Conter

The crushing defeat of Nato in Afghanistan is already redrawing the geopolitical and economic balance of forces in Asia. In the South Pacific, the US is constructing a new military and nuclear alliance. The central player in the region is a resurgent, capitalist China. George Kerevan seeks to analyse the current economic dynamic in China and its political consequences.

20 Years of the War on Terror: Imperialism, Islamophobia and US Defeat in Afghanistan Thursday 23rd September, 6pm Speakers: Tariq Ali, activist, broadcaster, and author of numerous books, including Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (Verso, 2003), Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq (Verso, 2004), Conversations with Edward Said (Seagull, 2005), The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power (Simon and Schuster, 2015) Deepa Kumar, author of Islamophobia...

David Jamieson argues that the coalition government means more phony ‘progress‘ for Scotland and that independence is the only basis for the new administration’s legitimacy. I am absolutely certain that the Scottish Government will fulfil at least one of its most audacious sounding commitments in this parliament – the so called ‘minimum income guarantee’.

Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale take the long view of a military and political defeat for the United States and its allies. We need to come to grips with the enormity of this development. This article was first published at Ann Bonny Pirate. A lot of nonsense about Afghanistan is being written in Britain and the United States. Most of this nonsense hides a number of important truths. First, the Taliban have defeated the United States.

Raymond Morell is a Unite workplace rep in aerospace and was a member of Sharon Graham’s campaign team. At the start of the campaign, he wrote about the huge challenges facing one of Britain & Ireland’s biggest unions and why Sharon Graham was the best candidate to overcome them. Here he reflects on her victory and what needs to happen next. This article was first published at Voice.Wales.

David Jamieson responds to the Scottish Government’s call for Nato troops to remain in Afghanistan. At the precise moment when ‘humanitarian’ military intervention has been unmasked as bloody fraud, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon decides that it’s time for Nato to intervene in Afghanistan.

David Jamieson argues that 20 years on, the disaster of the ‘War on Terror‘ is still felt in the decline of the Labour party. Notwithstanding his recent demise, Donald Rumsfeld goes door to door in the West Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. Canvassing has ended for polling day, but President Bush’s defence secretary is still doing the doors.

The movement for a new constitution is changing Chile, the country where military rulers embarked on an early and violent experiment in market reforms. Sabrina Aquino, director of Fundación País Digno and feminist activist of Convergencia Social, argues that advances by the left have been built on the projects of workers and women.

Some on the left have attacked anti-imperialism in the wake of the defeat of Corbynism. Michael Doyle argues that it is absolutely essential, and that the calamity in Afghanistan only underlines this. The debacle and collapse of the US and British backed regime in Afghanistan, with consequences that will cascade around the world, should cause us to think again about the importance of anti-imperialism.

Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban in weeks. David Jamieson says this collapse should mark the end of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and that supporters of the war in Scottish politics should be held to account. It took about a fortnight for the Taliban to overturn a Nato-built state, constructed over 20 years with over $2 trillion. In the end, that state had zero support. This should kill the doctrine of 'humanitarian intervention' once and for all.