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No Warlords Need Apply—A Call for Credible Peacemaking in Afghanistan

#1

No Warlords Need Apply—A Call for Credible Peacemaking in Afghanistan

Kathy Kelly, Buddy Bell

A second round of peace talks between Afghan government officials and Taliban representatives, expected to begin before the end of July, 2015, suggests that some parties to the fighting want to declare a cease fire. But even in the short time since the first round on July 7th, fighting has intensified. The Taliban, the Afghan government forces, various militias and the U.S. have ramped up attacks, across Afghanistan.

#2

Can we see an Afghanistan that was uplifted by decades-long cooperation between Russians and Americans? No, but I can imagine–“and I’m not the only one…” Afghanis bear the scars of the cold war as well as their tribal history. It’s complicated. It’s ugly. It doesn’t have to be. War is NOT the answer.

#3

The warlords in Afghanistan, may be evil, drug cartels and murderers of innocent people, but why is the #1 warlord in Afghanistan, that is guilty as hell of the same egregious offenses called in the Amerikan press the good guys? The U.S. military is nothing but a warlord from a foreign country that never belonged in Afghanistan in the first place!

#4

The only way to end war is to make peace profitable.

#5

Checkout my Counterpunch linked article on Obama’s portrayal of the Kurds. Second link is Professor Chomsky’s take on the situation.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/29/the-politics-of-betrayal-obama-backstabs-kurds-to-appease-turkey/

#6

“If they could have some realistic assurance of sustained resolve to help them reach these goals, they’d have good reason to link up and rise up in opposition to continued war.”

Rise up? I thought the sponsors of this article were a pacifist ngo? Non-violent protests works when the opposition has a conscious or is extremely dependent on public goodwill, for example the UK government prior India’s independence. Afgan war-lords don’t fit either of these models.

When the article by an NGO ends with a pitch to set up a trust fund adminstered by NGO’s, to do the impossible, the angle becomes acute.