In the following article, Joshua Holland responds to Andrew Exum's recent op-ed in the New York Times. Exum sees little new information in the 92,000 or so "military field reports lead by the whistle-blower site Wikileaks." He is dismissive of their impact on US Afghanistan policy or on pubic opinion. Holland writes that the information in the documents may not be new to people who study or have followed closely the occupation and war in Afghanistan.
But it is new (news) for most Americans and the documents help to confirm that the war has been ineffectually waged, civilian and military casualties have continued to be high, and the ISI in Pakistan have been undercutting US war efforts in Afghanistan, etc. Additionally, the documents may have the effect of increasing the number in US Congress who are willing to speak up against additional funding for the Afghanistan occupation/war, and perhaps even vote against the funding.
As the Wikileak documents get media attention, they plant seeds of opposition and reinforce opposition among a war-weary and economically strapped US citizenry.
Why Wikileak's Doc-Dump Is Such a Big Deal (Even if There’s Nothing New Within)
Posted by Joshua Holland on @ 9:19 am
Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/27/why-wikileaks-doc-dump-is-such-a-big-deal-even-if-theres-nothing-new-within/
There is a tendency among People Who Pay Close Attention To Things to think other Americans are also paying attention — to decent information — and are therefore somewhat in the know.
That leads to people trying to get away with ridiculous claims, such as this:
ANYONE who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.
That paragraph was from an op-ed piece by Andrew Exum, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) — a pro-Afghanistan war think-tank — in The New York Times. Exum’s message seems to be, ‘move along, folks, there’s nothing to see here.’ Understandable — CNAS, according to a WaPo report last year, “may emerge as Washington’s go-to think tank on military affairs” in the Obama era. CNAS staff have “filled key posts in the new administration (such as former CNAS president Michele Flournoy, who is now undersecretary of defense for policy), and its top people include John Nagl, who helped draft the Army’s counterinsurgency manual, and David Kilcullen, a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus.”
And his suspicion that everyone already knows this stuff is bullshit. In 1997, the government conducted a huge survey on American adults’ civic participation. Almost a third of the public couldn’t say what “job or political office” Al Gore held — after he had spent five years serving as vice-president. Around a third didn’t know which party held the majority in Congress at the time. Perhaps most shockingly, at least to political buffs like myself, was that 49 percent of Americans surveyed didn’t know “which party is more conservative at the national level.” That’s domestic politics — a subject that Americans tend to have a better grasp on than foreign affairs. Two years after the attacks of 9/11, 70 percent of the public believed in a conspiracy theory which held that Saddam Hussein had had a connection to the attacks.
I haven’t gone through those 92,000 field reports myself. And I have no problem buying that there’s nothing in the pile that would surprise anyone who not only reads the entirety of their hometown paper’s foreign coverage but also reads those stories all the way through to the 17th paragraph, where the real news — the ugly news of American war-making — tends to be buried. What is that — one percent of the population? I’d guess that’s overstating it.
So, this document dump pushes what a few war-nerds may have grasped from a thousand stories on page B-6 onto the front page, revealing not a series of “unfortunate incidents” but a pattern of disregard for civilian casualties that disproves a central tenet of our COIN strategy — that war can be fought in a kinder, gentler, more progressive way thus helping win the hearts and minds of the local population.
Here’s a report from the Times’ news section that completely contradicts Exum’s ‘ho-hum’ narrative:
The disclosure of a six-year archive of classified military documents increased pressure on President Obama to defend his military strategy as Congress prepares to deliberate financing of the Afghanistan war.
The disclosures, with their detailed account of a war faring even more poorly than two administrations had portrayed, landed at a crucial moment. Because of difficulties on the ground and mounting casualties in the war, the debate over the American presence in Afghanistan has begun earlier than expected. Inside the administration, more officials are privately questioning the policy.
In Congress, House leaders were rushing to hold a vote on a critical war-financing bill as early as Tuesday, fearing that the disclosures could stoke Democratic opposition to the measure. A Senate panel is also set to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Mr. Obama’s choice to head the military’s Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, who would oversee military operations in Afghanistan.
Administration officials acknowledged that the documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, will make it harder for Mr. Obama as he tries to hang on to public and Congressional support until the end of the year, when he has scheduled a review of the war effort.
Exum isn’t alone arguing that ‘there’s no there there,’ but I don’t think that’s going to cut it. Recent history certainly suggests it won’t:
The [Pentagon] papers revealed that the U.S. had deliberately expanded its war with carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corpsattacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US. The revelations widened the credibility gap between the US government and the people, allegedly hurting President Richard Nixon’s war effort.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer with AlterNet.
Showing posts with label opponents of war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opponents of war. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Media attention on Afghanistan War is down
Here are excerpts from the following article, focusing on the relative lack of media attention to the futile and destructive US-led military occupation of Afghanistan.
America’s Forgotten War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_forgotten_war_20100528/
Posted on May 28, 2010
By Bill Boyarsky
Excerpts:
News on Afghanistan "war" lost amidst other crises: "...the oil spill, intractable unemployment and the rest—for it has definitely diverted attention from his biggest disaster: the Afghanistan war."
The lack of a serious debate and media attention on the Afghanistan quagmire is probably good for Obama, but bad for the country. Some reasons. "Casualties are rising, passing 1,000. The Afghanistan war’s cost in February alone was $6.7 billion, USA Today reported. At this rate, there may not be enough money to pay for the health care reform that Obama sees as his legacy.
Boyarsky refers to Pew Reserch Center survey findings. "For the week of May 17-23, Afghanistan was in seventh place in the overall standings. For newspapers, the war was 10th. It was seventh for online, sixth for network television and 10th for cable TV. Afghanistan coverage didn’t register for radio. The oil rig explosion, the 2010 elections, the economic crisis and the Mexican president’s Washington visit all occupied more space or time."
Tom Rosensteil, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, responds to a question from Boyarsky. "With the death toll rising and the number of Americans in Afghanistan increasing, why the poor coverage?....“'One factor is that, historically, if Americans—and the American news media is a reflection of them—have pressing domestic concerns … the domestic concerns seem to come out first,' he said."
Moreover: "The few prominent opponents and critics of the war can’t catch their attention.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution for withdrawal from Afghanistan within 30 days was defeated in the House. Peace candidates in the current election campaigns, such as Marcy Winograd, who is running against Rep. Jane Harman in a Democratic primary in Southern California, are scarce.
And there has been minimal coverage of legislation requiring President Obama to develop a flexible timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C. Obama has said he wants to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but that obviously isn’t a firm enough promise for Feingold. The senator also disagreed with Obama’s goal of denying al-Qaida “a safe haven,” stopping Taliban advances and strengthening Afghanistan’s government. This made little sense to Feingold, who said, “A large open-ended expensive military presence in Afghanistan is not the way to defeat al Qaeda.” He inserted the Feingold-McGovern measure as an amendment to a spending bill, but it was voted down, 18-80."
America’s Forgotten War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_forgotten_war_20100528/
Posted on May 28, 2010
By Bill Boyarsky
Excerpts:
News on Afghanistan "war" lost amidst other crises: "...the oil spill, intractable unemployment and the rest—for it has definitely diverted attention from his biggest disaster: the Afghanistan war."
The lack of a serious debate and media attention on the Afghanistan quagmire is probably good for Obama, but bad for the country. Some reasons. "Casualties are rising, passing 1,000. The Afghanistan war’s cost in February alone was $6.7 billion, USA Today reported. At this rate, there may not be enough money to pay for the health care reform that Obama sees as his legacy.
Boyarsky refers to Pew Reserch Center survey findings. "For the week of May 17-23, Afghanistan was in seventh place in the overall standings. For newspapers, the war was 10th. It was seventh for online, sixth for network television and 10th for cable TV. Afghanistan coverage didn’t register for radio. The oil rig explosion, the 2010 elections, the economic crisis and the Mexican president’s Washington visit all occupied more space or time."
Tom Rosensteil, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, responds to a question from Boyarsky. "With the death toll rising and the number of Americans in Afghanistan increasing, why the poor coverage?....“'One factor is that, historically, if Americans—and the American news media is a reflection of them—have pressing domestic concerns … the domestic concerns seem to come out first,' he said."
Rosensteil added other reasons. (1) "War fatigue" from the years of coverage on the Iraq "war." (2) "mainstream news business is short of money...." "Covering a war is expensive." (3) "editors and other media managers don't think people are interested."
Furthermore: "...there’s not much political debate over the war, and without controversy there’s not much interest on the blogs and among cable’s so-called analysts, who have become more influential than old-fashioned reporters."Moreover: "The few prominent opponents and critics of the war can’t catch their attention.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution for withdrawal from Afghanistan within 30 days was defeated in the House. Peace candidates in the current election campaigns, such as Marcy Winograd, who is running against Rep. Jane Harman in a Democratic primary in Southern California, are scarce.
And there has been minimal coverage of legislation requiring President Obama to develop a flexible timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C. Obama has said he wants to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but that obviously isn’t a firm enough promise for Feingold. The senator also disagreed with Obama’s goal of denying al-Qaida “a safe haven,” stopping Taliban advances and strengthening Afghanistan’s government. This made little sense to Feingold, who said, “A large open-ended expensive military presence in Afghanistan is not the way to defeat al Qaeda.” He inserted the Feingold-McGovern measure as an amendment to a spending bill, but it was voted down, 18-80."
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Momentum in US Congress for the beginning of the end of Afghan war
Mark Weisbrot suggests that the US-led war in Afghanistan will end when a majority of the members in the US House and Senate go on record as favoring a clear timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. Weisbrot's article was included today, April 27, 2010, at: http://www.zcommunications.org/how-wars-are-ended-rebellion-in-u-s-congress-could-mark-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-afghan-war-by-mark-weisbrot
Weisbrot writes that a "rebellion" in congress is happening. He writes:
"...a rebellion is growing in Congress against the war. Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, House Democrat Jim McGovern from Massachusetts, and House Republican Walter Jones from North Carolina have introduced legislation that would require President Obama to establish a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The bill has quickly picked up 29 co-sponsors, and could reach 100 within the next few weeks."
The movement in favor of withdrawal in Congress is being influenced by changes in the larger climate of opinion in both Afghanistan and the US, and probably by sheer economics. Weisbrot points out that in Afghanistan, which will be spending and unsustainable 61% of its projected 2011 GDP for the army and police, a poll sponsored by the US Army found that "94% of Kandahar residents support negotiations with the Taliban, rather than military confrontation."
In the US, Weisbrot writes, "The majority of Americans are against the war, and every week thousands of Americans continue to put pressure on their representatives in Congress...."
If the shift in the US Congress against the war maintiain's its momentum, then, along with pressures from the voters - and with mounting costs and casualties and high unemployment- the "end" of the US-led war in Afganistan may end sooner than we have thought. How great that would be!
Weisbrot writes that a "rebellion" in congress is happening. He writes:
"...a rebellion is growing in Congress against the war. Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, House Democrat Jim McGovern from Massachusetts, and House Republican Walter Jones from North Carolina have introduced legislation that would require President Obama to establish a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The bill has quickly picked up 29 co-sponsors, and could reach 100 within the next few weeks."
The movement in favor of withdrawal in Congress is being influenced by changes in the larger climate of opinion in both Afghanistan and the US, and probably by sheer economics. Weisbrot points out that in Afghanistan, which will be spending and unsustainable 61% of its projected 2011 GDP for the army and police, a poll sponsored by the US Army found that "94% of Kandahar residents support negotiations with the Taliban, rather than military confrontation."
In the US, Weisbrot writes, "The majority of Americans are against the war, and every week thousands of Americans continue to put pressure on their representatives in Congress...."
If the shift in the US Congress against the war maintiain's its momentum, then, along with pressures from the voters - and with mounting costs and casualties and high unemployment- the "end" of the US-led war in Afganistan may end sooner than we have thought. How great that would be!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Malalai Joya sends a memo to America - stop the killing
I found the following article by Malalai Joya today at http://www.zcommunications.org/memo-to-america-stop-murdering-my-people-by-malalai-joya. See a short bio of Malalai at the end of her article. She is an outstanding fighter for justice and democracy in her own country of Afghanistan, and is risking her life everyday in pursuit of these values. She opposes the US-led occupation, the Taliban, the warlords who control so much of the country outside of areas dominated by the Taliban, and the corrupt central government. She believes that ordinary Afghans are decent people who, given the chance, can create a good society.
--------------------------
Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People
By Malalai Joya
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Malalai Joya's ZSpace Page
http://www.zcommunications.org/memo-to-america-stop-murdering-my-people-by-malalai-joya
Amid increasing civilian deaths and resurgent warlordism, Afghan women's leader Malalai Joya writes that Hamid Karzai and the U.S. are losing credibility in Afghanistan day by day.
Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to light.
For instance, it was only after the reporting of Jerome Starkey of the Times of London that officials admitted to the brutal Feb. 12 murder of two pregnant women, a teenage girl, and several young men in a night raid at a home where a family was celebrating the birth of a child.
Night raids, air raid “mistakes,” firing on civilian buses and cars at checkpoints—the occupation finds many ways of killing the people of Afghanistan. The excuses and lies for these deaths are like salt in our wounds, and it is no wonder that protests against the U.S. military are growing. The Afghan people have had enough.
In recent weeks, there has been much talk about Hamid Karzai’s threats to join the Taliban and about his supposed differences with the American government. But for Afghans, Karzai long ago lost all credibility. The joke among our people is that Karzai doesn’t do or say anything without consulting the White House first. No amount of nationalistic rhetoric or demagoguery on his part will change this perception.
Everyone in Afghanistan knows that Karzai was placed into power with the backing of the United States and its allies, and to this day he relies on their support. His regime would not last a day without it. And Afghans know too well the reality of his corrupt government: It has delivered nothing to the country’s poor other than sorrow and destitution, while filling the pockets of drug traffickers, warlords, and its own corrupt officials.
Afghanistan has had puppet leaders before, rulers who served only the interests of foreign occupiers, whether British or Soviet. But Karzai may be the most hated puppet in our history; he has empowered some of the most brutal internal enemies of ordinary Afghans, warlords of the Northern Alliance like Sayyaf, Dr. Abdullah, Rabbani, Mohaqiq, Ismael Kahn, Dostum and many others. Even his two vice presidents, Fahim Qasim and Karim Khalili, are notorious fundamentalist warlords. The president’s brother in Kandahar, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is another thug in power whose links to the drug trade and the CIA have been widely reported.
Karzai made headlines by threatening to “join the Taliban,” but the reality is that for more than eight years he has had no problem working with fundamentalists who are the ideological brothers of the anti-women Taliban. In fact, Karzai himself used to support the Taliban when he was a minor tribal leader in Kandahar in the 1990s, and for years he has been negotiating to bring Taliban leaders into his puppet regime. Some of them are already serving in his regime, and the U.S. government has been encouraging these negotiations by creating the false categories of "moderate" and "extremist" Taliban.
He has also been reaching out to that most brutal warlord and criminal, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a mujahideen leader known for killing civilians and currently designated a terrorist by the U.S. government. Karzai recently appointed Abdul Hadi Arghandewal, an infamous leader of Hekmatyar’s party, as his minister in charge of the economy. These negotiations and flexible alliances by Karzai and the U.S. government are nothing new. For three decades, the U.S. has backed these criminals: Hekmatyar, al Qaeda and other fundamentalists in the 1980s, the Taliban in the 1990s, and now Karzai and his warlord allies.
Progressive-minded Afghans want to break out of this circle of warlordism once and for all. It is ironic that Karzai talks about the possibility that a “national resistance” could develop in Afghanistan. He should know that the prime target of such a movement will be his own regime and its foreign supporters.
Our people are deeply fed up. They have organized many anti-U.S. protests in the past months and if the occupation continues, the resistance will only grow. More than eight years of occupation have made life bleak, and we are tired of being pawns in the U.S. and NATO’s game for control of Central Asia.
We can no longer bear the killing of our pregnant mothers, the killing of our teenagers and young children, the killing of so many Afghan men and women. We can no longer bear these “accidents” and these “apologies” for the deaths of the innocent.
We salute the anti-war movements in the NATO countries. Here, we will struggle to our last breath to stop this war that is tearing apart our beloved Afghanistan.
Malalai Joya, now 31, was the youngest member of the Afghan parliament, elected in 2005. In 2007 she was suspended from parliament because of her consistent criticism of the warlords and other human-rights abusers in the Karzai regime. Joya has survived five assassination attempts to date, and has written her life story in the book A Woman Among Warlords (with Derrick O’Keefe, Scribner, 2009). She writes from Kabul, Afghanistan.
--------------------------
Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People
By Malalai Joya
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Malalai Joya's ZSpace Page
http://www.zcommunications.org/memo-to-america-stop-murdering-my-people-by-malalai-joya
Amid increasing civilian deaths and resurgent warlordism, Afghan women's leader Malalai Joya writes that Hamid Karzai and the U.S. are losing credibility in Afghanistan day by day.
Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to light.
For instance, it was only after the reporting of Jerome Starkey of the Times of London that officials admitted to the brutal Feb. 12 murder of two pregnant women, a teenage girl, and several young men in a night raid at a home where a family was celebrating the birth of a child.
Night raids, air raid “mistakes,” firing on civilian buses and cars at checkpoints—the occupation finds many ways of killing the people of Afghanistan. The excuses and lies for these deaths are like salt in our wounds, and it is no wonder that protests against the U.S. military are growing. The Afghan people have had enough.
In recent weeks, there has been much talk about Hamid Karzai’s threats to join the Taliban and about his supposed differences with the American government. But for Afghans, Karzai long ago lost all credibility. The joke among our people is that Karzai doesn’t do or say anything without consulting the White House first. No amount of nationalistic rhetoric or demagoguery on his part will change this perception.
Everyone in Afghanistan knows that Karzai was placed into power with the backing of the United States and its allies, and to this day he relies on their support. His regime would not last a day without it. And Afghans know too well the reality of his corrupt government: It has delivered nothing to the country’s poor other than sorrow and destitution, while filling the pockets of drug traffickers, warlords, and its own corrupt officials.
Afghanistan has had puppet leaders before, rulers who served only the interests of foreign occupiers, whether British or Soviet. But Karzai may be the most hated puppet in our history; he has empowered some of the most brutal internal enemies of ordinary Afghans, warlords of the Northern Alliance like Sayyaf, Dr. Abdullah, Rabbani, Mohaqiq, Ismael Kahn, Dostum and many others. Even his two vice presidents, Fahim Qasim and Karim Khalili, are notorious fundamentalist warlords. The president’s brother in Kandahar, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is another thug in power whose links to the drug trade and the CIA have been widely reported.
Karzai made headlines by threatening to “join the Taliban,” but the reality is that for more than eight years he has had no problem working with fundamentalists who are the ideological brothers of the anti-women Taliban. In fact, Karzai himself used to support the Taliban when he was a minor tribal leader in Kandahar in the 1990s, and for years he has been negotiating to bring Taliban leaders into his puppet regime. Some of them are already serving in his regime, and the U.S. government has been encouraging these negotiations by creating the false categories of "moderate" and "extremist" Taliban.
He has also been reaching out to that most brutal warlord and criminal, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a mujahideen leader known for killing civilians and currently designated a terrorist by the U.S. government. Karzai recently appointed Abdul Hadi Arghandewal, an infamous leader of Hekmatyar’s party, as his minister in charge of the economy. These negotiations and flexible alliances by Karzai and the U.S. government are nothing new. For three decades, the U.S. has backed these criminals: Hekmatyar, al Qaeda and other fundamentalists in the 1980s, the Taliban in the 1990s, and now Karzai and his warlord allies.
Progressive-minded Afghans want to break out of this circle of warlordism once and for all. It is ironic that Karzai talks about the possibility that a “national resistance” could develop in Afghanistan. He should know that the prime target of such a movement will be his own regime and its foreign supporters.
Our people are deeply fed up. They have organized many anti-U.S. protests in the past months and if the occupation continues, the resistance will only grow. More than eight years of occupation have made life bleak, and we are tired of being pawns in the U.S. and NATO’s game for control of Central Asia.
We can no longer bear the killing of our pregnant mothers, the killing of our teenagers and young children, the killing of so many Afghan men and women. We can no longer bear these “accidents” and these “apologies” for the deaths of the innocent.
We salute the anti-war movements in the NATO countries. Here, we will struggle to our last breath to stop this war that is tearing apart our beloved Afghanistan.
Malalai Joya, now 31, was the youngest member of the Afghan parliament, elected in 2005. In 2007 she was suspended from parliament because of her consistent criticism of the warlords and other human-rights abusers in the Karzai regime. Joya has survived five assassination attempts to date, and has written her life story in the book A Woman Among Warlords (with Derrick O’Keefe, Scribner, 2009). She writes from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
War Resisters Leaque urges actions against funding for Afghanistan war and occupation
Important New Anti-War Legislation Call today!
Dear Friends,
In a time when there is such urgent need here in the U.S. we need to continue to pressure our elected officials to reduce the outrageous military budget. Please call your Representatives and Senators and urge them to vote NO on the upcoming supplemental that will provide an additional $33 billion for war and occupation in Afghanistan.
In addition to asking them to vote against this funding and instead support the swift and safe removal of all of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, we now have new legislation to let them know about. Last week, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and U.S. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) announced they are introducing legislation requiring President Obama to develop a timetable to draw down U.S. troops from Afghanistan.Senate bill: S. 3197House bill: H.R. 5015
There are over 20 national organizations mobilizing for a call-in week. Please help make it a success!1. Call the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121. If you want to call your Representative or Senator directly you can easily find them here. 2. Forward this message to your friends and family, and ask them to make a call as well.
What you can say to your representatives:"I urge you to vote against the $33 billion supplementary spending bill to pay for the escalation of troops in Afghanistan and the continuation of this war and occupation! I also want to let you know about the Afghanistan Timeline for Withdrawal Bill, Senate: S. 3197 and House: H.R. 5015 and ask you to do everything you can to insist that President Obama develop a rapid, real and complete plan to bring our troops home now." PLEASE CALL TODAY: 202-224-3121
Thank you for your work for peace!
War Resisters League339 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10012212.228.0450 wrl@warresisters.org
Friday, March 26, 2010
Conference in July to support "bring the troops home now"
AfterDowningStreet.org
We're on Facebook and Youtube and Twitter
AN INVITATION FROM: After Downing Street, Arab American Union Members Council, Black Agenda Report, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Campus Antiwar Network, Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, U.S. Labor Against the War, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom [list in formation]
Announcing…
A National Conference
To Bring the Troops Home Now!
July 23-25, 2010, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Albany, New York
The purpose of this conference is to bring together antiwar and social justice activists from across the country to discuss and decide what we can do together to end the wars, occupations, bombing attacks, threats and interventions that are taking place in the Middle East and beyond, which the U.S. government is conducting and promoting. Attend and voice your opinion on where the antiwar movement is today and where we go from here.
In these deeply troubled times, Washington's two wars and occupations rage on, resulting in an ever increasing number of dead and wounded; more and more civilians killed in drone bombing attacks; misery, deprivation, dislocation and shattered lives for millions; and a suicide rate for U.S. service members soaring to unprecedented heights. At the same time, trillions are spent on these seemingly endless Pentagon conflicts waged in pursuit of profits and global domination while trillions more are lost by working people in the value of their homes, in the loss of their jobs, pensions and health care, and in cuts for public services and vitally needed social programs.
We are witness to the massive bailout of banks and corporations while union contracts are shredded, work is outsourced, jobs are shipped off-shore, workers are evicted from their homes, and our youth and students face a bleak future of rising tuition costs, an ever-declining quality of education, and diminishing employment opportunities. They are offered instead the opportunity to become cannon fodder as the military serves as the employer of last resort while prison awaits many others.
The poor and working people in the U.S. suffer the horrors of unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, untreated illnesses and unavailable health insurance, crumbling infrastructure, and temporary and part time work at starvation wages. These multiple crises impact communities of color with disproportionate severity. Meanwhile people in a growing number of countries around the world are subjected to death and destruction by the world’s most powerful military machine.
There is another dimension to this tragedy. The U.S. is at war to control and plunder the very fossil fuel resources whose continued use threatens the future of the human race.
We demand the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, we recognize that the Middle East cauldron today also encompasses Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine and Israel, while Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in Latin America are targeted for intervention, subversion, occupation and control as a consequence of a militarized U.S. foreign policy. Our challenge is not only to end wars and occupations, but to fundamentally change the aggressive policies that inevitably lead our country to militarism and war.
The fight for better times, for a world of peace, justice and freedom, requires that we join together to make it happen, that we fight for the broad unity within the antiwar movement and across all the movements for social justice that has to date escaped us and that we collaborate to engage the American people in massive and united mobilizations against the warmakers and for the justice we deserve.
We have not forgotten the lessons of the civil rights movement, the struggle against the Vietnam War, the feminist and gay rights movements, and the monumental struggles that paved the way to the organization of American trade unions. History has demonstrated time and again that all critical social change is a product of the direct and massive intervention of the people.
We seek an inclusive conference where antiwar individuals and organizations come together to democratically discuss, debate and approve a plan of action aimed at winning the support and allegiance of the majority who have the power to compel a fundamental re-ordering of priorities.
We announce in advance that our goal is to develop strategies that unite us in action – for mass mobilizations and a variety of other tactics that suit the agendas of the constituent groups and individuals who participate in the conference proceedings. Our method is democracy. One person one vote! Our goal is unity in action while respecting our diversity and differences in political program and orientation.
Join us in Albany, New York, July 23-25, 2010!
Issued by the United National Antiwar Conference (UNAC) Planning Committee
For more information, write UNAC2010@aol.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 21675, Cleveland, OH 44121 or call 518-227-6947 or visit our website at http://www.nationalpeaceconference.org
Print postcard: PDF.
We're on Facebook and Youtube and Twitter
AN INVITATION FROM: After Downing Street, Arab American Union Members Council, Black Agenda Report, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Campus Antiwar Network, Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, U.S. Labor Against the War, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom [list in formation]
Announcing…
A National Conference
To Bring the Troops Home Now!
July 23-25, 2010, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Albany, New York
The purpose of this conference is to bring together antiwar and social justice activists from across the country to discuss and decide what we can do together to end the wars, occupations, bombing attacks, threats and interventions that are taking place in the Middle East and beyond, which the U.S. government is conducting and promoting. Attend and voice your opinion on where the antiwar movement is today and where we go from here.
In these deeply troubled times, Washington's two wars and occupations rage on, resulting in an ever increasing number of dead and wounded; more and more civilians killed in drone bombing attacks; misery, deprivation, dislocation and shattered lives for millions; and a suicide rate for U.S. service members soaring to unprecedented heights. At the same time, trillions are spent on these seemingly endless Pentagon conflicts waged in pursuit of profits and global domination while trillions more are lost by working people in the value of their homes, in the loss of their jobs, pensions and health care, and in cuts for public services and vitally needed social programs.
We are witness to the massive bailout of banks and corporations while union contracts are shredded, work is outsourced, jobs are shipped off-shore, workers are evicted from their homes, and our youth and students face a bleak future of rising tuition costs, an ever-declining quality of education, and diminishing employment opportunities. They are offered instead the opportunity to become cannon fodder as the military serves as the employer of last resort while prison awaits many others.
The poor and working people in the U.S. suffer the horrors of unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, untreated illnesses and unavailable health insurance, crumbling infrastructure, and temporary and part time work at starvation wages. These multiple crises impact communities of color with disproportionate severity. Meanwhile people in a growing number of countries around the world are subjected to death and destruction by the world’s most powerful military machine.
There is another dimension to this tragedy. The U.S. is at war to control and plunder the very fossil fuel resources whose continued use threatens the future of the human race.
We demand the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, we recognize that the Middle East cauldron today also encompasses Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine and Israel, while Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in Latin America are targeted for intervention, subversion, occupation and control as a consequence of a militarized U.S. foreign policy. Our challenge is not only to end wars and occupations, but to fundamentally change the aggressive policies that inevitably lead our country to militarism and war.
The fight for better times, for a world of peace, justice and freedom, requires that we join together to make it happen, that we fight for the broad unity within the antiwar movement and across all the movements for social justice that has to date escaped us and that we collaborate to engage the American people in massive and united mobilizations against the warmakers and for the justice we deserve.
We have not forgotten the lessons of the civil rights movement, the struggle against the Vietnam War, the feminist and gay rights movements, and the monumental struggles that paved the way to the organization of American trade unions. History has demonstrated time and again that all critical social change is a product of the direct and massive intervention of the people.
We seek an inclusive conference where antiwar individuals and organizations come together to democratically discuss, debate and approve a plan of action aimed at winning the support and allegiance of the majority who have the power to compel a fundamental re-ordering of priorities.
We announce in advance that our goal is to develop strategies that unite us in action – for mass mobilizations and a variety of other tactics that suit the agendas of the constituent groups and individuals who participate in the conference proceedings. Our method is democracy. One person one vote! Our goal is unity in action while respecting our diversity and differences in political program and orientation.
Join us in Albany, New York, July 23-25, 2010!
Issued by the United National Antiwar Conference (UNAC) Planning Committee
For more information, write UNAC2010@aol.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 21675, Cleveland, OH 44121 or call 518-227-6947 or visit our website at http://www.nationalpeaceconference.org
Print postcard: PDF.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Afghan Women: US intervention in Afghanistan has never been a force for humanitarianism
Listening to Afghanistan
The U.S. intervention has never been and won't become a force for humanitarianism.
Ann Friedman December 22, 2009)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article+listening_to_afghanistan
In the spring of 2008 I wrote a column, "Listening to Iraq," in which I lamented the lack of access that most Americans had to the voices and opinions of the people most affected by the ongoing war. This made it difficult, I wrote, "for even the best-intentioned anti-war American to see Iraqis as partners, rather than as a political project."
I was reminded of that column after Obama's speech announcing his Afghanistan strategy, In it, he declared, "For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people -- especially women and girls." But he made very clear that he does not see our involvement in Afghanistan as a humanitarian mission. As the American left debates, I'm struck by a desire to know what Afghan women, who have been living under the U.S. occupation for roughly eight years now, think would be best for their country.
The Afghan politician and activist Malalai Joya has warned that "Obama's military buildup will only bring more suffering and death to innocent civilians." Another woman, who goes by the pseudonym Zoya, has appeared in various U.S. media calling for "withdrawal of the troops immediately." She is a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a Kabul-based political group that has fought for human rights and social justice since 1977. And Sakena Yacoobi, who founded a network of underground schools for Afghan women and girls, says "most foreign troops are not primarily focused on protecting women and children. Their focus is on beating the enemy, which is very different, and ordinary citizens become collateral damage in the process." At least Obama and Yacoobi are in agreement: This mission is not about human rights and democracy. It's about defeating an enemy.
Admittedly, three women do not make for a comprehensive survey of Afghan civilians' attitudes. Still, I can't help but notice how the opinions of these activists, who are all based in Afghanistan, diverge from those of U.S.?based advocates who are clamoring for continued military involvement on behalf of Afghan women. Rather than focusing on Obama's own words on the subject or examining the lessons learned during the past eight years of occupation (namely that women's rights are not a priority for the U.S. military or the Afghan government it supports), they seem to believe activists can convince the president to make this war about human rights.
"When I think of why the U.S. and the world have a moral obligation to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, women are the central issue," Sunita Viswanath, who founded Women for Afghan Women in New York in 2001, recently told my former colleague Dana Goldstein at The Daily Beast. Other non-Afghan leaders, such as Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal, also support continued U.S. involvement.
This debate among people committed to women's rights is as old as the war. Two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, first lady Laura Bush used the president's weekly radio address to cite the rights of Afghan women as a primary reason for invasion. While this was roundly derided as rank hypocrisy from an administration that only paid lip service to women's rights when there was a war to sell, many feminists were happy to see light shed on the plight of women living under the Taliban. Some remained staunchly anti-war, where others went so far as to cheer the invasion.
Eight years later, the consensus is that the current regime has not been markedly better for women than the former Taliban rulers were -- especially outside of Kabul. President Hamid Karzai signed a law this summer that legalized marital rape and required women to get permission from their husbands to work. In November UNICEF declared Afghanistan the worst country in the world in which to be born. Women and girls still face daily oppression and epidemic levels of violence.
The difference between the pro-intervention feminists like Viswanath and Smeal and the pro-withdrawal Afghan women like Joya, Zoya, and Yacoobi is not their level of commitment to women's rights. It's their faith in military intervention as a means of securing them. As Prospect senior correspondent Michelle Goldberg put it recently, one's view of whether a continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan will improve the situation for women "depends on whether one believes that the American military can be a force for humanitarianism."
To me, the answer is tragically apparent: It doesn't matter whether U.S. military intervention can be a force for humanitarianism because, in Afghanistan, it never has been and won't become one.
(c)2009 by the American Prospect
The U.S. intervention has never been and won't become a force for humanitarianism.
Ann Friedman December 22, 2009)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article+listening_to_afghanistan
In the spring of 2008 I wrote a column, "Listening to Iraq," in which I lamented the lack of access that most Americans had to the voices and opinions of the people most affected by the ongoing war. This made it difficult, I wrote, "for even the best-intentioned anti-war American to see Iraqis as partners, rather than as a political project."
I was reminded of that column after Obama's speech announcing his Afghanistan strategy, In it, he declared, "For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people -- especially women and girls." But he made very clear that he does not see our involvement in Afghanistan as a humanitarian mission. As the American left debates, I'm struck by a desire to know what Afghan women, who have been living under the U.S. occupation for roughly eight years now, think would be best for their country.
The Afghan politician and activist Malalai Joya has warned that "Obama's military buildup will only bring more suffering and death to innocent civilians." Another woman, who goes by the pseudonym Zoya, has appeared in various U.S. media calling for "withdrawal of the troops immediately." She is a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a Kabul-based political group that has fought for human rights and social justice since 1977. And Sakena Yacoobi, who founded a network of underground schools for Afghan women and girls, says "most foreign troops are not primarily focused on protecting women and children. Their focus is on beating the enemy, which is very different, and ordinary citizens become collateral damage in the process." At least Obama and Yacoobi are in agreement: This mission is not about human rights and democracy. It's about defeating an enemy.
Admittedly, three women do not make for a comprehensive survey of Afghan civilians' attitudes. Still, I can't help but notice how the opinions of these activists, who are all based in Afghanistan, diverge from those of U.S.?based advocates who are clamoring for continued military involvement on behalf of Afghan women. Rather than focusing on Obama's own words on the subject or examining the lessons learned during the past eight years of occupation (namely that women's rights are not a priority for the U.S. military or the Afghan government it supports), they seem to believe activists can convince the president to make this war about human rights.
"When I think of why the U.S. and the world have a moral obligation to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, women are the central issue," Sunita Viswanath, who founded Women for Afghan Women in New York in 2001, recently told my former colleague Dana Goldstein at The Daily Beast. Other non-Afghan leaders, such as Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal, also support continued U.S. involvement.
This debate among people committed to women's rights is as old as the war. Two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, first lady Laura Bush used the president's weekly radio address to cite the rights of Afghan women as a primary reason for invasion. While this was roundly derided as rank hypocrisy from an administration that only paid lip service to women's rights when there was a war to sell, many feminists were happy to see light shed on the plight of women living under the Taliban. Some remained staunchly anti-war, where others went so far as to cheer the invasion.
Eight years later, the consensus is that the current regime has not been markedly better for women than the former Taliban rulers were -- especially outside of Kabul. President Hamid Karzai signed a law this summer that legalized marital rape and required women to get permission from their husbands to work. In November UNICEF declared Afghanistan the worst country in the world in which to be born. Women and girls still face daily oppression and epidemic levels of violence.
The difference between the pro-intervention feminists like Viswanath and Smeal and the pro-withdrawal Afghan women like Joya, Zoya, and Yacoobi is not their level of commitment to women's rights. It's their faith in military intervention as a means of securing them. As Prospect senior correspondent Michelle Goldberg put it recently, one's view of whether a continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan will improve the situation for women "depends on whether one believes that the American military can be a force for humanitarianism."
To me, the answer is tragically apparent: It doesn't matter whether U.S. military intervention can be a force for humanitarianism because, in Afghanistan, it never has been and won't become one.
(c)2009 by the American Prospect
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Malalai Joya continues speaking out against the occupation
Afghanistan’s ‘Bravest Woman’ Pins Hopes on USA, not Obama
Posted By Aaron Glantz On December 9, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
A Woman Among Warlords from New America Media on Vimeo.
Malalai Joya has been called “Afghanistan’s bravest woman.” When the Taliban ruled her country, she braved death, running an underground girls school. When the US military overthrew the Taliban she ran for parliament.
But that doesn’t mean she’s a supporter of the U.S. military, or President Obama’s decision to double the number of American troops in her country.
“Unfortunately, President Obama’s foreign policy is a lot like [the] criminal Bush,” she said in a sit-down in interview during a recent visit to San Francisco. “He follows war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Pakistan.”Joya’s opposition to the U.S.-NATO occupation of Afghanistan began shortly after foreign troops arrived in 2001.
Immediately “after the 9/11 tragedy, my people thought maybe this time the US government will be helpful for our people,” she said. “They were hopeful that Taliban domination has been destroyed maybe this time they will give a chance to justice-loving, democrat-minded people of my country. At least to people who don’t have bloody hands!”
But Joya found that hope dashed quickly – as early as December 2003 – in the first meeting of Afghanistan’s newly-elected constitutional assembly. She looked around the room and saw the United States and NATO had invited a who’s who of the warlords who had destroyed her country to form a new government.
She was 24. And she couldn’t stay silent.
“I wish to criticize my compatriots in this room,” she said amid boos, catcalls and scattered cheers. “Why would you allow criminals to be present at this Loya Jirga, warlords responsible for our country’s situation? Afghanistan is the center for national and international conflicts. They oppress women and have ruined our country. They should be prosecuted. They might be forgiven by the Afghan people, but not by history.”
The chairman responded by throwing her out.
“The sister has crossed the line of what is considered common courtesy,” he said, banging his gavel. “She is banished from this assembly and cannot return. Send her out! Guards, throw her out! She doesn’t deserve to be here.”
But Joya did not give up. She ran for Parliament again in 2005 and was elected a second time.In 2006, she was physically attacked on the floor of the Parliament, when she said:“There are two types of Mujahidin” – freedom fighters – “one who were really Mujahidin, the second who killed tens of thousands of innocent people and who are criminals."
Joya was again expelled from Parliament. One law-maker Jebel Chelgari said that wasn’t enough. She should be punished with a gun, he said. Like many members of post-Taliban Parliament, Joya says Chelgari has a reputation for brutality.
“This cruel man, this non-educated, ignorant man,” she says, “is famous in his province as a head eater. Because he has killed so many people they do not even mention his name. They call him ‘head eater.’”
All together, Joya has survived five assassination attempts. But at least she’s still alive. Other women’s rights advocates have not been so lucky.
She breathlessly rattles off a half dozen prominent women who have been killed by the U.S. and NATO, U.S.-backed warlords, the Taliban and general lawlessness since September 2001.
There is Malalai Kakar, Afghanistan’s most prominent policewoman, who headed up Kandahar Province’s department for crimes against women, who was shot and killed while driving her car on September 28, 2008.
Also among the dead is Sitara Achakzai, who spent the years of Taliban rule in Germany and returned to Afghanistan in 2004 to join women working to promote their human rights and struggling to secure peace. For International Women’s Day on March 8, 2009, she played a major role in organizing a national sit-in of more than 11,000 women in seven Afghan provinces. On April 12, 2009, she was gunned down in broad daylight in front of her home.
“This list can be prolonged,” she says. “When these brave activist women get killed mainstream only reports like a bird has been killed. That is it.”
That these war-lords remain in power is not an accident, she said. They thrive on the drug trade and are actively supported by the United States and other regional powers.
And that arrangement has gotten worse under Obama than Bush, she said, because certain warlords deemed too brutal to take part in the Afghan government under Bush have been invited to the bargaining table under Obama.
One example she cites, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a 61-year-old veteran of Afghanistan’s three decades of war who gained infamy for rocketing his own capital during a brief stint as prime minister in the 1990s.
Bush had put a $25 million “price on his head” for participating in terrorist actions with Al-Qaeda, she notes, and in 2003 the State Department designated Hekmatyar a "Specially Designated Global International Terrorist".
This April, however, U.S. officials began meeting with Hekmatyar’s representatives in hope that he would join the government.
So Joya has taken her fight directly to the occupiers. She’s written a book – A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out – and is touring the very countries that occupy Afghanistan – England, Germany, Canada, and the United States.
Joya says she has hope for the future. If the NATO and the US military leave Afghanistan, she says life will gradually improve.
If “these occupation forces leave Afghanistan and their governments leave us alone then we’ll know what to do with our destiny – if they leave us a little bread and peace, because these war lords and the Taliban have no fruit among the heart of my people. My people hate them."
In this way, she sees the weakness of Hamid Karzai’s government as a strength, not a cause for concern.
“Resistance of my people is a big hope for my people of Afghanistan. That’s why my message to the great people of the U.S. and the around the world is that your government must leave our country, but you are the ones that must join your hands with us: human rights organizations, justice-loving people and intellectuals, feminist organizations—they are the ones that must not leave us alone. As much as we can, we need your support.”
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original
Posted By Aaron Glantz On December 9, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
A Woman Among Warlords from New America Media on Vimeo.
Malalai Joya has been called “Afghanistan’s bravest woman.” When the Taliban ruled her country, she braved death, running an underground girls school. When the US military overthrew the Taliban she ran for parliament.
But that doesn’t mean she’s a supporter of the U.S. military, or President Obama’s decision to double the number of American troops in her country.
“Unfortunately, President Obama’s foreign policy is a lot like [the] criminal Bush,” she said in a sit-down in interview during a recent visit to San Francisco. “He follows war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Pakistan.”Joya’s opposition to the U.S.-NATO occupation of Afghanistan began shortly after foreign troops arrived in 2001.
Immediately “after the 9/11 tragedy, my people thought maybe this time the US government will be helpful for our people,” she said. “They were hopeful that Taliban domination has been destroyed maybe this time they will give a chance to justice-loving, democrat-minded people of my country. At least to people who don’t have bloody hands!”
But Joya found that hope dashed quickly – as early as December 2003 – in the first meeting of Afghanistan’s newly-elected constitutional assembly. She looked around the room and saw the United States and NATO had invited a who’s who of the warlords who had destroyed her country to form a new government.
She was 24. And she couldn’t stay silent.
“I wish to criticize my compatriots in this room,” she said amid boos, catcalls and scattered cheers. “Why would you allow criminals to be present at this Loya Jirga, warlords responsible for our country’s situation? Afghanistan is the center for national and international conflicts. They oppress women and have ruined our country. They should be prosecuted. They might be forgiven by the Afghan people, but not by history.”
The chairman responded by throwing her out.
“The sister has crossed the line of what is considered common courtesy,” he said, banging his gavel. “She is banished from this assembly and cannot return. Send her out! Guards, throw her out! She doesn’t deserve to be here.”
But Joya did not give up. She ran for Parliament again in 2005 and was elected a second time.In 2006, she was physically attacked on the floor of the Parliament, when she said:“There are two types of Mujahidin” – freedom fighters – “one who were really Mujahidin, the second who killed tens of thousands of innocent people and who are criminals."
Joya was again expelled from Parliament. One law-maker Jebel Chelgari said that wasn’t enough. She should be punished with a gun, he said. Like many members of post-Taliban Parliament, Joya says Chelgari has a reputation for brutality.
“This cruel man, this non-educated, ignorant man,” she says, “is famous in his province as a head eater. Because he has killed so many people they do not even mention his name. They call him ‘head eater.’”
All together, Joya has survived five assassination attempts. But at least she’s still alive. Other women’s rights advocates have not been so lucky.
She breathlessly rattles off a half dozen prominent women who have been killed by the U.S. and NATO, U.S.-backed warlords, the Taliban and general lawlessness since September 2001.
There is Malalai Kakar, Afghanistan’s most prominent policewoman, who headed up Kandahar Province’s department for crimes against women, who was shot and killed while driving her car on September 28, 2008.
Also among the dead is Sitara Achakzai, who spent the years of Taliban rule in Germany and returned to Afghanistan in 2004 to join women working to promote their human rights and struggling to secure peace. For International Women’s Day on March 8, 2009, she played a major role in organizing a national sit-in of more than 11,000 women in seven Afghan provinces. On April 12, 2009, she was gunned down in broad daylight in front of her home.
“This list can be prolonged,” she says. “When these brave activist women get killed mainstream only reports like a bird has been killed. That is it.”
That these war-lords remain in power is not an accident, she said. They thrive on the drug trade and are actively supported by the United States and other regional powers.
And that arrangement has gotten worse under Obama than Bush, she said, because certain warlords deemed too brutal to take part in the Afghan government under Bush have been invited to the bargaining table under Obama.
One example she cites, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a 61-year-old veteran of Afghanistan’s three decades of war who gained infamy for rocketing his own capital during a brief stint as prime minister in the 1990s.
Bush had put a $25 million “price on his head” for participating in terrorist actions with Al-Qaeda, she notes, and in 2003 the State Department designated Hekmatyar a "Specially Designated Global International Terrorist".
This April, however, U.S. officials began meeting with Hekmatyar’s representatives in hope that he would join the government.
So Joya has taken her fight directly to the occupiers. She’s written a book – A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out – and is touring the very countries that occupy Afghanistan – England, Germany, Canada, and the United States.
Joya says she has hope for the future. If the NATO and the US military leave Afghanistan, she says life will gradually improve.
If “these occupation forces leave Afghanistan and their governments leave us alone then we’ll know what to do with our destiny – if they leave us a little bread and peace, because these war lords and the Taliban have no fruit among the heart of my people. My people hate them."
In this way, she sees the weakness of Hamid Karzai’s government as a strength, not a cause for concern.
“Resistance of my people is a big hope for my people of Afghanistan. That’s why my message to the great people of the U.S. and the around the world is that your government must leave our country, but you are the ones that must join your hands with us: human rights organizations, justice-loving people and intellectuals, feminist organizations—they are the ones that must not leave us alone. As much as we can, we need your support.”
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Experts who want a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
Authoritative Rejection of Afghanistan War
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23127
November 14, 2009
By David Swanson Source: Afterdowningstreet.org David Swanson's ZSpace Page
The last time I was on Laura Flanders's GRIT tv I argued that the American public opposed the occupation of Afghanistan, but another guest -- some Washington, D.C., "progressive" -- argued that this had no relevance, since the American public didn't know anything about Afghanistan.
When the RAND Corporation held a forum on Afghanistan recently on Capitol Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that it was uncontroversial that US troops had to stay in Afghanistan. I pointed him to polls of Americans, and he replied that Americans get fatigued and don't know any better.
When I spoke to a philosophy department at a university this month, a number of the professors objected to my advocacy of majority-rule on the grounds that experts often know best.
Let's set aside for a moment the ludicrous propaganda that maintains that the reason we occupy other people's countries is to impose democracy on them. Let's assume we're imposing the rule of elite experts. Even so, even on those terms, here are some possible responses to this line of thinking.
1.-While spokepeople for the U.S. military (including television news experts) are certainly the experts at war, they are not the experts at peace. If the question is one of choosing between war and peace, or deciding whether warlike or peacelike means will best reach some desired end, then why only include one type of expert opinion?
2.-While U.S. experts on war and peace could provide two different views, there are experts, including historians, from around the world whose knowledge should be utilized. And the experts on Afghanistan ought, by any understanding, to include the Afghan people. If the US public is irrelevant because it does not know Afghanistan (and somehow this is an argument for bombing the place rather than refraining from doing so), surely the Afghan public knows something about their nation. And they want the occupation ended. How can we so easily dismiss THAT expert opinion?
3.-Don't trust Afghan opinion? Want to save Afghanistan from the Afghans? Well, what about this: Howard Hart, a 25-year CIA veteran who ran operations in Afghanistan for three-and-a-half years during the Cold War, spoke at the University of Virginia yesterday and argued that the United States should withdraw from Afghanistan. He said that the original goal had supposedly been to destroy al Qaeda, which had long since left, and that creating a legitimate government (something most people and the law hold that a foreign occupation can NEVER do) would require hundreds of thousands of troops, cost "umpteen billion" dollars, and still be next to impossible. Watch three former high-ranking CIA officials say the same thing, and a lot more worth watching, at http://rethinkafghanistan.com/
4.-Too out-dated for you? The current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, General Karl W. Eikenberry, who was responsible for building and training the Afghan security forces from 2002 to 2003, and who was top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, has told President Obama he opposes sending more troops. He argues for sending civilians to assist with agriculture and other useful projects that would give Afghans an alternative to violence. This is a direction supported by US activist groups that have visited Afghanistan and studied the problem, such as http://jobsforafghans.org/
5.-New York Times reporter David Rohde was held hostage for seven months by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and upon release reported on what motivates Afghans to engage in violence. The reasons he provided suggested that (as with most foreign occupations in any other time or place) the occupation was motivating the violent resistance to it rather than helping to ease unrelated tensions:
"Some of the consequences of Washington's antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charge. . . . They said large numbers of civilians had been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories in aerial bombings. Muslim prisoners had been physically abused and sexually humiliated in Iraq. Scores of men had been detained in Cuba and Afghanistan for up to seven years without charges. To Americans, these episodes were aberrations. To my captors, they were proof that the United States was a hypocritical and duplicitous power that flouted international law. When I told them I was an innocent civilian who should be released, they responded that the United States had held and tortured Muslims in secret detention centers for years. Commanders said they themselves had been imprisoned, their families ignorant of their fate. Why, they asked, should they treat me differently?"
6. The senior U.S. civilian diplomat in Zabul province, a former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq named Matthew Hoh, not only agrees with the U.S. Ambassador that escalating the war in Afghanistan makes no sense. He resigned in September in protest of the continued occupation. He wrote in his resignation letter:
"The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul. The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. . . . Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency's true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam."
7. A career diplomat and former Army Colonel who helped reopen the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Ann Wright, similarly resigned in protest of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She now agrees with Hoh's assessment on Afghanistan. It is to such authorities, who have been right years ahead of any permissible schedule, that we should turn for guidance. Also of note, the United Nations has withdrawn much of its international staff and threatened to withdraw entirely from Afghanistan. NATO allies are scheduling the end of their participation as well.
8. U.S. President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, says there is no guarantee that sending troops to Afghanistan would accomplish anything useful, and that they could just be "swallowed up". Is the National Security Advisor's advice worthless? What about Vice President Biden who never saw a war he didn't like? He doesn't like this one and wants to move it somewhere else (like Pakistan).
9. Mikhail Gorbachev has some experience with occupations of Afghanistan. He advises withdrawal.
10. Increasingly, U.S. military veterans are advocating for withdrawal, and -- in small but rapidly growing numbers -- active duty soldiers (in the UK as well as the US) are refusing to comply with the illegal order to participate. If the military is an authority, are its members -- rather than its top commanders alone -- not a part of that authority?
11. The money to pay back the loans and the interest on those loans that are used to fund this war must come from the American people. There is no higher authority on where the American people choose to spend their money than the American people. So, at some point we must return to them as the rightful deciders.
12. Those who opposed attacking Afghanistan in the first place, including Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and those who opposed attacking Iraq as well, included long-time diplomats, historians, public commentators, journalists, bloggers, activists, politicians, and scholars. The extraordinary degree to which they got things right is routinely treated as reason to exclude them from public debate. We take as authoritative the opinions of people who are usually wrong, but censor the latest views of those who are usually right. We do this at our peril. Instead, we would be well advised to get some real news from RealNews.com: http://tr.im/ETuV And if we have to watch television, watch Bill Moyers who says he would support a draft if it would end these wars. Or listen to Norman Solomon, Ray McGovern, Tom Hayden, Gareth Porter, and all the valuable reports not shown on Fox or MSNBC:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/taxonomy/term/110
13. Ought not the highest authority for non-criminals to be the law? It is illegal to invade and occupy other nations. It is illegal to target civilians. It is illegal to use depleted uranium. It is illegal to imprison people without charge or trial. It is illegal to torture. An unelected government supported by a foreign occupying army has no legitimacy. The damage we are doing to the rule of law cannot be overstated. The United Nations has warned the United States about its ongoing illegal use of drones.
14. Just ask some of the more courageous members of the Afghan Parliament, who have been locally elected. Ask Malalai Joya.
15. Ask experts on occupations and insurgencies like William Polk, who says the United States should withdraw.
16. Ask Congress, where members are speaking out for withdrawal, signing bills in support of exit plans and against escalation, and committing to voting No on any funding bills to continue the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq: http://afterdowningstreet.org/whipwars Even former Congressman Charlie Wilson says: Get out of Afghanistan. Even Congressman David Obey has expressed concern, and he chairs the committee that writes the checks.
17. Shouldn't reverse experts be considered as well? Those pushing to continue and escalate our wars have been endlessly wrong and indisputably dishonest. Shouldn't any elite in-the-know expert think twice before agreeing with Dick Cheney?
I'm not accepting the notion of just rule by experts. I favor majority rule, with minority rights protected, and freedom of the press made real. My point is that even on its own terms defending the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq as validated by experts is a miserable failure.
David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23127
November 14, 2009
By David Swanson Source: Afterdowningstreet.org David Swanson's ZSpace Page
The last time I was on Laura Flanders's GRIT tv I argued that the American public opposed the occupation of Afghanistan, but another guest -- some Washington, D.C., "progressive" -- argued that this had no relevance, since the American public didn't know anything about Afghanistan.
When the RAND Corporation held a forum on Afghanistan recently on Capitol Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that it was uncontroversial that US troops had to stay in Afghanistan. I pointed him to polls of Americans, and he replied that Americans get fatigued and don't know any better.
When I spoke to a philosophy department at a university this month, a number of the professors objected to my advocacy of majority-rule on the grounds that experts often know best.
Let's set aside for a moment the ludicrous propaganda that maintains that the reason we occupy other people's countries is to impose democracy on them. Let's assume we're imposing the rule of elite experts. Even so, even on those terms, here are some possible responses to this line of thinking.
1.-While spokepeople for the U.S. military (including television news experts) are certainly the experts at war, they are not the experts at peace. If the question is one of choosing between war and peace, or deciding whether warlike or peacelike means will best reach some desired end, then why only include one type of expert opinion?
2.-While U.S. experts on war and peace could provide two different views, there are experts, including historians, from around the world whose knowledge should be utilized. And the experts on Afghanistan ought, by any understanding, to include the Afghan people. If the US public is irrelevant because it does not know Afghanistan (and somehow this is an argument for bombing the place rather than refraining from doing so), surely the Afghan public knows something about their nation. And they want the occupation ended. How can we so easily dismiss THAT expert opinion?
3.-Don't trust Afghan opinion? Want to save Afghanistan from the Afghans? Well, what about this: Howard Hart, a 25-year CIA veteran who ran operations in Afghanistan for three-and-a-half years during the Cold War, spoke at the University of Virginia yesterday and argued that the United States should withdraw from Afghanistan. He said that the original goal had supposedly been to destroy al Qaeda, which had long since left, and that creating a legitimate government (something most people and the law hold that a foreign occupation can NEVER do) would require hundreds of thousands of troops, cost "umpteen billion" dollars, and still be next to impossible. Watch three former high-ranking CIA officials say the same thing, and a lot more worth watching, at http://rethinkafghanistan.com/
4.-Too out-dated for you? The current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, General Karl W. Eikenberry, who was responsible for building and training the Afghan security forces from 2002 to 2003, and who was top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, has told President Obama he opposes sending more troops. He argues for sending civilians to assist with agriculture and other useful projects that would give Afghans an alternative to violence. This is a direction supported by US activist groups that have visited Afghanistan and studied the problem, such as http://jobsforafghans.org/
5.-New York Times reporter David Rohde was held hostage for seven months by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and upon release reported on what motivates Afghans to engage in violence. The reasons he provided suggested that (as with most foreign occupations in any other time or place) the occupation was motivating the violent resistance to it rather than helping to ease unrelated tensions:
"Some of the consequences of Washington's antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charge. . . . They said large numbers of civilians had been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories in aerial bombings. Muslim prisoners had been physically abused and sexually humiliated in Iraq. Scores of men had been detained in Cuba and Afghanistan for up to seven years without charges. To Americans, these episodes were aberrations. To my captors, they were proof that the United States was a hypocritical and duplicitous power that flouted international law. When I told them I was an innocent civilian who should be released, they responded that the United States had held and tortured Muslims in secret detention centers for years. Commanders said they themselves had been imprisoned, their families ignorant of their fate. Why, they asked, should they treat me differently?"
6. The senior U.S. civilian diplomat in Zabul province, a former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq named Matthew Hoh, not only agrees with the U.S. Ambassador that escalating the war in Afghanistan makes no sense. He resigned in September in protest of the continued occupation. He wrote in his resignation letter:
"The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul. The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. . . . Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency's true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam."
7. A career diplomat and former Army Colonel who helped reopen the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Ann Wright, similarly resigned in protest of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She now agrees with Hoh's assessment on Afghanistan. It is to such authorities, who have been right years ahead of any permissible schedule, that we should turn for guidance. Also of note, the United Nations has withdrawn much of its international staff and threatened to withdraw entirely from Afghanistan. NATO allies are scheduling the end of their participation as well.
8. U.S. President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, says there is no guarantee that sending troops to Afghanistan would accomplish anything useful, and that they could just be "swallowed up". Is the National Security Advisor's advice worthless? What about Vice President Biden who never saw a war he didn't like? He doesn't like this one and wants to move it somewhere else (like Pakistan).
9. Mikhail Gorbachev has some experience with occupations of Afghanistan. He advises withdrawal.
10. Increasingly, U.S. military veterans are advocating for withdrawal, and -- in small but rapidly growing numbers -- active duty soldiers (in the UK as well as the US) are refusing to comply with the illegal order to participate. If the military is an authority, are its members -- rather than its top commanders alone -- not a part of that authority?
11. The money to pay back the loans and the interest on those loans that are used to fund this war must come from the American people. There is no higher authority on where the American people choose to spend their money than the American people. So, at some point we must return to them as the rightful deciders.
12. Those who opposed attacking Afghanistan in the first place, including Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and those who opposed attacking Iraq as well, included long-time diplomats, historians, public commentators, journalists, bloggers, activists, politicians, and scholars. The extraordinary degree to which they got things right is routinely treated as reason to exclude them from public debate. We take as authoritative the opinions of people who are usually wrong, but censor the latest views of those who are usually right. We do this at our peril. Instead, we would be well advised to get some real news from RealNews.com: http://tr.im/ETuV And if we have to watch television, watch Bill Moyers who says he would support a draft if it would end these wars. Or listen to Norman Solomon, Ray McGovern, Tom Hayden, Gareth Porter, and all the valuable reports not shown on Fox or MSNBC:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/taxonomy/term/110
13. Ought not the highest authority for non-criminals to be the law? It is illegal to invade and occupy other nations. It is illegal to target civilians. It is illegal to use depleted uranium. It is illegal to imprison people without charge or trial. It is illegal to torture. An unelected government supported by a foreign occupying army has no legitimacy. The damage we are doing to the rule of law cannot be overstated. The United Nations has warned the United States about its ongoing illegal use of drones.
14. Just ask some of the more courageous members of the Afghan Parliament, who have been locally elected. Ask Malalai Joya.
15. Ask experts on occupations and insurgencies like William Polk, who says the United States should withdraw.
16. Ask Congress, where members are speaking out for withdrawal, signing bills in support of exit plans and against escalation, and committing to voting No on any funding bills to continue the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq: http://afterdowningstreet.org/whipwars Even former Congressman Charlie Wilson says: Get out of Afghanistan. Even Congressman David Obey has expressed concern, and he chairs the committee that writes the checks.
17. Shouldn't reverse experts be considered as well? Those pushing to continue and escalate our wars have been endlessly wrong and indisputably dishonest. Shouldn't any elite in-the-know expert think twice before agreeing with Dick Cheney?
I'm not accepting the notion of just rule by experts. I favor majority rule, with minority rights protected, and freedom of the press made real. My point is that even on its own terms defending the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq as validated by experts is a miserable failure.
David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Growing opposition to Afghan policies
Norman Solomon reports in the following article that the California Democratic Party has passed a resolution to "stop making war in Afghanistan. This is yet another example of growing opposition to the war, along with the results of some polls, opposition surfacing from within the Obama administration, the recommendation from Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to abandon any surge, the letter of resignation by Matthew P. Hoh, the estimated financial costs of maintaining the occupation, a host of anti-war sites on the internet, and the rising number of wounded and killed U.S. soldiers.
There are other developments as well that are raising serious questions about not only a possible surge in troops to Afghanistan but about the continuation of the occupation. The US military has not be able to stem the growth and lethality of theTaliban. There is also a recent report on the program Democracy Now that the U.S. army is unable to protect supply routes into southern Afghanistan, and must instead find indirect ways to pay the Taliban to protect these routes. Some contradiction. The Afghan allies of the U.S. are often warlords who dominate many provinces outside of Taliban control and who hold important cabinet and parliamentary positions in the government. The money sent into Afghanistan often ends up in the pockets or under the control of such warlords, with little of it benefitting the Afghan people.
The emphasis on a military solution in the higher military and government circles of the U.S. appears less credible as the evidence accumulates.
Bob Sheak
There are other developments as well that are raising serious questions about not only a possible surge in troops to Afghanistan but about the continuation of the occupation. The US military has not be able to stem the growth and lethality of theTaliban. There is also a recent report on the program Democracy Now that the U.S. army is unable to protect supply routes into southern Afghanistan, and must instead find indirect ways to pay the Taliban to protect these routes. Some contradiction. The Afghan allies of the U.S. are often warlords who dominate many provinces outside of Taliban control and who hold important cabinet and parliamentary positions in the government. The money sent into Afghanistan often ends up in the pockets or under the control of such warlords, with little of it benefitting the Afghan people.
The emphasis on a military solution in the higher military and government circles of the U.S. appears less credible as the evidence accumulates.
Bob Sheak
_________________________________
Published on Monday, November 16, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan
by Norman Solomon
This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop
making war in Afghanistan.
Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party's 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan."
The resolution supports "a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel" and calls for "an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties." Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama "to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid."
While Obama weighs Afghanistan policy options, the California Democratic Party's adoption of the resolution is the most tangible indicator yet that escalation of the U.S. war effort can only fuel opposition within the president's own party -- opposition that has already begun to erode his political base.
Participating in a long-haul struggle for progressive principles inside the party, I co-authored the resolution with savvy longtime activists Karen Bernal of Sacramento and Marcy Winograd of Los Angeles.
Bernal, the chair of the state party's Progressive Caucus, said on Sunday night: "Today's vote formalized and amplified what had been, up to now, an unspoken but profoundly understood reality -- that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. What's more, the vote signified an acceptance of what is sure to be a continued and growing culture of resistance to current administration policies on the matter within the party. This is absolutely huge. Now, there can be no disputing the fact that the overwhelming majority of California Democrats are not only saying no to escalation, but no to our continued military presence in Afghanistan, period. The California Democratic Party has spoken, and we want the rest of the country to know."
Winograd, who is running hard as a grassroots candidate in a primary race against pro-war incumbent Rep. Jane Harman, had this to say: "We need progressives in every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan. Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young into the room, and demand an end to this occupation that only destabilizes the region. There is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that requires we cease our role as occupiers if we want our voices to be heard. Yes, this is about Afghanistan -- but it's also about our role in the world at large. Do we want to be global occupiers seizing scarce resources or global partners in shared prosperity? I would argue a partnership is not only the humane choice, but also the choice that grants us the greatest security."
Speaking to the resolutions committee of the state party on Saturday, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes movingly described his experiences as a warrior in Afghanistan that led him to question and then oppose what he now considers to be an illegitimate U.S. occupation of that country.
Another voice of disillusionment reached party delegates when Bernal distributed a copy of the recent resignation letter from senior U.S. diplomat Matthew Hoh, sent after five months of work on the ground in Afghanistan. "I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan," he wrote. "If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons."
Hoh's letter added that "I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan." And he wrote: "Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made."
From their own vantage points, many of the California Democratic Party leaders who voted to approve the out-of-Afghanistan resolution on Nov. 15 have gone through a similar process. They've come to see the touted reasons for the U.S. war effort as specious, the mission as Sisyphean and the consequences as profoundly unacceptable.
Sometime in the next few days, President Obama is likely to learn that the California Democratic Party has approved an official resolution titled "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan." But will he really get the message?
Norman Solomon is a journalist, historian, and progressive activist. His book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death [1]" has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is "Made Love, Got War. [2]" He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare [3] campaign. In California, he is co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay; http://www.greennewdeal.info/ [4].[4]
Article printed from http://www.commondreams.org/
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/16-1
Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan
by Norman Solomon
This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop
making war in Afghanistan.
Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party's 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan."
The resolution supports "a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel" and calls for "an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties." Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama "to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid."
While Obama weighs Afghanistan policy options, the California Democratic Party's adoption of the resolution is the most tangible indicator yet that escalation of the U.S. war effort can only fuel opposition within the president's own party -- opposition that has already begun to erode his political base.
Participating in a long-haul struggle for progressive principles inside the party, I co-authored the resolution with savvy longtime activists Karen Bernal of Sacramento and Marcy Winograd of Los Angeles.
Bernal, the chair of the state party's Progressive Caucus, said on Sunday night: "Today's vote formalized and amplified what had been, up to now, an unspoken but profoundly understood reality -- that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. What's more, the vote signified an acceptance of what is sure to be a continued and growing culture of resistance to current administration policies on the matter within the party. This is absolutely huge. Now, there can be no disputing the fact that the overwhelming majority of California Democrats are not only saying no to escalation, but no to our continued military presence in Afghanistan, period. The California Democratic Party has spoken, and we want the rest of the country to know."
Winograd, who is running hard as a grassroots candidate in a primary race against pro-war incumbent Rep. Jane Harman, had this to say: "We need progressives in every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan. Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young into the room, and demand an end to this occupation that only destabilizes the region. There is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that requires we cease our role as occupiers if we want our voices to be heard. Yes, this is about Afghanistan -- but it's also about our role in the world at large. Do we want to be global occupiers seizing scarce resources or global partners in shared prosperity? I would argue a partnership is not only the humane choice, but also the choice that grants us the greatest security."
Speaking to the resolutions committee of the state party on Saturday, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes movingly described his experiences as a warrior in Afghanistan that led him to question and then oppose what he now considers to be an illegitimate U.S. occupation of that country.
Another voice of disillusionment reached party delegates when Bernal distributed a copy of the recent resignation letter from senior U.S. diplomat Matthew Hoh, sent after five months of work on the ground in Afghanistan. "I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan," he wrote. "If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons."
Hoh's letter added that "I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan." And he wrote: "Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made."
From their own vantage points, many of the California Democratic Party leaders who voted to approve the out-of-Afghanistan resolution on Nov. 15 have gone through a similar process. They've come to see the touted reasons for the U.S. war effort as specious, the mission as Sisyphean and the consequences as profoundly unacceptable.
Sometime in the next few days, President Obama is likely to learn that the California Democratic Party has approved an official resolution titled "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan." But will he really get the message?
Norman Solomon is a journalist, historian, and progressive activist. His book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death [1]" has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is "Made Love, Got War. [2]" He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare [3] campaign. In California, he is co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay; http://www.greennewdeal.info/ [4].[4]
Article printed from http://www.commondreams.org/
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/16-1
Sunday, November 15, 2009
More opposition to surge
There are two significant points made by Christopher Drew in an article published in The New York Times (11/14/09). The title of the article is "High Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War."
First, the addition of troops to Afghanistan, the "surge," will be expensive. Drew reports it will cost $1 million dollars for each additional soldier. The costs have risen to this level with the demands for sophisticated equipment, such as, mine-resistant troop carriers and surveillance equipment (e.g., unmanned drones). Costs are also driven by the high cost of fueling supply trucks, with the cost of gasoline rising to $400 a gallon on the rough and dangerous terrain in key supply routes of Afghanistan, especially where opposition is especially strong against the occupation. Drew reports that the costs to us in Afghanistan will rise faster than any savings from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Second, opposition to the proposal for additional troops in Afghanistan has recently surfaced. Karl W. Eikenberry, current U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, has advised the Obama administration not to deploy additional troops because the Afghan "leadership" is weak and there is "widening corruption." In addition, influential Democrats in the House are saying that a majority of Democrats are now against providing funds for a surge of troops. They say that if we continue to increase funding on Afghanistan, and if the overall military budget continues to increase as estimated, then many domestic programs will have face further cuts and the unprecedent deficits will soar.
There are other costs of the continuing US/NATO occupation not mentioned by Drew, whether or not there is a surge. The already devastated Afghan landscape and the deepening impoverishment of the Afghan people will be worsened by the continuation of the occupation. Why? Because there is little being spent on reconstruction and assistance that would benefit the Afghan people.
The implication of Drew's article is that the arguments against the surge of troops to Afghanistan are increasing. We'll see whether they make a difference in what President Obama eventually decides to do on the matter.
Bob
First, the addition of troops to Afghanistan, the "surge," will be expensive. Drew reports it will cost $1 million dollars for each additional soldier. The costs have risen to this level with the demands for sophisticated equipment, such as, mine-resistant troop carriers and surveillance equipment (e.g., unmanned drones). Costs are also driven by the high cost of fueling supply trucks, with the cost of gasoline rising to $400 a gallon on the rough and dangerous terrain in key supply routes of Afghanistan, especially where opposition is especially strong against the occupation. Drew reports that the costs to us in Afghanistan will rise faster than any savings from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Second, opposition to the proposal for additional troops in Afghanistan has recently surfaced. Karl W. Eikenberry, current U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, has advised the Obama administration not to deploy additional troops because the Afghan "leadership" is weak and there is "widening corruption." In addition, influential Democrats in the House are saying that a majority of Democrats are now against providing funds for a surge of troops. They say that if we continue to increase funding on Afghanistan, and if the overall military budget continues to increase as estimated, then many domestic programs will have face further cuts and the unprecedent deficits will soar.
There are other costs of the continuing US/NATO occupation not mentioned by Drew, whether or not there is a surge. The already devastated Afghan landscape and the deepening impoverishment of the Afghan people will be worsened by the continuation of the occupation. Why? Because there is little being spent on reconstruction and assistance that would benefit the Afghan people.
The implication of Drew's article is that the arguments against the surge of troops to Afghanistan are increasing. We'll see whether they make a difference in what President Obama eventually decides to do on the matter.
Bob
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Peace Action - Afghanistan projects
The organization Peace Action takes on issues related to peace and justice. The following report is focused on actions the organization has taken related to Afghanistan. Peace Action wants our troops withdrawn from Afghanistan. Note the report also refers to Afghan-based organizations (NGOs of a sort) with which they met while in the country. I assume these are organizations which budget their revenues for service, not profit.
________________________________________
The URL for the item is: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/161/t/288/content.jsp?content_KEY=6583
Late September and early October was a busy time for Peace Action. Peace Action’s Policy and Organizing Director Paul Kawika Martin visited Afghanistan as part of a citizen peace delegation, and upon return to the US went directly to the White House, where national Peace Action staff, board members, and local Peace Action members were participating in civil disobedience to draw President Obama’s attention to ongoing opposition to the war. While in Afghanistan Paul met with Women for Women International, a women’s civic rights and vocational educational organization: the Welfare Association for the Development of Afghanistan (WADAN), a drug treatment program; the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, the Director for an NGO supporting children displaced by the war; as well as several Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Business Leaders and one of President Karzai’s brothers.
Paul reported that much his findings echoed New Jersey Peace Action Executive Director Madelyn Hoffman, who previously visited Afghanistan. In a recent Op-Ed by Madelyn she reports that:
• Eighty-seven percent of Afghans have no access to clean water.
• Fifty-three percent of Afghans live below the government’s poverty line.
• Seventy percent of the population is undernourished.
• Infant mortality is the third highest in the world.
• More than a quarter of Afghan children die before the age of 5.
• Life expectancy for women is just over 43 years, while life expectancy for men is just under 43.
• Literacy rate for men is 35% and for women, anywhere from 10% - 20%.
• Women and girls still risk their lives in some places when attending school. The progress promised Afghan women remains just a promise.
To help change the dire situation in Afghanistan, in addition to issuing call-in days, collecting petition signatures and direct lobbying, on October 5th, the national Peace Action staff, board members, and members from along the East Coast participated in civil disobedience at the White House to raise media attention and draw President Obama’s attention to public opposition to the war. Over 300 people participated in the event throughout the day with about 100 risking arrest. The Peace Action contingent included 23 people participating in a die-in in front of the White House gates. After conducting the die-in for three hours, and receiving conflicting accounts about whether or not they would be arrested, the participants were, without warning, violently shoved and dragged away from the gates. However the event generated significant media attention around Afghanistan from news outlets around the world, including a front page story on the Washington Post.
Click here to read an article from the Washington Post on the days events
________________________________________
The URL for the item is: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/161/t/288/content.jsp?content_KEY=6583
Late September and early October was a busy time for Peace Action. Peace Action’s Policy and Organizing Director Paul Kawika Martin visited Afghanistan as part of a citizen peace delegation, and upon return to the US went directly to the White House, where national Peace Action staff, board members, and local Peace Action members were participating in civil disobedience to draw President Obama’s attention to ongoing opposition to the war. While in Afghanistan Paul met with Women for Women International, a women’s civic rights and vocational educational organization: the Welfare Association for the Development of Afghanistan (WADAN), a drug treatment program; the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, the Director for an NGO supporting children displaced by the war; as well as several Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Business Leaders and one of President Karzai’s brothers.
Paul reported that much his findings echoed New Jersey Peace Action Executive Director Madelyn Hoffman, who previously visited Afghanistan. In a recent Op-Ed by Madelyn she reports that:
• Eighty-seven percent of Afghans have no access to clean water.
• Fifty-three percent of Afghans live below the government’s poverty line.
• Seventy percent of the population is undernourished.
• Infant mortality is the third highest in the world.
• More than a quarter of Afghan children die before the age of 5.
• Life expectancy for women is just over 43 years, while life expectancy for men is just under 43.
• Literacy rate for men is 35% and for women, anywhere from 10% - 20%.
• Women and girls still risk their lives in some places when attending school. The progress promised Afghan women remains just a promise.
To help change the dire situation in Afghanistan, in addition to issuing call-in days, collecting petition signatures and direct lobbying, on October 5th, the national Peace Action staff, board members, and members from along the East Coast participated in civil disobedience at the White House to raise media attention and draw President Obama’s attention to public opposition to the war. Over 300 people participated in the event throughout the day with about 100 risking arrest. The Peace Action contingent included 23 people participating in a die-in in front of the White House gates. After conducting the die-in for three hours, and receiving conflicting accounts about whether or not they would be arrested, the participants were, without warning, violently shoved and dragged away from the gates. However the event generated significant media attention around Afghanistan from news outlets around the world, including a front page story on the Washington Post.
Click here to read an article from the Washington Post on the days events
Friday, November 13, 2009
Diplomacy rather than troop surge
Conn Hallinan writes articles for Foreign Policy In Focus. In the article below, Hallinan presents his arguments for "Why the Afghan Surge Will Fail." He finds deep flaws in General McChrystal's proposal to have a surge in troops. The only way forward, Hallinan argues, is through diplomacy and he believes key Taliban groups are ready for talks. Hallinan's views are consistent with the general thrust of the position taken on this blog, insofar as opposition to a surge in troops is concerned. It's not clear, though, whether he would recommend the commencement of, or commitment to, a withdrawal of the troops already stationed in Afghanistan before diplomacy was underway. Who knows when that will be?
Bob Sheak
Bob Sheak
_________________________________________
Published on Friday, November 13, 2009 by Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF)
http:/www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6571
Why the Afghan Surge Will Fail
by Conn Hallinan
Before the Obama administration buys into General Stanley McChrystal's escalation strategy, it might spend some time examining the August 12 battle of Dananeh, a scruffy little town of 2,000 perched at the entrance to the Naw Zad Valley in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
Dananeh is a textbook example of why counterinsurgency won't work in that country, as well as a case study in military thinking straight out of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Strategic Towns
According to the United States, the purpose of the attack [1] was to seize a "strategic" town, cut "Taliban supply lines," and secure the area for the presidential elections. Taking Dananeh would also "outflank the insurgents," "isolating" them in the surrounding mountains and forests.
What is wrong with this scenario?
One, the concept of a "strategic" town of 2,000 people in a vast country filled with tens of thousands of villages like Dananeh is bizarre.
Two, the Taliban don't have "flanks." They are a fluid, irregular force, not an infantry company dug into a set position. "Flanking" an enemy is what you did to the Wehrmacht in World War II.
Three, "Taliban supply lines" are not highways and rail intersections. They're goat trails.
Four, "isolate" the Taliban in the surrounding mountains and forests? Obviously, no one in the Pentagon has ever read the story of Brer Rabbit, who taunted his adversary with the famous words, "Please don't throw me in the briar patch, Brer Fox." Mountains and forests are where the Taliban move freely.
The Taliban were also not the slightest bit surprised when the United States showed up. When the Marines helicoptered in at night, all was quiet. At dawn - the Taliban have no night-fighting equipment - the insurgents opened up with rockets, mortars, and machine guns. "I am pretty sure they knew of it [the attack] in advance," Golf Company commander Captain Zachary Martin told [1] the Associated Press.
Pinned down, the Marines brought in air power and artillery and, after four days of fierce fighting, took the town. But the Taliban had decamped on the third night. The outcome? A chewed-up town and 12 dead insurgents - that is, if you don't see a difference between an "insurgent" and a villager who didn't get out in time, so that all the dead are automatically members of the Taliban.
"I'd say we've gained a foothold for now, and it's a substantial one that we're not going to let go," says Martin. "I think this has the potential to be a watershed."
Only if hallucinations become the order of the day.
Irregular Warfare
The battle of Dananeh was a classic example of irregular warfare. The locals tip off the guerrillas that the army is coming. The Taliban set up an ambush, fight until the heavy firepower comes in, then slip away.
"Taliban fighters and their commanders have escaped the Marines' big offensive into Afghanistan's Helmand province and moved into areas to the west and north, prompting fears that the U.S. effort has just moved the Taliban problem elsewhere," writes [2] Nancy Youssef of the McClatchy newspapers.
When the Taliban went north they attacked German and Italian troops.
In short, the insurgency is adjusting. "To many of the Americans, it appeared as if the insurgents had attended something akin to the U.S. Army's Ranger school, which teaches soldiers how to fight in small groups in austere environments," writes [3] Karen DeYoung in The Washington Post.
Actually, the Afghans have been doing that for some time, as Greeks, Mongols, British, and Russians discovered.
One Pentagon officer told [3] the Post that the Taliban has been using the Korengal Valley that borders Pakistan as a training ground. It's "a perfect lab to vet fighters and study U.S. tactics," he said, and to learn how to gauge the response time for U.S. artillery, air strikes, and helicopter assaults. "They know exactly how long it takes before...they have to break contact and pull back."
Just like they did at Dananeh.
McChrystal's Plan
General McChrystal has asked for 40,000 new troops in order to hold the "major" cities and secure the population from the Taliban. But even by its own standards, the plan is deeply flawed. The military's Counterinsurgency Field Manual recommends a ratio of 20 soldiers for every 1,000 residents. Since Afghanistan has a population of slightly over 32 million, that would require [4] a force of 660,000 soldiers.
The United States will shortly have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, plus a stealth surge of 13,000 support troops. If the Pentagon sends 40,000 additional troops, U.S. forces will rise to 121,000. Added to that are 35,000 NATO troops, though most alliance members are under increasing domestic pressure to withdraw their soldiers. McChrystal wants to expand the Afghan army to 240,000, and there is talk of trying to reach 340,000.
Even with the larger Afghan army, the counterinsurgency plan is 150,000 soldiers short.
An Afghan Army?
And can you really count on the Afghan army? It doesn't have the officers and sergeants to command 340,000 troops. And the counterinsurgency formula calls [5] for "trained" troops, not just armed boots on the ground. According to a recent review [6], up to 25% of recruits quit each year, and the number of trained units has actually declined over the past six months.
On top of this, Afghanistan doesn't really have a national army. If Pashtun soldiers are deployed in the Tajik-speaking north, they will be seen as occupiers, and vice-versa for Tajiks in Pashtun areas. If both groups are deployed in their home territories, the pressures of kinship will almost certainly overwhelm any allegiance to a national government, particularly one as corrupt and unpopular as the current Karzai regime.
And by defending the cities, exactly whom [7] will U.S. troops be protecting? When it comes to Afghanistan, "major" population centers are almost a contradiction in terms. There are essentially five cities in the country, Kabul (2.5 million), Kandahar (331,000), Mazar-e-Sharif (200,000), Herat (272,000), and Jalalabad (20,000). Those five cities make up a little more than 10% of the population, over half of which is centered in Kabul. The rest of the population is rural, living in towns of 1,500 or fewer, smaller even than Dananeh.
But spreading the troops into small firebases makes them extremely vulnerable, as the United States found out in early September, when eight soldiers were killed in an attack on a small unit in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan province. The base was abandoned a week later and, according to the Asia Times [8], is now controlled by the Taliban.
MRAP Attack
While McChrystal says he wants to get the troops out of "armored vehicles" and into the streets with the people, the United States will have to use patrols to maintain a presence outside of the cities. On occasion, that can get almost comedic. Take the convoy of Stryker light tanks that set out on October 12 from "Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak" in Khandar province for what was described as a "high-risk mission into uncharted territory."
The convoy was led by the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles designed to resist the insurgent's weapon-of-choice in Afghanistan, roadside bombs. But the MRAP was designed for Iraq, which has lots of good roads. Since Afghanistan has virtually no roads, the MRAPs broke down. Without the MRAPs the Strykers could not move. The "high-risk" mission ended up hunkering down in the desert for the night and slogging home in the morning. They never saw an insurgent.
Afterwards, Sergeant John Belajac remarked [9], "I can't imagine what it is going to be like when it starts raining."
If you are looking for an Afghanistan War metaphor, the Spin Boldak convoy may be it.
Dangerous Illusions
McChrystal argues that the current situation is "critical," and that an escalation "will be decisive." But as former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst A.J. Rossmiller says [4], the war is a stalemate. "The insurgency does not have the capability to defeat U.S. forces or depose Afghanistan's central government, and...U.S. forces do not the ability to vanquish the insurgency." While the purported goal of the war is denying al-Qaeda a sanctuary, according to U.S. intelligence the organization has fewer than 100 fighters in the country. And further, the Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, pledges [10] that his organization will not interfere with Afghanistan's neighbors or the West, which suggests that the insurgents have been learning about diplomacy as well.
The Afghanistan War can only be solved by sitting all the parties down and working out a political settlement. Since the Taliban have already made a seven-point peace proposal, that hardly seems an insurmountable task.
Anything else is a dangerous illusion.
© 2009 Foreign Policy in Focus
Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus [11] columnist.
http:/www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6571
Why the Afghan Surge Will Fail
by Conn Hallinan
Before the Obama administration buys into General Stanley McChrystal's escalation strategy, it might spend some time examining the August 12 battle of Dananeh, a scruffy little town of 2,000 perched at the entrance to the Naw Zad Valley in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.
Dananeh is a textbook example of why counterinsurgency won't work in that country, as well as a case study in military thinking straight out of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Strategic Towns
According to the United States, the purpose of the attack [1] was to seize a "strategic" town, cut "Taliban supply lines," and secure the area for the presidential elections. Taking Dananeh would also "outflank the insurgents," "isolating" them in the surrounding mountains and forests.
What is wrong with this scenario?
One, the concept of a "strategic" town of 2,000 people in a vast country filled with tens of thousands of villages like Dananeh is bizarre.
Two, the Taliban don't have "flanks." They are a fluid, irregular force, not an infantry company dug into a set position. "Flanking" an enemy is what you did to the Wehrmacht in World War II.
Three, "Taliban supply lines" are not highways and rail intersections. They're goat trails.
Four, "isolate" the Taliban in the surrounding mountains and forests? Obviously, no one in the Pentagon has ever read the story of Brer Rabbit, who taunted his adversary with the famous words, "Please don't throw me in the briar patch, Brer Fox." Mountains and forests are where the Taliban move freely.
The Taliban were also not the slightest bit surprised when the United States showed up. When the Marines helicoptered in at night, all was quiet. At dawn - the Taliban have no night-fighting equipment - the insurgents opened up with rockets, mortars, and machine guns. "I am pretty sure they knew of it [the attack] in advance," Golf Company commander Captain Zachary Martin told [1] the Associated Press.
Pinned down, the Marines brought in air power and artillery and, after four days of fierce fighting, took the town. But the Taliban had decamped on the third night. The outcome? A chewed-up town and 12 dead insurgents - that is, if you don't see a difference between an "insurgent" and a villager who didn't get out in time, so that all the dead are automatically members of the Taliban.
"I'd say we've gained a foothold for now, and it's a substantial one that we're not going to let go," says Martin. "I think this has the potential to be a watershed."
Only if hallucinations become the order of the day.
Irregular Warfare
The battle of Dananeh was a classic example of irregular warfare. The locals tip off the guerrillas that the army is coming. The Taliban set up an ambush, fight until the heavy firepower comes in, then slip away.
"Taliban fighters and their commanders have escaped the Marines' big offensive into Afghanistan's Helmand province and moved into areas to the west and north, prompting fears that the U.S. effort has just moved the Taliban problem elsewhere," writes [2] Nancy Youssef of the McClatchy newspapers.
When the Taliban went north they attacked German and Italian troops.
In short, the insurgency is adjusting. "To many of the Americans, it appeared as if the insurgents had attended something akin to the U.S. Army's Ranger school, which teaches soldiers how to fight in small groups in austere environments," writes [3] Karen DeYoung in The Washington Post.
Actually, the Afghans have been doing that for some time, as Greeks, Mongols, British, and Russians discovered.
One Pentagon officer told [3] the Post that the Taliban has been using the Korengal Valley that borders Pakistan as a training ground. It's "a perfect lab to vet fighters and study U.S. tactics," he said, and to learn how to gauge the response time for U.S. artillery, air strikes, and helicopter assaults. "They know exactly how long it takes before...they have to break contact and pull back."
Just like they did at Dananeh.
McChrystal's Plan
General McChrystal has asked for 40,000 new troops in order to hold the "major" cities and secure the population from the Taliban. But even by its own standards, the plan is deeply flawed. The military's Counterinsurgency Field Manual recommends a ratio of 20 soldiers for every 1,000 residents. Since Afghanistan has a population of slightly over 32 million, that would require [4] a force of 660,000 soldiers.
The United States will shortly have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, plus a stealth surge of 13,000 support troops. If the Pentagon sends 40,000 additional troops, U.S. forces will rise to 121,000. Added to that are 35,000 NATO troops, though most alliance members are under increasing domestic pressure to withdraw their soldiers. McChrystal wants to expand the Afghan army to 240,000, and there is talk of trying to reach 340,000.
Even with the larger Afghan army, the counterinsurgency plan is 150,000 soldiers short.
An Afghan Army?
And can you really count on the Afghan army? It doesn't have the officers and sergeants to command 340,000 troops. And the counterinsurgency formula calls [5] for "trained" troops, not just armed boots on the ground. According to a recent review [6], up to 25% of recruits quit each year, and the number of trained units has actually declined over the past six months.
On top of this, Afghanistan doesn't really have a national army. If Pashtun soldiers are deployed in the Tajik-speaking north, they will be seen as occupiers, and vice-versa for Tajiks in Pashtun areas. If both groups are deployed in their home territories, the pressures of kinship will almost certainly overwhelm any allegiance to a national government, particularly one as corrupt and unpopular as the current Karzai regime.
And by defending the cities, exactly whom [7] will U.S. troops be protecting? When it comes to Afghanistan, "major" population centers are almost a contradiction in terms. There are essentially five cities in the country, Kabul (2.5 million), Kandahar (331,000), Mazar-e-Sharif (200,000), Herat (272,000), and Jalalabad (20,000). Those five cities make up a little more than 10% of the population, over half of which is centered in Kabul. The rest of the population is rural, living in towns of 1,500 or fewer, smaller even than Dananeh.
But spreading the troops into small firebases makes them extremely vulnerable, as the United States found out in early September, when eight soldiers were killed in an attack on a small unit in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan province. The base was abandoned a week later and, according to the Asia Times [8], is now controlled by the Taliban.
MRAP Attack
While McChrystal says he wants to get the troops out of "armored vehicles" and into the streets with the people, the United States will have to use patrols to maintain a presence outside of the cities. On occasion, that can get almost comedic. Take the convoy of Stryker light tanks that set out on October 12 from "Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak" in Khandar province for what was described as a "high-risk mission into uncharted territory."
The convoy was led by the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles designed to resist the insurgent's weapon-of-choice in Afghanistan, roadside bombs. But the MRAP was designed for Iraq, which has lots of good roads. Since Afghanistan has virtually no roads, the MRAPs broke down. Without the MRAPs the Strykers could not move. The "high-risk" mission ended up hunkering down in the desert for the night and slogging home in the morning. They never saw an insurgent.
Afterwards, Sergeant John Belajac remarked [9], "I can't imagine what it is going to be like when it starts raining."
If you are looking for an Afghanistan War metaphor, the Spin Boldak convoy may be it.
Dangerous Illusions
McChrystal argues that the current situation is "critical," and that an escalation "will be decisive." But as former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst A.J. Rossmiller says [4], the war is a stalemate. "The insurgency does not have the capability to defeat U.S. forces or depose Afghanistan's central government, and...U.S. forces do not the ability to vanquish the insurgency." While the purported goal of the war is denying al-Qaeda a sanctuary, according to U.S. intelligence the organization has fewer than 100 fighters in the country. And further, the Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, pledges [10] that his organization will not interfere with Afghanistan's neighbors or the West, which suggests that the insurgents have been learning about diplomacy as well.
The Afghanistan War can only be solved by sitting all the parties down and working out a political settlement. Since the Taliban have already made a seven-point peace proposal, that hardly seems an insurmountable task.
Anything else is a dangerous illusion.
© 2009 Foreign Policy in Focus
Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus [11] columnist.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Sonali Kolhatkar, A call for clarity on the Afghanistan War
Our group has been viewing and discussing the DVD Rethinking Afghanistan. The film argues, according to the interpretation some of us have, that there should be no escalation of troops to Afghanistan and, implicitly, that there should be a withdrawal of the US/NATO troops that are already there. One of the issues that have given some of us pause is this: Will the departure of troops leave Afghan civilians, especially women and children, in an even worse position that they are in now.
We have learned that Code Pink has modified its view. Before Code Pink members recently visited Afghanistan and talked to some female leaders there, they demanded both no escalation of US/NATO troops and a withdrawal of troops according to a fixed timetable. After the visit, Code Pink continued to oppose any escalation but now favored a flexible policy of troop withdrawal with no fixed deadline. Despite Code Pink's change of mind, I and at least some other members of Stop Afghan War, have been much influenced by the message of Rethinking Afghanistan, and by the position of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and by Malalai Joya's interviews and her fine book, A Woman Among Warlords. That is, the evidence and analysis we are familiar with leads us to both oppose escalation of troops and favor a withdrawal of troops based on a timetable.
The following article by Sonali Kolhatkar supports the position of no escalation and timely withdrawal. The article can be found at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6542
By the way, Kolhatkar appears a number of times in Rethinking Afghanistan.
Bob Sheak
A Call for Clarity on the Afghanistan War
Sonali Kolhatkar November 2, 2009
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.fpif.org/
While President Barack Obama reviews his strategy on Afghanistan, a perfect moment to send a strong unified message to end the war is slipping through our fingers. Whether it's because we seem to have bought into the lies about the goals of this war or because we mistakenly feel that a Democratic president is going to come to the right conclusion on his own, one thing is clear: There's no debate within the Democratic Party or in the White House about whether to end the war. The only thing being debated is how to continue the war.
Similarly, there's little debate among progressives about how this is a bad war, and at the very least we need an exit strategy. Paralysis has set in on the particular manner of ending the war: whether to wait for some sort of "peace process," to pull out troops now versus later, to preserve troop levels until Afghanistan's women are safe, or some variation of these questions. We're in a bizarre situation: As Obama waffles on how to continue the war in Afghanistan, progressives are waffling on how to end the war.
Despite some major differences between the Afghan and Iraq wars, U.S. military operations and their consequences in both countries are the same. Similar to Iraq, this war kills civilians and soldiers causing misery on all sides. Similar to Iraq, this war has made women less safe. Similar to Iraq, this occupation has become unpopular on the ground. Similar to Iraq, our actions are leading to greater instability. And similar to Iraq, our tax dollars are being disappeared into a sinkhole of destruction rather than human needs. Yet, unlike Iraq, where progressives were clear right from the start on ending the war, Afghanistan seems to confuse our moral compass. Our actions in Afghanistan have caused a perfect storm of untold numbers of civilian deaths, fundamentalist resurgence, and women's oppression. We're protecting a corrupt government with a puppet president and criminal warlords, and our deadly bombing raids have led to a devastated and rightly bitter population and a stronger Taliban. There's no promising indication that our military operations can improve the situation, no matter how many troops are added. If ever the Afghanistan war ever had any legitimacy, it's irreversibly gone.
Enabling Women's Oppression
One of the original justifications for the war in 2001 that seemed to resonate most with liberal Americans was the liberation of Afghan women from a misogynist regime. This is now being resurrected as the following: If the U.S. forces withdraw, any gains made by Afghan women will be reversed and they'll be at the mercy of fundamentalist forces. In fact, the fear of abandoning Afghan women seems to have caused the greatest confusion and paralysis in the antiwar movement.
What this logic misses is that the United States chose right from the start to sell out Afghan women to its misogynist fundamentalist allies on the ground. The U.S. armed the Mujahadeen leaders in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation, opening the door to successive fundamentalist governments including the Taliban. In 2001, the United States then armed the same men, now called the Northern Alliance, to fight the Taliban and then welcomed them into the newly formed government as a reward. The American puppet president Hamid Karzai, in concert with a cabinet and parliament of thugs and criminals, passed one misogynist law after another, appointed one fundamentalist zealot after another to the judiciary, and literally enabled the downfall of Afghan women's rights over eight long years.
Any token gains have been countered by setbacks. For example, while women are considered equal to men in Afghanistan's constitution, there have been vicious and deadly attacks against women's rights activists, the legalization of rape within marriage in the Shia community, and a shockingly high rate of women's imprisonment for so-called honor crimes — all under the watch of the U.S. occupation and the government we are protecting against the Taliban. Add to this the unacceptably high number of innocent women and children killed in U.S. bombing raids, which has also increased the Taliban's numbers and clout, and it makes the case that for eight years the United States has enabled the oppression of Afghan women and only added to their miseries.
This is why grassroots political and feminist activists have called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from their country. After eight years of American-enabled oppression, they would rather fight for their liberation without our help. The anti-fundamentalist progressive organization, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), has called for an immediate end to the war. Echoing their call is independent dissident member of Parliament Malalai Joya, who tells her story in her new political memoir, A Woman Among Warlords. The members of RAWA and women like Joya are openly targeted by the U.S.-backed Afghan government for their feminism and political activism. RAWA and Joya have worked on the ground, risking their lives for political change and echo the vast majority of poor and ordinary Afghan women. It's they whom we ought to listen to and express solidarity with. If American progressives think they know better than Afghanistan's brave feminist activists on how liberation can be achieved, we're just as guilty as the U.S. government for subjecting them to the mercy of women-hating criminals.
No Negotiations with Fundamentalist Criminals
Some on the left have made the case that the Afghanistan war can come to an end through a negotiated peace process where everyone has a seat at the table, including women. But this ensures that only those within the corrupt clique of Afghan politics remain involved in the future of Afghanistan — such as a few female allies of the fundamentalists who are plentiful in the current government.
Joya struggled her way into getting a "seat at the table" through the 2005 elections. For representing her people's views that war criminals ought to be brought to justice, she has been rewarded with death threats, assassination attempts, and the loss of her electoral title. Asking ordinary women and men to have a seat at a negotiating table with war criminals is akin to asking them to silence themselves or mark their foreheads with a target.
The reason why democratic forces in Afghanistan are completely underground and constantly living in fear of being killed is that time and again the U.S. government has insisted on bringing warlords and even Taliban leaders to the negotiating table. Asking the Obama administration to sponsor a "peace process" between civilian representatives and our warlord allies whose private militias we have armed, is the same as asking for exactly what President George W. Bush did eight years ago in Bonn, Germany after the fall of the Taliban. That process predictably led to the establishment of today's corrupt government. In fact, the Obama administration is very likely to patch up the recent failed presidential elections in the same way: by creating a power-sharing deal between two corrupt sides and their proxies and claiming that all sides were represented at the negotiating table.
Given our violent role in Afghanistan over the past three decades, the United States has scant credibility in sponsoring any kind of "peace" process. The most responsible action the U.S. can take is to end its occupation immediately, and clean up its mess.
Let's Call for an Immediate End to the U.S. Occupation
Those who make the case that withdrawing U.S. troops will unleash another bloody civil war where Afghan women and men will be at the mercy of the Taliban and warlords, are raising the exact same justification made for the war in 2001: that it's our moral duty to protect Afghans from fundamentalist violence. This logic ignores the fact that we have nurtured and created the very fundamentalist violence that targets Afghans as explained above. By empowering war criminals and protecting a corrupt government that has forgiven the crimes of all sides including the Taliban, and that even includes some Taliban leaders, all we have done is complicate a war that was on-going. "A member of RAWA who goes by the pseudonym Zoya in a U.S. speaking tour last month made it clear that it's hard to imagine things getting worse if the U.S. does pull out immediately. The damage isn't being prevented by the United States — it's being carried out by the United States.
Instead of subjecting Afghans to the three oppressive forces of a stronger Taliban, a corrupt and criminal government, and a deadly foreign occupation, the first thing we Americans can control most directly is to end our occupation immediately. This alone won't address the Taliban and Northern Alliance. But it will reduce the oppressive forces at work, and potentially reduce the legitimacy of the warlords and the motives driving the Taliban.
How do we undo the damage we have subjected innocent Afghans to? Afghans themselves have the answers to that. Surveys have shown that a majority of Afghans want a complete disarmament of our warlord allies — essentially that the U.S. needs to take back the guns we put into the hands of the Northern Alliance and their private militias. Surveys have also shown that Afghans want war crimes tribunals to hold all the corrupt and criminal fundamentalists accountable in some sort of court, perhaps even the International Criminal Court (U.S. government officials shouldn't be exempt from this type of accountability either). With weapons, warlords, and U.S. troops gone, real democracy could potentially take root and pro-democracy forces could someday operate freely. Many have also called for a massive Marshall Plan for poverty-stricken Afghanistan, to flood the country with money in the hands of small groups, organizations, and civil society, and eventually to help rebuild the country with a strong, non-drug-based economy. With all the money freed up from military operations that would be fairly feasible.
As for the Taliban, even the U.S. government publicly admits that the Pakistani government's own agencies have long supported the renegade army as a tool for national and regional stability. With the U.S. troops gone, the Taliban's raison d'être inside Afghanistan would be greatly weakened. If the United States were to take the lead in regional talks between Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, and China to address the Pakistani government's fears of a hostile regime in Afghanistan, it would go a very long way toward undermining the Taliban.
These measures are necessary but may not guarantee stability for Afghanistan. Still the current occupation only guarantees instability, so at the very least the time for a non-military solution is now. In other words, we can choose to repeat a failed experiment with predictably negative results by extending the war in any number of ways. Or we can implement the complex, constructive measures that could potentially help stabilize Afghanistan, undermine the fundamentalist misogynist criminals, help the Afghan people take back their country, and undermine the conditions for violence.
These are complex demands to make of the Obama administration. But it has taken a complex set of destructive American policies and many years to destroy Afghanistan. It will take a similar amount of time and complexity, as well as trial and error, to help rebuild Afghanistan for ordinary Afghans, and by extension make Americans safer. We can make these demands as secondary points in our call for an end to the war. But the primary demand easily fits on a protest placard: "End the U.S. War in Afghanistan NOW." Let's make that call loudly, clearly, and ubiquitously, as soon as possible, so that Obama and Congress can't ignore us any longer.
log_pageview('https://cms.richard-group.com/pageview/','/fpif/fpiftxt/6542','irc','0.0157')
Sonali Kolhatkar, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission and co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. She has worked in solidarity with RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) for nearly 10 years. For more information about Afghan Women's Mission, RAWA, and how to support Afghan activists, visit http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/.
We have learned that Code Pink has modified its view. Before Code Pink members recently visited Afghanistan and talked to some female leaders there, they demanded both no escalation of US/NATO troops and a withdrawal of troops according to a fixed timetable. After the visit, Code Pink continued to oppose any escalation but now favored a flexible policy of troop withdrawal with no fixed deadline. Despite Code Pink's change of mind, I and at least some other members of Stop Afghan War, have been much influenced by the message of Rethinking Afghanistan, and by the position of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and by Malalai Joya's interviews and her fine book, A Woman Among Warlords. That is, the evidence and analysis we are familiar with leads us to both oppose escalation of troops and favor a withdrawal of troops based on a timetable.
The following article by Sonali Kolhatkar supports the position of no escalation and timely withdrawal. The article can be found at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6542
By the way, Kolhatkar appears a number of times in Rethinking Afghanistan.
Bob Sheak
A Call for Clarity on the Afghanistan War
Sonali Kolhatkar November 2, 2009
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.fpif.org/
While President Barack Obama reviews his strategy on Afghanistan, a perfect moment to send a strong unified message to end the war is slipping through our fingers. Whether it's because we seem to have bought into the lies about the goals of this war or because we mistakenly feel that a Democratic president is going to come to the right conclusion on his own, one thing is clear: There's no debate within the Democratic Party or in the White House about whether to end the war. The only thing being debated is how to continue the war.
Similarly, there's little debate among progressives about how this is a bad war, and at the very least we need an exit strategy. Paralysis has set in on the particular manner of ending the war: whether to wait for some sort of "peace process," to pull out troops now versus later, to preserve troop levels until Afghanistan's women are safe, or some variation of these questions. We're in a bizarre situation: As Obama waffles on how to continue the war in Afghanistan, progressives are waffling on how to end the war.
Despite some major differences between the Afghan and Iraq wars, U.S. military operations and their consequences in both countries are the same. Similar to Iraq, this war kills civilians and soldiers causing misery on all sides. Similar to Iraq, this war has made women less safe. Similar to Iraq, this occupation has become unpopular on the ground. Similar to Iraq, our actions are leading to greater instability. And similar to Iraq, our tax dollars are being disappeared into a sinkhole of destruction rather than human needs. Yet, unlike Iraq, where progressives were clear right from the start on ending the war, Afghanistan seems to confuse our moral compass. Our actions in Afghanistan have caused a perfect storm of untold numbers of civilian deaths, fundamentalist resurgence, and women's oppression. We're protecting a corrupt government with a puppet president and criminal warlords, and our deadly bombing raids have led to a devastated and rightly bitter population and a stronger Taliban. There's no promising indication that our military operations can improve the situation, no matter how many troops are added. If ever the Afghanistan war ever had any legitimacy, it's irreversibly gone.
Enabling Women's Oppression
One of the original justifications for the war in 2001 that seemed to resonate most with liberal Americans was the liberation of Afghan women from a misogynist regime. This is now being resurrected as the following: If the U.S. forces withdraw, any gains made by Afghan women will be reversed and they'll be at the mercy of fundamentalist forces. In fact, the fear of abandoning Afghan women seems to have caused the greatest confusion and paralysis in the antiwar movement.
What this logic misses is that the United States chose right from the start to sell out Afghan women to its misogynist fundamentalist allies on the ground. The U.S. armed the Mujahadeen leaders in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation, opening the door to successive fundamentalist governments including the Taliban. In 2001, the United States then armed the same men, now called the Northern Alliance, to fight the Taliban and then welcomed them into the newly formed government as a reward. The American puppet president Hamid Karzai, in concert with a cabinet and parliament of thugs and criminals, passed one misogynist law after another, appointed one fundamentalist zealot after another to the judiciary, and literally enabled the downfall of Afghan women's rights over eight long years.
Any token gains have been countered by setbacks. For example, while women are considered equal to men in Afghanistan's constitution, there have been vicious and deadly attacks against women's rights activists, the legalization of rape within marriage in the Shia community, and a shockingly high rate of women's imprisonment for so-called honor crimes — all under the watch of the U.S. occupation and the government we are protecting against the Taliban. Add to this the unacceptably high number of innocent women and children killed in U.S. bombing raids, which has also increased the Taliban's numbers and clout, and it makes the case that for eight years the United States has enabled the oppression of Afghan women and only added to their miseries.
This is why grassroots political and feminist activists have called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from their country. After eight years of American-enabled oppression, they would rather fight for their liberation without our help. The anti-fundamentalist progressive organization, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), has called for an immediate end to the war. Echoing their call is independent dissident member of Parliament Malalai Joya, who tells her story in her new political memoir, A Woman Among Warlords. The members of RAWA and women like Joya are openly targeted by the U.S.-backed Afghan government for their feminism and political activism. RAWA and Joya have worked on the ground, risking their lives for political change and echo the vast majority of poor and ordinary Afghan women. It's they whom we ought to listen to and express solidarity with. If American progressives think they know better than Afghanistan's brave feminist activists on how liberation can be achieved, we're just as guilty as the U.S. government for subjecting them to the mercy of women-hating criminals.
No Negotiations with Fundamentalist Criminals
Some on the left have made the case that the Afghanistan war can come to an end through a negotiated peace process where everyone has a seat at the table, including women. But this ensures that only those within the corrupt clique of Afghan politics remain involved in the future of Afghanistan — such as a few female allies of the fundamentalists who are plentiful in the current government.
Joya struggled her way into getting a "seat at the table" through the 2005 elections. For representing her people's views that war criminals ought to be brought to justice, she has been rewarded with death threats, assassination attempts, and the loss of her electoral title. Asking ordinary women and men to have a seat at a negotiating table with war criminals is akin to asking them to silence themselves or mark their foreheads with a target.
The reason why democratic forces in Afghanistan are completely underground and constantly living in fear of being killed is that time and again the U.S. government has insisted on bringing warlords and even Taliban leaders to the negotiating table. Asking the Obama administration to sponsor a "peace process" between civilian representatives and our warlord allies whose private militias we have armed, is the same as asking for exactly what President George W. Bush did eight years ago in Bonn, Germany after the fall of the Taliban. That process predictably led to the establishment of today's corrupt government. In fact, the Obama administration is very likely to patch up the recent failed presidential elections in the same way: by creating a power-sharing deal between two corrupt sides and their proxies and claiming that all sides were represented at the negotiating table.
Given our violent role in Afghanistan over the past three decades, the United States has scant credibility in sponsoring any kind of "peace" process. The most responsible action the U.S. can take is to end its occupation immediately, and clean up its mess.
Let's Call for an Immediate End to the U.S. Occupation
Those who make the case that withdrawing U.S. troops will unleash another bloody civil war where Afghan women and men will be at the mercy of the Taliban and warlords, are raising the exact same justification made for the war in 2001: that it's our moral duty to protect Afghans from fundamentalist violence. This logic ignores the fact that we have nurtured and created the very fundamentalist violence that targets Afghans as explained above. By empowering war criminals and protecting a corrupt government that has forgiven the crimes of all sides including the Taliban, and that even includes some Taliban leaders, all we have done is complicate a war that was on-going. "A member of RAWA who goes by the pseudonym Zoya in a U.S. speaking tour last month made it clear that it's hard to imagine things getting worse if the U.S. does pull out immediately. The damage isn't being prevented by the United States — it's being carried out by the United States.
Instead of subjecting Afghans to the three oppressive forces of a stronger Taliban, a corrupt and criminal government, and a deadly foreign occupation, the first thing we Americans can control most directly is to end our occupation immediately. This alone won't address the Taliban and Northern Alliance. But it will reduce the oppressive forces at work, and potentially reduce the legitimacy of the warlords and the motives driving the Taliban.
How do we undo the damage we have subjected innocent Afghans to? Afghans themselves have the answers to that. Surveys have shown that a majority of Afghans want a complete disarmament of our warlord allies — essentially that the U.S. needs to take back the guns we put into the hands of the Northern Alliance and their private militias. Surveys have also shown that Afghans want war crimes tribunals to hold all the corrupt and criminal fundamentalists accountable in some sort of court, perhaps even the International Criminal Court (U.S. government officials shouldn't be exempt from this type of accountability either). With weapons, warlords, and U.S. troops gone, real democracy could potentially take root and pro-democracy forces could someday operate freely. Many have also called for a massive Marshall Plan for poverty-stricken Afghanistan, to flood the country with money in the hands of small groups, organizations, and civil society, and eventually to help rebuild the country with a strong, non-drug-based economy. With all the money freed up from military operations that would be fairly feasible.
As for the Taliban, even the U.S. government publicly admits that the Pakistani government's own agencies have long supported the renegade army as a tool for national and regional stability. With the U.S. troops gone, the Taliban's raison d'être inside Afghanistan would be greatly weakened. If the United States were to take the lead in regional talks between Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, and China to address the Pakistani government's fears of a hostile regime in Afghanistan, it would go a very long way toward undermining the Taliban.
These measures are necessary but may not guarantee stability for Afghanistan. Still the current occupation only guarantees instability, so at the very least the time for a non-military solution is now. In other words, we can choose to repeat a failed experiment with predictably negative results by extending the war in any number of ways. Or we can implement the complex, constructive measures that could potentially help stabilize Afghanistan, undermine the fundamentalist misogynist criminals, help the Afghan people take back their country, and undermine the conditions for violence.
These are complex demands to make of the Obama administration. But it has taken a complex set of destructive American policies and many years to destroy Afghanistan. It will take a similar amount of time and complexity, as well as trial and error, to help rebuild Afghanistan for ordinary Afghans, and by extension make Americans safer. We can make these demands as secondary points in our call for an end to the war. But the primary demand easily fits on a protest placard: "End the U.S. War in Afghanistan NOW." Let's make that call loudly, clearly, and ubiquitously, as soon as possible, so that Obama and Congress can't ignore us any longer.
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Sonali Kolhatkar, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission and co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. She has worked in solidarity with RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) for nearly 10 years. For more information about Afghan Women's Mission, RAWA, and how to support Afghan activists, visit http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/.
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