 Well, good morning and welcome everyone also welcome those who are following from the from the live stream and The title of this session is 20 years of imperialist meddling in Afghanistan But I think that I will have to deal with a bit more of the history of Afghanistan Which I think it's necessary In order to understand what's happened what's happening now and what's happened over the last 20 years Now I wanted to start with a quote Just to warm the meeting up a bit just to see if anyone knows who said the following The likelihood there's going to be Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools. Let me emphasize all the tools training and equipment of any modern military Joe Biden yes price for the comrade at the front But not only Joe Biden said this very categorically let me emphasize these all the tools He said this one month One month four weeks before the Taliban took over Kabul and ended this This particular defeat of US imperialism. He also said that is not going to be a situation Where civilians are going to be evacuated with helicopters From the roof of the US embassy as in Saigon and this is exactly what happened on on the on the 15th of august so much For the most powerful imperialist power on earth, which the united states is still is But nevertheless, there's no way Of there's no other way of describing this than a major defeat for us imperialism a major defeat Which has very wide-ranging consequences will will have He's a quote from an American US newspaper I think it's from the the Atlantic and they describe the cost of the war Obviously, they put the cost of the war from the perspective of the United States But it's interesting what they what they say it says in the 20 years since September 11th 2001 the United States has spent more than two trillion on the war in Afghanistan Other estimates are higher than that three trillion some some people say that's 300 million dollars per day every day for two decades or $50,000 for each of Afghanistan's 40 million people Imagine this just just to put it into into perspective There have been two thousand five hundred us military deaths in Afghanistan and nearly four thousand more of us civilian contractors I this war has been conducted largely by us civilian contractors. I mercenary organizations Which have played a major role in every us war in the in the law in the recent period That pales beside the estimated 69,000 Afghan military and police killed 47 civilians killed plus 51,000 dead opposition fighters But obviously that opposition fighters can mean anything can mean also civilians killed in in indiscriminate bombing of villages valleys and Towns and this is obviously just from the US perspective as as Mike Hogan said Probably the figure is much higher of people who died in the last 20 years 250,000 Is one figure that's been that's been given and all of these this is the point that this American The US newspaper is making all of this for what for nothing. They haven't achieved any of their war aims They have left the country defeated Admittedly isn't it's not a direct Military defeat in a direct military confrontation, but that never happens in in a country like Afghanistan Which is known by by some authors Described it as the graveyard of empires So there's a long tradition of this in in in Afghanistan If there is one thing that the Afghan people will not tolerate is a foreign invader or a puppet government regime or a foreign Invader now, of course, we have to say that The this is a major defeat for you as imperialism, but it's also a victory for the Taliban, which is an extremely reactionary Force which we we have no sympathies for but you need to try to understand why Why and how? Such a thing has happened and and the reason is clear that the regime that was imposed by US military invasion 20 years ago was it was a regime based on foreign domination about eighty percent of the state budget was in foreign aid a Regime that was extremely corrupt as we've seen That the Afghan army was supposed to have was it three hundred thousand troops where where where these troops in the final offensive of the Taliban they all melted all these generals and Army officers made deals with the Taliban went over with all their equipment and their soldiers The the army completely melted in fact this army was only in place because of of Corruption because they were being paid large amounts of money to pretend They had an army and a police the whole the whole system worked in this way and did not benefit ordinary Working people peasants the women and and the children of Afghanistan one single one single Iota and and only this this regime was also based on Years decades of aerial bombardment at the beginning with b-52s from great height Which completely is completely indiscriminate Not only this but then later on it was based on drone strikes from the comfort of someone's computer room this this Machines of war were being flown over villages in Afghanistan killing everyone Bombing weddings And this happened right until the end if you if you remember One of the last US Strikes in Afghanistan killed a whole family of ten people including children women men Everyone was in that house who had nothing to do with with anything It supposedly in an attempt to take out some ISIS Fighters which which weren't there and this is the character of this regime and this explains why this regime fell Without any resistance without anyone wanting to risk their lives to defend this this regime the minute the United States announced Time table for withdrawal this regime was finished and the Taliban started advancing throughout the country the regime completely Melted of course the high-ranking officials of this regime the president the ministers the generals they all went into safe Uncomfortable exiles some of them to the Gulf states some others to Tajikistan Pakistan neighboring Countries and some others they just went over to the to the Taliban One of the ministers became the head of the one of the ministers of this US puppet regime of Afghani went over and became the head of police the head of police for Kabul for the Taliban. So, I mean this is completely Farsical and this is the reason why this regime fell without anyone in In Afghanistan and people in Afghanistan know who the Taliban are they were in power for a period of time in the 1990s for about five or six years and They know how reactionary they are they know the consequences of their victory But no one was prepared to fight for this regime that was there was falling And this is quite significant. I would say but as I said Before in order to understand Afghanistan today the situation that's developed in the last 20 years It's necessary to look at the history of of Afghanistan and also at the geography of Afghanistan which plays a crucial role in In politics Afghanistan is now is now presented as a as a extremely backward country of Religious fanatics and there are religious fanatics in Afghanistan. There's no no doubt, but Afghanistan has another site great civilizations emerged from that region and Afghanistan also Has a proud communist tradition, which I will describe in a minute is not all black reaction and and backward the tribes though this also exists Afghanistan Has the the misfortune if you want to call it like that of being in a very important geostrategic area, which is which is the the door or the passageway between Central Asia and and South Asia and This means that over the centuries many different civilizations have passed Have conquered Afghanistan for short periods of time they've been kicked out and some of them have settled and this has created a country Which is a patchwork of different? nationalities different languages in the in the north and in the east there are Turkmen's Uzbeks Tajiks, which are related to neighboring countries in the south and the West There's mainly the the the push tunes who also Live in over the border in in Pakistan This is a completely artificial border created by British imperialism over the Durand line Which divides one people the push the Pashtun people in two different countries and which has created enormous Is at the back the background of many of these? conflicts There are also different languages the main language of the Administration and the cultured layers is Dari or Farsi, which is the same language as in Iran or very close to the Iranian main language in Iran But then there is also Pashtun, which is spoken by large parts of the population particularly in the south and in the and in the West particularly the poor sections of of society the most oppressed Layers and on top of this there is also the Sunni Shia Division, which also plays a part in Afghanistan with the hasara Shia which are closely linked to Iran in a minority and being subject to ethnic cleansing by all sorts of regimes by the regime That was in power up until now by the Taliban over over many years and so this this is the The makeup of Afghanistan, which plays an important role in its in its politics on top of this Afghanistan is an extremely mountainous Country with lots of small closed off valleys, which are therefore very easy to to defend very difficult to to conquer there are the whole Mountain ranges the Hindu Kush the Pamir mountains in in the border with China and and so on and for most of the 20th century for most of the 19th century Sorry, Afghanistan was a buffer state between the Russian Empire and the British and the British Empire and and he was Dominated by one or the other a different a different times But it served as a contention a buffer zone between the two Between the two empires and the British fought three Afghan wars Trying to completely dominate this country and they failed three times Engels wrote about that in some interesting Writings as we know Engels was very interested in in military affairs and military history and he wrote about these three three wars Which the British lost By the beginning of the 19th century some interesting developments took place this whole region was The site of revolutions. There was a constitutional revolution in Iran. There was the 1905 Revolution in Russia and then the 1917 revolution in Russia But there was also a lot of nationalist ferment in the whole area of Central Asia in Iran in Russia itself in Turkey It's also plays a role in in Afghanistan. There was there was the young Turks movement of Kemal Ataturk nationalist movement trying to modernize these countries trying to bring these countries from Backwardness into modernization establishing written languages Creating universities and this had also an impact in Afghanistan But in a very distorted way in a country where there was at that time no capitalist class to speak of It was extremely backward country. It was the king Modernizing King King a manula who declared independence taking advantage of the Russian revolution in 1919 It was inspired as I said by the Russian Revolution and the young Turks movement in in In Turkey and he tried to play Russia against Britain and introduce a whole series of Progressive reforms including a constitution He was then overthrown by reactionary forces backed by Britain and here we see a pattern Every time homegrown forces have tried to modernize the country introduce progressive reforms Even basic democrat democratic reforms a constitution Rights for women and so on they've been overthrown by reactionary forces Which have always been backed by imperialist powers throughout the 20th century. You go a bit further in 1965 we see the founding of the people's Democratic Party of Afghanistan the communist party but this party Unfortunately was dominated by Stalinist ideas. They basically said that there were no conditions for socialism in in Afghanistan and therefore Afghani is socialist or communist they had to support Progressive forces they had to unite and this is a quote from the founding state and they had to unite the workers The peasants and the progressive bourgeoisie, but the problem is that in in Afghanistan There wasn't any progressive bourgeoisie. There was barely a bourgeoisie to speak often. So this Wrong strategy was to then mark a whole series of of defeats for the communist movement in Afghanistan in 1967 and this is interesting This is important. It will have consequences that the the communist party the PDPA is split into several factions There were quite a lot of them and and some of these factions Were based on tribal allegiances or national Allegiances, but there were there were also some political elements involved in it. The two main factions was the Hulk faction a the masses faction after the name of their paper which was led by two Leading figures Nur Muhammad Tariq Tariq and Hafizullah Amin Amin and Tariq I were to become the main leaders of the Hulk faction of the Communist Party and the Hulk faction was based in the poor layers of Society mainly amongst the push to in the south and in the west And he was a more radical faction of the of the communist party. They were they were very impatient They wanted to take over and they refused collaboration with with any any other Forces meanwhile the par-cham faction led by Babrak Karmal Was based mainly in the urban areas amongst the Darii speaking and to a certain extent amongst the northern National groups Uzbek stagics and so on. It was a more moderate Faction Karmal himself came from the ruling class. He was the son of a very wealthy Person, but this is not unusual in a country like Afghanistan extremely backward Country elements of the intelligentsia even the state apparatus and even the ruling class can be attracted to Communist ideas very radical ideas by the fact that they can see the power poverty the suffering of the of the people And also at the same time the Soviet Union was a model for for them I mean this is a Central Asia is a region that has many close links with Afghanistan and this the Russian Revolution had developed these regions out of backwardness into developed industrial countries with Universities and so on also for certain reasons either reason of this This attempt the fact that Afghanistan is between Russia and the British Empire for most of the 20th century the educated layers in Afghanistan went many of them went to universities in Moscow in in Russia or in Central Asia in Tashkent and all the places the the king in the mid 20th century Was was an ally of of Russia for a very long period of time and they had military Eight and many military officers in the in the Afghan army were trained and educated in military academies in the Soviet Union And this had an impact for many of these military officers Of course the Soviet Union was a model Soviet Union was a Stalinist country where there was no workers democracy of any kind But nevertheless from the point of view of Afghan military officers who wanted to bring the country out of backwardness It was a model to to to follow also of course This is another interesting detail in the Soviet Union military officers the high-ranking echelons of the bureaucracy had lots of privileges that that also that was also something that military officers in in Afghanistan thought it was a good thing to emulate So many of them joined communist underground organizations within the army There were a whole number of networks some link to the Hulk faction some Lee some link to the other Partcham faction in 1973 There was a coup Against the king and this is also very peculiar the coup was carried out by the king's cousin I another person from the ruling From from the royal family who then the wood who then proceeded to declare a republic So you see a prince who declares a republic He was also some somewhat a progressive ruler who wanted to bring the country out of backwardness he declared a new constitution introduced rights for women Parliament and so on and He was backed by the part some faction of the communist party the part some said This is the representative of the progressive bourgeois they made an alliance and about half of the ministers in this government We are members of the part some communist Party but very soon That would show this true colors. He was there not not for communism or not for any progressive reforms He was there for himself to advance his own Interests and he started relying on Pashtun nationalism started agitating Around the idea of Pashtunistan, which obviously upset the the Pakistani ruling class which at that time was was a military dictatorship backed by the United States and so from the very beginning there was An insurgency reactionary Islamic fundamentalist insurgency backed by Pakistan and the CIA Against this so-called progressive Government even though two years into his government 1975 He completely changed tact. He arrested he removed all the communist ministers from his government arrested the communist party Leaders and proceeded with repression against the communist Movement, which is not a new thing this happened time and again in in colonial and former colonial Countries where communist parties followed this two-stage theory first we support the national bourgeois and then we can fight for socialism later on and what usually happens is first they support the national bourgeois There's a big communist parties in Iraq in Sudan able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of workers and poor peasants They brought these regimes into power and the first thing these regimes did military regimes in the main Progressive army officers was to turn against the communist party because the communist party had an independent base of support and was a threat Potential threat to these rulers this happened in in Iraq Happened in Sudan two or three times and it also happened in Afghanistan, of course but this this then provoked a different a different configuration As the would move to suppress the PDPA Both wings then the PDPA unified and the under pressure from the Indian Communist Party and Communist Party of the Soviet Union they unified again. It was a united party. Do the factions remain 1977 the party was becoming stronger and then in 1978 in April the The wood regime moved against the communists again arrested the main leaders of both Factions and this was the the they killed one of the main leaders of the communist party a man by the name of Mir and He and then this was the trigger for mass demonstrations against the regime and a military Cool on the 27th of April 1970 1978 The the communist factions within the army organized takeover of Power and this is the sour revolution the spring revolution that brought the PDPA To power this I mean I don't have time to go into all the details of the sour revolution But this was quite a sight columns of tanks led by communist inspired generals Entering the presidential palace and removing and removing the wood from from office This this was and this is another interesting point important point This was carried out mainly by the Hulk faction and the Soviet Union knew nothing about this This was not a you a Soviet Union inspired cool as as the West then claim it was a homegrown movement out of triggered by the repression of the doubt regime and The Hulk faction had not informed the the Soviet Union. They were the Soviet agents key KGB agents There was Soviet Embassy in Kabul. They knew nothing. In fact, they had been advising the communist party to collaborate with Daout to moderate their language and their demands and not to implement any socialist measures They said Afghanistan is not ready for socialism, which we're going to discuss in a minute But they said Afghanistan is not ready for socialism. Therefore, you have to support Daout did this was the policy of the Soviet Union So this is an important point the Soviet Union had nothing to do with this revolution Which took the form of a military of a military cool The sour revolution immediately Took a whole series of progressive measures. They for instance abolished The dowry and and the sale of women into marriage, which was a very important Change they abolished all debts of the poor peasants to the landlords They started and this was an also another very important Part of their program because most of the poor peasants were bonded to the semi-fueled landlords through debts debts for the crops for showing and so on they they applied They implemented a literacy campaign and And so on so this was an extremely a program of extremely progressive measures in what was in reality a very Backward country. You have to think that in 1978 Afghanistan had 15 million inhabitants in a massive territory This is a big country But only 15 percent lived in cities So the majority the overwhelming majority of the population was rural Ten percent when nomads so they were not even settled. They were nomad herders Crossing over state lines as they wished and 90 percent 95 percent of the population were illiterate So this is the the scale of the task that they faced that they faced Now there is a debate to be had so some people say that The PDPA in power went too far and too quick in there in their reforms And this this alienated the overwhelmingly rural population which was then under the Spell under the the influence of reactionary Muslim Cletics and and this was the reason why there was an insurgency against them And they and they lost control and they were based mainly in in small pockets in the cities There is a certain element of truth in that I mean even if a Genuine communist Organization based on the ideas of Marxism had taken power in Afghanistan the situation will have been extremely Complicated extremely extremely difficult and they did make some mistakes. I will say the main mistake. They did was that they took on They took on religion head-on in a country like Afghanistan. You cannot do that Religion cannot be attacked head-on religion has to be attacked through rearguard action by removing the power of the Cletics through agrarian reform through the literacy campaign and and so on to taking democratic Measures undermine the the ideological power of Religion rather than clashing head-on with religion for instance is said that I mean like to like to drink in Public and boast about this drinking this was very offensive to many people in in in Afghanistan Many people who were poor peasants and poor people who could have been won over to the revolutionary movement with a more cautious approach and This and this was one of their mistakes also They introduced many of these measures. This was a revolution that took place through a military coup This was not a democratic movement of the of the masses. Although obviously they had support mainly in the in the cities so these people at the top they took a whole number of measures by decree without Explanation without a political debate without without political work amongst the masses This was another mistake for instance Many of these measures were taken before the literacy campaign had even started It will have been probably better Strategically to start the literacy campaign and have a political education campaign throughout the country to the most remote villages Explaining what the government was doing in relation to agrarian reform the debts the abolition of the marriage The bright price and and so on and this was not done This was a bureaucratic regime that acted from the top in a very clumsy way However, this is not the full story. The full story is that already there was reactionary Islamic insurgency and this reactionary Islamic insurgency didn't just happen Spontaneously this was organized funded and backed by reactionary imperialist forces starting with Pakistan Obviously as Pakistan has started this campaign already under the Dawood regime because they were worried about all this agitation about Pashtunistan But also then and the ISI Secret services in Afghanistan play the major role in in this but also then backed by Saudi Arabia extremely reactionary feudal theocracy and backed by the CIA Not from 1978 not from 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded but from the 1970s from from after from 1975 specifically when Dawood started talking about about When Dawood started talking about Pashtunistan and this also took place at a very particular time. This was in 1978 79 Angola had had communist guerrilla take power there was there was a revolution in Iran Where a US backed regime was overthrown is a completely different story We don't have time to go into it, but but the US had lost control of Iran and Ethiopia is another country where there had been a revolutionary movement led by students and army officers that had taken the country into this into the Soviet Orbit the United States were worried that they were losing control of the whole areas of the world and they wanted to prevent Afghanistan from from becoming from becoming part of the of the Soviet Union area of of influence Interestingly, this insurgency was also backed by China China funded the Islamic reactionary gangs that were fighting against the communist government and for a long period of time from from where from Xinjiang where we're now they're fighting Islamic insurgency well, they they were responsible for creating This and the reason for this is clear because the whole foreign policy of China was the enemy of my enemy Is my friend and so because the main enemy was the Soviet Union Then the friend was the United States and they took the side of the United States in a whole number of Conflicts around the wall Then in December 1979 that is a year and a half after the revolution the Soviet Union intervened Why did the Soviet Union intervene the Soviet Union did not intervene? Because of this Islamic insurgency the real reason why the Soviet Union intervened is in order to settle scores within the factional struggle within the PDPA and defend the faction that they thought was more Compliant with the Soviet Union. It was completely cynical intervention. They had nothing to do with the interests of the Afghan masses in fact The factional struggle within the PDPA continued after they took power in 78 Taraki from the Halk faction sent Karmal to Czechoslovakia as as a Ambassador, but in fact this was an form of exile having as far as far away as Possible because he thought that Karmal was conspiring with the Soviet Union to remove him But then what happened was that I mean the other leader of the Halk faction started to become suspicious of Taraki and Because Taraki was being courted by the Soviet Union and I mean started adopting a whole number of crazy Policies in in this very short period of time 20,000 people were killed in this internal faction struggle struggle faction fights within the communist party Amin organized the killing of Taraki They were in the same faction but Amin was very He wanted power and so he killed they removed Taraki And then and then at that point the Soviet Union said enough is enough. This is a complete mess in in In Afghanistan we want to keep control of this strategic country and the only way we're gonna do it is through Karmal the leader of the Parcham faction so in 1979 in December. They sent troops in allegedly Karmal From a position of power had called the Soviet troops in but in fact He was in Tashkent in Central Asia in the Soviet Union when he was issuing this radio appeal for Support and help from the Soviet Union Soviet Union troops entered they killed Amin and they installed Karmal to power none of this has nothing to do with Revolution or progressive policies or helping the the Afghan people at all and this is the reason why Our tendency the militant tendency at that time took a very clear position that we were not in favor of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which also had negative impacts in the communist movement worldwide because many The imperialist propaganda then said look mean you're talking about imperialism. What is the Soviet Union doing invading invading? Afghanistan obviously they were completely hypocritical in the in the criticism But this this did have an impact in the communist movement in many in many countries the communism was divided over this question Of the Afghan troops there were splits in in the parties for instance in Spain and so on However, we also said once the troops are in And this then there is this US backed insurgency it will be crazy to demand that the troops are withdrawn because that will only help the Islamic fundamentalist this is completely changed the situation by the beginning of 1980 and we never demanded that the troops should be should be withdrawn because that that will have meant the collapse of that regime and the coming to power of US backed reactionary black reaction forces to to power The war lasted 15 years and it has to be said that this the Mujahidin the so-called free and fighters as they were presented in the in the west they met This was also the time when Reagan came to power with a more a more belligerent foreign Policy and this became a major casus belly Afghanistan the US poured millions hundreds of millions of dollars in in aid which was channeled through the Pakistani secret services through Saudi Arabia and there were a whole number of foreign fighters who went to fight them Amongst them one Osama bin Laden. So Osama bin Laden who then became a Black beast of Islamic Terrorism for the United States was in fact created by the United States during this 14 year War and and this was completely reactionary these people had nothing Was nothing progressive in this in this war which was also funded by the export and cultivation of narcotics Opium which then becomes heroin played a major role in this in this war and this these people many of them Were using the the cover of Islamic fundamentalism But in reality they were just local warlords that were paid by the United States by Pakistan by by Saudi Arabia to carry out This this war against the Soviets the Soviets maintain their control of the country They were not defeated militarily, but at one point they were so exhausted They were forced to leave by 1986 Gorbachev came to power in this in the Soviet Union. He advocated reconciliation with with a mujahideen with Islamic reaction forces by 1988 he withdrew military support But that regime which was then led by a man called Najibullah From the karma or from the from the Parcham faction of the PDPA Remained in power for another four years until 1992. It did have certain base of Support and cool resist even without you be without Soviet Union support It resisted for a few years But finally collapse and the collapse of the Najibullah regime in 92 is also very interesting because it happened when some of his Main generals made an alliance with the reactionary Islamic forces and went over pretty much like what's happened Now this seems to be like a tradition of military officers in the state apparatus just switching sides according to whose whose Likely to to win Dostum one of the then became a General in the Northern alliance had been a member of the PDP a by this time in any case The PDPA had already introduced private property had abolished most of the conquests of the sour Revolution had abandoned formally Marxist Leninism, which he'd never really Spoused and it was just a Nationalist Party it then became it then changed its name later on to the Watan Party the national party Abandoning all talk of socialism or anything like this and many of its leaders then became became part of the Northern alliance so The the United States could say they had won this war in 1992 But what what replaced the PDPA regime was a murderous alliance of Warlords that had fought this war for the United States imperialism, but then started fighting each other And there was no unity at all amongst them. There was ethnic cleansing of the hasara in Kabul Ethnic conflicts between the different groups the Uzbeks and the Tajiks against the Pashtuns and so on It was it was completely murderous regime It was so much a murderous regime that then the Taliban came to power in 1996 And they had the backing of a large layers of the population and on what grounds did they win? They win on the grounds of law and order. We're gonna re-establish some semblance of normality where people have There is there is a law This law was very extreme form of sharia law But nevertheless it meant that you knew you wouldn't be killed randomly by this or that or the faction And so they they won that war in 1996 This where did the Taliban come from the Taliban came from the same Mujahidin They had been backed and supported by US imperialism all along in fact The base was in Pakistan and they were backed by the by the ISI the secret services in Pakistan Which have played their own card not necessarily the card of the United States imperialism But sometimes coinciding in the in the aims and the Taliban were quite happy to have al-Qaeda in In Afghanistan and this was the excuse if you want that led to the 2001 invasion after the Twin towers attack in September 11th, 2001 the United States had been Wounded the most in Powerful imperialist country on earth had suffered an attack on its own soil Thousands of people were dead and they needed to show the world that they still Were in in business that they were still ruling the world and they needed to invade a couple of countries They picked Iraq which had nothing to do with al-Qaeda over this September 11th attack But they thought it was it was an easy target one that they left more or less unfinished in the previous Invasion and then they picked Afghanistan. They said to mullah omar the leader of the Taliban. They said you have to give up have to give up al-Qaeda and Samab in London or else and he said well I'm not giving them up and else was military invasion and that military invasion was as all military Invasion of Afghanistan in the past it seemed it seemed to go well in a couple of years They controlled large parts of the territory the main cities. They installed a puppet government first and Karzai and then and Ghani But they didn't control the the country the talibans were not defeated. They just retreated into the mountain Hideouts into Pakistan where they were backed and supported by the by the ISI In fact if you remember some of you might remember when Osama bin Laden was finally apprehended and killed where was he? He wasn't in Afghanistan. He was in Pakistan. He was being protected by the by the ISI and so Yeah, they this war this this water did just now lost started very well as as many wars in Afghanistan Start by by imperialist powers But they never they never managed to get full control of the of the country and what they created was a puppet regime They had no other base of support or legitimacy than than the military presence of imperialist powers I'm talking about the United States all the time But of course the United Kingdom our own British government was also heavily involved in this and other Governments were also involved, but obviously they played the main the main role now What's gonna happen now? The the Taliban are in power the Taliban have said that they the day are different from what they were in in 96 Many people remember the Taliban rule in 96 and they they don't they're not particularly fond of that This was extremely reactionary rule The very strict interpretation of tribal law and sharia or extreme interpretation of sharia law and They have promised that they're not gonna be they're not gonna do the same It's also true the Taliban leaders in the in the last 20 years have been mainly based abroad some of them in the United Arab Emirates Some of them in Pakistan they have traveled the world they have attended peace conferences and negotiations and basically they In reality, they're not so interested in in Islamic law of fundamentalism they just want to rule the country according to the to the whim and They understand that in order to rule the country they need to be amenable to foreign powers They don't want to be subject to foreign powers, but they want to be able to negotiate with different foreign powers right now the Reserves of the Bank of Afghanistan are based in New York. So for starters, they need that money They need the money from the aid in order to feed the the people So it is true possibly that some of the Taliban leaders have become more statesmen Like and they will like To be left alone to rule Afghanistan and to have deals with different Countries they have gone to other countries with Islamic Governments Saudi Arabia Indonesia and they see that that works, you know, I mean in Saudi Arabia There's a strict Islamic rule and at the same time they're friends with the United States So some of them might be thinking why is that not possible in in Afghanistan and the United States wouldn't be Contrary to to that if they could reach an agreement in fact As you've seen in the last few weeks there's been a lot of talk about the plight of women in Afghanistan and how the defeat of the US imperialist intervention has meant that the Women's rights that have been achieved in this period are now completely destroyed and so on but this is all talk US imperialism doesn't care a Yota for for women's rights or for human rights in Afghanistan or anywhere else Otherwise they will have started a war in Saudi Arabia. Just the main ally in The Middle East and one of the main recipients of foreign aid and military aid So that doesn't count for them the plight of women in Afghanistan the plight of the poor in Afghanistan is very real But has nothing to do. I mean in the last 20 years if this regime had been a progressive regime that they had installed People will have been prepared to fight for it to defend it and this wasn't clearly not the not the case But one thing is the leaders of the Taliban and another thing is there is the Taliban fighters on the ground This is a Motley coalition of different warlords with different interests. It's true The Taliban have now been able to go beyond the traditional base amongst the push stones They have gotten support from certain sections Amongst the Uzbeks the Tajiks even they made openings to the Hazara Shia, which they have mistreated in the in the past They want to attempt to form a government that's more or less stable and can get foreign aid But this isn't by no means guaranteed. They're already Faction fights within the Taliban government. There's the the Hakkani network, which the the CIA very well described as a As a criminal organization disguised as Islamic fundamentalists, but but they are all like that This is not no surprise and they are fighting against other factions and the whole thing is likely to descend again into into fighting between different warlords and different Factions backed by different imperialist powers. China is now attempting to muscle in not that They wanted this result particularly, but China wants some stability And if they can negotiate and talk with with the Taliban, so be it the Taliban for instance have made a gesture towards China by removing the How is it called the The East Turkmenistan Something army is it is that how it's called? I think they have another name the Turkmenistan Islamic Party or something And these are the Islamic terrorists that are operating in Xinjiang and they based in Afghanistan so the Taliban have now removed them, but what does it mean removed they they remove them from the border They moved them somewhere else And as a gesture to us China China's muscling in Russia's muscling in and this is the plight of the Afghan people for the last hundreds of Years imperialist powers intervening and meddling into the internal affairs and not allowing any Progressive forces to emerge from from the country where they are they have a base And and this is what I will say just to just to finish the two things one The defeat of US imperialism in in Afghanistan has wide-ranging consequences Many other regimes in the region and far beyond will now see that the Being a light to the United States is not a guarantee for staying in power and that's a dangerous thing at a time when other will be imperialist regimes are Rising China Russia and so on And number two the only solution for the Afghan people for the workers for the women For the peasants of Afghanistan is revolution but revolution in Afghanistan in the last instance depends also on Revolution in the neighboring countries revolution in Pakistan Revolution in Russia Revolution in Iran at the very least revolution in China revolution in India It's not a matter that can be solved only within the borders of Afghanistan For many different reasons But the main one is is this this intermix of different national groups and this Strategic position that Afghanistan plays in this geographic area, which makes it prone to imperialist powers Intervening if Afghanistan was anywhere else, maybe imperialist powers wouldn't be so worried will leave them alone But this is not the case therefore the revolution in Afghanistan, which has roots in Afghanistan This is not an outside imposed movement There's a strong communist tradition and some people I mean this is a long time ago But some people remember fondly the days when the communists were in in power because of the benefits they got from that Regime this communist tradition needs to be revived On the basis also of an analysis of the mistakes of that Government and that regime and the struggle of the Afghan people needs to be linked to the struggle of workers and peasants in Pakistan in Russia in Iran and all the neighboring countries in Central Asia in China and so on