There are two news items from Just Foreign Policy on the Web, http://justforeignpolicy.org/node/572, that are worth a few comments.
The first item is that award-winning and widely admired journalist Seymour Hersh has taken a position on the US-led Afghanistan occupation and war that is at odds with the US administration, military, and congressional, positions. The headline from Just Foreign Policy reveals Hersh's view: "Only solution in Afghanistan is settlement with Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar." (See the longer statement and an accompanying video interview with Hersh at http://michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/seymour-hersh-obama-being-dominated-us-military.)
One implication for why the Obama administration refuses to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar is that US Afghanistan policy is being driven more by the interests of the US miitary and other powerful interests than by public opinion. The bloated US military needs to continuously find justification for the massive money US citizens are pouring into the Pentagon budget as a whole and to "wars" like those in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another implication is that given the domestic political strength of the Pentagon, Obama has chosen to heed their recommendations. If this is true, it is not a new story. C. Wright Mills wrote a book in the 1950s titled The Power Elite, in which Mills argued how the Pentagon was a major force in US foreign policy. This analysis was later expanded in the work of Seymour Melman in books like his Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War.
The second item from today's Just Foreign Policy on the Web, refers to a new opinion poll that indicates a negative turn among the US public on the Administration's Afghanistan military policy.
"Afghan president Hamid Karzai's visit to the White House this week arrives as the public's take on the war there has tilted back to negative, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
"A majority says the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs, marking a return to negative territory after a brief uptick in public support in the wake of the announcement of the administration's new strategy for the conflict.
"Despite the shift in views on the war, President Obama's ratings for handling the conflict have remained positive since the unveiling of the new strategy - 56 percent approve, 36 percent disapprove.Views on the war's value have become more negative among both Democrats and independents. In the new poll, 56 percent of independents say it is not worth fighting, up from 47 percent in December. Among Democrats, 66 percent say it's not worth it, including half who feel that way strongly.
"Republicans are solidly behind the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, with 69 percent saying the war is worth its costs....
There are two things that stand out about the poll. One is that the trend among Independent and Democratic respondents is become increasingly opposed to the idea that the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting. This suggests that despite the paltry coverage of the Afghan war in the US commercial media, a high percentages of Americans are finally expressing opposition to the war and imply that US troops should be withdrawn according to some reasonable plan. The other point about this item is that Obama's handling of the war is still viewed by majorities as positive.
The two points appear contradictory. It's not clear why majorities of Independents and Democratics have come to view the Afghan war/occupation as not worth fighting any more, while a substantial majority overall think Obama is doing good enough. The answer may be that the polls are invalid, or that many Americans cannot connect the two, a war going badly and Obama's responsibility in that quagmire.
It also suggests that there is a rightward tilt in Obama's Afghanistan policy that reflects the influence of the military-industrial complex, other big corporate interests (e.g., bail out of Wall Street), the need to maintain the credibility of the US military forces, and a host of right wing psuedo-patriotic groups. Public opinion, with its ups and downs, doesn't rank very high in the Obama White House.
Behind it all, we must remind ourselves, there are larger geo-political interests in Central Asia and the Middle East that, in the final analysis, dictate Obama's policies and, in the end, make public opinion superfluous.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Peace candidates could stir a debate on Afghanistan policy
Bill Boyarsky has an article on Truthdig.com that has some relevance for the position we take on this website, namely, to end the US-led war in Afghanistan. The article, "America's War Disease," can be found at: http://truthdig.com/report/item/americas_war_disease_20100507
The thrust of Boyarsky's article is to offer hope for a timely withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in a situation where President Obama is increasing troop levels in the country, where liberal congressional representatives are by and large supporting Obama's policy, where the media have virtually ceased covering the issue, and at a time when the country is saddled with a host of crises that redirect the attention of the society in other directions. The basis for his hope is that there are some peace candidates running against incumbent office-holders in congressional elections.
One such peace candidate is Marcy Winograd, who is challenging incumbent Jane Harmon in the Democratic Primary. The congressional district involved "reaches from the Los Angeles suburbs through beach cities and inland cities. It is a district that Harmon has represented from 1993 to 1998, and then from 2000 to the present.
While Winograd and Harmon agree on many progressive issues, they have different positions on Afghanistan policy. Harmon supports President Obama's policy of a "carefully calibrated timetable, flexibly based on conditions on the ground. Harmon voted against a resolution brought to the House floor by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). The resolution called for a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days of the passage of his bill and assistance to Afghanistan in rebuilding its war-torn society. Unlike Harmon, Winograd says she would have support the Kucinich resolution.
Boyarsky is excited about the candidacies of peace supporters for congressional seats, because they will help stimulate, he thinks, a debate over our embroilment in Afghanistan (and in Iraq and Israel-Palestine). But there are not many peace candidates and they aren't given much of a chance to win. In the case of the Harmon-Winograd electoral race, Harmon has the party establishment's support, much more name recognition, and more money to spend on her election than Wiongrad. In addition, the electorate is more concerned about housing foreclosures, unemployment, state budget shortfalls and cuts in services, than the war in Afghanistan.
We would love to see Winograd unseat Harmon, but think it's unlikely. We do not deny that one factor in a movement for a transformed foreign policy would include courageous and dedicated candidates like Harmon, along with an aroused public. Unfortunately, at the moment, the odds do not look good for peace candidates. Thus, to quote the last sentence of Boyarsky' article, "Otherwise, the US will continue to be mired in this fruitless war." And we add, with more on the horizon.
The thrust of Boyarsky's article is to offer hope for a timely withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in a situation where President Obama is increasing troop levels in the country, where liberal congressional representatives are by and large supporting Obama's policy, where the media have virtually ceased covering the issue, and at a time when the country is saddled with a host of crises that redirect the attention of the society in other directions. The basis for his hope is that there are some peace candidates running against incumbent office-holders in congressional elections.
One such peace candidate is Marcy Winograd, who is challenging incumbent Jane Harmon in the Democratic Primary. The congressional district involved "reaches from the Los Angeles suburbs through beach cities and inland cities. It is a district that Harmon has represented from 1993 to 1998, and then from 2000 to the present.
While Winograd and Harmon agree on many progressive issues, they have different positions on Afghanistan policy. Harmon supports President Obama's policy of a "carefully calibrated timetable, flexibly based on conditions on the ground. Harmon voted against a resolution brought to the House floor by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). The resolution called for a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days of the passage of his bill and assistance to Afghanistan in rebuilding its war-torn society. Unlike Harmon, Winograd says she would have support the Kucinich resolution.
Boyarsky is excited about the candidacies of peace supporters for congressional seats, because they will help stimulate, he thinks, a debate over our embroilment in Afghanistan (and in Iraq and Israel-Palestine). But there are not many peace candidates and they aren't given much of a chance to win. In the case of the Harmon-Winograd electoral race, Harmon has the party establishment's support, much more name recognition, and more money to spend on her election than Wiongrad. In addition, the electorate is more concerned about housing foreclosures, unemployment, state budget shortfalls and cuts in services, than the war in Afghanistan.
We would love to see Winograd unseat Harmon, but think it's unlikely. We do not deny that one factor in a movement for a transformed foreign policy would include courageous and dedicated candidates like Harmon, along with an aroused public. Unfortunately, at the moment, the odds do not look good for peace candidates. Thus, to quote the last sentence of Boyarsky' article, "Otherwise, the US will continue to be mired in this fruitless war." And we add, with more on the horizon.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Openings for peace talks in Afghanistan?
The following article is reported on the Just Foreign Policy News website on May 5, 2010: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/567. The source of the article is, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/04/afghanistan-taliban. Jonathan Steele wrote the article.
Steele finds from his interviews and various reports that there is serious consideration now being given from the Karzai government, Afghan woman leaders, overwhelmingly by the Afghan people as a whole, and even the British, a key US ally, for and end to the war and talks with the Taliban. The Taliban are reported to be willing to end hostilities in return for the opportunity to share power in the national government. The chief reason for this widespread change in views among the Afghan is the disillusion with the war and with the notion that the US-led occupation will lead to improvements in the material conditions of the Afghans and an increase in security.
Steele also reports that the Taliban have become less intolerant toward the idea of girls and women going to school and working in the larger economy (e.g., as doctors). While a harsh patriarchy is pervasive in the rural areas of Afghanistan, this is a cultural fact that has existed for generations. Afghan women overwhelmingly want talks to occur with the Taliban leaders.
In short, the Afghan people want an end to war and are willing to take risks that the Taliban is less rigid and intolerant of other beliefs than before. On an encouraging note, Steele also points out that the Taliban in Pakistan send their girls to school and accept them in professions and work outside the home.
Steele says nothing about whether the Taliban still insist that talks be preconditioned on the departure of foreign troops from the country.
The Obama administration has not yet shown a willinging to become a part of, initiate, or even encourage talks with the Taliban.
--------------------------------
From Just Foreign Policy: Excerpts from Jonathan Steele's article.
Afghanistan: is it time to talk to the Taliban?Until recently it seemed an absurd idea. But now, eight years after its overthrow, is negotiating with the Taliban the only realistic way forward?Jonathan Steele, Guardian, Tuesday 4 May 2010 21.00 Thttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/04/afghanistan-taliban
Eight years after they were overthrown by US air power, a drumbeat is starting to sound across Afghanistan in favour of talking to the Taliban, the country's once-hated former rulers. An idea that used to seem absurd, if not defeatist, is coming to be seen as the only credible way to end an ever-widening war. Moreover, the proposed agenda of negotiations is not a Taliban surrender, but an offer to share power in Kabul.President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan politicians support the idea. So too do a growing number of foreign governments, including Britain's - at least tentatively - now that British troops are being killed at twice the rate they were in early 2009.
Perhaps most surprisingly, even among Afghanistan's small but determined group of woman professionals, the notion of making a deal with the ultra-conservative men who forced them into burkas and denied them the right to work outside the home is no longer anathema. A desperate desire for peace is trumping concern over human rights.
[...]
I was one of the few journalists in Kabul as the Taliban swept up from Kandahar to take control of the Afghan capital in 1996, prompting the mujahideen warlords to abandon resistance and flee. The sudden shift left everyone stunned, but the crowds that came out to watch the Taliban's pick-up trucks roaring around the streets were mainly supportive. The bearded young Islamists with their promise of social justice seemed to offer an end to the fighting between rival mujahideen leaders that had devastated large parts of the city and forced hundreds of thousands into refugee camps abroad.
[...]
Young Taliban gunmen ran into hospitals, ordering male doctors to grow beards and female doctors to go home. Burkas, once worn only by poorer women in the bazaar, became compulsory for all women. Taliban thugs flayed the ankles of anyone who showed even an inch of bare skin below the regulation new hemlines. But even as repression grew women could still be heard saying that their family's new-found safety from the civil war's shells and rocket-fire made it worth it.A similar calculus of security-versus-rights is re-emerging now. Three years ago, when I was last in Kabul and the Taliban were only just starting their comeback on the battlefield, defeating them was the watchword of the day. There has been a tectonic shift in Afghanistan's public mood since then. It is prompted by a host of factors: growing disappointment with western governments and the ineffectiveness of billions of dollars in aid that seems to go nowhere except into the bank accounts of foreign consultants or local politicians; a sense that there can be no military solution to the new civil war and that outsiders are deliberately prolonging it; grief and despair over the mounting toll of civilian casualties, many caused by US airstrikes; rising nationalist anger and a feeling of humiliation; and a desire to return to an Afghan consensus in which Afghans create their own space and find their own solutions. Karzai's recent outbursts against the Americans and other foreigners are no aberration. They reflect a widely held mood.
[...]
Anders Fänge, the country director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, a large aid agency, has spent around 20 years in the country, also working as a journalist and a UN official. The Taliban should never have been portrayed in the black-and-white terms that Bush and Blair used, he says. During their period in power they often turned a blind eye to the discreet "home schools" where teachers taught girls in people's flats or family compounds. "In 1998 the Taliban governor of [the central Afghan city] Ghazni told me, 'We know you have these girls' schools, but just don't tell me about them.' A Taliban minister even approached me and said, 'I have two daughters. Can you get them in?'" he recalls.
Similar attitudes exist today, he says. In Wardak, a province close to Kabul that is heavily contested by Taliban and Nato forces, "we don't have much problem with the Taliban," says Fänge. "They accept girls' schools and women doctors. They just ask for two hours of Islamic education in schools, that teachers grow beards and not spread propaganda against the Taliban."The difficulty comes from foreign Taliban, the Pakistanis and Arabs, or Taliban from other provinces. "At the local level, it's a patchwork, a mosaic of local commanders, who may recognise Mullah Omar as their spiritual leader but are not under his control," he adds.
Fänge's points support the case, rarely mentioned by western politicians, that Taliban conservatism differs from the rest of the country in degree, not in kind. Afghanistan is a largely rural society where the oppression of women runs deep. Even in villages populated by Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek, Afghan women are routinely banned by husbands or fathers from leaving the family compounds, and girls are kept out of school, according to Afghan women reporters.
[...]
Arsalan Rahmani was deputy minister of higher education and later minister of Islamic affairs in the Taliban government. Four years ago Karzai invited him back to Kabul and made him a senator. He accepts the Taliban made a string of mistakes. "They didn't have good management, they were young, they had no experts, doctors, and couldn't run ministries. My boss was a boy of 25, who couldn't even sign an official letter."He describes reports of restrictions on girls' education and women being denied the chance to work as false. "That wasn't their idea, then or now. We didn't let girls go to school because of lack of security. There was a war on. But now in Pakistan, Taliban girls go to school and university. My son is a doctor and I want him to marry a lady doctor. I've got three daughters. During the Taliban time they were in Pakistan and all studied there."He goes on to tell an incredible story. "When I was deputy minister of higher education, people came to me and said they had girls who had finished school and wanted to study medicine. I consulted Mullah Omar and he authorised us to set up rooms in a central Kabul hospital, now called Daoud Khan hospital, where women could study to become doctors. Around 1,200 graduated, and if you track them down you'll see my signature on their degree certificates," he says.
I have no time to follow his advice but I do locate Shukria Barakzai, an independent woman MP who stayed in Afghanistan throughout the Soviet occupation, the four-year rule by mujahideen warlords, and the Taliban period. She confirms the senator's story.
Like many educated Kabulis, she criticises the warlords as strongly as the Taliban (during the warlords' clashes she lost a son and daughter). She too favours talks with the Taliban. "I changed my view three years ago when I realised Afghanistan is on its own. It's not that the international community doesn't support us. They just don't understand us. Everybody has been trying to kill the Taliban but they're still there, stronger than ever. They are part of our population. They have different ideas but as democrats we have to accept that. Every war has to end with talks and negotiations. Afghans need peace like oxygen. People want to keep their villages free of violence and suicide bombers."Her relaxed attitude to the Taliban stems, in part, from confidence that they cannot win again. "They no longer have the support and reputation they had back then. Taliban is an ideology. It's no longer a united force," she says.
If Afghan women now overwhelmingly want talks with the Taliban, the same is true of many of the country's male politicians, particularly the Pashtun. They want "a rebalancing of forces" in Afghan society, as a former minister who wanted to remain anonymous put it. The US invasion in 2001 put the warlords of the so-called Northern Alliance in power, but failed to produce stability. "In October 2001 the Taliban controlled 90% of Afghanistan, while the Northern Alliance had 10%. After December 2001 the Northern Alliance had 70% and the country's majority group, the Pashtun, were marginalised. Now this needs to change. There's an Afghan consensus on that," he says.
[...]
The trouble, as diplomats see it, is that Obama has not even authorised the CIA to put out feelers to the Taliban leadership on a "deniable" basis, a common way of initiating contacts. Nor has he begun to prepare the American public for the notion that the Taliban may not be demons but necessary negotiating partners. It would be as massive a U-turn in US policy as it was for the British government to talk to the IRA.[...]
Steele finds from his interviews and various reports that there is serious consideration now being given from the Karzai government, Afghan woman leaders, overwhelmingly by the Afghan people as a whole, and even the British, a key US ally, for and end to the war and talks with the Taliban. The Taliban are reported to be willing to end hostilities in return for the opportunity to share power in the national government. The chief reason for this widespread change in views among the Afghan is the disillusion with the war and with the notion that the US-led occupation will lead to improvements in the material conditions of the Afghans and an increase in security.
Steele also reports that the Taliban have become less intolerant toward the idea of girls and women going to school and working in the larger economy (e.g., as doctors). While a harsh patriarchy is pervasive in the rural areas of Afghanistan, this is a cultural fact that has existed for generations. Afghan women overwhelmingly want talks to occur with the Taliban leaders.
In short, the Afghan people want an end to war and are willing to take risks that the Taliban is less rigid and intolerant of other beliefs than before. On an encouraging note, Steele also points out that the Taliban in Pakistan send their girls to school and accept them in professions and work outside the home.
Steele says nothing about whether the Taliban still insist that talks be preconditioned on the departure of foreign troops from the country.
The Obama administration has not yet shown a willinging to become a part of, initiate, or even encourage talks with the Taliban.
--------------------------------
From Just Foreign Policy: Excerpts from Jonathan Steele's article.
Afghanistan: is it time to talk to the Taliban?Until recently it seemed an absurd idea. But now, eight years after its overthrow, is negotiating with the Taliban the only realistic way forward?Jonathan Steele, Guardian, Tuesday 4 May 2010 21.00 Thttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/04/afghanistan-taliban
Eight years after they were overthrown by US air power, a drumbeat is starting to sound across Afghanistan in favour of talking to the Taliban, the country's once-hated former rulers. An idea that used to seem absurd, if not defeatist, is coming to be seen as the only credible way to end an ever-widening war. Moreover, the proposed agenda of negotiations is not a Taliban surrender, but an offer to share power in Kabul.President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan politicians support the idea. So too do a growing number of foreign governments, including Britain's - at least tentatively - now that British troops are being killed at twice the rate they were in early 2009.
Perhaps most surprisingly, even among Afghanistan's small but determined group of woman professionals, the notion of making a deal with the ultra-conservative men who forced them into burkas and denied them the right to work outside the home is no longer anathema. A desperate desire for peace is trumping concern over human rights.
[...]
I was one of the few journalists in Kabul as the Taliban swept up from Kandahar to take control of the Afghan capital in 1996, prompting the mujahideen warlords to abandon resistance and flee. The sudden shift left everyone stunned, but the crowds that came out to watch the Taliban's pick-up trucks roaring around the streets were mainly supportive. The bearded young Islamists with their promise of social justice seemed to offer an end to the fighting between rival mujahideen leaders that had devastated large parts of the city and forced hundreds of thousands into refugee camps abroad.
[...]
Young Taliban gunmen ran into hospitals, ordering male doctors to grow beards and female doctors to go home. Burkas, once worn only by poorer women in the bazaar, became compulsory for all women. Taliban thugs flayed the ankles of anyone who showed even an inch of bare skin below the regulation new hemlines. But even as repression grew women could still be heard saying that their family's new-found safety from the civil war's shells and rocket-fire made it worth it.A similar calculus of security-versus-rights is re-emerging now. Three years ago, when I was last in Kabul and the Taliban were only just starting their comeback on the battlefield, defeating them was the watchword of the day. There has been a tectonic shift in Afghanistan's public mood since then. It is prompted by a host of factors: growing disappointment with western governments and the ineffectiveness of billions of dollars in aid that seems to go nowhere except into the bank accounts of foreign consultants or local politicians; a sense that there can be no military solution to the new civil war and that outsiders are deliberately prolonging it; grief and despair over the mounting toll of civilian casualties, many caused by US airstrikes; rising nationalist anger and a feeling of humiliation; and a desire to return to an Afghan consensus in which Afghans create their own space and find their own solutions. Karzai's recent outbursts against the Americans and other foreigners are no aberration. They reflect a widely held mood.
[...]
Anders Fänge, the country director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, a large aid agency, has spent around 20 years in the country, also working as a journalist and a UN official. The Taliban should never have been portrayed in the black-and-white terms that Bush and Blair used, he says. During their period in power they often turned a blind eye to the discreet "home schools" where teachers taught girls in people's flats or family compounds. "In 1998 the Taliban governor of [the central Afghan city] Ghazni told me, 'We know you have these girls' schools, but just don't tell me about them.' A Taliban minister even approached me and said, 'I have two daughters. Can you get them in?'" he recalls.
Similar attitudes exist today, he says. In Wardak, a province close to Kabul that is heavily contested by Taliban and Nato forces, "we don't have much problem with the Taliban," says Fänge. "They accept girls' schools and women doctors. They just ask for two hours of Islamic education in schools, that teachers grow beards and not spread propaganda against the Taliban."The difficulty comes from foreign Taliban, the Pakistanis and Arabs, or Taliban from other provinces. "At the local level, it's a patchwork, a mosaic of local commanders, who may recognise Mullah Omar as their spiritual leader but are not under his control," he adds.
Fänge's points support the case, rarely mentioned by western politicians, that Taliban conservatism differs from the rest of the country in degree, not in kind. Afghanistan is a largely rural society where the oppression of women runs deep. Even in villages populated by Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek, Afghan women are routinely banned by husbands or fathers from leaving the family compounds, and girls are kept out of school, according to Afghan women reporters.
[...]
Arsalan Rahmani was deputy minister of higher education and later minister of Islamic affairs in the Taliban government. Four years ago Karzai invited him back to Kabul and made him a senator. He accepts the Taliban made a string of mistakes. "They didn't have good management, they were young, they had no experts, doctors, and couldn't run ministries. My boss was a boy of 25, who couldn't even sign an official letter."He describes reports of restrictions on girls' education and women being denied the chance to work as false. "That wasn't their idea, then or now. We didn't let girls go to school because of lack of security. There was a war on. But now in Pakistan, Taliban girls go to school and university. My son is a doctor and I want him to marry a lady doctor. I've got three daughters. During the Taliban time they were in Pakistan and all studied there."He goes on to tell an incredible story. "When I was deputy minister of higher education, people came to me and said they had girls who had finished school and wanted to study medicine. I consulted Mullah Omar and he authorised us to set up rooms in a central Kabul hospital, now called Daoud Khan hospital, where women could study to become doctors. Around 1,200 graduated, and if you track them down you'll see my signature on their degree certificates," he says.
I have no time to follow his advice but I do locate Shukria Barakzai, an independent woman MP who stayed in Afghanistan throughout the Soviet occupation, the four-year rule by mujahideen warlords, and the Taliban period. She confirms the senator's story.
Like many educated Kabulis, she criticises the warlords as strongly as the Taliban (during the warlords' clashes she lost a son and daughter). She too favours talks with the Taliban. "I changed my view three years ago when I realised Afghanistan is on its own. It's not that the international community doesn't support us. They just don't understand us. Everybody has been trying to kill the Taliban but they're still there, stronger than ever. They are part of our population. They have different ideas but as democrats we have to accept that. Every war has to end with talks and negotiations. Afghans need peace like oxygen. People want to keep their villages free of violence and suicide bombers."Her relaxed attitude to the Taliban stems, in part, from confidence that they cannot win again. "They no longer have the support and reputation they had back then. Taliban is an ideology. It's no longer a united force," she says.
If Afghan women now overwhelmingly want talks with the Taliban, the same is true of many of the country's male politicians, particularly the Pashtun. They want "a rebalancing of forces" in Afghan society, as a former minister who wanted to remain anonymous put it. The US invasion in 2001 put the warlords of the so-called Northern Alliance in power, but failed to produce stability. "In October 2001 the Taliban controlled 90% of Afghanistan, while the Northern Alliance had 10%. After December 2001 the Northern Alliance had 70% and the country's majority group, the Pashtun, were marginalised. Now this needs to change. There's an Afghan consensus on that," he says.
[...]
The trouble, as diplomats see it, is that Obama has not even authorised the CIA to put out feelers to the Taliban leadership on a "deniable" basis, a common way of initiating contacts. Nor has he begun to prepare the American public for the notion that the Taliban may not be demons but necessary negotiating partners. It would be as massive a U-turn in US policy as it was for the British government to talk to the IRA.[...]
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Reasons why US military should exit Afghanistan
David Swanson informatively expounds on six points for why the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan should be brought to an end. In a seventh point, he writes that we, as citizens, have the constitutional means, if enough of us act on them, to accomplish the goal of bringing U.S. troops back to their homes. I identify his key points with selected excerpts on each of them. You can retreive the full article at: http://www.zcommunications.org/seven-deadly-sins-in-afghanistan-by-david-swanson. It was printed there on May 5, 2010.
His principal assumptions are that clear and well-documented arguments will, sooner or later, convince American voters that the war in and occupation of Afghanistan must be ended. He puts his faith in the potential rationality of the American electorate, and that if properly educated democracy will overcome plutocracy, the unprecedent power of the Pentagon, corporate-domination of all major sectors of the economy and the media, and the desire of the U.S. ruling class to maintain American hegemony in the Middle-East and Central Asia, especially because of the resources (especially oil) in these regions.
First point: The US occupation of Afghanistan is illegal under the UN Charter and Article VI of our Constitution. Additionally, Swanson writes:
"Revenge is not a legal ground for war and makes very little sense on its own terms. The 9-11 hijackers were already dead and not from Afghanistan. Much of the planning had been done in Europe and this country. And Al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan. We're fighting a war against the Taliban that, because it is a foreign occupation and there are no other jobs, fuels the extremely unpopular Taliban, which wouldn't invite Al Qaeda into Afghanistan if it could. And Al Qaeda in Afghanistan would not make the United States less safe than Al Qaeda in the locations it's in now, except to the extent that we enrage the people of Afghanistan against us.
The US occupation represents the "supreme international crime.
"Our crimes include using weapons that kill large numbers of civilians, targeting civilians, using cluster bombs and depleted uranium, assassination, imprisoning people without charge, abusing and torturing. The United Nations has warned the United States about its growing illegal use of drones. A former assistant secretary of state during Bush's presidency wrote in the Washington Post this April 2nd that if the International Criminal Court begins prosecuting crimes of aggression this year, potential defendants will include members of congress who fund aggressive wars.
President Obama has reasserted his power to make war
"... President Obama asserted his power to make war in a peace prize acceptance speech in Oslo, and recently created a policy of never using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, with the exception of Iran."
Second Point: This war is immoral.
"... most of the people we kill with drones are civilians....
"... Killing the people of Afghanistan is the mission of the U.S. military.
"We are killing thousands of civilians per year, plus non-civilians, plus over 1,000 US troops with over 5,000 wounded, plus mercenaries, plus those diagnosed with brain injuries after leaving Afghanistan, plus suicides which are now probably higher than combat deaths, plus the violence to others that troops bring home, plus anyone damaged by heroin during our occupation of Afghanistan. Arguing that the other guys kill more civilians than we do is not the point, and clearly not a point the people of Afghanistan weigh heavily. From their point of view, we are killing their brothers, whether civilian or not, and we are foreign occupiers.
Third point: This war and occcupation are against the public will in Afghanistan and in the US.
"A recent survey of Kandahar, the area where the escalation is planned, found that 94% of the people there prefer peace negotiations to U.S. attacks, and 85% see the Taliban as "our Afghan brothers." The survey was funded by that radical pacifist organization, the United States Army.
Back in December, U.S. pollsters asked Americans if they supported funding an escalation, and in several polls a majority said No. So a lot of congress members voted for more war funding but promised to oppose the escalation funding in the spring. Then the White House began the escalation, and the pollsters (apparently assuming that our servile congress would fund anything the president had already begun, even if the people opposed it) stopped polling on the escalation. Polling just on the war, pollsters find the US public evenly split or leaning slightly in support. But they ask whether people support the president, not how much longer they want the war to last or whether that's their top choice for where to spend a trillion dollars."
"...Yesterday, the Pentagon issued a new report finding that one in four Afghans in important areas support Karzai's government, violence is up 87% in the past year, European allies are bailing out, corruption runs rampant, insurgents still control Marjah, the Taliban is growing, and the Afghan government is getting weaker."
Fourth point: It is economically catastrophic.
"The money we are spending to take away lives could be spent to save even more lives. So the casualty figures must be more than doubled. We could save millions from starvation and disease around the world or in Afghanistan or our own country. We could have 20 green energy jobs paying $50,000 per year for every soldier sent to Afghanistan: a job for that former soldier and 19 more, and reduced demand for the oil and gas and pipelines and bases. We're spending as much as $100 per gallon to bring gas into Afghanistan where the US military used 27 million gallons of the stuff last month. We're spending hundreds of millions to bribe nations to be part of what we pretend is a coalition effort. We're spending at least that much to bribe Afghans to join the right side, an effort that has recruited 646 of the Taliban's 36,000 soldiers, but then lost many of them who took the money and ran back to the other side."
"We've spent $268 billion on making war on Afghanistan, and using Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz' analysis of Iraq we need to multiply that by four or five to get a realistic cost including debt, veterans care, energy prices, and lost opportunities. Public investment in most other industries or in tax cuts produces more jobs than investment in military."
Fifth point: It's counterproductive militarily and in the "war against terrorism."
"During the global war of terror we have seen a global increase in terrorism."
"...A RAND Corporation study just released looked at 89 of what it called insurgencies. With a weak government, like that of the Mayor of Kabul, the insurgency won 90% of the time."
Sixth point: It is a cynically motivated and based on a hidden agenda.
"Last summer a majority of the Democrats in the House voted for a so-called exit-strategy. A simple truth has been lost. You do not exit a war by escalating it."
"...We know that last year President Obama sent 21,000 more troops and 5,000 more mercenaries to Afghanistan, and that violence increased as a result. What's staggering is that the president said he was going to send those troops first and then figure out a plan for Afghanistan later. Sending the troops was an end in itself."
"We know that a pipeline and major military bases are part of the desired plan, but so is winning elections back home, which is where war opposition comes in."
Seventh point: Americans have the potential power, if only they use it, to end the policy supporting the Afghanistan war and occupation.
"No matter how awful Afghanistan is when the U.S. military leaves, it can never become a decent place to live during a foreign occupation. And the post-occupation Afghanistan is likely to be worse the longer the occupation has lasted."
"...But there is no reason our troops could not employ their bravery to clean up cluster bombs before they leave. There is no reason we cannot fund non-drug agriculture as our ambassador to Afghanistan advises us to do instead of escalating the war. Ron Fisher, who helped plan this event, has a plan available on the table. Jobsforafghans.org recommends spending $5 billion for jobs through the National Solidarity Program, which is run by local elected leaders."
"...Congress needs to build a caucus large enough to vote down war funding whether or not the president approves. Doing so puts the power of war where our Constitution so wisely put it and prevents future wars while ending a current one.
"So I want to see members of Congress join Dennis Kucinich and Jim McGovern in urging their colleagues to vote No on $33 billion. We saw 32 congress members vote No on war funding last June, and that was before the war had worsened, before the president had lost that new car smell, and while people still believed that would be the very last war supplemental bill.
"... Votes to cut-off war funding historically have always provided for orderly withdrawal. The chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, who has probably learned more about the troops than any other congress member, plans to vote No."
"...Senate and the president can do as they please, they just can't escalate a war without our money.
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.
His principal assumptions are that clear and well-documented arguments will, sooner or later, convince American voters that the war in and occupation of Afghanistan must be ended. He puts his faith in the potential rationality of the American electorate, and that if properly educated democracy will overcome plutocracy, the unprecedent power of the Pentagon, corporate-domination of all major sectors of the economy and the media, and the desire of the U.S. ruling class to maintain American hegemony in the Middle-East and Central Asia, especially because of the resources (especially oil) in these regions.
First point: The US occupation of Afghanistan is illegal under the UN Charter and Article VI of our Constitution. Additionally, Swanson writes:
"Revenge is not a legal ground for war and makes very little sense on its own terms. The 9-11 hijackers were already dead and not from Afghanistan. Much of the planning had been done in Europe and this country. And Al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan. We're fighting a war against the Taliban that, because it is a foreign occupation and there are no other jobs, fuels the extremely unpopular Taliban, which wouldn't invite Al Qaeda into Afghanistan if it could. And Al Qaeda in Afghanistan would not make the United States less safe than Al Qaeda in the locations it's in now, except to the extent that we enrage the people of Afghanistan against us.
The US occupation represents the "supreme international crime.
"Our crimes include using weapons that kill large numbers of civilians, targeting civilians, using cluster bombs and depleted uranium, assassination, imprisoning people without charge, abusing and torturing. The United Nations has warned the United States about its growing illegal use of drones. A former assistant secretary of state during Bush's presidency wrote in the Washington Post this April 2nd that if the International Criminal Court begins prosecuting crimes of aggression this year, potential defendants will include members of congress who fund aggressive wars.
President Obama has reasserted his power to make war
"... President Obama asserted his power to make war in a peace prize acceptance speech in Oslo, and recently created a policy of never using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, with the exception of Iran."
Second Point: This war is immoral.
"... most of the people we kill with drones are civilians....
"... Killing the people of Afghanistan is the mission of the U.S. military.
"We are killing thousands of civilians per year, plus non-civilians, plus over 1,000 US troops with over 5,000 wounded, plus mercenaries, plus those diagnosed with brain injuries after leaving Afghanistan, plus suicides which are now probably higher than combat deaths, plus the violence to others that troops bring home, plus anyone damaged by heroin during our occupation of Afghanistan. Arguing that the other guys kill more civilians than we do is not the point, and clearly not a point the people of Afghanistan weigh heavily. From their point of view, we are killing their brothers, whether civilian or not, and we are foreign occupiers.
Third point: This war and occcupation are against the public will in Afghanistan and in the US.
"A recent survey of Kandahar, the area where the escalation is planned, found that 94% of the people there prefer peace negotiations to U.S. attacks, and 85% see the Taliban as "our Afghan brothers." The survey was funded by that radical pacifist organization, the United States Army.
Back in December, U.S. pollsters asked Americans if they supported funding an escalation, and in several polls a majority said No. So a lot of congress members voted for more war funding but promised to oppose the escalation funding in the spring. Then the White House began the escalation, and the pollsters (apparently assuming that our servile congress would fund anything the president had already begun, even if the people opposed it) stopped polling on the escalation. Polling just on the war, pollsters find the US public evenly split or leaning slightly in support. But they ask whether people support the president, not how much longer they want the war to last or whether that's their top choice for where to spend a trillion dollars."
"...Yesterday, the Pentagon issued a new report finding that one in four Afghans in important areas support Karzai's government, violence is up 87% in the past year, European allies are bailing out, corruption runs rampant, insurgents still control Marjah, the Taliban is growing, and the Afghan government is getting weaker."
Fourth point: It is economically catastrophic.
"The money we are spending to take away lives could be spent to save even more lives. So the casualty figures must be more than doubled. We could save millions from starvation and disease around the world or in Afghanistan or our own country. We could have 20 green energy jobs paying $50,000 per year for every soldier sent to Afghanistan: a job for that former soldier and 19 more, and reduced demand for the oil and gas and pipelines and bases. We're spending as much as $100 per gallon to bring gas into Afghanistan where the US military used 27 million gallons of the stuff last month. We're spending hundreds of millions to bribe nations to be part of what we pretend is a coalition effort. We're spending at least that much to bribe Afghans to join the right side, an effort that has recruited 646 of the Taliban's 36,000 soldiers, but then lost many of them who took the money and ran back to the other side."
"We've spent $268 billion on making war on Afghanistan, and using Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz' analysis of Iraq we need to multiply that by four or five to get a realistic cost including debt, veterans care, energy prices, and lost opportunities. Public investment in most other industries or in tax cuts produces more jobs than investment in military."
Fifth point: It's counterproductive militarily and in the "war against terrorism."
"During the global war of terror we have seen a global increase in terrorism."
"...A RAND Corporation study just released looked at 89 of what it called insurgencies. With a weak government, like that of the Mayor of Kabul, the insurgency won 90% of the time."
Sixth point: It is a cynically motivated and based on a hidden agenda.
"Last summer a majority of the Democrats in the House voted for a so-called exit-strategy. A simple truth has been lost. You do not exit a war by escalating it."
"...We know that last year President Obama sent 21,000 more troops and 5,000 more mercenaries to Afghanistan, and that violence increased as a result. What's staggering is that the president said he was going to send those troops first and then figure out a plan for Afghanistan later. Sending the troops was an end in itself."
"We know that a pipeline and major military bases are part of the desired plan, but so is winning elections back home, which is where war opposition comes in."
Seventh point: Americans have the potential power, if only they use it, to end the policy supporting the Afghanistan war and occupation.
"No matter how awful Afghanistan is when the U.S. military leaves, it can never become a decent place to live during a foreign occupation. And the post-occupation Afghanistan is likely to be worse the longer the occupation has lasted."
"...But there is no reason our troops could not employ their bravery to clean up cluster bombs before they leave. There is no reason we cannot fund non-drug agriculture as our ambassador to Afghanistan advises us to do instead of escalating the war. Ron Fisher, who helped plan this event, has a plan available on the table. Jobsforafghans.org recommends spending $5 billion for jobs through the National Solidarity Program, which is run by local elected leaders."
"...Congress needs to build a caucus large enough to vote down war funding whether or not the president approves. Doing so puts the power of war where our Constitution so wisely put it and prevents future wars while ending a current one.
"So I want to see members of Congress join Dennis Kucinich and Jim McGovern in urging their colleagues to vote No on $33 billion. We saw 32 congress members vote No on war funding last June, and that was before the war had worsened, before the president had lost that new car smell, and while people still believed that would be the very last war supplemental bill.
"... Votes to cut-off war funding historically have always provided for orderly withdrawal. The chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, who has probably learned more about the troops than any other congress member, plans to vote No."
"...Senate and the president can do as they please, they just can't escalate a war without our money.
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.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Time Magazine choses Malalai Joya as among most influential but distorts what she represents
I found the following article at http://www.zcommunications.org/time-magazine-sneaky-way-of-muffling-the-message-of-an-afghan-peace-activist-by-malalai-joya
The article is based on an interview with Malalai Joya by Sonali Kolhatkar, both well-known and well-regarded in progressive circles for their courageous work in Afghanistan and their writing in support of an independent, democratic, and just Afghanistan. One of the basic points of the article is that Time Magazine included Joya in their "100 Most Influential People of 2010" but failed to identify her as an activist and leader who wants the US/NATO occupation ended and who has been an outspoken critic of the Afghan government, Afghan warlords allied with the government and occupation, and the misogynist and authoritarian Taliban.
-------------------------
Time Magazine's Sneaky Way of Muffling the Message of an Afghan Peace Activist
Malalai Joya gets named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2010, but allows Ayaan Hirsi to make the announcement and distort Joya's message.
By Malalai Joya and Sonali Kolhatkar
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Malalai Joya's ZSpace PageJoin ZSpace
(May 3, 2010) -- Outspoken Afghan activist and former member of the Parliament, Malalai Joya has been one of the most vocal opponents of the US and NATO war in Afghanistan. In a recent op-ed she called on the US to "stop murdering my people."
Joya was suspended from the Afghan Parliament nearly 3 years ago for challenging warlord domination and lives in constant fear of her life. She has survived several assassination attempts but chooses to live in Afghanistan. Her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords with Derrick O'Keefe was published late last year (Simon and Schuster). Last week Malalai Joya was named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" of 2010. I reached her for an interview via satellite phone in Afghanistan on May 3rd 2010.
Sonali Kolhatkar: You were just named one of the 100 most influential people of 2010 by TIME Magazine. But author Hirsi Ali, who wrote the announcement, said "I hope in time she comes to see the U.S. and NATO forces in her country as her allies. She must use her notoriety, her demonstrated wit and her resilience to get the troops on her side instead of out of her country." How do you respond to this statement?
Malalai Joya: I am very angry with the way they have introduced me. TIME has painted a false picture of me and does not mention anything at all about my struggle against the occupation of Afghanistan by the US and NATO, which is disgusting. In fact every one knows that I stand side-by-side with the glorious anti war movements around the world and have proved time and again that I will never compromise with the US And NATO who have occupied my country, empowered the most bloody enemies of my people and are killing my innocent compatriots in Afghanistan. What TIME did was like giving an award to someone with one hand and getting it back with another hand. I have sent my protest through my Defense Committee, but TIME did not bother to even answer than protest letter. Perhaps this is the kind of freedom of expression exercised by TIME and the US. But I'm happy to see that many of my friends and supporters have objected to the write-up and expressed it by posting their comments on TIME's site or sending me many emails.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Earlier this year some journalists were able to confirm that US troops had killed two pregnant women during a night-time raid. How common are such occurrences in Afghanistan today?
Malalai Joya: Yes, the US and NATO often lie when they kill innocent people and also stop media from reporting civilian casualties. Most of the civilian casualties take place in remote areas of Afghanistan where there is no media to report it, so no one notices it. In many cases after killing people NATO [releases] statements saying that many insurgents were killed. When you try to find out from the local people, they are actually women and children killed, not insurgents. Afghan media are also mostly in the hands of the Afghan criminal bands. They rarely report civilians killed by the US and NATO. In Afghanistan most media outlets, especially TV channels, are a tool for warlords of the Northern Alliance. For example warlords like Atta Mohammed, Qanooni, Mohseni, Mohaqqiq, Rabbani and others, each have their own TV channel and they naturally do not want to report civilian casualties by their US and NATO masters.
The US Embassy in Kabul has an office that carefully monitors all media in Afghanistan and if they find any of them reporting against US interests, they try using different means to stop it. Bribes are a very common means used. For the US it's not just fighting a war through military means, but also on the propaganda front. I think propaganda plays a major role. They are trying to show the war is justified. When they kill civilians they immediately deny it and say that all the people killed are Taliban. When there is no chance for any independent confirmation, the lies are the only things reflected in the world media. There are only a few cases where some brave and justice-loving journalists like Jerome Starkey have come forward to unmake their shameful lies.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Much has been made recently of Karzai's statements in favor of the Taliban. How close is the Afghan central government to forging a peace with the Taliban? What will that mean for the US/NATO war? What will it mean for the people of Afghanistan?
Malalai Joya: I think Karzai cannot dare to make such a statement or try to meet the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party leaders without having an "OK" from the White House. Actually it is the US that asks him to make peace with the Taliban and Hekmatyar's party or at least share power with them. Also the US government needs to show the people of NATO countries that it is not a war-monger and is in favor of peace talks with the Taliban. But it is just a show. The US doesn't want to fight the Taliban forever as it needs them as an excuse to continue the occupation of Afghanistan in the implementation of its strategic, regional, and military interests. I think some of the Taliban and Hekmatyar's leaders are already part of Karzai's regime. One of the main leaders of Hekmatyar's party called Hadi Arghandiwal is now the Minister of Economy under Karzai.
This is what the US wants. These brutal and inhuman leaders have been created by the US in the past and are ready to work for the US as long as their pockets are filled with dollars and high posts are offered to them in the government. Actually the US government is trying hard to empower reactionary forces and individuals in Afghanistan as they can use them to stop the emergence of pro-democracy and nationalist forces and groups in my country.
Sonali Kolhatkar: You recently wrote in an op-ed in the Daily Beast that there are a lot of anti-US protests happening in Afghanistan today that go unreported. Tell us more about these protests - where are they happening, who is protesting, and are they also against the fundamentalists or just the US/NATO?
Malalai Joya: Yes, we have witnessed the protests of people especially in the Eastern and Western parts of Afghanistan over the past year. They are mostly reactions to civilians killed by the US and NATO. With every bombardment by NATO, angry people come to the streets to raise anti-US slogans. But unfortunately they are not organized and in some cases the Taliban uses them. We have seen most of these protests in Nangahar, Ghazni, Loghar, Herat, and Helmand provinces but they are usually not reported. A few days ago angry protestors burned about 20 fuel tankers of NATO in Loghar which was one out of many such protests reported by the world media.
These protestors are not only against the US and NATO but also against the Afghan government. People see that this government is deeply corrupt and in the hands of looters and murderers of the Northern Alliance. So they are deeply fed up. Last month a large crowd of thousands of workers in Baghlan province protested against Mahmood Karzai [vice chairman of the Afghanistan chamber of commerce and Hamid Karzai's younger brother], head of the "economic mafia" of Afghanistan who has his hold on some previously state-owned factories. The US and NATO and the Afghan government usually ignore people's protests. But I believe that given enough time, such protests will become even more organized out of people's anger. Afghans are on the verge of uprising but poverty, destitution, and the non-existence of powerful democratic-minded forces in our country stops them from a very serious uprising. I'm sure in the next few years such forces will emerge and these protests will turn more powerful to shake the Afghan puppet government and the occupation forces.
Sonali Kolhatkar: The US has made no secret for many months that it is about to launch an offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar. What do you think will happen this summer as a result of this offensive?
Malalai Joya: As I said before, the US does not want to fight the Taliban forever. They only fight with them here and there to show the American people that the US is at war in Afghanistan and their presence is necessary here. The offensive in Kandahar will not be different from Marjah and other areas of Helmand where they had such operations in the past. They make such a hue and cry about their military actions but in fact they just push the Taliban to other areas and then install some corrupt officials and police forces who are worse than the Taliban. In a few days the Taliban return as we experienced in the past. They declared Marjah as a Taliban-free district but in fact the Taliban has a permanent presence there. They had just left the area for a short time.
After the Marjah operation, a spokesperson of the Afghan Defense Ministry was asked at a press conference why they allowed the Taliban to leave the area and why the Taliban were neither killed nor arrested in Marjah. He answered that the purpose of the operation was not killing or arresting the Taliban, instead it was to push them out of the area.So we expect that they will do the same thing with Kandahar. They will launch the operation and then allow the Taliban to go to another area and then later start an operation there. This is a battle for show, not a real war against terrorism. Otherwise for the US and NATO, it is a task of only a few days to uproot the Taliban and defeat them forever. But then everyone will ask them to end the occupation of Afghanistan.The only outcome of the Kandahar operation will be civilian casualties. Poor and innocent people are the only ones killed in the war. But the Taliban do not experience any defeat or even major casualties. Afghans know very well that the US will neither bring democracy nor peace to Afghanistan. They know that the US and NATO are empowering the enemies of democracy. But it is the duty of the Afghan people to fight for their values and understand that the occupation will only drag us more deeply into slavery. As always I pass this message to justice-loving people around the world that no nation can donate liberation to another nation.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Can you tell us what the status of your own parliamentary position is right now, since you were stripped of your elected position by the fundamentalists some years ago. Have you ever been made to face a court? Can you run again for parliament in the next elections?
Malalai Joya: In the last stage of the Interparliamentary Union meeting, a delegation of Afghan parliamentarians promised that they would end my suspension so I could return to Parliament. But it was just a lie and they did not stand by their promise.
I received a letter from the court some months ago and I answered truthfully what my strong position was against the warlords. They asked me to apologize [for my statements made in a TV interview --and said that they would allow me back to the Parliament. But I stressed the truth of my statements and said that I would never apologize to criminals and looters. However, I still can run for elections which are due to happen later this year. But I have not made up my mind to run.
But whether I serve in Parliament or outside it, I will continue my fight for justice, democracy and against the occupation. Parliament was just a small part of my struggle but I still have many other options and fields. Going to a Parliament of criminals was a big torture for me. It was a torture everyday to see the faces of these brutal men such as Qanooni, Sayyaf, Mohaqqiq, Piram Qul, Haji Almas, Haji Fayeed, etc there. But I accepted the task on behalf of my people.
I think the next election will be even more disgusting and full of fraud. The new chief of the election commission is a known warlord of the Northern Alliance and he will try to bring all these warlords to the Parliament and stop the emergence of democratic-minded people like me. Many people think that at this point they will never allow me to win the election as they can't bear to have me inside the parliament once more. But I will continue the struggle as long as these criminals are in power, these sworn enemies of democracy, women's rights, human rights, and as long as these occupation forces are bombing from the sky, and supporting the enemies of my people and killing innocent people of my country.
For more information, visit malalaijoya.com.
Sonali Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a US-based non-profit that funds health, educational, and training projects for Afghan women. She is also the host and producer of Uprising Radio, a daily morning radio program at KPFK, Pacifica in Los Angeles.
The article is based on an interview with Malalai Joya by Sonali Kolhatkar, both well-known and well-regarded in progressive circles for their courageous work in Afghanistan and their writing in support of an independent, democratic, and just Afghanistan. One of the basic points of the article is that Time Magazine included Joya in their "100 Most Influential People of 2010" but failed to identify her as an activist and leader who wants the US/NATO occupation ended and who has been an outspoken critic of the Afghan government, Afghan warlords allied with the government and occupation, and the misogynist and authoritarian Taliban.
-------------------------
Time Magazine's Sneaky Way of Muffling the Message of an Afghan Peace Activist
Malalai Joya gets named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2010, but allows Ayaan Hirsi to make the announcement and distort Joya's message.
By Malalai Joya and Sonali Kolhatkar
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Malalai Joya's ZSpace PageJoin ZSpace
(May 3, 2010) -- Outspoken Afghan activist and former member of the Parliament, Malalai Joya has been one of the most vocal opponents of the US and NATO war in Afghanistan. In a recent op-ed she called on the US to "stop murdering my people."
Joya was suspended from the Afghan Parliament nearly 3 years ago for challenging warlord domination and lives in constant fear of her life. She has survived several assassination attempts but chooses to live in Afghanistan. Her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords with Derrick O'Keefe was published late last year (Simon and Schuster). Last week Malalai Joya was named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" of 2010. I reached her for an interview via satellite phone in Afghanistan on May 3rd 2010.
Sonali Kolhatkar: You were just named one of the 100 most influential people of 2010 by TIME Magazine. But author Hirsi Ali, who wrote the announcement, said "I hope in time she comes to see the U.S. and NATO forces in her country as her allies. She must use her notoriety, her demonstrated wit and her resilience to get the troops on her side instead of out of her country." How do you respond to this statement?
Malalai Joya: I am very angry with the way they have introduced me. TIME has painted a false picture of me and does not mention anything at all about my struggle against the occupation of Afghanistan by the US and NATO, which is disgusting. In fact every one knows that I stand side-by-side with the glorious anti war movements around the world and have proved time and again that I will never compromise with the US And NATO who have occupied my country, empowered the most bloody enemies of my people and are killing my innocent compatriots in Afghanistan. What TIME did was like giving an award to someone with one hand and getting it back with another hand. I have sent my protest through my Defense Committee, but TIME did not bother to even answer than protest letter. Perhaps this is the kind of freedom of expression exercised by TIME and the US. But I'm happy to see that many of my friends and supporters have objected to the write-up and expressed it by posting their comments on TIME's site or sending me many emails.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Earlier this year some journalists were able to confirm that US troops had killed two pregnant women during a night-time raid. How common are such occurrences in Afghanistan today?
Malalai Joya: Yes, the US and NATO often lie when they kill innocent people and also stop media from reporting civilian casualties. Most of the civilian casualties take place in remote areas of Afghanistan where there is no media to report it, so no one notices it. In many cases after killing people NATO [releases] statements saying that many insurgents were killed. When you try to find out from the local people, they are actually women and children killed, not insurgents. Afghan media are also mostly in the hands of the Afghan criminal bands. They rarely report civilians killed by the US and NATO. In Afghanistan most media outlets, especially TV channels, are a tool for warlords of the Northern Alliance. For example warlords like Atta Mohammed, Qanooni, Mohseni, Mohaqqiq, Rabbani and others, each have their own TV channel and they naturally do not want to report civilian casualties by their US and NATO masters.
The US Embassy in Kabul has an office that carefully monitors all media in Afghanistan and if they find any of them reporting against US interests, they try using different means to stop it. Bribes are a very common means used. For the US it's not just fighting a war through military means, but also on the propaganda front. I think propaganda plays a major role. They are trying to show the war is justified. When they kill civilians they immediately deny it and say that all the people killed are Taliban. When there is no chance for any independent confirmation, the lies are the only things reflected in the world media. There are only a few cases where some brave and justice-loving journalists like Jerome Starkey have come forward to unmake their shameful lies.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Much has been made recently of Karzai's statements in favor of the Taliban. How close is the Afghan central government to forging a peace with the Taliban? What will that mean for the US/NATO war? What will it mean for the people of Afghanistan?
Malalai Joya: I think Karzai cannot dare to make such a statement or try to meet the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party leaders without having an "OK" from the White House. Actually it is the US that asks him to make peace with the Taliban and Hekmatyar's party or at least share power with them. Also the US government needs to show the people of NATO countries that it is not a war-monger and is in favor of peace talks with the Taliban. But it is just a show. The US doesn't want to fight the Taliban forever as it needs them as an excuse to continue the occupation of Afghanistan in the implementation of its strategic, regional, and military interests. I think some of the Taliban and Hekmatyar's leaders are already part of Karzai's regime. One of the main leaders of Hekmatyar's party called Hadi Arghandiwal is now the Minister of Economy under Karzai.
This is what the US wants. These brutal and inhuman leaders have been created by the US in the past and are ready to work for the US as long as their pockets are filled with dollars and high posts are offered to them in the government. Actually the US government is trying hard to empower reactionary forces and individuals in Afghanistan as they can use them to stop the emergence of pro-democracy and nationalist forces and groups in my country.
Sonali Kolhatkar: You recently wrote in an op-ed in the Daily Beast that there are a lot of anti-US protests happening in Afghanistan today that go unreported. Tell us more about these protests - where are they happening, who is protesting, and are they also against the fundamentalists or just the US/NATO?
Malalai Joya: Yes, we have witnessed the protests of people especially in the Eastern and Western parts of Afghanistan over the past year. They are mostly reactions to civilians killed by the US and NATO. With every bombardment by NATO, angry people come to the streets to raise anti-US slogans. But unfortunately they are not organized and in some cases the Taliban uses them. We have seen most of these protests in Nangahar, Ghazni, Loghar, Herat, and Helmand provinces but they are usually not reported. A few days ago angry protestors burned about 20 fuel tankers of NATO in Loghar which was one out of many such protests reported by the world media.
These protestors are not only against the US and NATO but also against the Afghan government. People see that this government is deeply corrupt and in the hands of looters and murderers of the Northern Alliance. So they are deeply fed up. Last month a large crowd of thousands of workers in Baghlan province protested against Mahmood Karzai [vice chairman of the Afghanistan chamber of commerce and Hamid Karzai's younger brother], head of the "economic mafia" of Afghanistan who has his hold on some previously state-owned factories. The US and NATO and the Afghan government usually ignore people's protests. But I believe that given enough time, such protests will become even more organized out of people's anger. Afghans are on the verge of uprising but poverty, destitution, and the non-existence of powerful democratic-minded forces in our country stops them from a very serious uprising. I'm sure in the next few years such forces will emerge and these protests will turn more powerful to shake the Afghan puppet government and the occupation forces.
Sonali Kolhatkar: The US has made no secret for many months that it is about to launch an offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar. What do you think will happen this summer as a result of this offensive?
Malalai Joya: As I said before, the US does not want to fight the Taliban forever. They only fight with them here and there to show the American people that the US is at war in Afghanistan and their presence is necessary here. The offensive in Kandahar will not be different from Marjah and other areas of Helmand where they had such operations in the past. They make such a hue and cry about their military actions but in fact they just push the Taliban to other areas and then install some corrupt officials and police forces who are worse than the Taliban. In a few days the Taliban return as we experienced in the past. They declared Marjah as a Taliban-free district but in fact the Taliban has a permanent presence there. They had just left the area for a short time.
After the Marjah operation, a spokesperson of the Afghan Defense Ministry was asked at a press conference why they allowed the Taliban to leave the area and why the Taliban were neither killed nor arrested in Marjah. He answered that the purpose of the operation was not killing or arresting the Taliban, instead it was to push them out of the area.So we expect that they will do the same thing with Kandahar. They will launch the operation and then allow the Taliban to go to another area and then later start an operation there. This is a battle for show, not a real war against terrorism. Otherwise for the US and NATO, it is a task of only a few days to uproot the Taliban and defeat them forever. But then everyone will ask them to end the occupation of Afghanistan.The only outcome of the Kandahar operation will be civilian casualties. Poor and innocent people are the only ones killed in the war. But the Taliban do not experience any defeat or even major casualties. Afghans know very well that the US will neither bring democracy nor peace to Afghanistan. They know that the US and NATO are empowering the enemies of democracy. But it is the duty of the Afghan people to fight for their values and understand that the occupation will only drag us more deeply into slavery. As always I pass this message to justice-loving people around the world that no nation can donate liberation to another nation.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Can you tell us what the status of your own parliamentary position is right now, since you were stripped of your elected position by the fundamentalists some years ago. Have you ever been made to face a court? Can you run again for parliament in the next elections?
Malalai Joya: In the last stage of the Interparliamentary Union meeting, a delegation of Afghan parliamentarians promised that they would end my suspension so I could return to Parliament. But it was just a lie and they did not stand by their promise.
I received a letter from the court some months ago and I answered truthfully what my strong position was against the warlords. They asked me to apologize [for my statements made in a TV interview --and said that they would allow me back to the Parliament. But I stressed the truth of my statements and said that I would never apologize to criminals and looters. However, I still can run for elections which are due to happen later this year. But I have not made up my mind to run.
But whether I serve in Parliament or outside it, I will continue my fight for justice, democracy and against the occupation. Parliament was just a small part of my struggle but I still have many other options and fields. Going to a Parliament of criminals was a big torture for me. It was a torture everyday to see the faces of these brutal men such as Qanooni, Sayyaf, Mohaqqiq, Piram Qul, Haji Almas, Haji Fayeed, etc there. But I accepted the task on behalf of my people.
I think the next election will be even more disgusting and full of fraud. The new chief of the election commission is a known warlord of the Northern Alliance and he will try to bring all these warlords to the Parliament and stop the emergence of democratic-minded people like me. Many people think that at this point they will never allow me to win the election as they can't bear to have me inside the parliament once more. But I will continue the struggle as long as these criminals are in power, these sworn enemies of democracy, women's rights, human rights, and as long as these occupation forces are bombing from the sky, and supporting the enemies of my people and killing innocent people of my country.
For more information, visit malalaijoya.com.
Sonali Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a US-based non-profit that funds health, educational, and training projects for Afghan women. She is also the host and producer of Uprising Radio, a daily morning radio program at KPFK, Pacifica in Los Angeles.
Poll finds Afghans in war zones more negative toward US and NATO than toward Taliban
In the following segment of his Informed Comment blog, historian and Middle East expert Juan Cole reviews highlights of a poll done with Aghan citizens in war zones and draws some implications. The poll finds that the majority of respondents are more negative toward US and NATO than toward the Taliban. One implication is that the recent surge in US troops and the adoption of a "counterinsurgency" strategy by US generals are not yielding the hopeful results that were expected in Pashtun areas of Helman Province and Qandahar. Cole fears that the US-led offenses will end up strengthening the position of Taliban insurgents, perceived as the lesser of evils. The majority of Afghans interviewed want security, but believe that US military offenses have led and will lead to more killing, refugees, and destruction, without permanently dislodging the Taliban.
--------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Consent, May 4, 2010
Opinion polling in war zones is fraught with difficulties, but the results of a new poll by the International Council on Security and Development carried out among over 400 male respondents in parts of Helmand Province and Qandahar, Afghanistan, in March, 2010, are extremely troubling. (Executive summary here in html, the whole report is here in pdf format.) I conclude from this sounding that the planned US invasion of Qandahar city is likely to be a disaster that turns millions of Western Pashtuns against the US and NATO. The Eastern Pashtuns are already regularly demonstrating and demanding that the foreign troops depart their provinces.
The Marjah campaign this winter involved US and British troops coming into a rural part of Helmand province in the Pashtun southwest of Afghanistan that had been dominated by the Taliban. The farms in this region specialize in poppy growing, and there are reputedly many makeshift heroin labs there. Some observers estimate that 40 % of drug profits overall flow to the Afghanistan insurgent groups, so presumably the US wanted to damage a profit center of the enemy.
But what you’d like to hear from the people of Marjah and nearby Lashkargah, and from Qandahar (the next US target) is that they are sick and tired of the Taliban, felt oppressed by them, and are really glad to see NATO and Afghanistan national army troops show up. Such anti-Taliban sentiments appear common, after all, in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, where from all accounts locals were glad that the Pakistani army cleaned the Taliban out last summer, even though they are dissatisfied with the resulting displacements, property damage and slowness in the delivery of reconstruction aid.
But the Pashtuns of southern Helmand and of Qandahar are not talking like the people of Swat Valley. The report finds that “61% of those interviewed feel more negative about NATO forces than before the military offensive. ” We aren’t winning hearts and minds, folks.
In a startling statistic, nearly 80% of these Pashtun men say that they are now often or always angry, a doubling of this response from one year ago. Nearly half are specifically furious at NATO (over “occupation, civilian casualties and night raids”) and over a third are upset at war and instability (likely also blamed on NATO). Only 9 percent say they are angry with the Taliban!
Almost everyone said that the Marjah campaign produced more refugees (ICOS estimates at least 30,000), who are now living in tent cities or makeshift refugee camps.
Nearly 60% of respondents said they believed the Taliban would just return to Marjah, so the US has not in fact succeeded in convincing locals that they are even capable of the “clear” operation in the take, clear, hold and build strategy. Skepticism about holding and building is therefore likely to be even higher. And 95 percent, almost all, believe more young men have joined the Taliban in the aftermath of the Marjah campaign.
Another troubling finding is that slightly over half now believe the angry young men are motivated to join the Taliban by a belief in “jihad,” i.e. a desire to fight to end the foreign military occupation of their country. Other studies have suggested that many Taliban footsoldiers are just in it for the money. If these respondents are correct in their perception, it would be a troubling development– that young Pashtun males are becoming ideologically radicalized against NATO. A majority still feels, however, that if jobs could be provided to the angry young men, it would draw them away from the Taliban.
The report says, “The principal demand expressed by 70% of Afghans interviewed is the immediate provision of help from NATO, the international community and the Afghan government: they expect shelter and food for the refugees, the rebuilding of destroyed property and the clearing of landmines.” They don’t think they are getting a ‘government in a box’ as Gen. McChrystal promised. They don’t think they are getting basic post-campaign aid. No NGOs are operating in Marjah itself and only two in nearby Lashkargah.
Although the respondents do want security and two-thirds do hope NATO will clear insurgents from the road to the capital of Kabul from their region, and even say they would a similar clearing in Qandahar (!), given their other responses I conclude that they want security imposed in a way that does not displace people or kill innocents. I.e. they want better and less intrusive policing, not a military attack on a civilian area.
--------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Consent, May 4, 2010
Opinion polling in war zones is fraught with difficulties, but the results of a new poll by the International Council on Security and Development carried out among over 400 male respondents in parts of Helmand Province and Qandahar, Afghanistan, in March, 2010, are extremely troubling. (Executive summary here in html, the whole report is here in pdf format.) I conclude from this sounding that the planned US invasion of Qandahar city is likely to be a disaster that turns millions of Western Pashtuns against the US and NATO. The Eastern Pashtuns are already regularly demonstrating and demanding that the foreign troops depart their provinces.
The Marjah campaign this winter involved US and British troops coming into a rural part of Helmand province in the Pashtun southwest of Afghanistan that had been dominated by the Taliban. The farms in this region specialize in poppy growing, and there are reputedly many makeshift heroin labs there. Some observers estimate that 40 % of drug profits overall flow to the Afghanistan insurgent groups, so presumably the US wanted to damage a profit center of the enemy.
But what you’d like to hear from the people of Marjah and nearby Lashkargah, and from Qandahar (the next US target) is that they are sick and tired of the Taliban, felt oppressed by them, and are really glad to see NATO and Afghanistan national army troops show up. Such anti-Taliban sentiments appear common, after all, in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, where from all accounts locals were glad that the Pakistani army cleaned the Taliban out last summer, even though they are dissatisfied with the resulting displacements, property damage and slowness in the delivery of reconstruction aid.
But the Pashtuns of southern Helmand and of Qandahar are not talking like the people of Swat Valley. The report finds that “61% of those interviewed feel more negative about NATO forces than before the military offensive. ” We aren’t winning hearts and minds, folks.
In a startling statistic, nearly 80% of these Pashtun men say that they are now often or always angry, a doubling of this response from one year ago. Nearly half are specifically furious at NATO (over “occupation, civilian casualties and night raids”) and over a third are upset at war and instability (likely also blamed on NATO). Only 9 percent say they are angry with the Taliban!
Almost everyone said that the Marjah campaign produced more refugees (ICOS estimates at least 30,000), who are now living in tent cities or makeshift refugee camps.
Nearly 60% of respondents said they believed the Taliban would just return to Marjah, so the US has not in fact succeeded in convincing locals that they are even capable of the “clear” operation in the take, clear, hold and build strategy. Skepticism about holding and building is therefore likely to be even higher. And 95 percent, almost all, believe more young men have joined the Taliban in the aftermath of the Marjah campaign.
Another troubling finding is that slightly over half now believe the angry young men are motivated to join the Taliban by a belief in “jihad,” i.e. a desire to fight to end the foreign military occupation of their country. Other studies have suggested that many Taliban footsoldiers are just in it for the money. If these respondents are correct in their perception, it would be a troubling development– that young Pashtun males are becoming ideologically radicalized against NATO. A majority still feels, however, that if jobs could be provided to the angry young men, it would draw them away from the Taliban.
The report says, “The principal demand expressed by 70% of Afghans interviewed is the immediate provision of help from NATO, the international community and the Afghan government: they expect shelter and food for the refugees, the rebuilding of destroyed property and the clearing of landmines.” They don’t think they are getting a ‘government in a box’ as Gen. McChrystal promised. They don’t think they are getting basic post-campaign aid. No NGOs are operating in Marjah itself and only two in nearby Lashkargah.
Although the respondents do want security and two-thirds do hope NATO will clear insurgents from the road to the capital of Kabul from their region, and even say they would a similar clearing in Qandahar (!), given their other responses I conclude that they want security imposed in a way that does not displace people or kill innocents. I.e. they want better and less intrusive policing, not a military attack on a civilian area.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Headlines on recent developments in Afghanistan
The following four headlines from various media sources were gathered by Just Foreign Policy. Together they point to little progress for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, and growing support for the Taliban/insurgents in southern parts of the country.
Bear in mind, these developments are unfolding after the Obama sanctioned increase to Afghnistan of 30,000 troops this year (bringing US troop levels to about 100,000), along with additional contractors, the ongoing training of Afhan army and police, and including some troops from NATO. The generals in the field now expect that the "need" for the occupation will go on for many years. There are other reports as well indicating that the Pentagon will soon be asking for another 20,000 US soldiers.
As time passes, the US-led occupation seems more and more like a rough re-run of what happened in Vietnam, with its death, destruction of villages and habitat, and lack of support from the indigenous population. In both cases, we were told that the continued escalation of war was necessary to our national security. It all sounds like a broken record. The opportunity costs, or how we might otherwise spend the tens of billions of dollars on the broken economic system of the US itself, are great and increasing.
There are perhaps larger concerns behind the day-to-day reports. While Afghanistan is not rich in fossil fuels, it is geographically situated so that a pipeline could be built through it to transmit the oil from other countries in central Asia. Additionally, Afghanistan figures in the tensions between Pakistan and India. Both countries would like to have a dominating influence in Afghanistan to advance their own perceptions of security and influence in the region. And the US administration and Pentagon apparently want to demonstrate that US hegemonic power is intact. Whatever the larger reasons, Afghanistan appears like a pawn in larger imperialistic plots. The dominos may be falling, but not to advance the interests of the societies that are being directly and indirectly affected.
Bob
---------------------------
Some headlines from Just Foreign Policy, April 30, 2010.
1) Nato's most senior civilian official said US and NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan can expect to be engaged in a combat role for three or four more years, the Guardian reports. Thereafter, they could be expected to remain in Afghanistan, training and mentoring local forces, for a further 10 to 15 years. President Karzai is due to visit Washington on May 10.
3) A U.S. night raid that killed a relative of Afghan parliamentarian Safia Siddiqi was conducted without informing the local police, the Los Angeles Times reports.
4) The most significant revelation in the Pentagon's Afghanistan report this week is that Gen. McChrystal and ISAF acknowledge officially that Taliban insurgents dominate a vast contiguous zone of heavily populated territory across southern Afghanistan that McChrystal regards as the most critical area in the country, writes Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service. The report admits that the population in key districts across most southern provinces is sympathetic to or supportive of the insurgents.
5) The Pentagon's report on the last six months in Afghanistan suggests the situation is little better over all than it was six months ago despite enormous expenditures of effort, money and lives by US and international forces, the New York Times reports. The report is mandated by Congress every six months.
Bear in mind, these developments are unfolding after the Obama sanctioned increase to Afghnistan of 30,000 troops this year (bringing US troop levels to about 100,000), along with additional contractors, the ongoing training of Afhan army and police, and including some troops from NATO. The generals in the field now expect that the "need" for the occupation will go on for many years. There are other reports as well indicating that the Pentagon will soon be asking for another 20,000 US soldiers.
As time passes, the US-led occupation seems more and more like a rough re-run of what happened in Vietnam, with its death, destruction of villages and habitat, and lack of support from the indigenous population. In both cases, we were told that the continued escalation of war was necessary to our national security. It all sounds like a broken record. The opportunity costs, or how we might otherwise spend the tens of billions of dollars on the broken economic system of the US itself, are great and increasing.
There are perhaps larger concerns behind the day-to-day reports. While Afghanistan is not rich in fossil fuels, it is geographically situated so that a pipeline could be built through it to transmit the oil from other countries in central Asia. Additionally, Afghanistan figures in the tensions between Pakistan and India. Both countries would like to have a dominating influence in Afghanistan to advance their own perceptions of security and influence in the region. And the US administration and Pentagon apparently want to demonstrate that US hegemonic power is intact. Whatever the larger reasons, Afghanistan appears like a pawn in larger imperialistic plots. The dominos may be falling, but not to advance the interests of the societies that are being directly and indirectly affected.
Bob
---------------------------
Some headlines from Just Foreign Policy, April 30, 2010.
1) Nato's most senior civilian official said US and NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan can expect to be engaged in a combat role for three or four more years, the Guardian reports. Thereafter, they could be expected to remain in Afghanistan, training and mentoring local forces, for a further 10 to 15 years. President Karzai is due to visit Washington on May 10.
3) A U.S. night raid that killed a relative of Afghan parliamentarian Safia Siddiqi was conducted without informing the local police, the Los Angeles Times reports.
4) The most significant revelation in the Pentagon's Afghanistan report this week is that Gen. McChrystal and ISAF acknowledge officially that Taliban insurgents dominate a vast contiguous zone of heavily populated territory across southern Afghanistan that McChrystal regards as the most critical area in the country, writes Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service. The report admits that the population in key districts across most southern provinces is sympathetic to or supportive of the insurgents.
5) The Pentagon's report on the last six months in Afghanistan suggests the situation is little better over all than it was six months ago despite enormous expenditures of effort, money and lives by US and international forces, the New York Times reports. The report is mandated by Congress every six months.
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