or not, what these villagers want is their autonomy, their land and their freedom. And as most often, I support the villagers.
Another reason is that they are peasants and workers, thus the low class mostly. At least more proletarians than what those talibans are.
I wish talibans were anarchists!:mellow:

[Spear Of Sankara]

The only good thing the taliban did was to outlaw bacha bazi, the raping and owning of boys for use as sex slaves.

Since the Taliban were diposed, Bacha Bazi is becoming worryingly significant again

[Spirit of Spartacus]

I think some comrades are engaging in what we in Pakistan like to call "hawai fire", i.e. shooting into the air pointlessly, not knowing what you're aiming at or why.

Ravachol is correct in pointing out that this is not a fight between "capitalist" villagers and "feudal" Taliban. The very thought of using such categories when dealing with the Afghan conflict is ridiculous.

You have to understand that the Taliban, despite their role in fighting the NATO occupation, are not unified in any way. They are not the Vietcong, with a clear command structure and an explicit agenda of national liberation.

Afghan society, in particular, Pashtun communities, are inherently difficult to control, even for a force like the Taliban. Many villagers would tend to see the Taliban as imposing themselves, just as they see the NATO occupation or the Karzai puppet regime as imposing themselves.

The Taliban initially consolidated their control in Afghanistan in the 90s with a lot of help from the Pakistani military and its intelligence agencies, particularly the ISI. This time around, they cannot establish their control without significant local dissent.

Sometimes, that local dissent can be expressed in this way: the elders of a village refusing to comply with Taliban demands, and armed villagers resisting them.

While of course the conflict is a tragedy, its not a bad thing for these villagers to resist the Taliban. They are not doing this because they support "capitalism" and the Taliban support "feudalism".

They just reject the authority and the demands of the Taliban. As simple as that. When Afghan people reject an authority and it tries to impose itself on them, the response is often through bullets. That's how its been for ages.

[Spear Of Sankara]

No, this particular example i brought up was pro NATO villagers, who after they killed the Taliban,went to get a Special forces unit from an American base to show them.

Alot of Afghans seem to be quite supportive of the Occupation forces and the Karzai Regime.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

No, this particular example i brought up was pro NATO villagers, who after they killed the Taliban,went to get a Special forces unit from an American base to show them.

Alot of Afghans seem to be quite supportive of the Occupation forces and the Karzai Regime.

And you think that's a good thing?

[Spear Of Sankara]

Well there is no fucking good situation

I do not support the occupation, i decry it as a genocidal mass murdering hegemonic expansion mission

I fucking loathe the Taliban, i hate all religeous zealots, they are oppressive murdering Thugs.

I denounce the warlords as drug dealing meglomaniacs who force women into Tribal wear, rape boys in Bacha Bazi, are now in government, ie the northern alliance Karzai regime.

But i do not want to become an obscure left communist who does not have his head in reality.

If we support no one and denounce all, then the conditions cannot get better for the people of Afghanistan

Unless socialist cadres are sent into Afghanistan in support of locals against both the Taliban and NATO.

But people on here would think it racist for non Afghans to dare help the Afghan working class and peasantry :(

[Spirit of Spartacus]

I'm not saying we should denounce all.

There are good comrades in Afghanistan, many of them, and they are still active, and they operate in conditions of great difficulty.

While your desire to "help" the Afghans is admirable, you have to be concrete about it. If you live in a First-world country, particularly one which is part of NATO, your first task is to mobilize against the imperialist war and occupation.

Take the anti-war agenda to trade unions and student organizations. Fight for space in the media, even though it is corporate-controlled and inherently racist. Use every means of propaganda and struggle available to you.

If you have some vague vision of "sending socialist cadres" to Afghanistan, its pointless at the moment, for two reasons:

a) there are already socialist cadres in Afghanistan, who understand the concrete social conditions there better than you or me, and are well-versed in Afghan culture. They can organize better over there.

b) simply packing a bag and going off to Afghanistan will not be of much use to you.

If you really want to go work in Afghanistan as a cadre, you will have to do a lot of things. You'll have to give up your life as it is currently, you'll have to move there, live for at least a decade, understand the local culture and so on, ensure that you are not seen as an outsider, etc. That is how a socialist cadre works. But even then, it is debatable whether you would be more useful to our cause there.

You should study Afghanistan, its history, its culture, its political economy. You should write about that, make contributions to our understanding of Afghanistan, get in touch with Afghan comrades, work for the anti-war movement in your country, campaign for NATO troops to pull out, carry out propaganda on behalf of your Afghan comrades, support their organizations in terms of money and media coverage, etc.

[Spear Of Sankara]

I am learning Pashto, and yes i would hapily go to Afghanistan and fight, but it is impossible to get there, You cannot just jump on a plane to Afghanistan at present.

Also, there are no Socialist organisations i know of that take foreign recruits, so it is slim that one could go and fight.

Also, there is no point in the stop the war movement, we had 5 million people throughout europe and America come out and demonstrate against the wars, but it did not do shit, i am not going to waste my time with bougeois parlimentary pipe dreams.

wether we like to admit it,in these times, power does come from the barrel of a gun.

[Raúl Duke]

Again, the working class is not standing up as one and fighting for freedom and socialism, so your answer iS fantasy.

If we support no one the war will continue and the people of afghanistan will continue dying.

This type of thing is why the left is so impotent, we look at things in the big picture way, even if it results in millions of dead people, just saying, wait fore the working classs to rise up is stupid, as there is no marxist presence in Afghanistan, the working class is also small, with most being peasant farmers who rely on selling poppy.

While it may be a fantasy and absurd to think the working class is rising up today in Afghanistan...

What's also ridiculous is that even if you pick a side, what does it mean at all? I mean, you can't really help anybody there, you can't give them actual support (nor, most likely, are you willing to give the taliban, etc any aid even if you could) , so picking/declaring a side out of 2 reactionary choices concerning Afghanistan/Iraq means nothing really and frankly seems more absurd than the "left-communist" position.

[Spear Of Sankara]

Like i say, sending marxist guerrillas from around the world would be the only way to help.

People might say its chauvanist to like us leading the masses of Afghan like some wise leaders etc etc, but this is not how it would be.

Cadres could keep the Taliban and the Nato off the peoples backs, of course the cadres would need to build up recruits from the locals, but when people see your fighting for them, not for pipelines or to impose religeous authoritarian regimes on them, they tend to support you, no?

Marxists have no nation, so whats the problem with fighting in one you were not born in?

[Dimentio]

Four Taliban militants were killed as locals clashed with militants loyal to the fundamentalist outfit in Bilcheragh district of Faryab province in north Afghanistan on Saturday, police said.

"A group of Taliban rebels attempted to enter Qurchi village in Bilcheragh district this morning, but the locals resisted and after three hours of firefight, four insurgents were left dead, forcing the intruders to flee," deputy to provincial police chief Mohammad Afzal Imamzada told Xinhua.

Three villagers were injured in the firefight, he further said. This is the first time that locals resisted Taliban insurgents and forced them to retreat. Taliban militants who have vowed to intensify their activities this year in Afghanistan have been forcing men to sport beard and confine women and girls to their houses.

So Who do you support, these villagers who fight fuedal zealots, but support the invasion, or the resistance made up of religeous extremists?

I support the villagers, capitalism over fuedalism anyday.

I doubt the villagers support the invasion. If the situation was different, they would have attacked the Afghan police or a neutral or pro-US warlord. The Afghan War on the ground is not about ideology, not even such crude ones as nationalism or national independence, but rather about money and local influence.

[Spear Of Sankara]

Again they went to a US base to show what they done and meet with the Army spec forces etc.

If that aint pro NATO what is.

Also, the Local militia groups were set up by the just sacked general, and are pro NATO, this one was not set up by the US, but they support the US

[Raúl Duke]

Like i say, sending marxist guerrillas from around the world would be the only way to help.

People might say its chauvanist to like us leading the masses of Afghan like some wise leaders etc etc, but this is not how it would be.

Cadres could keep the Taliban and the Nato off the peoples backs, of course the cadres would need to build up recruits from the locals, but when people see your fighting for them, not for pipelines or to impose religeous authoritarian regimes on them, they tend to support you, no?

Marxists have no nation, so whats the problem with fighting in one you were not born in?


People might say its chauvanist to like us leading the masses of Afghan like some wise leaders etc etc, but this is not how it would be.

Even if our intentions were good, I fear it may end up just like that.


cadres would need to build up recruits from the locals, but when people see your fighting for them, not for pipelines or to impose religeous authoritarian regimes on them, they tend to support you, no?

Yes and no.

This idea reminds me of Che Guevara's ideas and far as I know, he failed in the Congo and in Bolivia.

It's not as easy as it sounds, the enemy could do things such as raze a village and kill civilians which aid us in anyway so to create a sense of distrust towards us.

There's also logistics, like weapons, supplies, intel, translators, etc that we don't have.

[Spear Of Sankara]

The cadres would be made up of marxists fromall around the globe, the cadres would beg borrow and steal weapons, groups like farc, INLA, Shining path could provide training and possibly arms to us.

Guns would be expropriated from gun shops, and when the cadres were in afghanistan they could levy a very small tax on the peasants poppy crop, and find ways to raise funds.

Communications would have to be BC radio like the EZLN use.

A sleeper cell system would be good, when one cell goes to sleep, another activates, this means 24/7 resistance can be kept up without fatigue setting in.

5 man cells would be put together, with one commander in the cell, who has contact with the commander of another cell, so no one person can give up all the cells.

Che had very poor outdated tactics, which were about as usefull as a handgun at 300 feet.

Medical units and other special units like sniper units would be very usefull, as casualties would be high,and need for long range targeting and recon for ground cadres is high

[Devrim]

But i do not want to become an obscure left communist who does not have his head in reality.

If we support no one and denounce all, then the conditions cannot get better for the people of Afghanistan.

I don't think 'conditions will get better for the people of Afghanistan' if we take an abstract position of supporting one side or the other either.

Devrim

[Scary Monster]

Dont forget, y'all- The Afghan government is made up of warlords that the US put into place themselves, and the Taliban is in power only because of the US' funding, when they were fighting as the Mujahideen against the soviets and the popular government in the 80s and early 90s. So, i think its common sense to fight against anything the US is behind.

The Afghan people have two enemies- the US puppets and the Taliban (who never had popular support, thus would never have gained power if it werent for the total backing of the US) who are both fighting each other. So things just look completely dire for the Afghan people, who do not have any support from anyone. Put simply, the only way, that i see, for the Afghans to be closer toward (another) socialist movement is to temporarily join forces with the Taliban to gain sovereignty from the dirty western militaries, and then proceed to "purge" the Taliban. I think a real proletarian movement would be nearly impossible (or at least take a few decades) if the powerful western governments were allowed to have total control of Afghanistan.