Jeremy Corbyn MP - Stop the War Coalition - Afghanistan Time to GO!
Channel: Labour Heartlands
Date: 18/08/2021

Jeremy Corbyn speech against the Afghanistan war from 2010 gave us a clear insight into the injustices of the conflict but also gave reference to those that profit from war.

An anti-war speech made by Jeremy Corbyn in 2010 for the “Stop the War coalition”, in which he suggests the conflict in Afghanistan is “clearly unwinnable”.

His words have been reshaped on the same weekend that Taliban fighters took control of Kabul, signalling the collapse of the 20-year western mission.

Some of the highlights of his speech echo the realities ten years on as we see the chaotic abandonment of Afghanistan.

Jeremy Corbyn 2010 Stop the war coalition speech:

“Hundreds of British soldiers have died, hundreds of soldiers from other coalitions have died and thousands upon thousands of Afghanistan people have also died, for what, for whom for what purpose in the long run.

“I think the pentagon let the cat out the bag when they announced the levels of mineral deposits they had discovered in Afghanistan.”

“I think the Arms dealers of the world let the cat out of the bag when you realised what profits they made over the equipment sold in Afghanistan ”

“But and it’s a big but here, this war cannot go on, this war has to stop; and everybody knows this war has to stop! They know it’s unsustainable, they know it’s wrong and they know it’s spilling over from one country to another, after another, after another. ”

Corbyn goes on in expressing the cost of war in liberty here in the UK, with every anti-terrorist law passed we lose a little of our own liberty. He speaks of the cost, saying: “If there is not enough money to maintain public services in this country and the people are expected to take pension cuts and wage cuts, why on earth are we spending billions on a war in Afghanistan?”

“In a world where there is a shortage of resources in a world where there is instability in a world where refugees flow, we need to think in terms of sharing, in terms of humanity in terms of peace, in terms of international justice, not in the terms of Blair and Bush in 2001 paying the blood price for a disaster of American foreign policy”
Global Research looked at the profiteers of the Afghan war. Using conservative estimates, the U.S. has spent $2. 261 trillion and the UK $30 billion. Weapons sales and the provision of other services to the war front, which has been rapidly privatized, has led to large enterprises making an absolute killing.

Indeed, many actively support these neo-imperial wars based on the very human rights liberals claim to hold dear. Ironically, both the liberal left and the right, for various reasons and to various extents, support liberal wars and thus liberal globalisation. Tragically, seeing themselves as diametrically opposed, they remain ignorant of basic contradictions within global capitalism. Absurdly, their melee is resold to us as democracy.
https://labourheartlands.com/jeremy-corbyn-mp-stop-the-war-coalition-the-blood-price-of-blair-and-bush-disastrous-foreign-policy/