Finding Our Voices, December 2009 Newsletter

Dear Friends: 

Wishing you every happiness this Holiday Season and prosperity in the New Year. Thank you for reading our newsletters this year. We look forward to continuing our relationship in the coming year, and in this issue FINDING OUR VOICES director Vicki Hughes writes her response to President  Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.  All the best to you and your family,

Because of my involvement in Finding Our Voices,  I've spent a fair amount of time in the years since our invasion of Iraq thinking, writing and talking about this issue.  After listening to President Obama's speech last week, here are my reflections.
 
Eight years of war in Afghanistan... and in the next few weeks our government will be sending in thirty thousand soldiers to fight some more.  Regardless of one's political persuasion, it should be a daunting prospect, and I'm glad the president took time to make his decision. I believe he is a good and intelligent person whose concern is for the greater good.  While I consider war to be the wrong way to deal with conflict, I know I always need to re-examine my position.  It is the age old question -- is there such a thing as a 'Just War?'    So I listened with care (and I hope an open mind) to President Obama's speech defining his policy and warranting his argument for risking hundreds of thousands of lives (military and civilian) and 30 billion dollars a year on continuing an almost decade-long war.
 
In many ways it was a good speech.  The president laid out a well organized and non bombastic argument for his decision.  He pointed out areas of legitimate concern... the Taliban and Al Qaida are scary organizations with dangerous agendas and track records. It is also terrifying to contemplate the influence of these groups growing and gaining a stronger foothold in nuclear armed Pakistan.  That being said, I still believe that going to war to assuage those fears is the wrong solution. 
 
At a purely practical level one has to ask... what are the chances of this working?  If history is any precedent, Afghanistan is a hard region to 'tame.' In modern times the British and the Russians failed spectacularly in their wars to bring the Afghan people under their control.  They are independent and tenacious, wanting to do things their way... much like us.  And while President Obama insisted that he didn't want to 'take over Afghanistan,' the moment one attempts to force people to do things you want at the point of a gun... it at least has the appearance of 'taking over.'  Isn't it more likely that faced with what appears to be American imperialism... the insurgency will strengthen -- if not in Afghanistan, then somewhere else?  What happens if Turkey or Egypt elect or otherwise put in place equally scary regimes... do we take them on as well?  Al Qaida and the Taliban are present in Yemen and Somalia... if their power base grows in those countries what do we do?  It's the age old question and our generation must ask: do we keep the cycle of conflict and oppression going, or do we change the paradigm?
 
Al Qaida and the Taliban thrive where there is inequality and poverty. In a world where there are different points of view and ideologies, and wherein those differences are often intensified by poverty and greed, there will always be a breeding ground for violence and even terrorism.  It's almost a cliché... but how we deal with that conflict can change and perhaps, if we take the long view, create a different outcome.  And this is what I had hoped we would see from the man who wrote The Audacity of Hope.
 
The war that President Obama has laid out will involve one hundred thousand US soldiers, and cost thirty billion dollars a year.  What would happen if we used those resources differently?   What would happen if those young men and women took that money and talent and worked out more effective farming methods for the mountain regions, taught in schools, helped provide safe drinking water...even bought everyone in Afghanistan a TV?  What would happen if we applied half of that money to developing alternative sustainable energy to use and share with the global community? We didn't put all the greedy bankers in jail in the midst of the mortgage crisis;  we haven't bombed all the factories that knowingly make gas guzzling cars.  No, we bailed out the banks and created cash for clunkers. It sounds simplistic but why not apply the same kind of thinking to this side of our 'national security?'  It won't be cheap, it may take longer to accomplish our goals... and it's certainly risky, people may die.  But if we can change the hearts and minds of our enemies... don't we have a better chance of long term success, the possibility of really making them allies?
 
We are continuing to wage war because we're afraid.  And some of that fear is legitimate.  But as Gandhi said: 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'  Perhaps it is time to take the same courage, dedication and commitment to wage peace.

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