Rage Against The Machine have taken to their social media to write a scathing critique of the United State’s 20-year-long military involvement in Afghanistan, which is currently under siege by the Taliban.
The band have long been strong critics of the US government’s domestic and foreign policies. Vocalist Zack de la Rocha said in a 2007 interview with Juice Magazine that the band is “interested in spreading those ideas through art, because music has the power to cross borders, to break military sieges and to establish real dialogue.”
In RATM’s short critique of the US government’s involvement in Afghanistan, they touched on imperial comparisons between the Afghanistan crisis and the Iraq war, as well as slamming the mainstream media for trying to “justify an illegal invasion.”
“The war in Afghanistan has always been thought of as the ‘good war’ while the invasion of Iraq was seen as a ‘mistake’,” the band wrote on Facebook.
“Both imperial wars were nothing but vile and racist. 20 years later, the longest war in US history has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghans and displaced 5.3 million more, causing untold trauma and grief.
“The US spent 2.3 trillion dollars of taxpayer money on the war in Afghanistan – funds that could have been spent on healthcare, education, and the environment but went instead to war-profiteering private industries.
“Mainstream media is repeating the same tropes that were used to justify an illegal invasion 20 years ago. Little to no air time is being spent discussing the 4 decades of US imperial intervention that have reduced this nation to rubble.
“The victims of U.S. empire have been sounding the alarm for a long time. Whenever we hear the drums of war beating, we must shut them down.”
Check out the full post below.
More than just vocal in their activism, the band have previously very publicly mobilised and participated in various on-ground protests.
In 2008, the band performed at the Tent State Music Festival to End the War during that year’s Democratic National Convention. After their performance, the band joined uniformed veterans from the Iraq Veterans Against The War organisation in protest.
During the protest, activists faced a five-hour stand-off with police, which ended in President Obama agreeing to meet with the veterans.
