Afghan President Hamid Karzai is coming to Washington next week to meet with President Obama. Afghan government officials have said that
their top priority for these talks is to get President Obama to agree
that the U.S. will fully back efforts of the Afghan government to
reconcile with senior leaders of the Afghan Taliban insurgency in
order to end the war.
On the merits, saying yes to the Afghan government's request for US
support for peace talks would seem like a no-brainer.
Either Hamid Karzai is the legitimate President of Afghanistan or he
is not. If Hamid Karzai is not the legitimate President of
Afghanistan, then Western forces must leave the country immediately,
because they have no legitimate basis to remain. But if Hamid Karzai
is the legitimate President of Afghanistan, then it's a slam dunk that
his government's policy of national reconciliation ought to take
precedence over Pentagon demands for more killing.
Either the opinions of the people of Afghanistan on questions of war
and peace in their country matter or they do not. If they do not
matter, then everyone in Washington pontificating about "democracy" or
"governance" or "legitimacy" or "corruption" in Afghanistan please
shut up immediately and remain silent. If the opinions of the Afghan
public do matter, then it's a slam dunk that the Afghan public's
demand for peace talks ought to take precedence over Pentagon demands
for more killing.
Every Western press report from Afghanistan that addresses this issue
says that the overwhelming consensus of public opinion in Afghanistan
supports peace talks to end the war.
Just this week, Jonathan Steele
reported in the
Guardian that across Afghanistan, talking to the Taliban is seen as "the only credible way" to end the war, "even among
Afghanistan's small but determined group of woman professionals."
Steele interviews a range of Afghan professional women to illustrate
his point.
Member of Parliament Shukria Barakzai explains why she supports peace talks:
"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."
If "Afghan women now overwhelmingly want talks with the Taliban," Steele writes, "the same is true of many of the country's male
politicians, particularly the Pashtun." The perception of many Pashtun
politicians is that the US invasion put the warlords of the
predominantly Tajik Northern Alliance in power, marginalizing the
country's largest ethnic group, the Pashtun. These Pashtun politicians
see a national reconciliation process and new political dispensation
with the primarily Pashtun Taliban as a way to end this
marginalization of the Pashtuns and incorporate them into the
government.
U.S. officials who want to continue the killing concede that the
endgame is a negotiated political solution with the Afghan Taliban,
but insist that the "time is not right" because "the Taliban have no
reason to negotiate," and that we have to kill more of them to "force
the Taliban to the negotiating table."
Like Iraq WMD, this is a stupid lie repeated endlessly by all the
stupid people until all the stupid people believe it.
When the U.S. government decides to attack a problem diplomatically,
this is not how U.S. government officials talk about it. Instead, they
emphasize common interests and opportunities for agreement, seeking to
expand the political space for diplomacy. This is equally true under
Democratic and Republican Administrations; it was true under the Bush
administration. The fact that the U.S. government is downplaying the
prospect of peace shows you that the U.S. government is not trying to
achieve peace. So when U.S. government officials claim that the
Taliban aren't ready for peace, they are really just restating what we
already know: that the U.S. government isn't ready for peace.
Note that a component of the Afghan Taliban leadership has already put a peace plan on the table
. In March, a delegation from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's insurgent group Hezb-i-Islami
presented a formal 15-point peace plan to the Afghan government. A
spokesman for the delegation said the Afghan Taliban would be willing
to go along with the plan if a date was set for the withdrawal of
foreign forces from the country.
This information is not a highly classified state secret. It was
reported in the
New York Times.
It's kind of breathtaking that the warmonger Washington punditocracy
can continue on its merry Energizer bunny way, insisting that there is
no basis for peace talks, completely ignoring that fact that a
fraction of the insurgency has put a peace plan on the table and
claims that the bulk of the insurgency is ready to support the plan if
foreign forces will agree to a timetable for withdrawal. But that's
what happens when your raw material for analysis isn't what's actually
happening in Afghanistan, but what other stupid people in Washington
are saying about what is happening in Afghanistan. If the stupid
people in Washington aren't talking about peace talks, then the
prospect of peace talks doesn't exist.
Of course, from the standpoint of the warmongers, a peace plan that
requires a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces is a
"non-starter."
But from the point of view of the values and interests of the majority
of Americans, the opposite is true: the fact that the insurgents'
peace plan requires a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces is a
stunningly attractive feature of the insurgents' peace plan.
Among Democrats in particular, the idea of a timetable for withdrawal
of U.S. forces is spectacularly popular.
Already,
eighty-two Members of Congress have co-sponsored
Representative Jim McGovern's bill requiring a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, including
such liberal heavyweights as Barney Frank and Henry Waxman. Among
House Democrats from President Obama's home state of Illinois, it's
now 2-1 in favor of a timetable for withdrawal, with Reps. Costello,
Schakowsky, Davis, Gutierrez, Jackson, Quigley, Hare, and Rush
co-sponsoring McGovern's bill, leaving only Reps. Bean, Foster,
Halvorson, and Lipinski still on the sidelines.
Exit Afghanistan: The Feingold-McGovern Bill for a Timetable for WithdrawalOn April 14, 2010, Rep. Jim McGovern introduced H.R. 5015, which would require the President to establish a timetable for the ...
When we compel the U.S. government to accept the policy of a timetable
for military withdrawal, we remove the fundamental U.S. obstacle to
peace in Afghanistan.
Until now, there have been just a handful of voices in the U.S. debate
openly calling for real U.S. support of Afghan peace talks, such as
Ahmed Rashid,
writing in the
Washington Post; Robert Dreyfuss, writing in the Nation; Tom Hayden, writing in the
Los Angeles Times; and Gareth Porter, in his reporting for Inter Press Service.
But now that President Karzai is expressly meeting with President
Obama for the purpose of securing US agreement to back Afghan peace
talks, it's time to make American public support for peace talks more
visible.
Jim Fine of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and I want
to
place an ad
in the DC press next week when President Karzai visits, calling on President Obama to say yes when President Karzai asks him
to support peace talks in Afghanistan. If you agree,
show us some love
.
