Steve Tobin, you say, "RAWA is not a monarchist organization. "Support" of Zahir Shah was limited to the role of a possible stepping stone to democracy."

Zahir Shah a stepping-stone for democracy? Like he was from 1947 to 1973 suppressing all political parties, free speech, and free press while carrying out ethnic cleansing against Tajiks and Hazaras?

No, not a stepping-stone for democracy, but he was seen as a possible stepping-stone for a U.S. puppet government. The Tajik and Hazara forces among the warring factions of the "Northern Alliance" Mujahideen that the U.S. just put in power made bringing back King Zahir Shah impossible, so U.S. imperialism backed down and put a relative of his in power instead.

U.S. imperialism started this war in Afghanistan in 1979, supporting the religious fanatics of the Mujahideen and their political offspring, the Taliban, to the tune of billions of dollars. Was it Soviet imperialism that tried to prevent these misogynist fanatical cutthroats of the CIA from seizing power right on their border? Was it wrong for them to send troops in to support a progressive government, advancing women’s rights and literacy, that invited the Soviets in to defend them from a CIA created and financed insurrection that included 100,000 foreign mercenaries?

Not everything the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan was right, but their biggest crime was pulling out. Pulling out not only left the people of Afghanistan to suffer under the Mujahideen and Taliban, it also played a role in the destruction of the Soviet Union itself. The destruction of the Soviet Union as a counter-balance to U.S. imperialism is the number one reason why the U.S. imperialists were able to move into Iraq.

The world was much safer when there was a Soviet Union. Today the U.S. occupation of Iraq slaughters civilians, censors the press, massacres demonstrators, denies elections, destroys women’s rights, and holds 10,000 to 20,000 Iraqis without charges all in a massive attempt to impose a puppet government and seize Iraqi resources for U.S. imperialist interests.

Meanwhile capitalist counter-revolution has drastically reduced the standard of living and life expectancy in the former Soviet Union and has also devastated Afghanistan.

Do I apologize for the Soviet Union? No, but I defend what they did right. Likewise I defend Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and China from U.S. imperialism and internal counter-revolution as part of defending the real gains those revolutions have made in overthrowing capitalism and advancing women’s rights.

In addition, I recognize that these revolutions are being misled by a dictatorial and privileged Stalinist bureaucracy that should be overthrown in a worker’s political revolution (not capitalist counter-revolution) that defends the gains of the revolution while opening the society up to worker’s democracy. That is why I supported the demands and goals of the Tianaman uprising.

Yet the difference between the Tianaman uprising of Chinese students and workers demanding democracy and opposing moves towards capitalism, as compared to the CIA organized, armed, and financed counter-revolution led by misogynist religious fanatics and fought by mercenaries in Afghanistan is very different.

U.S. imperialist hands off Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and China!

U.S. Out Of Afghanistan and Iraq!

No to the Undemocratic Loya Jirga!

No to the pro-capitalist religious fanatics of the Northern Alliance Mujahideen and the Taliban!

No to the U.S. puppet government of Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai!

No to ethnic cleanser King Zahir Shah!

For Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!


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