On the Russian Controversy:
The Interests of the U.S. Rulers Are NOT Our Interests

July 3, 2020 | revcom.us

 

An intense struggle has erupted in the U.S. ruling class over allegations that Trump was briefed by U.S. intelligence agencies in February or March that Russian operatives have been, for about a year, offering “bounties” to Taliban fighters to kill American troops who are currently occupying Afghanistan. And it is charged that Trump then did nothing to oppose Russia doing this, or even to investigate further.

About 20 U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last year, and it is claimed that at least one died because of these “bounties.” For mass consumption, this controversy is being wrapped in emotional salutes to “our brave men and women in uniform, fighting to defend freedom,” in order to draw the masses of people into a fight in the ruling class over how best to maintain their bloody worldwide empire. 

First, let’s get two things straight:

Number one, U.S. troops have NOT been defending “freedom” or anything that is good for humanity. The war in Afghanistan is not a “good war” and U.S. troops in Afghanistan are not “innocent bystanders.” Over the course of 18 years, more than 800,000 heavily armed and armored U.S. troops have been the backbone of a U.S. occupation and war; the U.S. has rained 38,000 bombs on this impoverished country, conducted 12,000 drone strikes, imprisoned and often beaten, tortured or even killed at least 15,000 Afghan people. The U.S. war has killed well over 100,000 people, and five million people – almost one person in seven – has been driven from their home. All of this was in pursuit of imperialist strategic interests. (See “America Leaves Afghanistan After Killing Over 100,000 People in Its ‘Good War’” for documentation and for a deeper understanding of why the U.S. nearly destroyed Afghanistan.)

Number two, these howls of outrage are profoundly hypocritical. The U.S. poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan in the 1980’s to build up Islamic jihadist forces (including Osama bin-Laden) precisely to kill thousands and thousands of Russian troops who were there to dominate Afghanistan in Russia’s own bloody war for empire.

As we wrote in American Crime Case #24: U.S. Proxy War Against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, 1979 – 1988:

In July 1979, the U.S. began a covert campaign to destabilize Afghanistan’s new pro-Soviet government and lure the Soviet Union, at the time their main imperialist rival, into invading Afghanistan. In December 1979, after the Soviets invaded with 100,000 troops, the U.S. organized and led a bloody, decade-long proxy war against them and their Afghan client regime with one focus: bleeding the Soviet Union white and “killing Russians.”

As part of this the U.S. provided over $3 billion in arms and aid to Islamic fundamentalist forces fighting the Soviet Union, including Osama bin Laden. At least 800,000 Afghans and 15,000 Soviets were killed in the ensuing bloodbath, and the war is widely viewed as playing a major role in the 1992 collapse of the Soviet Union. This was a major imperialist-strategic “win” for the U.S., whereas for Russian imperialism it was a major defeat from which Russia is still trying to “come back.”

The accusations against Trump are part of a very sharp struggle within the U.S. capitalist-imperialist class. There are deep differences over HOW to maintain and expand their empire.

As Bob Avakian has said:

The interests, objectives, and grand designs of the imperialists are not our interests—they are not the interests of the great majority of people in the U.S. nor of the overwhelming majority of people in the world as a whole. And the difficulties the imperialists have gotten themselves into in pursuit of these interests must be seen, and responded to, not from the point of view of the imperialists and their interests, but from the point of view of the great majority of humanity and the basic and urgent need of humanity for a different and better world, for another way.

BAsics 3:8

At the same time, this struggle could affect the overall struggle right now to drive out this fascist regime, in complex ways. In this regard, we must also keep in mind these two paragraphs, which have run frequently at revcoms.us:

The Democrats, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, etc., are seeking to resolve the crisis with the Trump presidency on the terms of this system, and in the interests of the ruling class of this system, which they represent. We, the masses of people, must go all out, and mobilize ourselves in the millions, to resolve this in our interests, in the interests of humanity, which are fundamentally different from and opposed to those of the ruling class.

This, of course, does not mean that the struggle among the powers that be is irrelevant or unimportant; rather, the way to understand and approach this (and this is a point that must also be repeatedly driven home to people, including through necessary struggle, waged well) is in terms of how it relates to, and what openings it can provide for, “the struggle from below”—for the mobilization of masses of people around the demand that the whole regime must go, because of its fascist nature and actions and what the stakes are for humanity.

Children killed by U.S. airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2008. (Photo: AP)

In October 2015, the U.S. destroyed a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 19, and wounding dozens of patients and staff. (Photo: AP)