Brookline —
Brookline PAX opposes President Obama’s proposed deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan — a plan fraught with potential disaster for that war-weary, devastated land that surpasses any potential gain for the region or for our own security. Moreover, it brings into serious question the future viability of urgently needed domestic programs, the promise of which propelled Barack Obama to victory last year.
We have now been fighting in Afghanistan longer than we did in World War I and World War II combined, yet Pentagon officials say the difficulties they face are as great as ever. In view of the enormously costly quagmires of Vietnam and Iraq, and the failures of all previous imperial powers to prevail militarily in Afghanistan, we must all ask: Is this the change we voted for, the shift in America’s role in the world that we were so eloquently promised? Unfortunately, we’ve seen this before. Both presidents Johnson, and then Nixon were peace candidates who, upon election, expanded and prolonged the Vietnam War, greatly increasing its costs in blood and forgone alternatives.
The president claims that escalation is a matter of “necessity,” not mere “choice.” We disagree, as do many experts. What we truly need is a restoration of the checks and balances envisioned by the nation’s founders, subjecting war-making to full Congressional debate and approval.
This administration, like its predecessor, seems determined to ignore the fact that in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, when aerial drones operated from overseas kill and maim more and more noncombatants in seemingly interminable years of warfare, the bitterness and rage that fuel anti-Americanism and nationalistic jihad are spread ever more widely. In the Dec. 12 New York Times analysis “New incidents test immunity to terrorism on U.S. soil,” three experts agreed. As stated by Robert Leiken, author of the forthcoming “Europe’s Angry Muslims,” “[T]he continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American operations like drone strikes in Pakistan, are fueling radicalization at home. Just the length of U.S. involvement in these countries is provoking more Muslim Americans to react.”
Our secretaries of State and Defense say we need to partner with our Afghan allies. However, by the administration’s own admission, this partner is ridden with drug running and corruption (its government is the second most corrupt in the world, according to Transparency International), and its president was reelected only through widespread electoral fraud. Are these proper allies?
Finally, by official count, there are only about 100 Al Qaeda operatives remaining in Afghanistan, but amassing 100,000 U.S. troops there will cost nearly $100 billion per year. And even if Al Qaeda were completely removed from Afghanistan and Pakistan, it still operates with relative freedom in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere (See “Al Qaeda looking to Yemen as next base,” Boston Globe, Dec. 13). We have no assurance that our troops would not then be moved to yet another country.
President Obama tells us that we will soon begin to leave, echoing his predecessor regarding Iraq: “When they stand up, we will stand down.” But as conservative columnist George Will observed, “He must know this will not happen.” Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich put it more bluntly: “[R]ather than changing Washington, Obama has become its captive…Under the guise of cleaning up Bush’s mess, Obama has chosen to continue Bush’s policies.”
Yes, there is terrorism, and it’s dangerous. But long-run solutions to the real sources of international terrorism are both more complex and more difficult: multilateral approaches to huge rich-poor nation disparities and the world’s insatiable demand for oil; ending our reputation as an international bully; and international cooperation among police and intelligence agencies to foil the extremist plots against our country that are occasionally hatched in apartments in Europe, the Third World and even here at home.
The $30 billion that the president would spend annually on escalation can be put to far better use in resolving more immediate and pervasive threats to the security of the American public here at home: joblessness, home foreclosures, economic inequality, the lack of affordable universal health care and global warming.
President Obama and Congress must finally confront our budget prioritization directly and not simply mortgage our children’s future. Our overstretched and worn-down military will be hard-pressed to execute this hopeless enterprise in Afghanistan, even more so than it has been in Iraq. Republicans will applaud escalation, but not many Democrats, and the American people will likely register their disillusionment next year at the polls.
Brookline residents should call Representative Frank (617-332-3920), and Senators Kerry (617-565-8519) and Kirk (617-565-3170), urging them to lead the current fight in Congress against funding escalation in Afghanistan of carrying out President Obama’s domestic promises.
This column was written by Brookline PAX member George Dargo, and co-chairs Frank Farlow and Marty Rosenthal.
Source:wickedlocal.com/
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