New book on Afghanistan

David Wildman and Phyllis Bennis' book, Ending the War in Afghanistan: A Primer, has just been published. I expect to get a copy of the book today. It's a short book, like a similar book Bennis published in 2007, Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. I expect the book on Afghanistan will provide a historical overview, the demographic and ethnic/tribal facts, identify the political interests involved, the military strategies employed, the effects, and the costs in human, economic, and political costs. I'll write more about the book later.

In the following post, Bennis gives a short plug for the new book. Just one point. Bennis refers to the additional troops that have been authorized by President Obama, but doesn't here refer to the support troops and the thousands of contractors and their employees who will also be part of the misbegotten surge. Further, the biggest portion of the money spent on the surge will go to the military efforts, not for humanitarian or reconstruction projects, or for building long-lasting relations with village elders and other leaders.

Bob

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Phyillis Bennis, "Haiti, Afghanistan, and Obama." Here is an excerpt from the article dealing with Afghanistan. You can see the full article at: http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/4114

Afghanistan

My new book, written with my longtime friend and colleague David Wildman, has just been released, and I hope all of you will get a copy. Interlink Publishing will also make it available in bulk - if you buy 10 copies or more, you can get 40 percent off, sell the books, and use the money saved to support your organization's peace and justice work.

Opposition to the Afghanistan war, which had risen to almost 60 percent, diminished after Obama's West Point speech explaining his intention to send more than 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. As I mentioned in my assessment of his speech, there was one way in which Obama's escalation speech brought significant relief to the 59 percent of people in this country, as well as the overwhelming majorities of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and elsewhere who oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan: It was a pretty lousy speech. But we still have a huge amount of educating to do, providing people with the basic information they need to convince others of why the war is wrong and must be ended. The key issues will be the costs - human and economic - of this terrible and rising war. And at this particular moment, even beyond the human costs in Afghanistan and here at home, the economic costs stand out. It should be pretty easy for us to convince people that the $30 BILLION or more it will cost just to send those additional 30,000 troops would be far better spent on creating hundreds of thousands of new green jobs.

But we need the information to do it - and I hope David's and my book will help.