As long as there are U.S. military forces in Afghanistan there will be no peace or security for Afghanistan or the U.S.
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) calls on the United States government to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan and to bring to an endto the 15-year old debacle.
U.S. military intervention is a proven failure. The drones, bombs, soldiers, night raids, and support for one of the most corrupt regimes in the world has not made life better or brought security to the Afghan people. It has led to 2.5 million refugees, 700,000 internally displaced persons – per the UNHCR – and many thousands of deaths.
President Obama’s announcement on October 15 that the United States will retain troops in Afghanistan beyond his term in office comes on the heels of a shocking U.S. war crime. On October 3, 2015, U.S. forces bombed a Doctors Without Borders/Médecines Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 22 people including doctors, nurses and children.
United for Peace and Justice reiterates its call for an American military withdrawal from Afghanistan and for the Obama Administration U.S. to pursue an inclusive, focused diplomatic solution to the crisis in that nation, which has been in a state of war since the late 1970s.
The American decision to retain troops in Afghanistan, in conjunction with its expanding military role in Iraq and Syria highlights the necessity for a mobilized, vigorous peace movement. Please support UFPJ’s work to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and to demand economic and social justice at home by making a generous donation now.
Many thanks!
Terry Rockefeller, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, and
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, on behalf of the UFPJ Coordinating Committee
Thank you to UFPJ for its statement calling for American military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
President Obama’s statement is troubling on two counts, the first of which is obvious: the extension of U.S. military involvement. The second is that President Obama framed the extension in either an unsupported or misleading way. He said, “Our forces therefore remain engaged in two narrow but critical missions — training Afghan forces, and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al Qaeda. He reiterated that statement in the same speech.
In 2010 then CIA Director Leon Panetta said that there were 50 to 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and maybe less. The President made no claim that the number of al Qaeda in Afghanistan has grown. He either needed to make that argument or be straight-forward about the real task — which appears to be: fighting the Taliban, a group without international ambitions, and hence a much different threat from al Qaeda.