In the last few days, there have been several developments regarding the U.S. war of terror in Afghanistan. On Sunday, WikiLeaks released the Afghan War Diary which details some of the many crimes of the U.S. imperialists there in over 91,000 military reports. And on Monday, Afghan officials reported that 52 people were massacred in Rigi, Afghanistan in a Friday rocket attack launched against a house where women and children had taken shelter from fighting between NATO troops and Afghan insurgents.

 

Obviously Congress could care less about civilian massacres in the wars it funds. In fact this latest massacre is reported in the press as just another controversy that may or may not have occurred. Despite the fact that the murders were reported by the U.S. puppet government, official U.S. government propagandists went into their usual cover-up mode. 

 

In making its report the Afghan puppet government relied on its own intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.  But immediately the U.S. military command in Afghanistan claimed an investigation “has thus far revealed no evidence of civilians injured or killed.”

 

Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith, director of communications for the American and NATO military coalition claimed, “Any speculation at this point of an alleged civilian casualty in Rigi village is completely unfounded. We are conducting a thorough joint investigation with our Afghan partners and will report any and all findings when known.” But then Smith is paid to spew bull from his mouth.

 

This has been standard routine in Afghanistan. Typically the U.S. will deny the massacre and only months later when it is no longer in the news will it admit anything happened. The first U.S reports always claim those killed were insurgents or terrorists. Only when the evidence is undeniable will they come clean, but by then it is no longer news.

 

According to Afghan reports of this massacre, women and children from some eight families took shelter in the village at Rigi. Then at approximately 4:30 PM Friday the U.S. coalition launched an air attack against the village, killing 52, mostly women and children.

 

According to the New York Times, Mohammed Usman reported that he personally helped pull the bodies of 17 children and 7 women from the debris of the attack. Usman said, “They have ruined us, and they have killed small children and innocent women. God will never forgive them.”

 

The enormity of this atrocity even forced the U.S. hand-picked Afghan President Hamid Kazai to condemn the attack as “both morally and humanly unacceptable.” He had to do this in an attempt to maintain some credibility with the Afghan people.

 

Of course we have heard nothing from the White House or the Congress that enables these massacres and do not expect to hear any condemnation from either. But despite the role of the Obama administration and the Democrat led congress in this U.S. war of terror, we are told by many “progressives” that we need to elect more Democrats to congress and this will take care of the problem.

 

Typical of this wrong-headed thinking is this from David Swanson who wrote, “We need a new approach that not only seeks to keep anti-war representatives in power, and to replace Republicans with anti-war Democrats, and to replace pro-war Democrats in primaries with anti-war Democrats, and to replace pro-war Republicans in primaries with anti-war Republicans, but also to defeat pro-war incumbents even if their opponent is pro-war too and even if it means replacing a Democrat with a Republican.  I don't see any other way of making these people listen to us in the coming months and years.  And you can't get much worse than anyone who keeps funding wars.” (See http://warisacrime.org/node/54280)

 

He is right that those who fund these wars should receive condemnation, but relying on Congress is a mistake that will not change anything. When will people learn that you can not rely on ruling class elections to end the imperialist wars of the U.S. Empire? Weren’t we told the same thing in the 2006 and 2008 elections? Vote for a Democrat Congress! Vote for Obama! This will make them change. The result - a massive escalation of the Afghan war and the spread of that war into Afghanistan. The U.S. has also expanded covert war into many other nations. Congress has funded all this. 

 

Instead of misleading millions into relying on elections to end these imperialist wars we must mobilize these people to take to the streets, not the election booths which are a dead end. Only with the concerted actions of millions of people will we have any chance of ending the war of the U.S. Empire and all the resulting crimes of that Empire. Anything less will only condemn billions to suffer at the hand of imperialism for generations more.