A long war demands a long peace movement

From: Tom Hayden for PDA [mailto:info@pdamerica.org]

Tuesday, February 02, 2010 7:22 AM

 

A long war demands a long peace movement

 

Dear Max,

 

I want to thank PDA for continuing to pressure against the pillars of power supporting the Long War in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. You are making military escalation more difficult and building a political obstacle to the Pentagon and White House plans through 2012. A long war demands of us a long peace movement.

 

Thirty one Americans lost their lives in Afghanistan last month, which is more than twice the number killed in January 2008 and January 2009. The fighting in Afghanistan is intensifying even in the winter. The total number of Americans killed in Afghanistan as of today is 978, an increase of 317 since President Obama took office. A total of one thousand Americans will be dead by the end of this month.

 

The total number of American dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan is 5,353. The number of Iraqi and Afghan dead is in the hundreds of thousands.

 

The American budgetary cost, according to the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, will be three trillion dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The Pentagon’s Long War is projected to last at least fifty years, through 13 future American presidential elections.

These wars will devour resources that could go to health care, education, humanitarian aid and saving the planet.

We must stop them, step by step, war by war.

 

First, support Rep. Barbara Lee’s HR 3699 to cut taxpayer funding for the escalation in Afghanistan. If it’s not possible politically to cut funding now, the fight can achieve two things: a headcount of how many Congress members are with us, and a message to President Obama that many in his own party are not with him.

 

Second, there will be a fight this year to attach serious conditions to any funding bill that does pass: for example, [a] holding to a deadline for the withdrawal of US troops, as proposed by Sen. Russ Feingold, [b] human rights standards for Afghan detainees, [c] launching all-party peace talks, and [d] ending Predator attacks which kill civilians, inflame Muslim opinion, and further the spiral of escalation.

 

While we should oppose President Obama’s troop increase, we also should support the 2011 deadline he has set for beginning to withdraw. If we don’t demand the beginning of withdrawal—with an endpoint as well—all the pressure on the president and Congress will be to continue the war indefinitely. We need to make US withdrawal from Afghanistan an issue by the 2012 national elections.

 

Iraq is a template for us. When the Iraq war became too costly, a bipartisan and bi-national agreement was quietly arranged in which US troops would withdraw in stages by 2011. President Obama is sticking to that schedule while many in both Iraq and the US are attempting to derail him.

 

PDA and the peace movement should generate maximum pressure to end both wars by 2012. We make a crucial difference. If the peace movement doesn’t persevere, the pressure on Congress declines, which in turn causes Congressional peace forces to decline—which only serves the permanent lobby for permanent war.

 

Please sign and circulate the Afghanistan peace petition and subscribe to The Peace Exchange at www.tomhayden.com [see below]. Thank you for persevering for peace,

 

Tom Hayden

PDA Advisory Board member

 

Progressive Democrats of America is a grassroots PAC that works both inside the Democratic Party and outside in movements for peace and justice. Our goal in 2010: Expand progressive influence in Congress as we build on our 2008 electoral successes. PDA's advisory board includes seven members of Congress and activist leaders such as Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Thom Hartmann, Jim Hightower, and Lila Garrett.

 

We, the undersigned peace and justice leaders, believe that the American military interventions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are deepening quagmires that threaten a Long War without end.

At the current rate of American deaths in Afghanistan, over 1,000 additional American soldiers will be killed in the next two years of “hard fighting” predicted by the Pentagon as the next phase of a ten year occupation. Another $130 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq now is being rushed through a sleeping Congress. An escalation of even more troops is pending.

Now is the time for an exit strategy to end these wars. The government of warlords, drug lords, and landlords we prop up in Kabul is losing more legitimacy by the day. A majority of Americans – including 70 percent from the majority party – now consider Afghanistan a mistake. Leading national security experts even deny that it’s a necessary war.

If we do not decide to disengage at once, our dreams of domestic reform will be squandered by years of war budgets. Our dreams of clean energy will be buried in wars over oil and pipelines. The global good will extended to our new President will be jeopardized.

We understand how difficult it is to reverse a mistaken course. But that is the leadership we need, not one that continually escalates in order not to lose. We have been there.

- Our government should adopt an exit strategy from Afghanistan based on all-party talks, regional diplomacy, unconditional humanitarian aid, and timelines for the near-term withdrawal of American and NATO combat troops.

- The aerial bombardments of Afghan and Pakistan villages, like burning down haystacks to find terrorist needles, should end.

- Military spending should be reversed in Afghanistan to focus on food, medicine, shelter, the socio-economic needs of the poor, and the dignity of women and children.

- President Obama should keep his pledge to withdraw all troops from Iraq by 2011, and prevent American interference in the forthcoming Iraqi elections.

- The President should oppose any Israeli attack on Iran, which will only inflame the regional and global conflict.

Much as we were inspired by Barack Obama’s election, we will not be taken for granted by the President and the Congressional majority. The historic victories in 2006 and 2008 were fueled by popular enthusiasm and unprecedented voter turnouts that cannot be reignited by e-mail solicitations. A growing disenchantment with a costly quagmire will threaten all the hopes of 2008. Everything is related now: we cannot afford national health care, housing, and clean energy while spending billions on quagmires across several continents.

We are prepared to create a storm of protest in Congressional districts and close Senate races. We will form alliances with all those whose hope for health, energy and economic reform are diminished by these wars. We will defend dissent in the armed forces and protect our children from the snares of military recruiters. We will reach out to strengthen a global peace movement, especially in NATO countries.

History shows that terrorist threats can come from German cities, African villages, and even homegrown American cells, not simply the caves of Pakistan.

Our security needs cannot be served by provoking the growing hatred of America caused by repeated invasions of foreign lands. We are human beings who refuse to be defined in the world as mindless military drones and Predators.

TOM HAYDEN
ARIEL DORFMAN, Author, Duke University

RABBI STEVEN B. JACOBS, Progressive Faith Foundation
REV. GEORGE REGAS, pastor emeritus, All-Saints Episcopal Church
REV. ED BACON, Pastor, All-Saints Episcopal Church
REV. PETER LAARMAN, Progressive Christians United
DR. NAZIR KHAJA, President, Islamic Information Service
REV. JOHN B. COBB, Claremont Theology School
REV. GEORGE HUNSINGER, Princeton Theology Seminary
REV. JAMES CONN, Director, New Ministries, United Methodist Church
RABBI HAIM DOV BELIAK, Hamifgash
REV. JANET EOLLERY MCKEITHEN, Westside Interfaith Coalition
STEPHEN ROHDE, president, Inter-faith Communities for Peace and Justice, Los Angeles
SENATOR JOHN BURTON, chairman, California Democratic Party
KAREN BERNAL, chair, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party
DANIEL ELLSBERG
SUSIE SHANNON, Executive Board Member, California Democratic Party
RAY MCGOVERN, CIA [ret.]
PAUL HAGGIS, film director
SONALI KOHATKAR, Co-director, Afghan Women's Mission
MICHAEL RATNER, President, Center for Constitutional Rights
JODIE EVANS, co-founder, CODE PINK
CODE PINK
LESLIE CAGAN, co-founder, United for Peace and Justice
RUSTI EISENBERG, United for Peace and Justice
UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE [UFPJ]
KEVIN MARTIN, PEACE ACTION, Washington
MICHAEL MCPHEARSON, Veterans for Peace
ROBERT NAIMAN, policy director, JUST FOREIGN POLICY
STAUGHTON LYND, historian
VAN GOSSE, co-founder, Historians Against the War
MARC BECKER, co-chair, Historians Against the War
MICHAEL ALBERT, Znet
BILL FLETCHER, Jr., executive director, Black Commentator, co-founder Progressives for Obama
CARL DAVIDSON, webmaster, PROGRESSIVES FOR OBAMA
RICHARD FALK, professor, Princeton University, United Nations rapporteur
LEONARD WEINGLASS, human rights attorney
MATTHEW EVANGELISTA, chair, Department of Government, Cornell University
STANLEY ARONOWITZ, graduate center, City University of New York
JOE FEAGAN, professor, Texas A&M University
ROBERT GREENWALD, Brave New Films
GAEL MURPHY, Code Pink, Washington
TIM CARPENTER, Progressive Democrats of America [PDA]
NORMAN BIRNBAUM
DAVID FENTON
LEONARD WEINGLASS, human rights attorney