By Ed Dalton

On September 2, the Taliban killed two United States imperialist soldiers and four pro-imperialist Afghan soldiers in the Afghan Army and destroyed at least seven armored vehicles of the occupation forces. This is one small defeat in a string of many as the US imperialists fail to meet their objectives in this strategic region.

Using the events of September 11, 2001 as a pretext for invasion, the US has mainly been interested in the Afghanistan region to give it an advantage in its inter-imperialist struggles against Russia. Even in the absence of a Communist Party which can lead the proletariat to victory over US imperialism, the Taliban forces have proven capable of expanding their struggles against the invading US military and its puppet government.

The capital of Faryab province, Maimana, is on the verge of being taken back from the US imperialists as their puppet government is on the retreat, abandoning advanced military posts. US imperialist forces have been defeated in the Ghormach district of Faryab province as well, annihilating 20 percent of imperialist forces. The puppet state has since collapsed and fled the district. The Afghan Ministry of Defense has declared Maimana as one of seven capitals “threatened” by resistance to US imperialism.

Bourgeois journalist Thomas Joscelyn’s reporting and others have been unable to save face for the US defeats, the hopelessness of imperialist wars being difficult to conceal. “The lack of demonstrable success has caused U.S. military commanders to redefine victory,” Joscelyn writes. “Some of them now contend that the war is a stalemate in which the Taliban is incapable of overrunning Afghanistan’s more populated areas. They sell this as progress. But they are seeing the conflict through rose-colored glasses.”

Joscelyn claims that Taliban forces exercise control over half the country, a hegemony that has not been seriously challenged since the US invaded. “There is no reason to think they feel pressured to negotiate,” he writes.

As history has demonstrated time and time again, wars in semi-feudal, semi-colonial countries tend to progress from the countryside to the cities. What appears to be a stalemate is seldom sustainable for long as the masses of an invaded country come to seek more and more the expulsion of the occupation forces as well as punishment for those who assisted in the occupation. The US imperialists themselves attempt to wield a clumsy and heavy war effort which cannot achieve the total domination of a people who have the courage to fight.

Since 2001 when the reactionary forces of the Taliban were removed from power, and in the absence of a genuine proletarian Communist Party capable of leading the armed struggle, the Taliban has been able to unite sections of the population around its armed campaign against US imperialism. The lack of revolutionary leadership and sheer hatred for US imperialism will allow the Taliban to continue their streak of victories and possibly even expel the US imperialist invaders.