Why Peaceniks Should Care About the Afghanistan Study Group Report

[unhappycamper]

Why Peaceniks Should Care About the Afghanistan Study Group Report
by Robert Naiman
Published on Friday, September 10, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

There is a tradition among some peace activists of striking a pose of annoyed indifference to the question of how to get out of an unpopular war. "There are three ways to get out," goes one waggish response. "Air, land, and sea."

This is funny and emotionally satisfying, and also represents a truth for peace activists: ending the war is a first principle, not something contingent on whether a particular means of doing so satisfies someone else's notion of what is practical.

On the other hand, peace activists can't be satisfied with being right; they also are morally compelled to try to be effective. And part of being effective is giving consideration to, and seeking to publicize, arguments are likely to end the war sooner rather than later. It's not likely, for example, that discussing ways in which the war might be useful for the long-term maintenance of the "capitalist world system" will turn the Washington debate against war in the short run. If, on the other hand, central to the official story is a claim that the war is a war against Al Qaeda, but senior U.S. officials publicly concede that there is no significant Al Qaeda presence today in Afghanistan, that is certainly a fact worth knowing and spreading.

This is why it is important for as many people as possible to read and digest the short and accessible report of the "Afghanistan Study Group" which has been publicly unveiled this week. The assumptions and conclusions of the ASG report should be the subject of a thousand debates. But there are a few things about it that one can say without fear of reasonable contradiction. The authors of the report oppose the war and want to end it. The principal authors of the report are Washington insiders with a strong claim to expertise about what sort of arguments are likely to move Washington debate. The authors of the report have a strategy for trying to move Washington debate so that at the next fork in the road, the choice made is to de-escalate the war and move towards its conclusion, rather than to escalate it further. Therefore, the arguments made deserve careful consideration. They may not be particularly useful for making posters for a demonstration. But for lobbying Congressional staff, writing a letter to the editor, or making any other presentation to people who are not already on our side, the arguments of the Afghanistan Study Group are likely to be useful.

Many of the authors and signers of the report are known to peace activists who follow policy debates. Former Marine Corps captain Matthew Hoh, director of the ASG, made waves last October when became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war. Stephen Walt, with his co-author John Mearsheimer, helped break open mainstream debate about U.S. policy towards Israel and the Palestinians with their book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." Juan Cole, author of the blog Informed Comment, is the author of "Engaging the Muslim World." Robert Pape, author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," has documented how U.S. military escalation in Afghanistan has produced more terrorism. Former CIA official Paul Pillar attacked the central justification of the current military escalation in an op-ed in the Washington Post last September, arguing that there was little reason to believe that a "safe haven" for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan would have any significant bearing on the terrorist threat to the United States. Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation, author of the blog Washington Note, originally convened the ASG.



unhappycamper comment: You can read the report here: http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/

[madrchsod]

1. this will fall on deaf ears.....

to retreat would be political suicide.

bin laden accomplished his mission against america when the first bomb fell on baghdad

[unhappycamper]

2. Not retreating will be economic suicide. n/t

[NuttyFluffers]

3. a cogent argument. K&R

but then stuff like this have been discussed and recommended at length from various posters and regular individuals before. nothing terribly new, but well organized and researched. sadly, i feel it will be ignored as usual -- but there's always room for a pleasant surprise.