AWC Statement on Afghanistan escalation at MPAC press conference
The Anti-War Committee maintains our demand – U.S. out of Afghanistan NOW! This endless war – going on 17 years – has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and refugees. It has cost taxpayers over $1 trillion dollars. What Donald Trump indicated tonight makes it clear that this war and occupation by the U.S. will continue.
As we have seen since the “War on Terror” was announced, the focus of U.S. aggression is on the Muslim Peoples of the Middle East – and this has become worse with Donald Trump as commander in chief. The litany of countries across the Middle East and in North Africa that the U.S. is attacking is sickening: Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Yemen are all in the cross hairs of the U.S. Donald Trump has quietly escalated war tactics in and around Libya, Syria and Yemen, AND with the use of the MOAB, or “Mother of All Bombs” – the largest non-nuclear bomb, in Afghanistan, it is clear that the U.S. government has no intent to begin to withdraw troops from that region, let alone put an end to U.S. violence.
Anti-Muslim bigotry and attacks have been increasing inside the US as well. Trump’s Muslim ban that was initially defeated by mass protests, and court action has now been implemented. Here in Minnesota, there have been multiple rallies at the state capitol that were led by racists that have taken Trump for their inspiration. In this past week Trump has encouraged and emboldened anti-Muslim bigotry both directly and by providing cover for the white supremacist attacks in Charlottesville.
This has landed us here, racist Donald Trump in the White House, looking for a way out of his problems. The answer that he has come up with is to distract the American public from his internal problems and to look “presidential”, by increasing war and occupation in Afghanistan. We must be clear that attacks on Muslim, Black and Brown people, the LGBTQ community, at home or abroad in no way solve the problems of working people in the US face every day. Solving the problems of working people in the US can only begin with ending the Afghanistan war, stopping the Muslim ban, and opposing the racists every time they show up in the Twin Cities. We need to continue to demand that the US get out of Afghanistan once and for all!
US out of Afghanistan NOW!
No Ban! No Bombs! No Wars!