'Let Us Live in Peace,' say Afghans who want US to leave

[Better Believe It]

Massacre of Civilians Ignites Fury in Afghanistan
'Let Us Live in Peace,' say Afghans who want US to leave
by Common Dreams staff
March 12, 2012

Despair, frustration and palpable outrage hangs over Afghanistan on Monday, a day after a US soldier left his military base near Kandahar and massacred 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children. Reporters and investigators are still seeking absolute clarity that only one US soldier was involved, while the Taliban has vowed revenge against the 'sick-minded American savages' behind the attack.

The lone soldier is now in US custody, but there were calls Monday for any and all guilty US soldiers to be handed over to Afghan authorities for a public trial. Above all, the terrible crime has led many to renew calls for an end to the decade long war and for US forces to leave Afghanistan at once.

Reuters reports:

"We have benefited little from the foreign troops here but lost everything - our lives, dignity and our country to them," said Haji Najiq, a Kandahar shop owner.

"The explanation or apologies will not bring back the dead. It is better for them to leave us alone and let us live in peace."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/12


------------------------------------------------------------------------



NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2012
Killings in Afganistan

WASHINGTON - March 12 -
KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv at gmail.com

Kelly is just back from Afghanistan and may be sentenced to prison today along with other peace activists for protests outside the base. She is with the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She was on “Democracy Now!” this morning along with a representative from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. She said today: “President Obama and U.S. military brass are depicting a U.S. soldier killing 16 Afghan civilians as an exceptional event. But in fact, this tragedy reflects and encapsulates the U.S. war of choice in Afghanistan. Groups of U.S. soldiers have been breaking into Afghan homes and killing people, without cause or provocation, for the last 11 years. Civilians have been afflicted by aerial bombing by helicopter gunships, drone surveillance and attacks, and night raids.

“In the recent past, Afghan civilians have been appalled and agitated by news of U.S. soldiers that went on killing sprees, cutting off body parts of their victims to save as war trophies. They’ve been repulsed by photos of U.S. soldiers urinating on the corpses of Afghans whom they have killed. The burning of the Quran further enraged civilians. One of the greatest factors contributing to public dismay and hostility towards the foreign forces is the practice of night raids. As many as 40 of these raids happen around the country on some nights, and the U.S. military reports an average of 10 a night. U.S. /NATO soldiers burst into people’s homes and attack people in their sleep.

“The U.S. wants the Karzai government to sign a Strategic Protection Agreement that will allow U.S./NATO forces to stay in Afghanistan until 2024 and possibly beyond. This agreement will very likely frustrate possibilities for a negotiated settlement since Taliban forces have repeatedly stated their demand that all foreign troops leave Afghanistan. The Strategic Protection Agreement has never been presented to the Afghan Members of Parliament for their consideration. No one in the U.S. or Karzai government seems concerned about how ordinary Afghans might view the Strategic protection Agreement.

“Arguably, people in Afghanistan are looking for ways to vent long-suppressed anger over having their future dictated by their invaders and occupiers.”

Kelly recently wrote the piece “The Ghost and the Machine: Drone Warfare and Accountability” along with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

Also see from the The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers: “2 Million Candles to End the Afghan War.”

See by Anand Gopal “Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the ‘Black Jail,’ and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan.”
.
###


A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.

http://www.accuracy.org/news-releases/

[JohnnyRingo]

1. "Let us live in peace".

I don't want our forces there, but I think they could at least use a handbook. Living in peace is not exactly on the travel brochure..

Maybe no one ever took the training wheels off and let them try though.

[zipplewrath]

2. I want us out of there

Alot of people want us out of there. I don't see how us staying is going to accomplish anything.

But spare me the "we want to live in peace" schtick. That country hasn't been at peace for what 30 years? When we leave, they won't live in peace, it will just start different conflicts. Conflicts in which we should not be involved, but they will be deadly and oppressive.

[Better Believe It]

3. The vast majority of people in Afghanistan want an end to these conflicts and foreign occupation.

I don't think we should mock or ridicule those hundreds of thousands of people who have been victims of violence.

I've seen nothing to indicate otherwise unless one thinks various sectarian warlords represent the wishes of most Afghan people.

[zipplewrath]

5. Nor should we engage in a fantasy

I've "seen" plenty to suggest that they have no general interest in "peace". The Taliban wasn't 5 guys with a really good truck. There is plenty of complicity within that country for the violence that has, and will, ensue.

I'm not sure what it will take for them to "live in peace", but I'm sure it will be more than just us leaving.

[Better Believe It]

8. But who is "they" and "them"? That's a pretty broad brush.

[zipplewrath]

10. The Afghan people

The ones we will leave behind. There is no real reason to believe they will live in peace, with us or without us.

[jeff47]

7. Because the Taliban were so kind and loving to women before the war. (nt)

[Beacool]

4. When have they ever lived in peace?

Unfortunately things will only get worse for them once we leave, particularly for women and girls. The Karzai government is as corrupt as they come and the Taliban will probably retake a portion of the country. The Russians were right in warning us not to go to Afghanistan. What do we have to show 10 years later? That is, aside from the loss of life.

[Better Believe It]

6. It appears that they lived in pretty much in peace from 1933 until 1978.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports and other vital infrastructure. By the late 1960s, many Western travelers were using these as part of the hippie trail. In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan.

In April 1978, a prominent member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Mir Akbar Khyber, was mysteriously killed. Leaders of the PDPA feared that the government was planning to dismantle them because many were being arrested. Hafizullah Amin along with other PDPA members managed to remain at large and organised an uprising. The PDPA, led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Hafizullah Amin, overthrew the regime of Daoud by assassinating the President along with his family and relatives. Taraki quickly took over and moved to carry out an ill-conceived land reform, which was misunderstood by virtually all Afghans.[97] The PDPA began imprisoning, torturing and murdering thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment, and the intelligentsia.[97] On the other hand, they prohibited usury, made statements on women's rights by declaring equality of the sexes[98] and introducing women to political life.[98] Anahita Ratebzad was one of several female Marxist leaders and a member of the Revolutionary Council.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan

[zipplewrath]

9. 36 years ago

36 years ago they lived for 45 years in relative peace.

Since then it's been an absolute mess. They lost the recipe, and us leaving isn't going to give it to them. Not that we should stay because we're not going to give it to them either.

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. And then they became a playground for Cold War imperial rivalries.

If you want to assign blame for Afghan violence in recent decades, try looking in the mirror.

[Better Believe It]

14. Pretty much agree. That's when Osama got his funding/weapons from the CIA for his terrorist group.

Osama's terrorists were supported because they fought against a regime backed by the Soviet Union.

The chickens came home.

[sad sally]

15. Wait until the President's private military special ops are moved entirely under the CIA...

"... top Pentagon officials are now mulling over: to put whatever U.S. elite special operations forces remain in Afghanistan after 2014 under CIA control. The reason? Once they are so lodged, even though their missions wouldn’t change, they would officially become "spies" and whoever’s running Washington then will be able to swear, with complete candor, that no U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan. Even better, the CIA is conveniently run by former Afghan War commander David Petraeus and the U.S. public would no longer have to be informed about "funding or operations" for those non-troops. Now, that’s how a mature democracy makes the trains run on time!"

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/03/08/green-on-blue/

[zipplewrath]

17. Well let's be clear

There's no doubt that there has been "foreign" intervention in Afghanistan for virtually its entire history, regardless of how one wants to draw its borders. But one can say that about almost any place on the planet. Their "peaceful" period was marked by fits and starts of some sort of constitutional monarchy, along with some elected representation. It all began to fall apart in the '70s, for a variety of reasons. The end of the '70s and beginning of the 80s were when the USSR got involved militarily, and encouraged our "Wilson War" to help them out. When that conflict ended, everyone except Pakistan and Saudi Arabia pretty much left them to themselves and that produced the rise of the Taliban. Don't mistake them with the Mujahadeen.

Us being there at this point isn't helping, and we need to get out of there. But the forces that have been at work inside, and around, that country aren't going away and it will not "leave them in peace" when we leave.

[raouldukelives]

11. I think we have succeeded in our mission

We've been able to use up a lot of military equipment and fund new toys that our military contractors love to make and our Wall St investors love to make money off.
Good to have a war every now & then to make room in warehouses and get new govt contracts to replace the used up gear.
If we can create more enemies to fight us later along the way that's a bonus.
Sorry about the whole peace thing. You have the bad luck of being born in a region that holds precious resources for our corporations.

[librechik]

13. "sorry, Afghans--I'm afraid you make too much money for the druglords

and their Western enablers. Those criminals will be there in secret if they can't be there openly.

signed, US interests

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Ingrates. The just don't understand that we're killing them for their own good.

Just like the Greeks, Romans, Mongols, and Brits did.

[Luminous Animal]

18. Kick.