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TechnoratiAfghanistan: War of Necessity? Or Opportunity for Peace, Reconciliation and Development?
President Obama has repeatedly called the US occupation of Afghanistan a "war of necessity", in contrast to the war of choice his predecessor waged (and of course is still ongoing) in Iraq.
While I am no mind-reader, I'm not sure the president really still believes that, or he may want to come up with a different way to describe the situation in Afghanistan and the region. Certainly there are grave problems in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan that deserve attention and resources from the US, other countries in the region and the global community.
But, as my colleague Michael Beer of Nonviolence International said to me recently, if it really is a "war of necessity," why is the president taking so long to decide whether to send more troops? Shouldn't it be a no-brainer? Why is the Administration apparently preparing to try to persuade a war-weary public that more troops, maybe tens of thousands, need to deploy to Afghanistan?
My sense is the president's deliberation (for which I think he deserves some credit) and his Administration's desire to explore a broader range of issues (governance, aid, development, education, women's rights, local policing and judicial systems as well as others) than just troop levels indicates there is serious doubt about how "necessary" continuing and escalating the war really is. At least it is a confirmation of the many statements from military and diplomatic leaders, both within the Administration and outside it, that there is no military solution in Afghanistan.
Clearly the US public doesn't think Afghanistan is a war of necessity, as a majority of Americans now oppose the war or at least its escalation.
Another way to think of this is the "Just War" test, not the official Catholic doctrine, but the real definition of a Just War - one you'd send your kids to fight in.
Clearly this war fails that test for the overwhelming majority of Americans, and many veterans of Afghanistan and military families are now speaking out for an end to the eight years and counting US occupation, just as so many of them have regarding the Iraq war and occupation.
My children, at ages 12 and 15 a little older than President Obama's daughters, think the US is always at war, and why wouldn't they? The US has been involved in wars almost their whole lives. Of course the children of Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Palestine, Sudan, Congo and too many other countries know the horror of constant war much more personally. We, their parents, are failing them, aren't we? They deserve peace, and we all need to demand it for them.
Instead of a military escalation, we need a transition to non-military solutions in Afghanistan, and a plan to withdraw US and NATO forces as soon as possible. Support for comprehensive peace negotiations between the various parties to the conflict in Afghanistan, including some Taliban leaders, and a surge in economic development and humanitarian aid to grassroots programs led by Afghans are the key steps to the new direction we need for Afghanistan, and for the U.S.
Many national and local organizations are organizing Call-In days to the White House next week to oppose the escalation of troops and call for an end to the war. Please call the White House between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time next week at 202-456-1111, and urge your friends, family and colleagues to do the same. Afterward, please call your Member of Congress with the same message, and go to http://noescalation.org/ to find out more about our congressional pressure campaign, and you can report on what you learn from your representative on that webpage.
13 Comments so far
Show All"Certainly there are grave problems in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan that deserve attention and resources from the US...."
Certainly? Let me be specific: this is the language of a Colonial Viceroy of the 19-th century.
"Our attention and resources" always translates into more soldiers, more killing, more destruction.
Your "Peace Organization" is a bad joke.
Afghanistan is ruled by smallish heroin warlords. America can no more rule Afghanistan than it can rule the Mexican cartels.
If the Mexican cartels held an election, would the United States certify the election?
The Afghans want to know what the heck we want out of them. We reply that we want them to vote, to develop their economy and for their daughters and sons to go to college.
They counter that they will vote for whoever holds a gun on them, the only possible Afghan economy is growing the world's opium, there is no college and their daughters were killed. There are hovel cities full of hungry people, except anyone who sells heroin has guns. The warlords are violent. The Taliban are violent. The Americans are violent.
So, our military strategy is to starve and occasionally shoot poor people, to make their lives suffer, until the survivors hate us. Why don't I think the Americans know what they're doing?
Are we all imperialists now? The author's penultimate paragraph urges that, instead of military escalation, "we" continue involvement in Afghanistan in a more pacific vein (economic development, etc.). Why does the author presume that Afghanistan (or anywhere else) requires "solutions" from "us"? Who is this "we" so mindlessly cast by progressives? Since when has the USA given such "solutions" without hegemonic conditions? Those seeking peace should echo Ray Bradbury's Prime Directive and simply demand that the USA cease all interference in the affairs of other peoples and nations. If the USA is seized with charitable compulsions, it can pay its bill at the UN, pay unconditional reparations to its victims via apolitical charities, put a tax on carbon emissions, and so on. There are many good causes that do not advance the sacred National Security Interests of the United States.
But, as my colleague Michael Beer of Nonviolence International said to me recently, if it really is a "war of necessity," why is the president taking so long to decide whether to send more troops?
His Excellency, The Great Obama, wants most of all to be reelected. If there is one thing that has overwhelmingly preoccupied him since the conclusion of his Campaign of the Big Lie it's the red hot desire to serve two terms. That, coupled with his innate and heavyweight cowardice, has led to The Big Dither. He wants to cut Afghanistan down the politically acceptable middle and has no idea where that middle is. Perhaps this is because there is no middle to cut.
Freddie Kilowatt,
You are in a definite company among those who have posted at Common Dreams in the past, but your name and your argument is a distraction from the humanistic aspects of the Afghan war. Or do you really believe the Afghan problems are so simple and few as you portray? Pipeline is no doubt one item but only that. The nature of our occupation-- constant killing of innocents and creation of a climate where social progress is impossible-- are just two of a plethora of still greater considerations. What about David Rohde's finding, in seven months of captivity, that the Taliban, not just Al Qaeda, is now full of people just waiting for a ticket to come over and perform suicide bombings in the United States? If he is right, our bumbling around in Afghanistan is having precisely the opposite effect of what either American administration intended and therefore must cease.
"My children, at ages 12 and 15 a little older than President Obama's daughters, think the US is always at war . . . "
Listen to those kids, Kevin. They're on to something.
Not all the wars are announced. When I go to academic sources for a list, they omit events that I remember personally. Even a hot war has pauses between battles to resupply and manoeuvre.
We know we're at war with Iraq and Afghanistan.
Does everyone know we're at war in Pakistan?
Does everyone know we recently entered Syria?
Does everyone know we recently fired on Somalia?
Can't we reasonably assume the US was instrumental in toppling the elected head of Honduras?
Can we imagine that the US is not now moving against Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua?
Under what interpretation do CIA black ops kidnappings of citizens of England, Italy, Germany, Canada and other countries not constitute acts of war?
Does the border between the Koreas exist as a peace or only detente (from the same root as "detain")
If we overlay known US intelligence black ops over declared wars, known invasions, known collusions with large companies like United Fruit and nameless adventures like Pershing's march through Guaymas to Veracruz supposedly looking for Pancho Villa, and all the supposed liberations, we might find no year free of war since its inception.
If we do, I doubt that changes the general principle. After all, everyone needs a moment to reload.
One more time, Hillary is in Afghan for one reason, Make War,
and build the pipeline. Why the Peace people cannot understand
the pipeline is beyond me. Iraq was for oil, was there another reason that we don't know of? Exxon and Unocal want the pipeline built, so Hillary is their quarterback.
Iraq was for oil, was there another reason that we don't know of?
Yes, George Wanker Bush's penis. The burning desire to be a cheap, strutting, creepy child's version of a "hero", a tough guy, a killer, motivated The Wanker as much as anything else. The Wanker was, and remains, a monumental Fuck-Up, a Loser, and the landing on the aircraft carrier was his high point as a Loser and Fuck-Up.
You can't polish a turd.
GWB is a fascinating study. I suspect he was born half-witted and the told all through his childhood stories about how grandfather Prescott Bush had single handedly conquered the wild west, bent it to his will, and made a fortune with no help from anybody and to which he alone was entitled.
By extension, the story must have continued, George HW and the whole clan were entitled. Entitled not merely to the family fortune, but to anything they could take by whatever means were most expedient. They were entitled because they were INTRINSICALLLY set apart from the rest of the human race.
How else to explain the stupidity, the mangling of the language, the bungling, and then walking away with body language that fairly screamed "Boy, did I ever nail that one".
Good article ------ The aid should mainly be ecomomic developement and as little "Cultural Medddling" as possible.
This occupation of a foreign country and the brutalization of its people for no reason whatever is indefensible.
Ending it as quickly as possible with apologies and a complete withdrawal is a no-brainer.
Finally, it's come to this .....
If the US empire doesn't end their brutal, 8 year long war on the hapless people of Afghanistan, WE'RE GONNA PHONE THEM UP! brilliant.
LOL.