Pop quiz on the news: Who said this week, referring to the dispute between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. military commander David Petraeus over U.S. Special Forces "night raids" that break into Afghans' homes in the middle of the night:
Many Afghans see the raids as a... humiliating symbol of American power.
Was it:
a) Afghan President Hamid Karzai
b) Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich
c) U.S. peace activist Kathy Kelly
d) The New York Times
The correct answer is d, the New York Times. Here is the full quote:
Many Afghans see the raids as a flagrant, even humiliating symbol of American power, especially when women and children are rousted in the middle of the night. And protests have increased this year as the tempo has increased.
It is a striking symptom of the moral depravity of the US war in Afghanistan that the policy of night raids, which press reports have suggested is one of the most hated aspects of the U.S. military occupation among the Afghan population, has been the subject of almost no public debate in the United States. Newspaper columnists aren't inveighing against the night raids. Members of Congress aren't demanding that the night raids stop.
The only thing that has occasioned any public debate about them in the U.S. at all is that President Karzai denounced them in an interview with the Washington Post ahead of the NATO summit. And the response of U.S. officials is: wow, this guy Karzai is really an unreliable partner. Is he off his meds? He has some nerve complaining about something that Western press reports suggest is among the aspects of the U.S. military occupation most hated by Afghans.
And the U.S. military's defense of the night raids is basically this: we can't stop the night raids, because they are a cornerstone of our strategy. Is that supposed to be an argument? Petraeus is saying: if you stop the night raids, you stop the war. If that is true, then that is all the more reason to oppose the night raids.
Here is a thought experiment whose answer would tell us something fundamental about the United States: what if Afghans adopted a strategy of nonviolent resistance against the night raids? Could they be stopped?
Unlike U.S. air strikes, U.S. night raids require human contact.
Let's suppose, for the purposes of our thought experiment, that there were a well-organized popular movement in Afghanistan against the night raids. Let's suppose that this movement went around to respected Islamic scholars and got legal judgments that the night raids are an offense against Islam. Let's suppose that this movement prepared to defend villages where U.S. night raids are being carried out, and organized committees of unarmed women to implement this defense. And let's suppose that when a U.S. night raid began, a call would go out from the mosque, and a group of unarmed women would surround the house and say to the US soldiers: you're not coming in, and if you try, we will not move. And let's suppose that some Western NGO issued these women video cameras, as the Israeli human rights group B'tselem has issued Palestinians video cameras. And let's suppose that a group of people in the United States and Western Europe agreed that they would try to support this movement, by vigorously raising their voices in protest whenever US special forces tried to break the line of protesters.
Could the night raids be stopped?
If the night raids could not be stopped, were this thought experiment to come to pass, that would reveal something very terrible about the United States.
If one looks at the history of discussion of proposals to use nonviolent resistance to oppose foreign military occupations, a standard dismissal runs something like this: "sure, nonviolent resistance worked against the British in India, but it would not have worked against the Germans."
Leaving aside the possible implication that the British military occupation of India was a walk in the park (see: "Amritsar Massacre") let's suppose that the framework of this criticism is correct. Let's suppose that there is a kind of number line on which you can place foreign military occupations, according to which you can rate their susceptibility to moral pressure. On one point of the number line, you have the British occupation of India. And on another part of the number line, you have the German occupation of Poland. And somewhere in between, there is a dividing point. On one side of the dividing point, the British side, nonviolent resistance could work. On the other side of the dividing point, the German side, nonviolent resistance couldn't work.
Which side of the dividing point is the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan on? The British side, or the German side?
If these examples seem long ago and far away for purposes of comparison, let us consider a contemporary example, which is extremely relevant to the U.S.: the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank.
As shown in the documentary Budrus, Palestinians in the West Bank village of Budrus -- Palestinian women, in particular -- successfully used nonviolent resistance to defeat the Israeli military's plans to steal their land. (In the trailer below, note particularly the scene where Palestinian women push the Israeli soldiers.) Now, whether such a strategy can be successfully extended to other villages in the West Bank is very much an open question at the moment. But at least in this one village, it worked.
So, if there is no chance that nonviolent resistance could work against the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan, that would imply that comparing the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank on the number line of susceptibility to moral pressure, the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank is more like the British occupation of India, and the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan is more like the German occupation of Poland.
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Forces in Afghanistan told to limit nighttime raids - CNN
Despite Gains, Night Raids Split U.S. and Karzai - NYTimes.com
BUT The enemy"? Whew.
How confused and muddled do we have to be to call people living in their own country, basically minding their own business and with no designs on America and no global reach, "the enemy"?
The Afghans didn't commit and act of terrorism against the US , allegedly Al Qaida did. Since when does this country destroy entire nations for the acts of a few?
Obama's own head of CIA said that Al Qaida was long gone from Afghanistan just before Obama decided he wanted to be a "war president" too.
The US military can quickly come to the same conclusions you have and save their bacon or they can continue thinking as as they do, empoverish the American people and leave with their tail between their legs.
The enemy are those who resort to violence to make their voice heard when peaceful options exist. Those people are the enemy wherever they may be...
I don't believe President Obama wanted to be a war President... I believe he wanted to do right by the Afghani people and leave them with a government that was at least somewhat representative and a country that was reasonably functional with a decent network of roads, schools, universities, ect... His mistake may have been assuming these things were still possible after seven years of neglect.
The war will end when we elect representatives and leaders who want it to end. The military doesn't get to decide where and when they fight. While this war is a contributing factor to the impoverishment of the US, it's dwarfed by other factors like irresponsible tax cuts and trade imbalances.
My Representative told me face to face that he was against even the war in Iraq. He said that Congress was considering cutting off funding like they did during Viet Nam. That was four years ago. Now his son is working as a contractor in Iraq and he has voted for every funding package that's come down the pike including Afghanistan. He defends it publicly and thinks of them as aid packages.
Given whatever is in the water that turns good men into toads and the difficulty of electing anyone decent in our current system, I don't think that's a realistic option unless you're willing to wait till 2014. Even that's a big maybe.
As for politicians… we get the politicians we deserve, until we can figure out how to reduce corporate influence and blatantly partisan “news” reporting… things are only going to get worse.
But If Washington folks and policy gurus don't think American are not expecting many, many more armed conflicts they are really out of touch. My 11 year-old wants to play this game...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBiJ-xGTLS0&feature=related
I'll will let him until he's 15 or so. If people don't think that daily terror issues, conflicts in the Middle East and Islamic radicals are having an "edge sharpening effect" on on our youth: that would be serious miscalculation. I am getting the feeling that average American kids feel that it is more likely to be in a war scenario as an adults than playing soccer or footballs. War fighting games are more popular than ever. And the NEw Game.... well God only knows.
luck to us all,
denvergoat