"This has worked for the United States so far, but it is not working for
Israel, its Middle East ally. Israel cannot bomb the Palestinians from
the sky and rely on collaborators to clean up the mess. No organised
Palestinian political force is ready to do that. The Palestinian people
are fighting the occupation desperately. The Israelis have, therefore,
to confine themselves to attacks by Apache helicopter (how ironic that
this weapon should be named after one of colonial America's first
victims), assassinations carried out from a distance, shelling of
civilian areas, and beating up teenagers at roadblocks."

The reason there existed forces in Afghanistan that were prepared to do
Washington's dirty work of attacking the Taliban is because of the
extraordinary nature of the struggle in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan much
of the forces engaged in civil war have no real social roots within the
masses. The fighting is conducted over and above and even against the
wishes of the masses. This because it is in the nature of warlordism to
mobilise armed forces independently of the people. Warlords don't see it
as their concern to win over support from the masses. They are
indifferent to the plight of the masses. It is as if they exist in a
different universe to the masses. The Taliban regime was of a similar
nature. It made no serious attempt to sink its roots into the masses. It
made decisions with no regard as to how the masses felt about them. They
too demonstrated a cold indifference to the condition of the masses. Bin
Laden's force were all the more like this because the majority of his
force were from outside Afghanistan -mainly Arabs. Indeed they may have
even viewed themselves as superior to the Afghan masses. The Taliban and
the Bin Laden force have paid for their indifference and even hostility
towars the populace. When they were under attack from imperialism there
was little or no support or sympathy to be found among the Afghan
people. It was this absence of any real social base that rendered it
easier for Washington's forces to make headway. It is this absence of
social roots within  the masses that offers an explanation as to why
their were forces within even Kandahar province and city prepared to
join the US in the attack on the Taliban and Bin Laden.

In many ways Afghanistan is a sharp contrast to the Middle East. Here
there is an absence at present of any Palestinian forces prepared to
join up with Israel to mount an attack on Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This
is
because these organisations have a social base that forms a platform for
the conduct of their struggle. The former, certainly, has painstakingly
built up a social base among the Palestinian masses. The PA and Arafat's
Al Fatah  has also secured a social base within the Palestinian masses.
Consequently these organisations conduct their struggle with an eye to
the response of the masses. They are not free to conduct the struggle
independently of the masses. However it does not follow that this
situation may not change.  Politically impoverished as the actions or
politics of these Palestinian elements may be they still preserve a
relationship to the masses. It is this that lends the Palestinian
struggle a different quality to the struggle in Afghanistan. Washington
is very sensitive to this distinction which is partly why  relates to
the Palestinian issue in a different way.

The Taliban and the UBL organisation are extremely reactionary forces.
UBL has shown, as I understand it,  little or no interest in the plight
of the Palestinian masses. This helps explain why Arafat was so prompt
to attack UBL when, in one of his recently broadcast videos, he called
for solidarity for the Palestinian cause. It was, it would seem, a
blatant example of an opportunist attempt to exploit the Palestinian
issue to save his neck. It has been said that the Taliban or the UBL
group have received support from Israel. It is this that may shed light
as to why, in the past, UBL never seemed to show much interest in the
Palestinian struggle.
Regards
Karl Carlile (Communist Global Group)
Be free to join our communism mailing list
at http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/