A Step Towards Peace in Afghanistan

On the 22nd of June Barack Obama declared victory in Afghanistan. He promised to remove American Troops after a ten year occupation that has achieve little more than the death of thousands of civilians, a few thousand troops, and the waste of more than one trillion dollars. This follows a comment a few weeks prior from General Petraeus, leader of the US forces in Afghanistan, who said “We have managed to reverse some of the Taliban’s momentum,” as if this was a huge accomplishment for the world largest and most well funded army after ten years of killing. He also mentioned that all of the gains made by the US were “fragile and reversible”, a quote that needless to say did not made it into any headlines.

The last ten years in  Afghanistan
After 9/11, US president George Bush, British Prime-minister Tony Blair, along with other Western leaders, claimed the Taliban in Afghanistan, a former US ally, were giving Al Qaida a safe haven. To sell a war to the public the US promoted this alongside the idea that they were going to “Liberate” the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban’s oppression. The Taliban’s treatment of women was spun as a reason to go to war. Laura Bush, George Bush’s wife, and Cherie Blair took to wearing a piece of fabric torn from a burka to symbolise the fight for women’s freedom in Afghanistan. It is true that the Taliban’s treatment of woman was oppressive but it soon became clear that the US were not out to change this when the largest woman’s rights group in Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), talked out against the US invasion and demanded the Western forces leave. They have expressed on may occasions that the conditions woman are subject to are no better, if not worse than was before the invasion; thousands of innocent people have died; there is wider spread corruption than before; and the country’s infrastructure is far worse due to regular bombing raids that have destroyed homes, hospitals, mosques and farms.    

The liberation of the Afghani people was never the aim of the US and NATO. After eight years of US aggression under the banner of “war on terror”, they empowered the most brutal terrorists of the Northern Alliance as well as former Russian puppets and by relying on them, the US imposed a puppet government on the Afghan people. Hamid Karzai, the head of this puppet regime is well known to be deeply corrupt and just works in the interest of the US and former members of the Northern alliance, not for the needs of the Afghan people.

After ten years, 140,000 NATO troops, the vast majority of them from the US, are still in occupation; different commanders-in-chief and imperialist strategies, from troops surge to counter-insurgency,have come and gone; and the Taliban now controls more of the country than it did five years ago. The much-vaunted aim of women’s liberation is rarely mentioned today and violence against women is rife. Twenty girls’ schools were firebombed or destroyed in just six months last year and Karzai recently attempted to push through laws to legalise rape in marriage. This would have also meant women could not leave their homes without their husband’s permission. It is estimated that in Afghanistan there are 1.5 million people suffering from immediate starvation, as well as 7.5 million suffering as a result of the country’s dire situation.



The Stats: Huge numbers of civilian deaths are the result of the US invasion


New Zealand’s Role
The New Zealand Government has played a role in the last ten years of Afghanistan’s history as it has supported the US in is brutal war. This may not be something that you would expect from a country that was ranked one of the world’s most peaceful in the 2010 Global Peace Index (GPI), a publication developed by an international panel of peace experts and published by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The New Zealand government sent troops to support the US-led invasion of Afghanistan immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Just like the US, the NZ government uses rhetoric about “security” and “fighting terrorism” as a justification for the continued involvement of the NZDF (Defense Force). The language used by the government creates the image of altruistic action by the military. Soldiers are “peacekeepers” sent to do “reconstruction”—which obscures the reality that the Afghani government was installed by the US for economic reasons. If the New Zealand government wanted to do reconstruction work they would send builders, plumbers and engineers, not people trained to kill with guns. In the same way the term “peacekeeping troop” is an oxymoron- guns create the opposite of peace. It was only after the media revealed that the NZSAS (Special Air Service) was there that the government admitted to their involvement. They loudly trumpet the “reconstruction team” as “humanitarian aid” when in fact they are there to prop up the US military occupation.

Research by investigative journalist Nicky Hager makes it clear that the NZ Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) have been heavily focused on supporting the US War on Terror since September 11, 2001. When the US switched it’s attention to Iraq, so did we. It seems while New Zealand sits happy at number one on the GPI, our own tax dollars are funding an intelligence operation that supports the very same wars we once condemned.  NZ serves as cog in the war in Afghanistan. Not something you would expect from a “Peaceful Nation”.

 Two examples of the horrific effects of coalition bombing on civilians. On the left, a child who was injured– he is better than many. On the right—many graves are dug after bombs hit.

Current Struggles to Create Peace
This equating of winning a war with “progress” is never questioned by our media or our society. It is simply an implicit part of being involved. If we’re killing more of the enemy than they are of us, it is progress; if we’re not, then we need to try harder to kill more. War as a method of progress is never questioned, just its ‘success’ rate. Progress is in the eye of the war wager. As outlined above this war has not brought progress of any kind. It has only destroyed what progress had been made, and set Afghanistan back for decades to come.

With money and offers of official posts, the US and its Afghan agents have bought many Afghan intellectuals, writers and poets. As a result the media, instead of raising people’s awareness and mobilizing them for pro-independence, pro-democracy and anti-fundamentalism struggle, inflames and fuels ethnic, sectarian and lingual tensions among Afghan people. Any writer in Afghanistan who does not fit with this line, at the least does not get employed, and at the worst is killed. Almost all Western media shows story after story of poor young soldiers who innocently went off to fight and got killed while ignoring the deaths of civilians. But despite what the media is saying inside and outside of Afghanistan people are starting to organize and rise up to demand better lives, free from US imperialism, the Taliban and other warlords. The removal of US troops can only make this easier for them.

Left:  The perfect way to dress for construction work… it looks like this equipment would be much more useful for destruction rather than construction.     Right: So called “Peace-Keeping”

 A couple of these movements have been shown on American news but only ones with small minority extremist movements with guns as this helps to push the US governments agenda - Only groups that are shooting at American troops are shown as the US can use this to justify why they are there and why they shoot people. They neglect to show peaceful movements that are starting to form. A couple of weeks ago the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers marched through Kabul, to the UN headquarters, bearing a banner with a contrary message, “Peace is the prerequisite for any progress”. The alternatives to the great loudness, speed and force of the military is the quiet, slow, patient, painstaking work of relationship building, work which the AYPVs are doing internationally through Global Days of Listening, and locally through letters, the Bamiyan Peace Park, and other creative initiatives. For example, they made mobile phone pouches out of scrap leather, embroidered the word “peace” on them, and sent them with messages of love to students at schools in Kandahar in the south. The rarity of such action was underscored by the incredulous responses they received, such as, “I can’t believe such a love is possible.” One of the inspiring things about the AYPV’s march is that it didn’t just proclaim a different way, it embodied it. As we’ve all seen in the last few years, protests in Afghanistan typically end in violence and often deaths. Yet the presence of riot police didn’t intimidate or incite these young people to retaliate or flee in fear – instead they responded with active love. “Be alive and happy!” they called to police through beaming smiles.

Other peace movements are also starting to gain traction. The National Peace Jirga (assembly) has organized a series of peace assemblies in recent months, drawing thousands of people. The meetings often feature fiery speakers who condemn international forces for killing civilians – but who also criticize the Taliban. This movement is supported by many Afghan run political groups and other non-government organizations such as “Awakened youth” and various women’s rights groups.

Towards a Better Future
Despite the strengths of Afghan peace groups, most are also beset by weaknesses, says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of the Sciences. "A lot of these parties are organized along ethnic or tribal lines," he says. The Awakened Youth and the National Peace Jirga, for instance, consist mostly of Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group. But these groups are just the start. In order to gain a society in Afghanistan that insures that people are equal and get the resources and opportunities that they need, a grassroots movement that exists and operates across tribal lines must be built. The people of Afghanistan, whether they are being controlled and oppressed  by the US, the Taliban or other tribal leaders, are exploited in the same way as any other lower class around the world- in a system of control and profit making rather than equality and sharing of resources. To create equality, and in doing so peace, they must unite across ethnic and tribal lines and work together to overcome their oppressors. They must organise together through political groups and trade-unions dedicated to non-violent action. This must be done not just in Afghanistan but around the world. “Mountain cannot reach mountain,” goes the Afghan proverb, “only human can reach human.”  This is what real progress looks like – progress for humans to become more humane, more compassionate, more connected. This will not happen through the use of violence as it dehumanizes others and stops relationships building.

Slogans about restoring peace, security, democracy and women’s rights will be empty and amplified claims, as long as Afghanistan has not gained its independence; the Taliban and the Northern Alliance killers are not removed from their positions of power so that true democracy can be instilled; and the billions of dollars they have pillaged from people are not taken back from them. The benchmark to judge if any individual or organization is progressive in the current situation is their struggle in against US occupation, the Taliban and the US in the “National Front”.

Obama speech claiming victory are false, nobody has emerged victorious. But the removal of US forces can be nothing but good for the people of Afghanistan.

J.Llewellyn