This morning, the US Commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, warned in a confidential report leaked to the Washington Post and the New York Times, that without a significant increase in troops in Afghanistan, the US mission there “will likely result in failure” by next year.
The question we must ask is, “What is the mission, as McChrystal sees it?”
If the goal is to maintain US influence in the region, he may very well be correct. However, if the goal is to bring peace and stability to the region, a surge of troops is not the right way to go about it. As, Graham Fuller, former CIA Station Chief in Kabul, said:
What can be done must be consonant with the political culture. Let non-military and neutral international organizations, free of geopolitical taint, take over the binding of Afghan wounds and the building of state structures.
I could not agree more. The presence of US troops in the region exacerbates not only radical Islamists – those who see their ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam not only as a religion, but as a comprehensive socio-political system – but also the nationalist Pashtun people, who are the ethnic majority in Afghanistan and don’t take well to the presence of foreign troops on their homeland.
The fact that there are two very different groups people in Afghanistan and Pakistan who are opposed to the US presence is often lost in the dialogue, but it is of crucial importance to recognize if there is going to be the possibility for peace and stability in the region. The latter group, the Pashtuns, have fought invaders since the British in the 19th century. They have no interests in seeing the US destroyed, and they do not, as many conservative pundits used to state, “hate us for our freedoms” or some similar drivel. Rather, they, like any peoples, want to be free from an occupation force.
The second group of peoples fighting the US are the radical Islamist. They also do not “hate us for our freedoms” but rather for our ongoing policy in the middle east. They oppose both our policy towards Israel and Palestine, and what they see as our undue and overbearing influence in propping up illegitimate governments in many countries. They hope that by driving the US out of the middle east, they can topple existing governments and set up their own hyper-conservative socio-political system.
Neither group of people can be properly combated with through military forces. In Islamists will simply move elsewhere, as we have seen with their surge in Pakistan, and the Pashtuns will into lay down their arms as long as foreign occupiers are on their soil. However, as Fuller suggested, non-military, non-US peacekeeping and NGO forces will have a much better chance of creating peace and stability.
However, a surge in troops will likely cause the opposite – increasing destabilization in Pakistan, a surge in violence in Afghanistan, and the frettering away of Obama’s international good will and political capitol.
This, then, is a crucial time for the Obama Administration, for the American People, and for the Antiwar Movement. It is no secret that the Antiwar movement is smaller now than it has been in recent years, yet this is the moment when we need to be pushing as hard as we can for a WITHDRAWAL of troops, rather than an INCREASE.
With increased opposition in congress – including from Sen. Carl Levine, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Diane Feinstein, Chair of the Intelligence Committee, and our own Sen. Dick Durbin, Majority Whip – and a war fatigue from many Americans tired of the years of senseless in Iraq, now is the time to pressure Obama to change his course.
It is imperative that we do not let Obama off the hook, in either Afghanistan or in Iraq – where we still are seeing Americans killed, and mercenaries such as Blackwater – or Xu, as they now call themselves – running the show. It is imperative that we do not let the antiwar movement, on campuses across the country, to whither away as the real and pressing issues of the economy and healthcare, and the fabricated issues such as the “birthers” or “Tea Baggers” take over the public discourse. It is imperative that we bring our troops back safely and as quickly as possible, imperative that we provide the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan and Palestine, to be able to create the societies that they desire, free of US influence. It is a moral imperative, a social imperative, an economic imperative, and we need to ensure that for Obama, it is a political imperative.
We must continue to fight for peace, using every means at out disposal. Protests, letter writing, education, nonviolent direct action, boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns: every non-violent means at our disposal must be brought to bear on Obama and the Democrats.
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