Asia

American Colonialism is Destructive for Afghanistan’s Future

James F. Dobbins, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, announced during a press briefing at the US Embassy in Tokyo on May 13, 2014, that the US-led military presence in Afghanistan will remain “significant” despite this year’s draw-down. Dobbins’ announcement is certainly no cause for celebration. After suffering over twelve years of American occupation, Afghanistan is in severe crisis, and the suffering will continue.

Capitalism has failed Afghanistan. Immense wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, while millions are gripped by poverty. Afghanistan’s child-mortality rate is the world’s second-worst: one in four children dies before the age of five. A quarter of those that survive beyond 6 years of age must sacrifice their education for brick making, carpet weaving, construction, mining and farming to provide basic necessities of life. As for health, 59% of these survivors grow up irreversibly stunted; both physically and mentally, for lack of adequate nutrition during the first years of life.

As for the fat American colonialists, they have profited immensely. Afghanistan’s huge mineral wealth constitutes ongoing spoils of war for Western companies who are now better placed to access to the riches of Central Asia, which is a key target for the American project. And what of the puppet government that the Americans nurtured? Its officials have shared in these spoils. Grabbing public land, corruption, nepotism, graft, bribery and embezzlement are rampant. The establishment of ineffective structures, such as the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption, is just a lie to placate the victims of capitalism.

This corruption under American occupation is not a strange phenomenon. America planted the seed of corruption and nourished it in all the lands it touched. America did not come to Afghanistan in order to bring peace and prosperity to its people. America came to destabilize the whole region, so it could have an excuse for its presence and a foothold in the backyard of Russia and China and to stop the rise of the Islamic state in this region. In order to achieve these objectives, only the corrupt ones could have come forward to help America. So it gave them their price in the form of so called development and reconstruction funds for the country, and the suffering is far from over as America is here to stay after its partial withdrawal. Its officials are shuttling back and forth to Kabul to secure nine bases and over 100,000 personnel.

It is a duty upon the Muslims to secure the liberation of Afghanistan from the bloodsucking menace of imperial capitalism. Islam is the unifying force for the Muslims of South and Central Asia that are over half a billion in number. The lands of Afghanistan, Pakistan and this entire region are all Islamic Lands, which are in origin one land and were ruled by Islam for centuries, since the Khilafah Rashida first entered this region, and it is high time that the Khilafah is established as the practical manifestation of the Hadith of our beloved Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم:

«إِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ»

“Indeed the Imam is a shield, you fight under him and you are protected by him.”

Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

Monday, 20 Rajab 1435 AH

19/05/2014 CE

Issue No: 1435 AH /037