Afghanistan and Iraq: how can this hell be called "progress"?

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
5 February 2008

There have been unending claims by the government about the "progress" being made in Afghanistan - and in Iraq, to the point where they say troops may even be withdrawn.

But we all know from the regular press reports, the on-going court cases and even the interviews with army top brass, that what this is pure government propaganda, to cover up reality.

We know, for instance, that roadside bombs, shells and bullets are still killing soldiers in Afghanistan; that the western-backed Afghan regime in Kabul still has no authority beyond the limits of the capital's province and that in Iraq the 5,000 troops which remain in Basra are on constant alert, in case the Iraqi army is over-run by local militias. Only last week, the head of the Basra police was shot dead outside his house. Hardly a sign that "law and order" has returned.

Probably those who are best-placed to say what really goes on, on the ground, are the soldiers themselves. And what they feel is eloquently expressed by the fact that one in fourteen amongst them are away from their units, off sick, due to illness or injury.

The latest figures for suicides amongst the US army personnel show that before the Iraq war, one soldier attempted suicide every day. Today this has gone up to 5. Getting comparable figures from the MOD may not be possible, but what we do know is that the British army is dismissing what amounts to a battalion of soldiers a year for taking drugs. Drug use has gone up from 1.4 per 1,000 in 2003, to 5.7 per 1,000 in June 2007 - that is, fourfold. Soldiers are trying every possible channel in order to get themselves out of the army, including even dishonourable discharge due to a positive drugs test. And understandably so.

If the war is hell for the Iraqi and Afghan populations, it is also hell for the soldiers who never chose to go there in the first place. Unlike the Blairs, the Browns and the Bush's of this world, they have no interest in these wars. Troops out!