Remember trooper David Pearce’s death by pulling Australian troops out of Afghanistan-Socialist Alliance

Pip Hinman

The Socialist Alliance’s anti-war coordinator, Pip Hinman, today offered her condolences to the family of trooper David Pearce, killed by a roadside bomb last Monday in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province.

“David Pearce joined the army to get a steady income with which to raise his young family”, she said. “His loss is an awful blow, and Socialist Alliance expresses its deep sympathy for his wife Nicole and children Stephanie and Hannah.”

Hinman, who is also standing for the Socialist Alliance in the inner-Sydney seat of Grayndler in the federal election, said: “David Pearce’s death is a terrible waste, and it re-emphasises what a futile and criminal operation the Australian military intervention in Afghanistan is.”

“Australia is supposedly there to help the ‘democratically elected’ Karzai government against the attacks of the terrorist Taliban. But this same government, overwhelmingly viewed in Afghanistan as a puppet regime of the West, is trying to reach a power-sharing agreement with these same Taliban.”

Hinman continued: “Afghan ‘democracy’ is a grisly farce. Earlier this year the parliament, well-stacked with war lords and drug barons, passed an amnesty for all those involved in the last 25 years of civil war.This amnesty included Taliban leader Mullah Omar.“Under Karzai opium production has reached record levels, and he has appointed drug bosses and militia leaders as senior police commanders.”The Socialist Alliance spokesperson commented that there was no reason to believe that the latest foreign military intervention in Afghanistan would end any better than its predecessors.

“The NATO shells and bombs that massacre Afghan villagers continue the butchery of the nineteenth century British punitive expeditions”, she said. “They will create the same intense hatred of foreign troops and increasingly rehabilitate the Taliban as patriots in the eyes of Afghans.”Hinman described as “totally deluded” the idea that the conflict in Afghanistan could be won by sending even more Australian troops.

“This dangerous fantasy, proposed by both the Coalition and the Australian Labor Party, will only intensify the spiral of death, destruction and suffering”, she said.Hinman concluded: “The war-mongering Howard government is already cynically exploiting David Pearce’s death to try to legitimise and increase the Australian army presence in Afghanistan.“Let his loss inspire the anti-war movement to redouble its commitment to end Australian military interference in the country.“The Socialist Alliance will be doing everything it can to make that happen as soon as possible.”