Peace movement tackles Afghanistan

While Barack Obama campaigned on ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 16 months and bringing a new multilateralist approach to foreign policy, he also promised to expand the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, adding 30,000 more trooops to the approximately 32,000 already there. Along with the pro-Israel stance he unveiled at AIPAC, this pledge was crucial to positioning Obama as a reliable defender of U.S. imperial interests, whose mantra of "change" would not mean a fundamental departure from the U.S. strategy of dominating the greater Middle East/Central Asian region as a geopolitically crucial region of the world.

Now that Obama has taken office and is preparing to carry out the Afghanistan escalation, the peace movement is stepping up to respond. However, in doing so it is just beginning to work towards forging a unified stand. While all parts of the peace movement oppose the current escalation and call for toning down aggressive U.S. military tactics, some call for unilateral U.S. withdrawal, others for a gradual transition to U.N. or multinational occupation, and still others call for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban as a way to end the war.

Afghanistan is not Iraq. The 9/11 attacks were launched by al Qaeda from bases in Afghanistan, and as a result the premises of the war have until recently been ideologically unchallenged among the masses of the U.S. people. Furthermore, the enemy U.S. forces are fighting there, the Taliban, are one of the most reactionary threats to democracy, progress, and in particular, human rights for women, anywhere in the world. Thus, while the peace movement opposed the intervention in Iraq with a demonstration of 1 million people in New York even before the invasion, and has loudly and clearly demanded unilateral U.S. withdrawl from Iraq ever since, the forces opposed to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan over the years have been far smaller. It has been easier for the peace movement to avoid confronting this problem, to focus on Iraq as the larger and deadlier war, and to relegate Afghanistan to a footnote. Due to the escalation, that luxury is now at an end.

United for Peace and Justice, the main non-sectarian antiwar coalition, laid plans to "raise the level of awareness and open a larger discussion within the movement ... advocate for U.S. troop withdrawal and a changed policy towards Afghanistan .... exposing the horrors and costs of this illegal, immoral and ineffective military engagement .... UFPJ demands immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupying forces from Afghanistan." However, as UFPJ acknowledges, "there are political differences within our movement on how the U.S. should relate to Afghanistan." So far we have not yet seen UFPJ express the unconditional withdrawal position, restated at its December conference, in its outreach and organizing.

9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows has published an excellent "Primer for Peace Activists" which calls for "End the occupation of Afghanistan... Set a swift timetable for the withdrawal of US and NATO military forces, to be substituted by UN forces for short-term security .... Support negotiations between all parties involved in the conflict." The primer offers a detailed criticism of the U.S. war policy, but its positive program is briefer and we can hope for more elaboration in the future.

The December 2008/January 2009 issue of AFSC's Peaceworks magazine offers several useful articles, including one by UFPJ's maTT de Vlieger calling on peace activists to turn their attention to Afghanistan and "inform yourself... host a discussion with your group... formulate a position... organize a public forum." In formulating the tasks this way, de Vlieger appears to acknowledge that not all peace activists are ready yet to call for unconditional withdrawal.

The Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women (RAWA) has been working to build support and raise funds in the U.S. and other countries for the past several years. RAWA calls for immediate withdrawal of foreign forces, opposes negotiations with the Taliban, and is oriented to arduous underground organizing if necessary. U.S. peace forces "have a great responsibility to put pressure on their government and especially its foreign policy, to change the policy and to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. And they have to show their solidarity with the democratic movements in Afghanistan. It’s very very important for us and we need their voices."

Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation has usefully analyzed the Afghanistan dilemma facing U.S. policymakers, suggesting that they are not united behind the escalation strategy and that it will fail. He appears to favor a negotiated end to the conflict. "Will President Obama seize the moment? Will he have the courage to offer an end to US occupation of Afghanistan if the Taliban-led movement abandons its ties to Al Qaeda?", he concludes a recent article.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, proposes that "the best prospect for more concerted action against Al-Qaeda is a planned withdrawal of US forces, and for reconstruction to be taken over by a multinational coalition that has as few American fingerprints as possible."

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, ex-journalists who have spent 20 years studying Afghanistan, write that we should "stop killing Afghanis... change the tone of U.S. engagement... establishing a revised set of rules by which the United States must play, stressing the rule of international law and respect for civil and human rights." Their position fits within the liberal internationalist mindset that, despite their calls for reassessment, still assumes it is the U.S.' responsibility to bring Afghanistan into the modern age.

Andrew Bacevich, Boston University professor of international relations, calls for withdrawal for completely different reasons than those given by the peace movement. Bacevich calls for the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan not to bring progress to the Afghan people but simply because it's an ineffective strategy to defeat Al Qaeda. "Offered the right incentives, warlords can accomplish U.S. objectives more effectively and more cheaply than Western combat battalions.... the Pentagon should crush any jihadist activities that local powers fail to stop themselves.... periodic airstrikes may well be required to pre-empt brewing plots before they mature."

The women's peace movement has a particularly important role to play on the Afghanistan issue due to the use that has been made of the Taliban's repression of women in building the American people's support for the war effort. The Women's International Leage for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) recently took a position to "support a genuine peace process ... Troops in Iraq should not be sent to Afghanistan." Code Pink also opposes the escalation. Neither group has yet issued a statement calling for withdrawal of U.S. forces.

My own view is that the peace movement must call for unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. While the potential return of the Taliban is a serious threat, I agree with RAWA that compromising with them or relying on the U.S. military and its puppet government to stop them are both dead ends. The only way U.S. peace activists can support the Afghan democratic and popular forces is for the U.S. to get out. The Afghan people will be that much closer to solving their own problems once the occupation army is out of the way.

However, I also agree with maTT de Vlieger that a discussion process is needed before the peace movement can unify on this position. Because of the legitimate concern of many peace forces, and especially of women, that the Taliban must not return, a respectful hearing must be given to positions which oppose the escalation and call for a reduction in violence, without supporting withdrawal of U.S. forces. As the groups favoring these moderate positions immerse in the reality of what the U.S. war in Afghanistan has wrought, I believe that more and more of them will evolve towards a pro-withdrawal stance.