Since before some participants in the war on Afghanistan were born, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan has been saying that things would be bad and possibly worse when the U.S. got out, but that the longer it took to get out the worse that hell would be.
A new book by Se'verine Autesserre called The Frontlines of Peace makes the case that the most successful peacebuilding usually involves organizing local residents to lead their own efforts to counter recruitment and resolve conflicts. The work of unarmed peacekeepers around the globe shows huge potential. If Afghanistan is ever going to have peace, it's going to have to start with getting the troops and the weapons out. The top supplier of weapons and even a top supplier of funding to all sides, including the Taliban, has often been the United States. Afghanistan does not manufacture weapons of war.
5. Demilitarization is not abandonment.
There are 32 million people in Afghanistan, most of whom have yet to hear about 9-11, and a significant percentage of whom were not alive in 2001. You could give them each, including children and drug lords, a $2,000 survival check for 6.4% of the trillion dollars dumped annually into the U.S. military, or a tiny fraction of the many trillions squandered and wasted -- or the countless trillions in damage done, by this endless war. I'm not saying you should or that anyone will. Just ceasing to do harm is a dream. But if you wanted to not "abandon" Afghanistan, there are ways to engage with a place other than bombing it.
But let's end the pretense that the U.S. military is after some sort of humanitarian good. Of the 50 most oppressive governments on earth, 96% of them are armed and/or trained and/or funded by the U.S. military. On that list are U.S. partners in the war on Yemen, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt. On that list is Bahrain, now 10 years out from the crackdown on its uprising -- Join a webinar tomorrow!
6. Victories are global and local.
The European Parliament today followed up on the U.S. action by opposing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE. Germany had done this on Saudi Arabia and proposed it for other countries.
Afghanistan is a war with numerous nations playing at least token roles through NATO that can be pressured to remove their troops. And doing so will impact the United States.
This is a global movement. It is also a local one, with local groups and city councils pressuring national officials.
Passing local resolutions and laws against wars and on related topics like demilitarizing police and divesting from weapons helps in many ways. Join a webinar tomorrow on demilitarizing Portland Oregon.
7. Congress matters.
Biden did what he did on Yemen because if he hadn't Congress would have. Congress would have because people who compelled Congress to do it two years ago would have compelled Congress again. This matters because it is relatively easier -- though still outrageously difficult -- to move Congress to answer majority demands.
Now that Congress does not have to end the war on Yemen again, at least not in the way that it did before, it should move onto the next war on the list, which should be Afghanistan. It should also start moving money out of military spending and into addressing actual crises. Ending wars should be yet another reason for reducing military spending.
The caucus being formed on this topic should be used, but joining it should count for little in the absence of a credible commitment to vote against military funding that does not move at least 10% out.
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