No more deaths! Troops must leave Afghanistan!

While expressing its condolences to the families of Darren Smith and Jacob Moerland, the two young soldiers killed on June 7 by roadside bombs on their first tour of duty in Afghanistan, the Socialist Alliance has renewed its call on the Rudd government to take all Australian troops out of harm’s way and bring them home.
The war was launched in response to the al’Qaeda 2001 terror attacks on the US. But ordinary civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been its main victims.

Regardless of the stated purpose of this war the results nine years later reveal a devastated country in which the government of Hamid Kazai is corrupt and weak, the fundamentalist Taliban has grown in strength, the numbers of displaced people continue to rise and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed.

Australia has around 1550 combat troops in Afghanistan as part of the 100,000-strong US-NATO command. They are taking part in the summer military offensive in the southern province of Kandahar.

The deaths of the two Australian soldiers in one day is the highest number of troops killed since the dragged-out war in Vietnam.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has a duty to explain to the Australian people exactly how being in a war of occupation in central Asia helps protect the Australian people’s interests.

The misnamed “war on terror” is better described as a war of terror against ordinary, poor folk in Afghanistan.

If Canberra really wanted to help the people of Afghanistan, it would send engineers and architects and doctors and nurses to help re-build a country devastated after so many years of war.
 
INFORMATION:
Pip Hinman, Socialist Alliance candidate for Grayndler 0412 139 968
Trent Hawkins, Socialist Alliance candidate for Wills 0407 070 841
Alex Bainbridge, Socialist Alliance candidate for Perth 0413 976 638