Taliban targeting NZ soldiers

September 2, 2012 by
Zabiullah Mujahid

“We are killing the New Zealanders because they are helping the Americans. They have come to kill and arrest our people.”

“We will find them and kill them, there’s no safety for them,” Those were the words of Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, as stated to a Herald on Sunday correspondent. “Yes we knew our target was New Zealand forces, because they are with our enemy and the others who came to our country with guns and weapons. We are killing the New Zealanders because they are helping the Americans. They have come to kill and arrest our people.”

It really couldn’t be said much clearer than that. Regardless of what New Zealand soldiers are doing in Afghanistan they are seen by the Taliban, and likely by other Afghans as well, as part of an occupying force. ” but we do not have any other enmity towards the people of New Zealand,” Muhahid stated “The families of those killed should tell the Government of New Zealand not to send soldiers to kill Afghans, because this fight does not belong to New Zealand. This is an American fight and they have persuaded other countries to become involved.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Afghanistan Tagged With:

Deaths in the class war

September 12, 2010 by

Don Franks
The Spark September 2010

Last month saw two New Zealand soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and the
first New Zealand soldier killed.

Led by Prime minister John Key, who ordered an unprecedented lowering
of national flags across the country, politicians and news media
launched a lengthy storm of militaristic propaganda. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Imperialism, Middle East Tagged With:

Spark Audio: Three talks on the Middle East

August 26, 2008 by

The following talks recorded at forums in the first half of 2008 have just been added to the Spark Audio archive.

John Edmundson
What future for Palestine?

Phil Ferguson
Iraq five years on

Nick Scullin
The present war in Afghanistan

Filed Under: Afghanistan, Audio, Imperialism, Iraq, Palestine Tagged With: , , , , ,

Afghanistan, East Timor and the failure of “humanitarian” military intervention

March 1, 2008 by

Tim Bowron

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

-Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

Since Labour took office in 1999, New Zealand military forces have been deployed overseas on a scale not seen since the time of the Vietnam War. Unusually, though, this renewed outburst of militarism has been greeted by many sections of the New Zealand left not with protest and bitter denunciation but instead with widespread approval.

Unlike the conflicts in Vietnam or Korea, we are told that the current Western military interventions in countries such as Afghanistan and East Timor are not missions of imperial aggrandisement and aggression, but instead are all about “humanitarian reconstruction” and multilateral action in accordance with international law.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Asia, Middle East Tagged With: , ,