The Irish Anti War Movement (IAWM) welcomes the statement by Michael D. Higgins of the Labour Party calling on the Irish Government to withdraw its seven soldiers from Afghanistan.
This war should never have happened and the Irish Government should not be supporting it in any form.
Thousands of people, including women and children, have been needlessly killed, a puppet regime under Hamid Karzai has been installed and the war has led to huge instability in the wider region. Since the war began in October 2001 the Afghan people have suffered immense losses. Many have been killed or injured by bombings from the air, often from unmanned remote controlled drone planes. The killing of civilians has not reduced since the Obama surge but according to the McClatchy news agency, which cites the US military’s own figures, there has been "a dramatic spike in civilian deaths in the first three months of this year." In one recent incident described by journalist Bill van Auken, two women and a young girl were killed, and two others were wounded when NATO troops opened fire on April 30 on a car in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The Irish Anti War Movement (IAWM) welcomes the statement by Michael D. Higgins of the Labour Party calling on the Irish Government to withdraw its seven soldiers from Afghanistan.
This war should never have happened and the Irish Government should not be supporting it in any form.
Thousands of people, including women and children, have been needlessly killed, a puppet regime under Hamid Karzai has been installed and the war has led to huge instability in the wider region. Since the war began in October 2001 the Afghan people have suffered immense losses. Many have been killed or injured by bombings from the air, often from unmanned remote controlled drone planes. The killing of civilians has not reduced since the Obama surge but according to the McClatchy news agency, which cites the US military’s own figures, there has been "a dramatic spike in civilian deaths in the first three months of this year." In one recent incident described by journalist Bill van Auken, two women and a young girl were killed, and two others were wounded when NATO troops opened fire on April 30 on a car in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
This war is also not winnable. A recent report to the US Congress writes of increased attacks on the occupation forces, little support for the regime of Hamid Karzai and that the country’s insurgents considered 2009 their “most successful year”. Of 92 districts in Afghanistan, the report concludes that only one district supports the Karzai regime. The war is deeply unpopular in Britain where recent opinion polls conducted by the media show that over 70% of the British public want their troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.
The Obama military ‘surge’ has led to a further 50,000 troops being deployed in the last year and upon completion in August there will be a staggering 100,000 US troops deployed in Afghanistan, up from 32,000 when Obama took office.
All of these troops will have passed through Shannon Airport in supposedly ‘neutral’ Ireland.
Jim Roche, PRO of the Irish Anti War Movement said:
"The IAWM welcomes the labour Party’s call on the Irish Government to withdraw its seven troops from Afghanistan but also calls on the Irish Government to stop assisting the US military machine by facilitating the troop stopover at Shannon Airport. This war is not a ‘war on terror’, or a war for democracy in a backward country – it is a classic example of a neo-colonial type war waged purely in order to gain strategic influence in an important part of the world. It is bringing untold suffering, death and destruction to the inhabitants of a poor country and destabilising the wider region. The seven Irish troops must come home and the Shannon stopover for the US military should cease immediately."
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For further information please contact:
Richard Boyd Barrett, Chair IAWM: 086 781 4520
Michael Youlton, Co Chair IAWM: 086 8159487
Jim Roche, PRO IAWM: 087 6472737
