U.S. Out of Afghanistan!
March 22, 2010
At 1 a.m. on December 27th, 2009 American soldiers raided the village of Ghazi Kahn, dragged ten people (eight of them schoolchildren) out of their beds, and shot them. The U.S. initially claimed everyone it had killed were part of an insurgent cell and that they were engaged in an attack on U.S. soldiers, but after an investigation by the London Times exposed the truth the U.S. military admitted that it had killed innocent civilians. These types of atrocities are sadly common in Afghanistan, a direct result of the U.S. occupation of that country. The war in Afghanistan is immoral and unjust. The United States and all other countries must withdraw immediately. The war kills thousands of people, is based on faulty logic, and protects an oppressive Afghan government.
The war has killed well over 6,000 people – more than double the number killed by 9-11. Continuing the war will only result in more death and destruction. As a measure to prevent future 9-11s it is counterproductive because it kills more people than 9-11 did.
The notion that the United States should not withdraw from Afghanistan because it would be used as a base from which to attack the United States is similarly flawed. Even if that happened, it would still be better than continuing the occupation because the war kills more people than those attacks. Afghanistan is already used as a base to attack the United States. The occupation does not stop that, but it does mean they don't have to travel far to find an American to attack. Furthermore, this logic implies that Afghanistan (and many other countries) should attack and/or occupy the United States because the U.S. is used as a base to attack and invade Afghanistan and many other countries.
The threat of terrorism to the average American is greatly exaggerated. Every year over 30,000 Americans die from car crashes, 5,000 from food-borne diseases, 3,000 from fires, and 20,000 from influenza. Over 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year; you are more likely to die at your own hands than at the hands of Al-Qaeda. The number one cause of death in the United States is heart disease, which kills roughly half a million people every year. You're far more likely to die from any of these other more common causes than from terrorism, which killed less than 3,000 Americans in 2001 and even fewer Americans in other years. The relatively few people killed by terrorism do not justify the billions of dollars or multiple wars put into fighting it. If you took all the resources devoted to counter-terrorism and put them into healthcare you'd save more lives.
U.S. Aggression
President Obama, like President Bush, justifies the war as retaliation for 9-11. Their argument is based on a double standard because the United States attacks other countries all the time. For example, in the 1990s the U.S. and allies shipped weapons to Neo-Nazi rebels in Croatia, covertly sponsored separatist terrorists in Kosovo, and repeatedly bombed Yugoslavia. Six months prior to the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. began covertly funding Islamic Fundamentalist rebels, including Osama Bin Laden, in the country in order to topple the pro-Soviet government. The U.S. government called them “freedom fighters” when they were fighting the Soviets, but calls them “terrorists” now that they are fighting the U.S.
When 9-11 happened, the U.S. was laying siege to Iraq and bombing it on a regular basis. From 1992 to 1995 the CIA also sponsored a car bombing campaign in Iraq. When Lesly Stahl of 60 Minutes asked Secretary of State Madeline Albright, “We have heard that a half million children have died [from sanctions imposed on Iraq]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” her response was, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it.”
The single most effective thing the United States can do to stop terrorism is to stop supporting terrorism. The U.S. is still harboring Orlando Bosch, a religious fundamentalist who admits to bombing a civilian Cuban airlines flight and killing 73 people in the process. He is wanted on terrorism charges in Cuba, Venezuela, and several other countries. The United States is also harboring anti-Cuban terrorists Guillermo Novo Sampol, Pedro Remon, and Gaspar Jimenez. In 1986 the World Court convicted the United States of engaging in terrorism against Nicaragua. The U.S. military maintains a terrorists training camp in Georgia called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas. Graduates of the school are responsible for the Uraba massacre in Colombia, the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit massacre in El Salvador, the La Cantuta massacre in Peru, the torture and murder of a UN worker in Chile, an attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela, and hundreds of other terrorist attacks.
The same logic Obama/Bush use to justify occupying Afghanistan - “they attacked us” - implies half the planet should invade the United States as retaliation for U.S. attacks on them. And if their military is too weak to do so, the same logic implies they would be justified in launching smaller attacks – like 9-11 – as retaliation. Any civilian casualties can be dismissed as “collateral damage” the same way the United States does. Osama Bin Laden's justification for 9-11 is essentially the same as Obama/Bush's justification for the war in Afghanistan. In his Letter to the American People Bin Laden justified attacking the United States, “because you attacked us and continue to attack us.” The Obama/Bush justification for war is illegitimate.
Replacing Tyranny With Tyranny
The war is also illegitimate because it forces an oppressive and corrupt U.S. puppet government on the Afghan people. The US-backed government outlaws homosexuality and cross dressing. It bans conversion to Christianity, and made Islam the state religion. It prosecutes women attempting to flee abusive marriages for “home escape” or “moral crimes.” In April 2009 President Hamid Karzai, the head of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, signed legislation requiring women to get permission from their husbands to work or leave the house, legalizing spousal rape, and allowing husbands to deny their wives food if they do not comply with sexual demands.
According to Amnesty International, the U.S.-backed Afghan state uses torture to force people to confess to crimes they did not commit, arbitrarily arrests suspects without allowing them access to lawyers, family, or the courts, and arrests Afghan journalists for “misrepresenting” government officials. In September 2008 Afghan courts sentenced the journalist Ahmad Ghous Zalmai to twenty years in prison for merely publishing a Dari translation of the Koran without the Arabic text alongside it. In early 2008 Afghan courts sentenced journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh to death for downloading and distributing writings examining the role of women in Islam.
The 2009 election was fraudulent. Voter registration roles included “phantom voters” and multiple registration cards issued to the same voter. Undercover BBC reporters were offered the opportunity to buy thousands of voter registration cards. The BCC also found that the government was bribing Afghans to vote for incumbent President Hamid Karzai. The government threatened violence against anyone who did not vote for the incumbent, and stuffed ballot boxes with votes for Karzai.
Like many other conquerors, Obama/Bush claim they are liberating Afghanistan and do not seek to dominate it. The Soviets said the same thing when they invaded Afghanistan, and its no more credible when the Americans say it. The Karzai government is only in power because the United States put it in power, and it would collapse without U.S. support. It is entirely dependent on the United States for its existence, just as the USSR's Afghan puppet state in the 1980s was entirely dependent on it. In January 2008 President Karzai admitted to CNN that he is an American puppet.
While it is possible that a new regime would be as bad as the US-backed regime, replacing one tyranny with another tyranny is not a good reason to spend billions of dollars and kill thousands of people.
The war kills thousands of people, costs billions of dollars, is based on faulty logic, and upholds an oppressive dictatorship. There is no legitimate reason to continue the occupation. It is unethical and illegitimate and should end immediately. The U.S. must get out of Afghanistan.