Islamabad, Aug 27: The Awami Workers Party (AWP) has slammed the recently announced US policy for Afghanistan and South Asia as an extension of imperialism, asserting that there is nothing ‘new’ about it, steeped as it is in the deeply entrenched interests of the American military establishment.
“Trump’s announcement is in-fact reinforcing US war-centric foreign policy in the region and thwarting efforts for regional peace and cooperation,” the AWP deputy general-secretary Ismat Shahjehan said in a statement.
The party also expresses concern over sending more troops to Afghanistan, she said adding that the US has a history of patronising death squads and proxies to serve its imperialist interests in the Middle East and Afghanistan and when those death squads outlive their utility, it kills and eliminates them and then creates new ones, she said.
In this proxy war, as long as the US will continue with imperialist expansions, its client states will also continue with perusing and chasing their own strategic interests through the same means, the AWP leader said.
The USA can’t simply absolve itself from this bloodshed and chaos it has created and continued in Afghanistan, the AWP leader said.
By the same token, successive Pakistani regimes have willingly supported American imperialist designs in the region, and the ‘blowback’ has now engulfed Pakistani society itself, she said. Despite the fact that over 60,000 lives have been lost since the onset of the so-called ‘war on terror’, the Pakistani state’s fundamental priorities have not changed. It is still pursuing the strategic depth policy in Afghanistan and allowing banned outfits to operate freely.
Instead of pursuing a non-aligned foreign policy, friendly relations with neighbouring countries, the establishment continues to serve imperialist powers’ interests, renting out the country to the highest bidder, Ismat said. This policy has resulted in untold blood-shed and death imposed on innocent citizens through bombs and targeted murders, she added.
The bloodshed inside Pakistan and Pakistan’s international isolation can only be stopped if Pakistan accepts these facts and changes its foreign policy regarding Afghanistan and India and discontinue the policy of institutionalised state support to religious fascists and militants.
Afghanistan is a sovereign state, and all the imperialist occupation forces (both state and non-state) of USA, Pakistan and India should immediately be pulled out from Afghanistan, and let Afghans decide their own future, she demanded.