End the nightmare of the Afghan war

The war is causing slaughter on a massive scale
Tens of thousands of ordinary Afghans have died as a result of the war. More than 130,000 people have been made refugees.
And more than 1,000 US and British troops have been sent home in body bags.

We have not “brought democracy” to Afghanistan, only corruption
When the war began back in 2001, the US and British governments argued that it was a “good war” to spread freedom and democracy.
But the scale of the election fraud exposed this week shows what a lie that claim was.
The investigation into the recent Afghan election found 950,000 fraudulent votes—one in three of the total cast for Hamid Karzai’s puppet regime.

The war hasn’t helped women’s rights—it has made the situation worse
At the start of the war the Western media was full of stories of the brutal treatment women received under the Taliban.
But today, the occupiers have made alliances with warlords whose regimes systematically abuse women.
And women suffer the most from the violence and poverty caused by the war.

Occupations don’t rebuild, they destroy
Some say that “we” broke Afghanistan, so “we” should fix it. They argue that more troops should be sent to aid “reconstruction” efforts.
But soldiers do not have shovels, bricks and mortar—they have guns, tanks and mortars.
That’s why thousands of reconstruction projects are still sitting unfinished. The occupation will only wreak more destruction.

The war is spreading
Gordon Brown and Barack Obama are escalating the war.
The horror has spilled into Pakistan and Tajikistan. The war is destabilising the entire region.
Yet Brown plans to send another 500 British troops, while Obama is talking about sending a “super surge” of up to 40,000 US troops.
We need to stop the war now—and the only way to do that is to get all the troops out.