The SSP is standing across Scotland in 10 constituencies, and alongside opposition to cuts in public services we’ll be making the case for the withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan. We’ve had new branches and dozens of new members on the back of our campaign for withdrawal, and were also standing SSY and SSP member James Nesbitt in Glasgow Central. Listen to him below speak out against the occupation of Afghanistan.

Every single one of the German party The Left’s 76 members of the Bundestag (the German national parliament) have been expelled after a protest against the war in Afghanistan.

Die Linke holding up the names of killed Afghan civilians

The left wingers, who are members of a new party attempting to unite German socialists and that has had rapid success in elections, held up signs with the names of Afghan civilians killed in a German-ordered airstrike last September.

The protest was during a debate on extending Germany’s mission in Afghanistan. Some 429 MPs voted for and 111 against the new mandate – 16 fewer votes in favour than last time – allowing troop numbers to be increased by 850 to 5,350, and keeping German troops in Afghanistan for another nine years.

This is despite the fact that as much as 80% of the German people oppose the war, and in fact it flouts the German constitution, which orders German armed forces to only be for national defence.

Die Linke know that they can make loads of brilliant speeches in the debate and won’t get covered by the mainstream media. What this protest did was capture the imagination of TV and the news, communicating quickly and visually to millions of Germans that socialists stand up against the war.

The draconian response by parliamentary officials was ridiculous, and is reminiscent of the scandalous way Scottish Socialist Party MSPs were treated in 2005, when they held up signs demanding the right to protest against G8 leaders who were meeting in Gleneagles.

SSP MSP's protest for the right to march on Gleneagles

MSPs from all other parties then voted to ban the SSP members involved from the parliament, and deny their wages and allowances, denying hard working socialist researchers and workers behind the scenes their income as well.

When socialist parties stand in elections, we do it to try and fight to change things as much as is possible within the limits of parliaments and councils that are still overall part of the capitalist system. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes you shouldn’t stand up and show people just how ridiculous what goes on in our parliaments really is. When sign holding is treated as a more serious crime than the killing of 142 civilians, is it any wonder that so many people don’t take parliament and mainstream politicians seriously?

When people were protesting against the war in Iraq, “No war for oil!” was one of the main slogans around the world. Of course it’s easy to see that at a simple level the reason why Britain and America invaded Iraq was to do with oil.

But things are rarely simple and straight forward when it comes to the operation of big, nuclear armed empires trying to control the world. For example, as much as the war in Iraq was about American control and access to Iraq’s oil fields, it was also about making sure that when that oil was bought and sold on the world market it was done in dollars, not euros.

The same is true of the long, and escalating, war in Afghanistan. On one level the reason British and American soldiers are killing and dying there is clearly to do with oil pipelines, and keeping strategic control over Asia in a battle for world domination. These big reasons why the war grinds on are about to be explained in an upcoming SSY pamphlet looking a bit deeper into why we should campaign for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

But in any big war operation like this, there are secondary reasons why the governments of NATO are willing to commit lives and huge amounts of money. Something that’s been overlooked as a reason motivating the war in Afghanistan is the global importance of the heroin economy.

Estimates put the value of the global heroin trade at more than $64.82 billion per year. Today, over 90% of that product originates in Afghanistan. Only a small proportion of these massive profits can be held in cash or recycled through unofficial banks. The vast majority has to be laundered through the global financial system. In other words, the drug trade contributes billions of dollars a year to the revenues of major global banks.

Poppies being grown for heroin production in Afghanistan

Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean that when it’s traded for huge profits it isn’t a vital part of the world economy. The story of the growth of the heroin trade since the 60’s is one that’s inextricably linked with the history of US imperialism and its wars around the world. There’s a long and well documented history of the involvement of US government agencies like the CIA in the drug trade. During the US wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, American support was given to anti-communist rebels that used heroin production to fund their operations with the support and approval of the CIA. The areas where the drugs were produced were known as ‘The Golden Triangle.’

Later persistent allegations surfaced that in the 1980s the CIA collaborated in assisting the Contra rebels (who were waging war against the left wing government in Nicaragua) in selling crack cocaine into the US. This was uncovered by investigative journalist Gary Webb. The point of the operation was to generate a stream of profits through the drug trade that provided the money to sustain the Contras’ war. If the CIA had asked the US Congress for this funding they would have had to justify its use, but crack money provided funds whose use they weren’t answerable for.

With black communities across the US flooded with crack cocaine, many affected by the resulting wave of social disruption blamed the CIA and US foreign policy. By 1996 CIA Director John Deutch was forced to appear at a public meeting in Watts, Los Angeles to answer to the allegations. Despite his denials of CIA involvement in the drug trade, he was confronted by a former LAPD Narcotics Officer turned independent investigator, Mike Ruppert, who told the meeting he had direct evidence of CIA involvement in trafficking crack.

The point of all this background history is to show that the CIA and other US government and military agencies have long had involvement in the highly profitable global drug trade. The profits from this trade have helped to provide funding for secret military operations not subject to any kind of democratic scrutiny.

Beginning in 1978 the CIA embarked on its biggest operation ever, which was to fund and arm warlords and Islamic fundamentalists to make war against the Soviet-backed left wing government of Afghanistan. They worked hand-in-glove with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency This war dragged on throughout the 80s, draining lives and resources from the USSR, and contributing greatly to its final collapse. The mujahideen rebels, equipped by American arms and money, were eventually able to drive the Soviet armies out, and then depose the government.

In the chaos of the war and its aftermath Afghanistan became the world’s leading supplier of heroin. As you might expect, very little of the profits are made by the actual farmers. The money is made by government officials, police, warlords and power brokers. Indeed, the western-backed President Hamid Karzai’s own family have been implicated in the drug trade.

Of course, when the mainstream media reports on the Afghan heroin trade, they usually do so to imply that it provides funding to the Taliban and al Qaeda. However, the truth is that the vast majority of the profit goes to NATO allies, people who our forces maintain in power. Many of these same forces work with figures in the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, providing a major source of income to Pakistani state (another US ally.)

In fact, in 2000, before the American invasion and while they were still in power, the Taliban actually banned the growing of poppies needed to produce heroin. The Afghan heroin trade temporarily collapsed in value, cutting off a massive source of revenue for the Pakistani state. And ultimately, the impact was felt on the profits of western banks through which the money would have been laundered.

When the US and its allies invaded in 2001, revival of the heroin trade proved to be one of the main ways to finance the operations of the Northern Alliance, the western backed gang of brutal warlords now in power in many parts of Afghanistan. Some of the warlords have become millionaires as a result.

In addition, there is a significant profit being made by someone in the marketing of the chemical precursors needed to manufacture heroin in Afghanistan. Acetic anhydride, a chemical needed as part of the process, is regularly intercepted being smuggled into Afghanistan. The trade in this chemical is thought to be worth $45 million. A portion of that money makes its way back to western chemical corporations as profits.

There are an estimated 16 million opiate users worldwide, and the main market is in Europe, where the annual profits are estimated to be around $20 billion. One of the main ways that peace could perhaps be achieved in Afghanistan would be to do something to curb the demand for illegally produced heroin in Europe.

In Scotland, the SSP and SSY has campaigned for years in favour of a system of clean, pharmaceutical heroin being prescribed to addicts via the NHS. We’ve been villified, even effectively being called drug dealers by the Daily Record. But the fact remains that heroin on prescription is a safer way to help people with an addiction than the current system of blanket prescribing methadone. In a pilot scheme in the English town of Widnes where this was tried the effect was a drop to virtually zero levels of acquisitive crime by drug users, as well as new infection rates for HIV.

Pharmaceutical heroin

The urgency of removing the need for Scotland’s 50,000+ heroin users to buy from the illegal market was illustrated graphically last year. At least 9 people were killed after using heroin that was contaminated with anthrax.

But at least part of the reason that the pilot scheme in Widnes was shut down was that it threatened the profits of pharmaceutical companies manufacturing methadone. And at least part of the reason that NATO forces remain entangled in the Afghan war is that our allies rely on the heroin trade, which in turn produces a tidy profit for western banks. In the wake of the economic collapse of 2008, banks are now less keen than ever to ask too many questions about where their money is coming from. As UN drug official Antonio Mario Costa puts it:

“Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities, and there were signs that some banks were rescued in that way… at a time of major bank failures, money doesn’t smell, bankers seem to believe.”

What all this shows is that the fight against the war in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the fight to change society here. Their problems are largely a result of our governments’ policies. A socialist drug policy in Scotland would go a long way to ending the misery caused by illegal heroin in Scottish communities. But it would also go a long way to pulling the fuel from the fire of the war in Afghanistan, giving the Afghan people a chance at last to have peace and determine their own future.

Joan Humphries receives her SSP membership card from SSP co-Convener Colin Fox

The Grandmother of Kevin Elliot, a Soldier from the Black Watch killed in August has joined the SSP, due to the party’s staunch opposition to the war in Afghanistan.

Joan says, “Having toyed with the idea of joining the SSP for some time, it is their strong anti-war stance, especially against the immoral Afghanistan invasion by the US-led coalition, plus the realisation that the views held by the SSP on anti-racism, women and children’s rights, public ownership and fighting poverty ran parallel to mine.”

The SSP has had several public meetings across Scotland with Colin and Mohammed Asif of the Scottish Afghan Society speaking, from Edinburgh, Dundee, Penicuik etc. The issue of Afghanistan is one where the party has picked up members alongside Joan, who oppose the senseless waste of lives.

The SSP has also succeeded in attracting serving Squaddies to public meetings highlighting that despite the official press releases of the MOD there is increasing opposition among ordinary soldiers themselves to fighting an unwinnable war, to defend a corrupt warlord Government without the proper equipment.

Despite an overwhelming opposition to the war in Afghanistan – 71% of people want the troops back home – none of the four mainstream Scottish political parties support withdrawing the troops. The SSP in contrast has been consistent in opposing the war in Afghanistan right from the very start – even when it was not popular to do so.

The SSP has worked to build links with the families of those who have serving soldiers or who have lost serving soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, most recently Joan but also Rose Gentle who tragically lost her son Gordon in Iraq.

It’s time to demand that Scottish Soldiers are brought back from Afghanistan unharmed, and end an unpopular war which is immoral and doomed to failure, and for those veterans who do return to have proper medical and psychiatric care if they require it. As it stands today, there is a disproportionate amount of vets who are homeless or imprisoned, who are dependent on charity for survival.

The British state is coming into the poorest areas of Scotland to recruit soldiers into a job which chews them up and spits them out, and sends them to their death for a Government that legalises rape and has warlords on its payroll. Its time to end this madness, bring them home, Save Scottish lives and Afghan lives.

A Nato airstrike in Kunduz is believed to have killed approximately 70 civilians

Nato faces fresh and unusual criticism today after it emerged that booze has been banned from its HQ in Afghanistan after its staff were too hungover to give an explanation as to how 70 civilians were killed in an airstrike

Nato command HQ, Afpak. Just be thankful there wasn’t a toga party on, Russia might not still be here

This comes after a UN report detailing that 30% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan arise from attacks from the Afghan army and Nato – most of them airstrikes.

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan. Is he pissed here? Lets hope not

Nato airstrikes have been condemned even by pro-Nato Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who may or may not have rigged the Afghan elections.

George Best. Also liked the drink, but did not bomb Afghan villages.

Being so pissed you can’t remember details of operations, or that they’re not even recorded shows a new level of contempt for Afghan lives though.

Commander in Chief of Nato. Cannot find his car keys, wallet, mobile phone or last name.

Nato may reassure us that the pilots who did it weren’t drunk, but accountability exists for a reason – if there isn’t any cos people are too fucked then it puts this occupation of Afghanistan in the same bracket as all the others; unjust, and unwinnable.

Lets bring the troops home, and make sure they can experience a safe transition to £1.20 a Deuchars atWetherspoons, with as few F-15 airstrikes as possible along the way.

…so the pro-NATO Afghan Government can legalise the rape and starvation of women.

“It (the law) allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses his sexual demands; a woman must get her husband’s permission to work; and fathers and grandfathers are given exclusive custody of children.”

Stop the lies, they’re not dying for women’s rights. They’re dying for nothing and it’s time to bring the troops home, and end the occupation of Afghanistan.

If you want to support women’s rights in Afghanistan support RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, not NATO bombers and their warlord allies.