[Marxism] Afghan Agriculture - Humanitarian Imperialism

[guava tree]

This article about the Afghan food supply and the threat of famine is a good
example of a fog of *humanitarian* concern that masks imperial, military,
global-strategic, profit-making motives of the US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/world/asia/19afghan.htm

Of course this report comes two days after US Defense Secretary apologized
for the US murder of 90 innocent Afghan civilians (though he didn't mention
the total number or admit much of anything, really):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/world/asia/18gates.html

This civilian death toll in Afghanistan is of course helping to foment
discontent about US' role in this country, a country that Obama says has a
situation that is "urgent", I presume for more US intervention. So what do
we get, a PR campaign about starving Afghanis---A situation that only the US
military and capitalists can fix. Reading documents on the website of the
Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, however, you find passages like
this one:**

"The Agricultural Master Plan: Developed in partnership with USAID the
'Agricultural Master Plan for Afghanistan' is a policy roadmap for
accelerating market driven economic regeneration through export-driven
agriculture. Special attention has been given to mechanisms which will
facilitate this growth, namely the development of an export market. High
level inputs ranging from seeds, technical assistance and research and
knowledge transfer have been outlined as well as institutional support.
Policy clarity has been approved by national and international NGOs however
there are concerns regarding both implementation and benefits for non-land
owning rural inhabitants." --www.acbar.org

So EXPORT-Driven Agriculture created by forcing the Afghan government to buy
American Agricultural technology and "technical assistance" will help the
starving Afghan people? Growing Genetically Modified seeds bought from
Monsanto with Monsanto fertilizers and then sold as feed on the open global
market will do nothing to help the food crisis in Afghanistan and just serve
to expose their country to the perils of the extrememly volatile global food
trade. Read up on the situation in Hati, Africa, etc, for examples of
neo-liberal food policies that only sow more and more hunger, migration and
poverty. Those interested in the Yugoslavian war could also find USAID
documents written up about Serbia and most ex-socialist countries where land
was communally owned or not under capitalistic productivity.

Of course the last sentence of the quoted paragraph above reveals the
concern that, duh, the peasants who don't own land will be driven off their
land where they now can at least *GROW THEIR OWN FOOD*, i.e. subsistence
farming. Soon GM soybeans, corn, wheat, et cetera will soon be grown on
their once-ancestral land for export-profit, not to feed their country's
starving population.