Get Afghanistan Right Week: January 12th - January 18th
From January 12th through January 18th, citizens and bloggers are speaking out against military escalation in Afghanistan. Throughout the week, writers will talk about the dangers of escalation, the current situation in Afghanistan and South Asia, the effects of the war at home, and potential solutions. See what's been written below.
Obama's Got One Thing Right About the Mess In Afghanistan-- It's Inexorably Connected To The Mess In Pakistan
posted on January 12th, 2009 by Howie Klein at DownWithTyrannyIn yesterday's NY Times Magazine chief Washington correspondent David Sanger paints a horrifying picture of Obama's Worst Pakistan Nightmare; it would be more accurate to emphasize that the nightmare starts next door in Afghanistan. Pakistan is light years ahead of Afghanistan by almost any modern measurement of modern civilization but what that has led to is an unstable and primitive society with nuclear weapons. Sanger describes Pakistan as a place "where the military, the intelligence services and an unstable collection of civilian leaders uneasily share power, ...[with] a security structure intended to protect Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from outsiders-- Islamic militants, Qaeda scientists, Indian saboteurs and those American commando teams that Pakistanis imagine, with good reason, are waiting just over the horizon in Afghanistan, ready to seize their nuclear treasure if a national meltdown seems imminent."
We Cannot Afford to Escalate in Afghanistan
posted on January 11th, 2009 by Derrick Crowe at Brave New FilmsDemocratic critics of the continued occupation of Iraq argue that we cannot afford an open-ended presence in that country, and they are right. What they may not realize, however, is that their (correct) arguments for a drawdown of our occupation of Iraq have implications for their proposed alternative defense and foreign policies. If we cannot afford an extended, costly occupation of Iraq, we certainly can't afford to escalate our presence in Afghanistan.