Even government leaders have long been forced to admit that we are going through the worst crisis since the Great Depression - if not through an even worse one.

In a rational society, this would result in the mobilisation of all available resources to protect the livelihoods of the populations against its catastrophic consequences.

Not so in today's capitalist society. Not only are the resources of the state mobilised to shore up the wealth of the richest, through exorbitant financial bailouts, but they are also used to spread death and terror in distant regions of the globe, in order to shore up the imperialist interests of big business.

War against the populations abroad...

The latest from Afghanistan, where the death toll among British troops has now risen to 184, is that the army is engaged in a bloody campaign in Helmand province, "Operation Panther's Claw" - in which, once again, the population is caught in the cross fire.

8 years after the invasion - and despite the western reinforcements which have been brought in - there is no end in sight to this war. And we are now told by Brown, that even more troops must be sent in, more lives wasted and more resources devoted to this unending war, to ensure that the country's coming elections are able to take place!

In and of itself, this is an indictment of the bogus "democracy" promoted by the West in Afghanistan - as if there could be any "democracy", when a whole population has to live under the threat of western bullets and missiles! But, in fact, the real purpose of the whole operation, is merely to ensure that the West's puppet regime in Kabul remains in power, despite being hated for its corruption and parasitism by large layers of the population!

Brown and his ministers still carry on peddling the worn-out argument of the "war on terror" to justify their role in this bloody war. They still dare to claim that the 184 soldiers who died in the killing fields of Afghanistan, "died for their country".

But these are lies, lies and nothing but lies. The truth is that, by invading Afghanistan, initially purely to make a show of imperialist strength, the West has primed an explosive chain reaction, which has spread across Afghanistan, overflowed into Pakistan and is now threatening the political stability of Central Asia and, possibly, India.

Today, this war has turned into a bloody damage-limiting face-saving operation, to extricate the rich countries' governments from the consequences of their own criminal actions. But it comes at an intolerable cost for all the populations concerned and it should be stopped now!

... and war against workers at home

When they come back to Britain from Afghanistan, and the sooner the better, soldiers will discover the devastation caused by the capitalists' crisis.

Here, no "terrorist threat" can be used to justify the war on working people that bosses and politicians have been waging over the past months.

Week after week, the list of jobs cut by big profitable companies, not to mention the public sector, gets longer. And so does the list of those forced to join housing waiting lists after being repossessed.

Week after week, the damage caused to the standard of living of the working class, by wage cuts in all shapes and sizes, increases.

And now, after British Airways and British Telecom tried to blackmail their workforce into agreeing to "voluntary" unpaid work or unpaid leave, the CBI is coming up with another "ploy" against workers. Instead of being made redundant straight away, workers would be "offered" a period of "non-work" paid at £136/w, with half of that amount paid by taxpayers. This way, companies would avoid having to make redundancy payments immediately, they would keep the option of retaining their existing skilled labour if need be and the workers concerned would remain off the dole count. Everything would be for the best for the bosses and the government. As to how these workers will be supposed to manage on such a paltry income, that is none of the CBI's concern!

Yes, this is a war against the livelihoods of the working class majority of the population - a class war in which the government is taking, because that is its real role, the side of the capitalists, in order to make the working class pay for their crisis.

But in this war, the working class is not defenceless. It has the collective capacity to fight back and this fight back will have to take place - and the sooner it does, the better!