A Statement of the National Political Committee of Democratic Socialists of America

April 14, 2017

DSA condemns the first military use of the largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan on April 13. Allegedly used to attack a cave used by ISIS in Afghanistan, the GBU-43 bomb (which contains 11 tons of explosives) poses a threat to all human existence within a one-mile radius of its target. The Trump administration’s praise for massive bombings, first in Syria and now in Afghanistan, as “the US military doing their job as usual” shows the Trump administration’s commitment to the United States’ tradition of using brutal and indiscriminate military force as the primary response to complex foreign policy problems.

As the futile sixteen-year U.S. war in Afghanistan has demonstrated, massive bombing of civilians does nothing to provide greater security against ISIS and Al Qaeda-attacks on innocent civilians. In fact, the use of Western military power throughout the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan serves as a powerful recruiter for reactionary Islamist groups. Such indiscriminate force only hampers the efforts of democratic forces around the world to build the international cooperation that can isolate forces of reaction, whether right-wing nativist populism or Islamist reaction.

DSA is committed to rebuilding a massive anti-war movement whose primary enemy is our government’s militarism and imperialism and that also acts in solidarity with all democratic forces resisting authoritarian regimes around the world, be they U.S. client-states, the brutal Assad regime in Syria or Putin’s oligarchy.

DSA also resolves to work in coalitions fighting to radically cut a military budget that funds imperial adventures abroad and weapons programs that serve no useful purpose beyond lining the pockets of military contractors. For example, the $400 billion (and rising) price tag for 2500 F35 fighters (when the F18 remains the most advanced fighter jet in the world) demonstrates that prudent cuts in military spending could readily fund public investments in crumbling infrastructure and a job-creating, publicly-funded alternative energy program located in high-unemployment areas.