The People are the Prize

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2009-10-05

Oct. 5
Protesters hold signs in front of the White House to mark the upcoming eighth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. Protesters did not hesitate to voice their disapproval with President Obama’s policies, including Predator drone strikes that have killed many Afghan civilians in addition to insurgent forces.
Sarah L. Voisin-The Washington Post

The 8th anniversary of the startup to the war in Afghanistan is marked today by continued deliberations over a new strategy and the way forward from where we find ourselves today.

The anti-war zombies paraded themselves Monday in front of the White House. If these so-called “peace” activists want to “stop war against the people of Afghanistan”, then why do they so strongly advocate troop withdrawal? How does that help bring peace and end war in Afghanistan?

Medea Benjamin:

This is marking yet another anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan; and we’re here to say that we voted for this president because we want an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re actually talking about sending in another 40,000 troops and we’re saying that’s insane. So we’re here to say healthcare not warfare. We need this money at home for education, healthcare, infrastructure, fixing our country; and, we should put money into Afghanistan for the needs of the people and not more warfare.

Yes, because all we and our NATO allies are engaged in over there, is “going into the homes of Afghans in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs.”. For example:

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Belgian army soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) distribute greeting cards for the Eid-al-Fitr festival as they patrol during a joint mission with German Bundeswehr army soldiers in Taloqan, west of Kunduz, September 30, 2008.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

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U.S. Navy Seabees and Army soldiers work on a construction project in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Sept. 25, 2009. The Seabees are assigned to the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 22, and the soldiers are assigned to 4th Engineer Battalion.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Kenneth W. Robinson

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U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Nicholas Martz, from 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, writes on a chalkboard with an Afghan boy during a renovation planning visit at a school in the Nawa district of the Helmand province of Afghanistan Aug. 6, 2009. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. William Greeson, U.S. Marine Corps)

081206-N-8825R-012A grateful refugee camp resident in Kabul, Afghanistan, kisses U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. (Dr.) Yevsey Goldberg, who helped bring more than 550-kilograms of rice and other supplies, Dec. 6, 2008. Goldberg is deployed to International Security Assistance Force Headquarters.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Aramis Ramirez

2009-02-06
Cap. Michael Harris, commander of U.S. Army’s Alpha Company, 1st Battalion of 32nd Infantry Regiment, speaks with an Afghan family during a patrol near Nawapass village, Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan February 6, 2009.
REUTERS/Oleg Popov

619-The_Daily_Edit_03.24.09_0001-499.standalone.prod_affiliate.138U.S. Navy Lt. Obi Ugochukwu checks sick baby Fatima, 8 months, on March 23, 2009 outside the U.S. Marine base in Bakwa in southwest Afghanistan. The child’s parents brought her to the base for emergency treatment for a 104 degree fever and seizures. Ugochukwu, the base medical officer, gave the child medicine to reduce the fever and asked the parents to bring her again the following day. Such remote areas as Bakwa, in Afghanistan’s Farah province, have no hospitals, and the medical personnel at the Marine base provide the only emergency care in the region. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

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A Canadian soldier shakes hands with an Afghan boy during a joint patrol with Afghan National Army troops near Panjwaii village, Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, July 13, 2007.
REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

2009-08A U.S. soldier passes out candy to children in Pir Zadeh, a village in Afghanistan. Military commanders and architects of the Human Terrain project say that it helps make soldiers more knowledgeable about the society surrounding them, thus minimizing casualties and civilian deaths.
Vanessa M. Gezari

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A French peacekeeper of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) shakes hands with an Afghan boy during a patrol in Kabul, October 7, 2004.
REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

[This post to be updated with more photos of U.S. and NATO troops “terrorizing” the Afghan people]

The Afghan people are not the Taliban. After their war with the Soviets, we made the mistake of leaving a power vacuum in the country. The Taliban brought stability to the region; but along with that, they brought their madrasas and a strict adherence and indoctrination into Islamic fundamentalism; and with that came cruelty and oppression.

War-weary Afghans welcomed the stability, but not the governance under Sharia. By October 7, 2001, the people of Afghanistan welcomed liberation.

There are many complex issues in dealing with Afghanistan; there are no painless downhill solutions, but only steep mountains to climb.

But in regards to Code Pink and the anti-war movement, where does their compassion lay? Do they really care about the lives of innocent Afghans? Then why would they advocate a course of action that would subjugate the people of Afghanistan to once again live under the brutality of Taliban rule?

Certainly, not all Afghans have appreciated our presence there; and hold us accountable for some of the violence. But others recognize that we are the ones trying to protect them and to help them rebuild a stable government.

The failures of the Karzai government and the allegations of election fraud- both real and perceived- have been a huge setback, doing more damage than any Taliban attack.

The perception of wavering commitment back in Washington does nothing to further confidence among the Afghan people that the U.S. and NATO are the answer to their prayers of a better life and brighter future:

Governor Massoud said he personally admired the Marines here, from the Second Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, but he said many people “just don’t want them here.”

He estimated that two of every three local residents supported the Taliban, mostly because they make a living growing poppy for the drug trade, which the Taliban control. Others support them for religious reasons or because they object to foreign forces.

Not least, people understand that the Taliban have not disappeared, but simply fallen back to Garmsir, 40 miles north, and will almost surely try to return.

Lt. Col. Tim Grattan, the battalion commander, said the local residents’ ambivalence reflected fears of what could happen to anyone who sided with the Marines, an apprehension stoked by past operations that sent troops in only for short periods.

“They are on the fence,” Colonel Grattan said. “They want to go with a winner. They want to see if we stay around and will be able to protect them from the Taliban and any repercussions.”

From Oliver North‘s American Heroes, pg 263-4:

10 December 2007- MADERIYA, Iraq, We walked through this agricultural community east of Baghdad, not far from the Iranian border, with COL. Terry Ferrell, commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd ID. He introduced me to CPT Fawaz Nazzir, of the Iraqi Army. I asked why he joined the new Iraqi Army eleven months ago. His reply was a testament to American resolve in prosecuting this campaign: “I waited,” replied CPT Nazzir, “to see which side was going to win.”

To some Americans that may sound like a cynical response but not to those who have spent years campaigning in Mesopotamia. “What would you expect given how uncertain our commitment was at home?” commented one U.S. officer on his third tour of duty here. He continued: “Until ‘the surge’, nobody in Iraq knew whether we were going to finish this fight. AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] and the Shiite militias were all telling their followers that we were going to cut and run. ‘The surge’ proved that we weren’t going to abandon them.”

Not only did we not abandon them, we upped the ante, increasing the number of U.S. combat units in the country and significantly expanding training and support for Iraq’s fledgling security forces.

As with the Iraqis, Afghans want to know that they are siding with the winners; because they know, should they side with the U.S., and we pull out and abandon them, they will suffer barbaric retribution at the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

We have a home to retreat back to. For them, Afghanistan is their home. And should the Taliban return, they will have nowhere to run.

American allies throughout the world will also have doubts as to whether or not America is a reliable partner when the going gets tough:

In an interview at the Journal’s offices this week in New York, Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi minced no words about the impact of a U.S. withdrawal before the Taliban is defeated. “This will be disastrous,” he said. “You will lose credibility. . . . Who is going to trust you again?” As for Washington’s latest public bout of ambivalence about the war, he added that “the fact that this is being debated—whether to stay or not stay—what sort of signal is that sending?”

Mr. Qureshi also sounded incredulous that the U.S. might walk away from a struggle in which it has already invested so much: “If you go in, why are you going out without getting the job done? Why did you send so many billion of dollars and lose so many lives? And why did we ally with you?” All fair questions, and all so far unanswered by the Obama Administration.

As for the consequences to Pakistan of an American withdrawal, the foreign minister noted that “we will be the immediate effectees of your policy.” Among the effects he predicts are “more misery,” “more suicide bombings,” and a dramatic loss of confidence in the economy, presumably as investors fear that an emboldened Taliban, no longer pressed by coalition forces in Afghanistan, would soon turn its sights again on Islamabad.

Mr. Qureshi’s arguments carry all the more weight now that Pakistan’s army is waging an often bloody struggle to clear areas previously held by the Taliban and their allies. Pakistan has also furnished much of the crucial intelligence needed to kill top Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in U.S. drone strikes. But that kind of cooperation will be harder to come by if the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and Islamabad feels obliged to protect itself in the near term by striking deals with various jihadist groups, as it has in the past.

Pakistanis have long viewed the U.S. through the lens of a relationship that has oscillated between periods of close cooperation—as during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s—and periods of tension and even sanctions—as after Pakistan’s test of a nuclear device in 1998. Pakistan’s democratic government has taken major risks to increase its assistance to the U.S. against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mr. Qureshi is warning, in so many words, that a U.S. retreat from Afghanistan would make it far more difficult for Pakistan to help against al Qaeda.

Media reports, such as the recent news coverage of “Wanat II” that left 8 U.S. soldiers dead, can affect public opinion and Taliban morale, creating an Afghan Tet. Much of the war is about the propaganda of perspective and perception:

A battle that killed eight Americans at a pair of remote military bases in Afghanistan last weekend also left more than 100 insurgents dead, NATO said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Are we winning or losing?

Sending reinforcements will send a clear message to the Taliban and the world that the reputation of Afghanistan as being the “graveyard of empires” is nothing more than a myth; and that the U.S. did what Alexander the Great, the British, and the Soviets could not do.

No, it won’t be easy. The problems faced are complex, and may take generations to solve. But the process needs to start here. 8 years is a drop in the bucket in the context of history. It is nothing.

And in the process of showing resolve and intestinal fortitude to outlast the will of the enemy, we will have helped accomplish what Code Pink and the anti-war movement have never done: bring about peace and a push toward the promotion of human rights.

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A U.S. Marine from Charlie 1/1 of the 15th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) carries empty sand bags to a mortar position in southern Afghanistan, December 1, 2001.
REUTERS/File

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Code pink vs Afghan women

Seems some “victims of war” don’t want to become victims.

Powerful and moving, thank you!