On October 7, 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. The war is now 16 years old — and that’s not even counting the decade of U.S. intervention in the country during the Cold War.
Donald Trump once advocated the “speedy withdrawal” of U.S. troops from that country. As president, however, he’s gone in the opposite direction, demanding the U.S. must now “fight to win.”
As Phyllis Bennis, director of the IPS New Internationalism project, explains in this short video, Trump’s plans to extend the war he once supported ending are even more worrisome for their lack of transparency. He’s not said how many new troops he’ll send or how long they’ll be deployed. Worse still, civilian casualties in multiple U.S. wars have been on the rise since he took office — by 67 percent in just six months.
It’s clear by now that the solution to terrorism won’t come from using military power, Bennis explains. That can only be achieved by diplomacy. “It’s harder, it takes longer, it’s not as sexy, it’s not sexy on CNN, it’s not any of those things,” she concludes. “But it’s the only thing that will work.”
Video by Victoria Borneman and Peter Certo. Middle East expert Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Reprinted from Foreign Policy in Focus with permission.
Nobody knows how to end this war.
Actually, it’s pretty easy. Just stop shooting at people in Afghanistan and come home.
Perhaps.
Mutiny. Soft mutiny like VVAW used, ‘soft’ only in the context of not killing other soldiers. It’s very effective and works on the principle of “what if They call for war and nobody shows up?” and it only looks easy. From your first two minutes of Basic Training you’re told what to think and they make it mandatory to chant what They want you to believe. It’s the Room Without Darkness from Nineteen Eighty Four. The number of entrants is 40 for a reason. It’s the optimal group size for Pavlovian Conditioning. Air Farts terms, 40 to a Flight, 2 Flights to a Squadron. Conformity is strictly enforced. When you march you step in unison, and you’re “suggested” to chant while doing so. Even your underwear is ‘suggested’ which is code for “mandatory”. As Sgt. Garza and Sgt. Blum said, “you do what you are directly ordered, and if we suggest something, we suggest you treat it as an order”.
I’ve been out of the Farts for about 40 years and still start walking by putting my left foot first. Some of my fellow Airmen still speak and act as though they are in Tech School still. It’s that powerful. But it can be subverted. VVAW proved it.