John Kerry Said What? Welcome to Year 10 of the Long War

By Tom Hayden

Progressive America Rising via TomHayden.com

Dec. 9, 2014 - Secretary of State John Kerry seems to be engaging in some double speak this week. (Photo: AP, December 2014)Secretary of State John Kerry today called for a congressional authorization of the New War before he didn't.

Instead Kerry proposed the appearance of an authorization before stripping the idea of real public and congressional accountability. Members of Congress should look carefully at this insult to their constitutional role.

First, Kerry said it was "crystal clear" that the President wants no US troops in combat operations on the ground, but that Congress should not, "preemptively bind the hands of the commander-in-chief to react to changing circumstances."

Second, Kerry said he doesn't want an open-ended timeline for war but that the authorization should run for three years or longer, safely after the 2016 elections.

Third, Kerry promised no wider war beyond Iraq and Syria, but doesn't want any constraint on US going after ISIS militarily in other nations.

HOW THIS HAPPENED

This is nothing but an attempt to avoid an embarrassing battlefield defeat during the next two years before handing over the mission of derailing ISIS to the next president. At the same time, it will limit the ability of Congress to question the policy once they have signed on. This is how escalation works.

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US Drone War Kills ‘Others,’ Not Just al- Qaida leaders

 

By Jonathan S. Landay McClatchy Newspapers

April 10, 2013

Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.

The administration has said that strikes by the CIA’s missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones are authorized only against “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting “imminent” violent attacks on Americans.

“It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative,” President Barack Obama said in a Sept. 6, 2012, interview with CNN. “It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.”

Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by McClatchy, however, show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere to those standards.

The intelligence reports list killings of alleged Afghan insurgents whose organization wasn’t on the U.S. list of terrorist groups at the time of the 9/11 strikes; of suspected members of a Pakistani extremist group that didn’t exist at the time of 9/11; and of unidentified individuals described as “other militants” and “foreign fighters.”

In a response to questions from McClatchy, the White House defended its targeting policies, pointing to previous public statements by senior administration officials that the missile strikes are aimed at al Qaida and associated forces.

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Afghanistan and the Future of the Peace Movement

U.S. soldiers stand guard as they watch the transfer ceremony of security responsibilities from NATO troops to Afghan security forces in Qalat, Zabul province south of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo: Allauddin Khan)

By Tom Hayden
Beaver County Peace Links via The Nation

Dec 13, 2012 - President Barack Obama reportedly plans to remove all but 6,000 to 9,000 US troops from Afghanistan by 2014, ending the American combat role, saving tens of billions of dollars, and leaving an unpopular, incompetent and corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s regime needing a diplomatic fix to avert collapse into civil war.

According to McClatchy, Pakistan and Afghanistan are conducting negotiations aimed at a settlement with the Taliban by 2015. Though the McClatchy headline suggests the US is cut out of the process, it is more likely that the negotiations are being “outsourced” in keeping with US rhetoric about any settlement being “Afghan-led.”

Although there has been no official announcement, the numbers have been published by both the Los Angeles Times and New York Times in recent days. The Los Angeles paper predicts 6,000 to 9,000, while the New York Times reports “no more than 10,000… despite the desire of some military officers for a larger force.” Troop cuts in that range would mean a 90 to 95 percent reduction from the more than the peak 100,000 boots on the ground in 2010. It would require a reduction of 60,000 between now and late 2014. The pace of the withdrawal has yet to be announced, but is expected after Obama meets with Karzai in Washington next month to discuss a US postwar role.

Obama’s decision on a residual force is expected to be well below Pentagon requests, which range from 15,000 troops on up. Opposition to Obama’s reductions is expected from neo-conservative and military advocates, as well as Congressional hawks. Obama has gained political cover, however, from the recent 62 Senate votes cast for an “accelerated” withdrawal and a similar message in a letter from 94 House members. The recent New York Times editorial finally endorsing a one-year withdrawal also provides critical support from within the mainstream political and national security establishments.

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Remember the War in Afghanistan?

Obama and Romney Don’t Seem To...

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Progressive America Rising via Washington Post Op-Ed

August 3, 2012 - There are still almost 80,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and each month brings a few dozen home in coffins — more than 2,000 since 2001. Hundreds more arrive on medical evacuation flights, many of them without a limb. The war will cost taxpayers more than $100 billion this year. The Taliban, which enjoys sanctuary in nuclear-armed Pakistan, continues to conduct devastating attacks on the Afghan government and the civilian population.

But you wouldn’t know any of it from listening to President Obama and Mitt Romney on the campaign trail. They may not agree on much, but when it comes to the decade-old conflict, they have adopted the same strategy on the stump: Say as little as possible — sometimes not a word — and quickly change the subject.

Romney rarely mentions the war in his speeches at public campaign events and fundraisers. When he does, his comments usually are devoid of specifics. At a Republican National Committee event in Arizona in April, he said that Obama has made “a number of errors in the way he managed our relationship there,” but he did not provide details or say what he would do differently.

The president is almost as taciturn. In remarks to supporters and donors, he often cites the war, but usually in just one sentence that emphasizes how he is seeking to scale back U.S. involvement. (His two favored versions of that sentence: “We’re transitioning out of Afghanistan” and “We’re winding down the war in Afghanistan.”)

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Gambit or End Game? No Matter, Keep Pressing for ‘Out Now!’

How the U.S. Intends to

End War with Taliban

By Ahmed Rashid

Progressive America Rising via Financial Times

After more than two years of internal disputes and rivalries, the Obama administration is for the first time united on stepping up its secret talks with the Taliban. It also wants to start wider talks with regional countries such as Pakistan, which hold the key to a peaceful settlement as the US and Nato prepare to pull out their troops by 2014.

As the situation in Afghanistan worsens with a ferocious Taliban summer offensive having just started with a spate of suicide bombings, the White House, the state department and the Pentagon are preparing for extensive diplomatic initiatives in the next few months to take the fledgling peace process forward and push to broker an end to the war.

After extensive interviews in Washington with many of the key players involved in Afghan policy, it is apparent that several major US initiatives boosted by Nato are under way. The clear aim is to end what all but some of the uniformed generals recognize as an impasse which cannot be resolved by force of arms alone.

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2012 Warning: Voters Want an End to the Wars

The Fight for Peace Heats Up

By Tom Hayden
Beaver County Peace Links via TomHayden.com

June 8, 2011 - Sixty-four percent of Americans think the number of troops in Afghanistan should be decreased. (CBS News)The New York Times finally acknowledged this week that a significant withdrawal from Afghanistan is a real possibility being considered by the White House.

In a lead story on June 6, the Times reported that the Obama administration is considering a “steeper” reduction of troops than previously discussed or acknowledged.

The fact is that Democratic constituencies and leaders, responding to overwhelming public sentiment against the war, have been uniting in recent weeks behind a call for “substantial and significant” troops reductions and a transfer of war funds to job creation at home.

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Bin Laden and the Folly of Being Driven by a ‘Search for Monsters’

Bin Laden Is Dead, But Will

the 'Long War' on Terror Live On?

By Tom Hayden
Progressive America Rising via The Nation

May 2, 2011 - The killing of Osama bin Laden is a triumphant moment for President Obama and the CIA, allowing a symbolic claim to victory in the War on Terror, bringing an understandable feeling of closure for the victims of 9/11, and will almost certainly assure the president’s re-election in 2012.

But as I wrote in The Nation in October 2009, however, the death of bin Laden is not likely to end the Long War on Terror, now spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and a dozen other theaters of counterterrorism.

If bin Laden is gone, and his network heavily damaged, what is left of the terrorist threat to our national security that justifies so many trillions of dollars and costs in thousands of lives? Because of a fabricated fear of bin Laden, we invaded Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan was to deny sanctuaries to bin Laden and Al Qaeda. In response, Al Qaeda moved into Pakistan, where bin Laden was killed tonight. So why are the Taliban in Afghanistan a threat to the security of the United States with bin Laden gone? Surely there are terrorist cells with lethal capacity scattered around the world, surely there might be revenge attacks, but there is hardly a centralized conspiratorial threat that justifies the deployment of hundreds of thousands of American troops.

Now we shall learn whether there is another agenda that keeps 150,000 American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Congress: Time to Leave Afghanistan

New Bill: A Responsible End

to the War in Afghanistan

By Barbara Lee
Beaver County Peace Links via Huffington Post 2/17/11

On September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the "Authorization of Use of Force" -- an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length. Nearly a decade later, the United States remains embroiled in the longest war in our nation's history in Afghanistan, longer than Vietnam and World War II.

The fact is, we cannot continue to funnel billions of dollars a week toward a counterproductive military-first strategy in Afghanistan while sacrificing vital domestic priorities such as quality education, affordable health care, and much-needed investments to create jobs and jump start the economy.

And that is why today I will re-introduce my legislation, The Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act, which would end combat operations in Afghanistan and limit funding to the safe orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors.

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‘Jobs Not War’ Is the Progressive Caucus Priority

 

Progressive Caucus

Co-Chair Vows Dems

Democrats Won't Roll

Over to the GOP

In an exclusive interview, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the Progressive House Caucus, talks with New American Media Political Analyst and Huffington Post Contributor Earl Ofari Hutchinson about the group's strategy in the new, Republican-controlled House. The interview was conducted by New America Media.

Many are not familiar with the Progressive House Caucus. How big is it?

LW: We had 83 members before the election. It is bicameral, with House and Senate members. It's by far the largest caucus in Congress. We lost four members this election. But we also gained a couple of new members. We will not have less than 80 members in the next Congress. The Blue Dog Democrats lost almost two-thirds of their members.

What are the major issues that the Caucus will press Congress and the Obama Administration on?

LW: It is clear that we represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. So, the first item is jobs. We have to have a robust jobs bill. One that we should have had when President Obama first took office and his popularity was at its height. He had a big majority in the House and Senate. We would have doubled the amount of money allocated for the jobs bill that came out of the House, which the Senate cut to shreds. The other priority is combating the notion that the timetable for ending the Afghanistan War is 2014. The war is killing our budget, killing our people, and killing our relations with our allies.

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Where's the Exit? Obama's Dangerous 'Long War' Cul-de-Sac

Another 9/11: The Danger of Obama’s Secret Policy

 

By Tom Hayden

Beaver County Peace Links via The Nation

OCTOBER 6, 2010  - Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars should scare the hell out of you. It is essential reading—between the lines—for anyone seeking a map out of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Here is one example: If and when a terrorist attack occurs in the United States which can be traced to Pakistan, the American military response will be a “retribution plan” to bomb at least 150 targets in Pakistan. The plan is “one of the most sensitive and secret of all military contingencies,” Woodward writes. There is no discussion of The Day After in this scenario of saturation bombing. Nor did the President and his advisers have “anything on the shelf [which] specifically addressed securing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

Such an attack already has been attempted this year, when Faisal Shahzad, who was funded and trained by the Pakistani Taliban, placed a car bomb in Times Square on May 1. Last year the FBI arrested an AQ operative, Najibullah Zazi, for planning to blow up New York subways with 14 backpack bombs, and also nabbed Chicago resident David Coleman Headley for planning an attack in Europe. Both individuals were trained in Pakistan.

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Wrong Turn: Obama's Diplomacy With Guns and Boots on the Ground

Let's Fact Check the AP's

Fact Checking on Obama's Speech

By David Swanson

Beaver County Peace Links via WarIsNotaCrime.org

FACT CHECK: Is Iraq combat really over for US?

By CALVIN WOODWARD and ROBERT BURNS (AP)

WASHINGTON — Despite President Barack Obama's declaration Tuesday of an end to the combat mission in Iraq, combat almost certainly lies ahead. And in asserting the U.S. has met its responsibilities in Iraq, the president opened the door wide to a debate about the meaning of success in the muddle that most — but not all — American troops are leaving behind. A look at some of the statements Obama made in his Oval Office speech and how they compare with the facts:

___

OBAMA: "Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended."

THE FACTS: Peril remains for the tens of thousands of U.S. troops still in Iraq, who are likely if not certain to engage violent foes. Counterterrorism is chief among their continuing missions, pitting them against a lethal enemy. Several thousand special operations forces, including Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs, will continue to hunt and attempt to kill al-Qaida and other terrorist fighters — working closely with Iraqi forces. Obama said, "Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission," while stopping short of a full accounting of the hazards ahead for U.S. troops.

Excellent point, but let's not leave out the thousands of mercenaries and tens of thousands of contractors.

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Afghanistan: The Main Battle Now Is To Control Minds at Home

Why WikiLeaks Won’t Stop the War

 
By Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky's ZSpace Page / ZSpace
Aug 12, 2010 - The War Logs—a six-year archive of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, released on the Internet by the organization WikiLeaks—documents a grim struggle becoming grimmer, from the U.S. perspective. And for the Afghans, a mounting horror.
The War Logs, however valuable, may contribute to the unfortunate and prevailing doctrine that wars are wrong only if they aren’t successful—rather like the Nazis felt after Stalingrad.
Last month came the fiasco of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, forced to retire as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and replaced by his superior, Gen. David H. Petraeus.
A plausible consequence is a relaxation of the rules of engagement so that it becomes easier to kill civilians, and an extension of the war well into the future as Petraeus uses his clout in Congress to achieve this result.

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Obama Doubling Down on War, with Not Enough Votes to Stop Him Yet

Despite WikiLeaks Revelations,

Congress Votes for War Funding

By Tom Hayden

July 29, 2010 - Never was the case so weak for throwing another $33 billion into the Afghanistan sinkhole, but that's what a defensive US Congress did anyway on Tuesday evening, July 27. The vote was 308-114, with Republicans supplying most of the prowar votes.

Washington-based peace groups, after weeks of e-mailing messages to Congress, put the best face possible on the vote, claiming a "significant" gain of fourteen additional antiwar votes over the 100 cast for a similar amendment by Representative Barbara Lee two weeks ago. (The new Democratic votes were cast by Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, John Conyers, Rosa Delauro, Lloyd Doggett, Anna Eshoo, Chaka Fattah, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Hank Johnson, Marcy Kaptur, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Gregory Meeks, James Moran, Christopher Murphy, Carol Shea-Porter, Mike Thompson, Lynn Woolsey and David Wu; while five Republicans joined the opposition: Paul Broun, Vernon Ehlers, Jeff Flake, Phil Gingrey and John Linder.)

Those casting prowar votes from safe liberal districts included Lois Capps, James Clyburn, Susan Davis, John Hall, Patrick Kennedy, Nita Lowey, Lucille Roybal-Allard, John Sarbanes and Joe Sestak. Significantly, Speaker Nancy Pelosi abstained from voting, which meant retreating from the chance to draw an antiwar line more firmly.

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Note to Obama: Digging Deeper is Not the Way Out

America: Hooked on War

and Getting Poorer

By Clancy Sigal

The Guardian, July 15, 2010

There's plenty of good money to be made /
Supplyin' the army with tools of the trade … – Country Joe and the Fish

I hallucinate easily, a hangover from time spent in an acid-rock commune in London in the fevered 60s. Most evenings when I switch on the television 6.30 news with its now cliched pictures of deep sea oil spurting from BP's pipe rupture, I see not bleeding sludge but human blood surging up into the Gulf of Mexico.

I've learned to trust my visions as metaphors for reality. The same news programmes, often as a dutiful throwaway item, will show a jerky fragment of Afghan combat accompanied by the usual pulse-pounding handheld shots of snipers amid roadside bomb explosions, preferably in fiery balls. My delusional mind converts this footage into a phantasmagoria where our M60 machine guns are shooting ammunition belts full of $1,000 bills.

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Message to Congress: Vote 'No' on War Funds!

A Defining Vote on Afghanistan

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

The Nation, July 1, 2010

More than six months after the implementation of the Obama/McChrystal strategy, and with one year to go before the beginning withdrawal of US forces, it's clear that the strategy in Afghanistan is failing on nearly all fronts. [1]

It’s critical that we now turn to a more fundamental exit debate: How do we change course and craft a responsible strategy to end the war?

Tonight the House will have an opportunity to do just that with two votes--on the $33 billion Afghanistan war supplemental and an amendment introduced by Congressman Jim McGovern that would require, at long last, an exit strategy including a timetable for the completion of the redeployment of US troops.

Although Obama has said he will begin to drawdown troops in July 2011, McGovern observed earlier this year [2], “It’s not only important to know when the first soldier is to be redeployed or brought home, it’s important to know when the last soldier is as well.”

On a conference call with reporters yesterday--organized by Tom Andrews of Win Without War--McGovern and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree outlined the case for an exit strategy and a vote against the supplemental as well as the political significance of this moment.

Last year, McGovern’s exit strategy amendment garnered 138 votes, including 131 Democrats--the majority of the Democratic Caucus.

“My hope is that we’ll get a good vote on the vote to strike the military aid,” said McGovern. “And we are hoping to get a good vote on the exit strategy and that will be a signal to the White House to rethink it’s policy.”

Pingree said she hoped for a “lively debate” and said that the war is “increasingly unpopular.” She cited the death toll of US troops climbing over 1000.

“Every time we get a call as I did this week about another soldier lost in Afghanistan,” said Pingree, “just the very thought of making the call to that family is really unthinkable when it seems like we don’t have a winning strategy and we’re asking our young people to do something--some of them redeployed over and over again--for a failed strategy.”

She also spoke to the war’s cost--$7 billion per month.

“There is no question in this economy we can’t afford it,” she said. “We spend a lot of our time today arguing about whether or not we can pass aid to the states, or unemployment insurance. It’s just unthinkable to me that when we spend money on this war, we don’t require ourselves to pay for it, and every other thing that comes through hear we have these big arguments about whether it’s paid for. So, I think the politics is there, the American people are really done [3] with us doing this. It’s our job as Members of Congress to increase the debate and let the White House know this isn’t the thing that we should be doing.”

Other progressive legislators are also urging conservatives to vote against the continued funding of the war based on its cost. In a statement circulated by Representatives John Conyers, Raúl Grijalva, Michael Honda, and Alan Grayson, the legislators call Obama on his broken promise to “stop funding the wars with emergency supplemental appropriation bills that avoid budgetary restriction. They describe the supplementals as “gimmicks to hide the cost of war.”

The statement continues, “Our challenge: if you oppose deficit spending, debt dependency on China, cuts to Social Security, and are concerned about a debt-threat to our national security, then oppose this supplemental war funding request.”

The four Congressmen will be joined by House Committee on Veterans Affairs Chairman Bob Filner and bipartisan members of the Out of Afghanistan Caucus at a press conference [4] this morning to urge a vote against the supplemental and call for an exit strategy.

In his post [5] yesterday, Nation editorial board member Tom Hayden notes that--depending on this vote--the Obama Administration faces the grim prospect of the Afghanistan war being “supported primarily by Republicans and opposed by Democrats in Congress as well as Democrats and independents” in the opinion polls.

That’s a message that needs to be made loud and clear. Now is the time to burn the phone lines with calls to your representatives [6]. Tell them to vote for the McGovern exit strategy amendment and oppose the $33 billion “emergency” war supplemental--it does nothing but dig us deeper into a failed strategy and makes our own national emergency worse.

---

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/36950/defining-vote-afghanistan

Links:
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052502255.html
[2] http://www.thenation.com/blog/demand-afghanistan-exit-strategy
[3] http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm
[4] http://grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=13&sectiontree=5,13&itemid=655
[5] http://www.thenation.com/article/afghanistan-beginning-end
[6] http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

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No End in Sight for Rising Battlefield Deaths

Afghan War: Shocking Rise in US

Casualties, Lack of Reporting

 

By Tom Hayden

Huffington Post

Despite rhetoric about military patriots and wounded warriors, the White House, Pentagon and mainstream media have minimized attention to startling increases in Afghanistan deaths and casualties suffered by American troops since 2008.

US death tolls in Afghanistan have risen by 273 percent this spring in comparison to the same period in 2008.

There has been a 430 percent increase in Americans wounded in Afghanistan so far this year compared to the same period in 2009.

The facts are these, based on Department of Defense data:

As of today, June 8, the six-month US military death toll in Afghanistan has risen to 156, surpassing the 155 total for all of 2008.

These numbers more than doubled in the January-May period between 2009 and 2010: 61 dead in January-May 2009, 142 through May of this year.

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People Power Vs. 'The Long Warriors'

How To Rebuild

The Peace Movement

From the Bottom Up

 

By Tom Hayden

Peace and Justice Resource Center

Here at the PJRC we are exploring ways to implement communications with peace activist at local or regional levels, including a series of conference calls. In the meantime, let me share some specific thoughts about building the peace and justice movement from the bottom up.

Social movements always depend on leadership, a commitment by a single individual or small group to continue their work in the face of all odds. Then there's the question of a strategy for being effective. We always have to measure our capacity against the goals we set.

PEOPLE POWER AGAINST THE PILLARS OF POLICY

The bottom-up strategy which I propose is building the pressure of people power against the pillars of policy that prop up the Long War.

The key pillars for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan include, first, the pillar of public opinion; second, the pillar of budgetary support; and third, the pillar of our military resources. Other pillars include the mainstream media, religious institutions and, of course, the required stability of America's ally Kabul.

In the end, it's about public opinion. We have to argue that the American people are not any safer for having fought these wars, and we cannot afford the cost in casualties and tax dollars.

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War as Politics by Violent Means

No Chance Obama's War

in Afghanistan Will Succeed

 

By Sherwood Ross
L.A. Progressive

Dec. 26, 2009 - "There isn't the slightest possibility that the course laid out by Barack Obama in his December 1 speech (at West Point) will halt or even slow the downward spiral toward defeat in Afghanistan," writes Thomas Johnson in the current Foreign Policy magazine. And for emphasis, he adds the word "None."

"The U.S. president and his advisors labored for three months and brought forth old wine in bigger bottles,"
Johnson goes on to write, noting, "The speech contained not one single new idea or approach, nor offered any hint of new thinking about a conflict that everyone now agrees the United States is losing."

Author Johnson is no armchair admiral. He is a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, a man who has conducted his own on-site investigation in Afghanistan.

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HR 3699: Barbara Lee's Battle in Congress

'Barbara Lee

Speaks for Me!':

Rally vs. escalation

in Afghanistan

 

By Rebecca Griffin

Nov. 24, 2009 - Yesterday I joined an enthusiastic crowd on a sunny afternoon in the courtyard of the Federal Building in Oakland to join Rep. Barbara Lee’s rally and press conference to build support for her bill to stop escalation in Afghanistan. I can’t imagine there are many members of Congress who have as devoted a following as Rep. Lee—throughout the event you saw signs and heard chants of “Barbara Lee Speaks for Me!” As we keep up the tough fight of pushing our government to support an alternative strategy in Afghanistan, I am inspired and heartened to hear the passion and commitment from politicians like Barbara Lee, and proud to have such a principled and courageous woman representing me in Congress.

Rep. Lee’s staff lined up a great list of speakers on short notice. The MC for the event was Sharon Cornu of the Alameda County Labor Central Committee, and the first speech came from Vietnam Veteran Paul Cox of Veterans for Peace, who spoke about learning the lessons of Vietnam and ensuring our government doesn’t continue to make the same mistakes in Afghanistan.

Renowned activist Tom Hayden took the stage to make the case for supporting congressional vehicles for ending the war in Afghanistan. He expressed his hope that President Obama will reject the “long war” doctrine embraced by some in the Pentagon who have talked about a 50-year war that spans several countries. He said that by his calculations, another two years of war at the current rates would mean 1,100 more US soldiers would die in Afghanistan, and said he believes these are “unsustainable policies.” Hayden noted the need for us to “define a progressive alternative” to the current plan in Afghanistan, which he emphasized should include an exit strategy, and urged us to help pressure people to become cosponsors of Rep. Lee’s HR 3699.

Rep. Lee was introduced by actor and activist Danny Glover, who pointed out that she is special not just for her lone opposition to the war in Afghanistan in 2001 but for her ongoing work to support social justice. In discussing the need to oppose the war in Afghanistan, he evoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight against militarism, racism and materialism. Glover said that Barbara Lee is about “transforming values,” and that our country needs a transformation of values, starting with all of us as citizens, but especially with our representatives in the White House and Congress.

Rep. Lee started out by thanking the crowd for “keeping hope alive.” She said that she stands “resolved to bring this chapter of American history that has been characterized by open-ended war once and for all to a close.” She encouraged us, in the words of her House colleague John Lewis, to “make some noise” in this country and said we need the “street heat,” and she laid out what she and others in Congress have done to “stir the pot” in the House of Representatives and push for an alternative in Afghanistan.

Lee outlined several letters that she signed to the President, including one with her “sisters in the triad” Lynn Woolsey (D-CA-6) and Maxine Waters (D-CA-35); one with the Congressional Black Caucus; and another with 53 other members of Congress urging President Obama to reject a request for more troops. She also cited the vote on an exit strategy in June that gained 138 votes, and her introduction of HR 3699 to prohibit funds for increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan. It’s important that we are publicizing these efforts and magnifying their impact by making sure the public is aware that there are members of Congress who are working to move the debate forward.

Rep. Lee told the cheering crowd, “We all know there is no military solution to the war in Afghanistan.” She said her legislation sends a “clear and unequivocal” message and urged us to help build support for the bill. She asked the crowd to “make some noise” and be “the wind beneath our wings” and help push Congress to speak out for a new approach in Afghanistan. You can listen to Rep. Lee’s speech here:

This is absolutely a critical time to “make some noise.” Reports today indicate that President Obama is going to announce a plan on Tuesday that will include sending around 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Join thousands of others around the country as part of our campaign to flood the White House with calls. Call 1-202-456-1111 to tell President Obama to support an alternative plan that doesn’t include an increase in troops. Click here to urge your representative to cosponsor Rep. Lee’s bill to prohibit funding for sending additional troops to Afghanistan.

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Conflict Over Afghan War Sharpens Among Dems

A Bold Sen. Feingold
Could Lead the Way
Out of Afghanistan

By Tom Hayden
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Sept. 21, 2009 - The United States Senate is our version of a house of lords, where time slows down in the name of a "deliberative process" even when the world seems on fire to the ordinary eye.

And so the other day, with concern about Afghanistan rising, with American troops dying at record rates, with the U.S.-supported Kabul regime in tatters, it was typical of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to declare that "the thing I'm going to do and recommend to my caucus is let's just take it easy. I'm going to wait until the president makes up his mind as to what he thinks should be done."

Then there is Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold. By everyday standards, he is a cautious person, calling for a "flexible timetable" for American troop withdrawals but also for "continued strikes on Taliban and al-Qaida leaders." Sounds like an uncertain trumpet. But in the culture of the Senate, Feingold is considered downright hyperactive, often accused of being a loner who doesn't play well with the senior oligarchs.


The truth is that Feingold has learned to play the Senate game when it comes to new proposals. Like chess, when a single senator moves, other senators follow or readjust. That's what is happening. Not a single senator had spoken out against the war until Feingold said in an Aug. 24 interview in Appleton that the U.S. should consider a flexible timetable.

Feingold amplified his views in a Sept. 17 interview I held with him, asserting that he will vote against any troop escalation, "unless I hear some very different arguments than what I've already heard." He also will vote against the coming defense authorization bill if it "follows down this misguided path." He said he might offer amendments to the bill, perhaps on the timetable.

Feingold's timetable proposal triggered a stampede, or at least a crawl, to the microphones. Sen. Carl Levin said an increase of U.S. troops should be delayed for one year, proposing a buildup of Afghan troops instead. Sen. John Kerry said he was rethinking Afghanistan. So did senators Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Robert Casey, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders. Speaker Nancy Pelosi opined that votes for another year of war might not be there in the House.

That was a pretty fast response for a senator the critics describe as isolated. The label is perhaps the price Feingold pays for being prematurely right.

We have been here before. In 2005, Feingold was the first senator to propose a specific withdrawal deadline of one-year from Iraq. I wrote at the time that his suggestion, while too modest, was a "brave departure from the ice house of the Senate." By 2006, Feingold was joined by 13 senators on his withdrawal proposal and had prompted a proposal from Levin for a more gradual phased withdrawal. By July 2007, Reid had joined the entire Democratic Senate bloc in supporting an amendment to phase out the U.S. occupation.

Feingold now stands in a Democratic tradition that includes Sens. Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Robert F. Kennedy, all the way back to Wisconsin's Sen. Robert LaFollette. The major difference is that those recent Democratic candidates were running for president in the wake of a passionate "dump Johnson" movement, whereas the challenge for Feingold and other Democrats today is to dump the Afghanistan war without dumping President Barack Obama and the party's congressional majorities.

Military leaders and Republicans are sure to weigh in that they see "light at the end of the tunnel." Feingold has tried to armor himself with the argument that America is becoming weaker in the war against al-Qaida as long as it occupies Afghanistan. As for firing drones into Pakistan, he told me, "We will always reserve the right to act in the national security interests of the American people including targeting al-Qaida and Taliban leadership." Civilian casualties, he argues, can best be avoided "if we reduce our military footprint in that country."

The conflict is intensifying. Seventy percent of Democrats oppose the war. Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, the House appropriations chair, has given the president one year to show progress or face funding cuts. The Pentagon and national security hawks argue that there must be 18 to 24 months of "hard fighting" followed by 10 to 12 years of continued nation-building. At the present rate, that means 1,100 more American soldiers will die in Afghanistan by the end of 2011, as Obama faces re-election. More than 700 died during the Bush presidency. Although budget figures are foggy, Afghanistan is likely to become another $1 trillion war over a two-term Obama presidency.

That's why the Democrats already are facing a voter mandate, similar to those in 2006 and 2008, to somehow end the war and turn to more urgent priorities on the home front.

Feingold could be the Gene McCarthy of our time, though one seeking to end a war to save a presidency, not the other way around. But his inherent caution could leave the anti-war public wanting a bolder leadership. A flexible timetable is a talking point, not a proposal. The further use of Predators is likely to inflame anti-American sentiment to the benefit of insurgents. Why he lumps al-Qaida with the Taliban will need clarification.

The opening for Feingold may lie in the utter collapse of the Kabul government, a Humpty Dumpty that all the king's men will not be able to put back together with any legitimacy. Having failed to produce a credible client in Kabul, it could be time for the U.S. to launch all-party talks, including the Taliban and regional powers, in a diplomatic surge to stabilize Afghanistan. What Feingold needs to define is a face-saving exit strategy to complement his proposal for a troop withdrawal. For now, he only says he is "concerned" and "closely monitoring" the mounting evidence of fraud in Kabul, which could leave the United States without a partner that Americans - not to mention Afghans - can believe in.

[Tom Hayden is the author of 17 books, a former California state senator and a longtime peace activist.]

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