[R-G] What about an international brigade for the the liberation of Afghanistan?

[aaron at istop.com]

It is 20 after 3 in the morning, I just got up a half hour from sleeping for 
a couple hours, hung out with a friend and my roommates in the kitchen and 
am now trying to get back to sleep. The reason I cannot sleep I think is 
because I am angry with myself about a t mistake I made while at the 
microphone during the Q&A part of the talk by Malalia Joya
  You see it all started yesterday when I watched, on the real news, Malalia 
speak at a press conference when she was in Toronto. She kept on sounding as 
if she was placing herself between a rock and a hard place. She would say 
that there cannot be security with the drug lords and war lards, weather the 
be Taliban or northern alliance, and she also said that there cannot be 
liberation with occupation. I fully believe in these two statements but it 
is apparent that she is making a De Facto statement of, we are damned if we 
accept the occupation and were damned if we don't accept the occupation; 
with the occupation we will have imperialism and without the occupation we 
will have drug lords and war lords. I always have advocated for the end of 
the occupation, I think to rhyme off the reasons would be doing nothing more 
than preaching to the choir, but I never really worried myself about how the 
people of Afghanistan would deal with a possible civil war if the occupiers 
left. I figured that with a little money to groups like RAWA, the people of 
Afghanistan could buy some weapons and fight off the Taliban. I am becoming 
more and more convinced that if the occupiers left, money alone would not be 
enough especially when the dictator of Pakistan is allowing the Taliban and 
other extremist forces in the north to amass an army that will eventually 
fight the occupiers in Afghanistan and give justification to the occupiers 
to continue this stalemated war for years. While the Taliban, extremists, 
warlord and drug lords, as they play this tit for tat game with the 
occupiers, continue to win converts to their cause and the occupiers 
continue to win new contracts and profits for the military industrial 
complex, the real losers will be the people of Afghanistan who continue to 
see their ecology destroyed and their people massacred, the rank and file 
soldiers of the occupying forces and us in the west who will continue to 
have our tax dollars diverted from funding social programs to funding an 
imperialist war
   As I was lying in bed this morning, this catch 22 scenario was weighing 
heavily on my mind. Never before today was I able to truly grasp the idea 
that if we do not find a third way out of this mess, it is going to get a 
lot messier. After watching Malalia speak at the press conference in Toronto 
I was convinced we had to find a third way out of this mess. As I sat and 
watched her talk about the need for security from the drug lords and war 
lords and the need for liberation not occupation, my ears kept on hearing, 
we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. So here I was, lying in bed 
with this scenario weighing heavily on my mind when suddenly it hit me!! I 
had a eureka moment, an epiphany if you will
   I believe history is a great teacher and if we read our history books, we 
just might be able so solve problems we have today by applying solutions 
that our foremothers and forefathers came up with to deal with similar 
problems they had in their day. Now you are probably asking yourself where 
in the heck I am going with this, you are probably bursting with 
anticipation and you just want to know already what the heck the solution is.
   During the Spanish revolution, a Canadian journalist by the name of Von 
Passen had an interview with Durruti titled: "Two million anarchists fight 
for the Revolution".Von Passen probably never realized it then but in that 
article, he probably got some of the most important quotes ever by a 
revolutionary. Here are Some of Durruti's statements: "There are only two 
roads, victory for the working class, freedom, or victory for the fascists 
which means tyranny. Both combatants know what's in store for the loser. We 
are ready to end fascism once and for all, even in spite of the Republican 
government", "No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the 
bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up 
fascism to hold onto their privileges".
   Now if you are still following along, you are either as excited as I am 
for the potential liberation of Afghanistan or you are saying to 
yourself "he can't be serious, there are no similarities between the Spanish 
revolution and the current occupation of Afghanistan". So maybe the Taliban 
fighters and other Islamic fundamentalist fighters are not exactly similar 
to Franco and his fascist troops. Maybe the Karzi government with all it's 
warlords, drug lords and criminals, looks nothing like the republican 
government in Spain during the revolution. You are probably at a lose to see 
where the occupiers of Afghanistan fit into this comparison. I maybe a 
little off with the similarities of both problematic situation but before 
you discount this article as nothing more then pie in the sky by some 
unknown utopian anarchist, ask yourself one thing; just because the quagmire 
in Afghanistan is not the same as the quagmire the Spanish people found 
themselves in during those historic years of 1936- 1939, does that mean that 
the solution to the quagmire in Afghanistan cannot be the same as the one 
found by the anarchists, communists , feminists and other anti-fascist 
fighters of Spain during the fight against Franco and his fascist thugs?
   I know an international brigade for the liberation of Afghanistan sounds 
like a daunting task to many revolutionaries out there, especially us 
privileged revolutionaries here in the west. We as revolutionaries need to 
ask ourselves if a possible solution is not an international Brigade of 
revolutionaries committed to fighting side by side with freedom loving 
people of Afghanistan to find true liberation for the people of Afghanistan, 
then what is the solution. More occupation? More imperialism? More Taliban 
style tyranny? More death and destruction? You may say that I am just some 
unknown utopianistic, naive anarchist but before you say that, I want you to 
ask yourself why you are a revolutionary? Is it to liberate all ecosystems 
and species from the destructiveness and tyranny of the state and capital? 
Or is it just to be part of a trendy social club?
   You are probably wondering why no one like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky 
floated this idea before. You are probably wondering why, if this is a 
possible solution to the mess in Afghanistan Why haven’t you heard it at all 
before? I do not claim to have a copyright on this idea, ideas cannot be 
owned, but I will tell you this: I can think of two words to give as a 
reason for many people here in the west not hearing a proposal like this 
before and those two words are fear and privilege. I am so convinced that an 
international brigade is the only course for true liberation in Afghanistan 
that I will be the first to volunteer.
      Aaron Doncaster