Following a fratricidal period for the left with Morales and Arce at loggerheads, right-wing, anti-MAS candidates obtained over 85 per cent of the votes cast in the latest general election, writes FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ
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Afghanistan, graveyard of the empires
Drawing on his own experiences travelling the country during its 14 years of socialism under siege, NICK WRIGHT writes that the idea of Afghanistan as an ungovernable maelstrom of chaos is a purely the creation of Western imperialism
The air raids, drone strikes and military excursions over the years have embittered Afghans to the various occupying powers and in many cases government forces and clan militias swiftly reached local deals, essentially power-sharing arrangements which reflect long-standing local realities
The US could imminently return to the Wild West days of widespread and sometimes violent corporate repression of workers, says MARK GRUENBERG
Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday, against the war of extermination of Gaza, reports AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN
From training Israeli colonels during the slaughter to protecting Israel at the UN, senior British figures should fear Article 3 of the Genocide Convention that criminalises complicity in mass killing, writes IAN SINCLAIR
General secretary of the YCL GEORGINA ANDREWS looks at the priorities of her organisation, from Palestine solidarity to trade unionism and fighting privatisation at a local level, ahead of its 52nd congress
LUKE FLETCHER fleshes out Plaid Cymru's plan for the revitalisation of Wales's economy
“A WAR begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.”
Thus, in 1843, GR Grieg, chaplain to the British Army wrote of the empires’s catastrophic defeat in the First Afghan War as an expeditionary force of 4,500 military personnel and over 12,000 camp followers fled Kabul to Jalalabad. Barely a handful survived.
The regional balance of power fell to the Russian empire and in 1878, the British invaded again and again in 1897. Britain went to war in Afghanistan again in 1919.
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