[haw-info] HAW Steering Committee statements related to the Afghanistan war

[Jim O'Brien]

*To members and friends of Historians Against the War,
*

*
*

*The HAW Steering Committee has voted to adopt the following two statements
related to the war in Afghanistan.*

* *

* *

*Statement on military resistance:*



*This statement was submitted by Staughton Lynd and approved by the HAW
Steering Committee.  Correspondence on it should be sent to another member
of the Steering Committee, Carl Mirra, a former military resister and author
of **Soldiers and Citizens: An Oral History of Operation Iraqi Freedom from
the Battlefield to the Pentagon.**  His e-mail address is carlmirra at aol.com.
*
**



Historians Against the War supports soldiers in the United States military
who refuse to fight in Afghanistan, either as conscientious objectors or on
the grounds that the United States is committing war crimes forbidden by
Nuremburg and the Army Field Manual, such as the use of drone aircraft in
Pakistan.





*Statement on Escalation in Afghanistan*



*This statement originated in a draft suggested by Herbert Shapiro, emeritus
history professor at the University of Cincinnati.  It was amended somewhat
in discussions within the Steering Committee and adopted. *



Historians Against War (HAW) expresses its opposition to the escalation of
the Afghanistan War announced by President Obama in his December 1 speech at
West Point. One again we are told the United States must increase its
commitment of human and material resources in support of a government,
steeped in corruption, that fails to demonstrate support of a majority of
its country’s population.


In his speech, President Obama took issue with any claim that Afghanistan is
another Vietnam. The two conflicts are not carbon copies of each other but
there are distinct similarities. And if we go on with the Afghan War it may
be that we have not fully learned the lessons of Vietnam.


The Vietnamese would not yield to a counter-insurgency that believed sending
increasing numbers of troops, dropping more and more napalm upon them, and
flying more bombing runs was a formula for victory. They would not yield to
a strategy that could not distinguish between soldiers and civilians and
pretended that a discredited Saigon regime had the support of the people
over whom it ruled.


In Afghanistan we once more follow the path of escalation, inflicting
“collateral” damage on a civilian population and propping up a corrupt
government. In the present war we once more adopt a “guns not butter”
policy, making war while undermining our ability to devote the resources
needed to make the economic reforms so urgently needed at home.


Afghanistan’s own recent history provides further reason for opposing the
Obama administration’s current course of action. The Soviet experience of
the late 1970s and early 1980s dramatically reinforced Afghanistan’s role as
the “graveyard of empires.” At the same time, U.S. intervention in the form
of aid to the most reactionary anti-Soviet forces helped lay the groundwork
for the emergence of al-Qaeda.


HAW urges a change in direction. We need an Afghanistan policy that includes
a full, early, and orderly withdrawal of U.S. military forces, economic
assistance to Afghani civil society, and a relinquishment of any project for
permanent U.S. bases.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stopthewars.org/pipermail/haw-info_stopthewars.org/attachments/20091221/589d91e1/attachment.html>