IF THIS SPEECH WERE GIVEN TODAY BY MLK
IF THIS SPEECH WERE GIVEN TODAY BY MLK
Collated, edited, appropriated, and revised by Kevin Stoda for our times
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.html
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to THE REST OF THE PLANET AS WELL AS ASK THAT WE RENEW THE CONTRACT TO OUR OWN PEOPLES WHICH WAS OFFERED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE 1960S TO MANY OF OUR MOST MARGINAL PEOPLES.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war.
HOWEVER, THE CONTINUATION OF LOCATING OF AMERICAN TROOPS AND GREAT MILITARY POWER IN OVER 700 LOCATIONS AROUND THE GLOBE CONTINUES TO THREATEN OUR WORLD AND OUR WAY OF LIFE.
Nor does the human spirit [WITHIN US] move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, [I.E. THE SOCALLED WAR ON TERROR] we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
Some of us who have already LONG SINCE BEGUN to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.
WORSE STILL, WE CAN EXPECT TO BE ROASTED THEN IN NIGHTLY NEWS AND LAUGHED AT BY SO-CALLED REALISTS AND S0-CALLED IDEALISTS & CHRISTIANS ALL AROUND US.
We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is SHOULD BE THE first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U&feature=related
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, IRAQ, PAKISTAN, YEMEN, AND AFGHANISTAN many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask.
INTERESTINGLY, DAILY THE SAME QUESTION IS ALREADY BEING ASKED OF OUR PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA. I, HOWEVER, DO NOT TURN A DEAF EAR ONTO MY CONSCIENCE. MANY OF THE PRESIDENT’S AIDS AND STAFF MEMBERS, SUCH AS HILLARY CLINTON SHOW A DEAF EAR TO THE SHEER NUMBERS OF VICTIMS OF WAR AND WAR-MAKING VICTIMS IN THE USA AND ABROAD.
And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions AND DEAF SILENCE suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi, THE TALIBAN, AL-QUAIDA, Nor to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia NOR THE RICHEST MEN AND LARGEST MOVERS OR SHAKERS ON THE PLANET. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam, IRAQ, AND AFGHANISTAN. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam, ANY TERRORISTS, INHUMANE WARMAKERS ANYWHERE, Nor the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. Tonight, however, I wish to speak with Hanoi, KABUL, WARMAKERS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS MONGERS and …MOST IMPORTANTLY, my fellow Americans.
Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing . . . AND AFGHANISTAN into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in … AFGHANISTAN and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. DO YOUR RECALL THE END TO THE COLD WAR? DO YOU REMEMBER THE TALK OF A REAL PEACE DIVIDENDS BEING REINVESTED IN EVERY COMMUNITY IN AMERICA?
Then came the buildup in …AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, KUWAIT, YEMEN, AND ELSEWHERE and I watched this program OR PROJECT WE CALL AMERICA OR THE AMERICAN DREAM broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam, LEBANON, NICARAGUA, SALVADOR, GRENADA, KUWAIT, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, AND YEMEN continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last FORTY-three years, especially the last FORTY-three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" “WHAT ABOUT IRAQ?” “WHAT ABOUT AFGHANISTAN?””WHAT ABOUT THE WAR ON TERROR?”They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
I FIRST GAVE THIS SPEECH 43 YEARS AGO AND THE VIOLENCE AND GROWTH IN SPENDING--AND COMMITMENT TO VIOLENCE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS--HAS CONTINUED ALMOST UNABATED THE ENTIRE TIME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1L8y-MX3pg&feature=related
For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957, when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America."
IN 53 PLUS YEARS WE HAVE NOT STOPPED FIGHTING FOR THE SOUL OF AMERICA. WE HAVE NOT LOST FAITH AND WE WANT THOSE WHO HAVE LOST FAITH TO REGAIN IT.
We were convinced IN 1957 that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!
THERE WAS A RIVER AND WE ARE THE RIVER—AND WE ARE IN THE RIVER, AMERICA—TO SAVE THE SOUL OF AMERICA.
Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read… "AFGHANISTAN" It, THIS WAR, can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that "America will be" are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964.* And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission OF THAT YEAR, I.E. a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances.
THIS ALLEGIENCE—GREATER THAN NATIONAL ALLEGIENCE--CONTINUES, THOUGH, TO BE AN ALLEGIENCE TO THE SOUL OF AMERICA
But even if … IF SUCH A GREAT ALLEGIENCE were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men -- for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary, MUSLUM, ARAB, LATINO, ASIAN, WHITE, GAY, PURPLE, and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong, THE TALIBAN, AL-QUAEDA, or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
THIS IS A MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY, IT IS A MESSAGE OF HUMANISTS, IT IS A MESSAGE CONTAINED IN THE KORAN, IN THE TEACHINGS OF BUDDHA…YOU-NAME-IT. IT IS AT THE CRUX OF WHAT MAKES MAN DIFFERENT THAN THE BEASTS OR ANIMALS UNDER HEAVEN.
And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam, AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND ELSEWHERE and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that NOW-SOMEWHAT-FORGOTTEN peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost … SIX continuous decades now.
I think of them, too, THOSE IN AFGHANISTAN LIVING ALREEADY UNDER FOUR DECADES OF WAR because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.
They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954 -- in 1945 rather -- after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.
SIMILARLY, IT TOOK US OVER 5 YEARS TO ALLOW THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ TO HAVE SOME SELF-GOVERNANCE. SIMILARLY, WE ARE STILL PRESENT THERE. MEANWHILE, THIS VERY MONTH THE CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION HAS CONTINUED TO INCREASE U.S. MILITARY COMMITMENT TO WHAT-EVER-FORM OF GOVERNMENT IS THERE. HOWEVER, OUR INSATIABLE PREOCCUPATION WITH CONTROLLING OTHER’S DESITNIES MARCHES ONWARDS.
THIS HAS TAKEN PLACE EVEN THOUGH LEFT-AND-RIGHT VOICES IN AMERICA HAVE SPOKEN OUT AGAINST THIS NONSENSE AGAIN-AND-AGAIN.
With that TYPE OF tragic decision we HAVE rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China -- for whom the Vietnamese have no great love -- but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.
WITH THAT KIND OF PATRIARCHIAL DECISIONMAKING PROCESS, AMERICA HAS ONCE AGAIN LODGED ITSELF INDEFINATELY IN A GROUND WAR IN ASIA SINCE 2001—AND THERE IS NO REAL END IN SIGHT.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.
SIMILARLY, THE ONCE-VAUNTED NORTH AMERICAN TREATY ALLIANCE IS BEING PROPPED UP BY USA MILITARY DOLLARS, EQUIPMENT AND LIVES IN AFGHANISTAN—AND AT WHAT EXTREME COSTS, MILITARILY, SOCIALLY, FINANCIALLY, SPIRITUALLY, AMERICA?
After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.
NATURALLY, THIS IS ONLY PART OF THE WHOLE STORY. HOWEVER, IN THE CASE OF AFGHANISTAN AS A LONG-TERM MORAL, FINANCIAL QUAGMIRE WE FOUND FIRST A REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION AND NOW A DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION COMMITTED TO SHOWING THAT MULTIPLE BAD DECISIONS WILL MAKE THINGS RIGHT—AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL LOVE OR RESPECT THAT IN AMERICA IN THE END.
THAT IS A DREAM. THAT IS NOT REALITY ON THE GROUND, AMERICA.
THE FACT IS THAT ACCORDING TO BOTH THE D.O.D AND G.A.O EVERY DEAD AMERICAN SOLDIER COSTS IN DOLLARS 1 TO 2 MILLION DOLLARS ANUALLY—AND THE NUMBERS OF DEAD HAVE BEEN RISING FOR ALL OF THE PAST TWO YEARS. MEANWHILE, SCHOOLS DON’T HAVE TEACHERS. LIKEWISE, ELDERLY, POOR, AND NEED GO WITHOUT MEDICINE AND OTHERS WITHOUT HOMES—IN THE USA AND IN AFGHANISTAN.
CONCERNING, AFGHANISTAN HISTROY--DURING THE 1970S AND 1980S, The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow …AFGHANI (SOME PLAIN TERRORISTS), the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.
So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals AT TIMES with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one … TALIBAN-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children AND THE AGED. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children AND WOMEN degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers—EVEN IF THESE ARE ONLY LIES OR HALF-TRUTHED PROPAGANDA BY AL-QUAEA-TYPES.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords—THE WARLORDS AND CHIEFDOMS-ON-THETAKE-- and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land AND POLITICAL reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent …AFGHANISTAN we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have HELPED TO destroy… their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing MANY OF the nation's only ….STABLE FORCES. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of KABUL AND ELSEWHERE. We have corrupted their OLDER LEADERS, THEIR women and children--and killed their men.
Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets."
DO YOU REMEMBER THOSE IN VIETNAM—‘FORTIFIED HAMLETS’—NOT TOTALLY UNLIKE THE CURRENT GREEN ZONE IN BAGHDAD OR THE 500-MILLION DOLLAR EMBASSY PLANNED FOR AFGHANISTAN—AS AMERICANS REMAIN EMPOVERISHED AT HOME.
The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new …AFGHANISTAN on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.
….
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND ELSEWHERE and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in…THESE LONG-ENTRENCHED ASIAN CONFLICTS AND WARS is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are AND HAVE BEEN adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among… THE AFGHANI TRIBES AND FAMILIES—AS WELL AS AMONGST THE DOZENS OF OTHER“–STANS” [FROM KURDISTAN TO PAKISTANT & ON TO KAJIKASTAN], and the more sophisticated AMONG OUR FORCES surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, THE POWERFUL, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of …ALL OF ASIA. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double [OR TRIPLE THE] price of smashed hopes at home [AND SMASHED REGIONAL & LOCAL ECONOMY], and dealt death and corruption in THE MIDDLE EAST AND IN AFGHANISTAN.
I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. THIS IS THE TRUTH OF THE WELL-STUDIED AND PRACTICED MAN OF WHATEVER FAITH. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:
Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the hearts of the … ASIAN WAR VICTIMS and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.
Unquote.
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in AFGHANISTAN—EVEN AS IT HAD BECOME LONG AGO THAT THE U.S.A. LEADERSHIP HAD ANY INTEREST IN THE MASSES OF THOSE LIVING IN Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of …AFGHANISTAN immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we—AND OUR NATO PARTNERS--have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese, IRAQI, AFGHANI, AND OTHER ASIAN peopleS. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam AND THE MIDDLE EAST, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
I would like to suggest … THREE concrete things that our government AND ITS CITIZENS should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:
(1) SUPPORT THE PEACE JIRGA PROCESS, WHICH INCLUDE:
The Loya Jirga calls for several things:
• To act and comply by the teachings of Islam and respect the aspiration of the people of Afghanistan for lasting peace and ending war and fratricide through understanding and negotiations. The peace and reconciliation initiative shall be for and among Afghans only and does not include in anyway foreign extremist elements and international terrorist networks.
• No peace efforts should question the achievements made so far or their legal values, and should not lead to a new crisis in the country.
• As a gesture of a goodwill, to take immediate and solid action in freeing from various prisons those detained based on inaccurate information or unsubstantiated allegations;
• The government, in agreement with the international community, should take serious action in getting the names of those in opposition removed from the consolidated blacklist. The government and the international forces should guarantee protection and safety for those who join the peace process and should provide for a safe return of those in armed opposition;
• The disaffected in armed opposition should renounce violence and all other activities that result in killing our people and destroying the infrastructure, and should dissociate themselves from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups;
• The international community expedite the process of equipping, training and strengthening Afghan national security forces, so they can acquire the capability to take responsibility for providing security for their own country and people;
• The representatives want and urge a long-term international commitment, so Afghanistan does not become again a playground for regional conflicts, and that external interferences can be averted and thus space for stronger regional cooperation can be provided;
• They call on the international community to support the peace process led by the government of Afghanistan;
• The government, with public support, should take every necessary step to deliver good governance, make sure appointments are made on the basis of merit, and fight administrative and moral corruption as well as illegal property possession at both national and provincial level. This will boost public confidence in the government and the chances for a successful peace process;
• The people of Afghanistan demand a just peace which can guarantee the rights of its all citizens including women and children. For the purpose of social justice, the Jirga urges that laws be applied equally to all citizens of the country;
• A High Peace Council or Commission should be created to follow up on the recommendations made by the Jirga and the Peace Process. The Commission shall form a special committee to handle the issues related to the release and return to normal life of prisoners.
• The government and the international forces should guarantee protection and safety for those who join the peace process and should provide for a safe return of those in armed opposition
The West and the Muslim world, including Pakistan, should support this effort because it is a good first step towards peace.
Peace negotiations should start in Saudi Arabia with those Taliban elements who want to join. Others, like those firing grenades at the assembly, will stay out for now.
NATO must plan these negotiations as an integrated part of its overall strategy for Afghanistan, supplementing its military campaign.
Until now the U.S. plan has been lacking this element.
They should not wait for a successful military operation but act immediately in the framework of a new NATO double strategy of power and reconciliation that includes both soft and hard factors.
http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?Article_ID=18315,18267,18190,18148,18194
(2) FOLLOW EUROPE’S LEAD AND SEEK A MORE NON-VIOLENT PATH OF RESOURCE AND MANPOWER USAGE IN AFGHANISTAN. THIS MEANS SEEKING AN AFGHANI—RATHER THAN FIREPOWER SOLUTION.
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/355352/publicationFile/137226/100128-deutschesStrategiepapier.pdf;jsessionid=CE7756C44A6340605014BA1BC3249CD9
(3) TAKE A MORE SPIRITUAL AND SPIRITUALLY UNITING PATH TO SOLVE THE AFGHANISTAN DILEMMA
AS MANY GOOD THEOLOGIANS, SUCH AS SUSAN BROOKS THISTLETHWAITE, AND SPIRITUAL PEOPLE HAVE NOTED CONCERNING WAR IN GENERAL:
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/susan_brooks_thistlethwaite/2010/06/are_we_there_yet_the_ethics_of_a_prudent_exit_from_afghanistan.html
First, no war is "necessary." The only thing that is actually necessary is greater peace and stability in the world, and there are many paths to get there. Force is becoming more and more a "last resort" because in today's world, the use of force just seems to lead to the use of more force.
One of the great moral hazards of our time is that wars don't seem to end. There is the creeping concept of the "long war," the idea that military engagement can have no real end because modern war has no end. And it is true that many regions of the world are not exactly at war, at least by the old standards of war, and they are by no means at peace, if by peace you mean human security from organized violence by "insurgents."
Older thinking on war and peace can still be useful here. Just War theory, the tradition of moral reasoning on war and peace fashioned by two Christian saints, asks some useful questions of those who would engage in war. One very useful question is whether there can possibly be a "good outcome" for a war. That question is supposed to be asked before you undertake to engage in armed combat. There is supposed to be a "there" and you are supposed to be able to know it when you see it. Even now, Americans from the highest level of government to the ordinary citizen need to keep asking and striving to answer the question of what "good outcome" means for today's conflicts. It may very well not include the primary use of military force, but instead include involving regional stakeholders through diplomacy, involving national stakeholders in a conflict resolution processes, and the economic empowerment of ordinary citizens even in on-going conflict situations. People need a stake in the stability of their own society or they won't "own" the peace. This is very much the case in Afghanistan.
Second, it is necessary to know what peace looks like, and how it comes about. A prudent exit strategy will come about because the concrete elements of peace are known and pursued in a practical and coordinated fashion. For example, this will have to include the realization that indigenous forces like the Taliban, or at least some members of the Taliban, must be involved in "getting there" or protracted civil war will continue whether we stay or go. There are now relatively few al Qaeda members in Afghanistan. They are in caves on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are not a spent force, by any means, but dealing with the Taliban in practical and prudent manner is a crucial issue for crafting an exit strategy for Afghanistan.
It was absolutely fascinating, and a modest source for hope for the U.S. beginning to exit from Afghanistan in a prudent way, to listen to the Senate Confirmation hearings of General Petraeus. Under signs of "success" to date in Afghanistan, the "immunization of children," the increase of children attending school from one million under the Taliban to now "seven million," and the Peace Jirga recently held in Kabul were the items listed by the General. Thus, when General Petraeus later affirmed his commitment to a "civil-military partnership" in the question and answer session, it had the ring of truth.
While the recent "Peace Jirga" had many problems, not the least of which were the exclusion of key stakeholders, yet the controversial issue of engaging in conflict resolution processes with "moderate" Taliban elements who agree to lay down their arms and accept the Afghan Constitution, did get raised.
This is the kind of on-the-ground peacemaking that those who plan for an exit from Afghanistan must consider most seriously. This is now called a "Just Peace" approach. Just Peace is the emerging fourth paradigm on thinking about peace and war in today's world, beyond pacifism, Just War, and Crusade. Just Peace has as its goal defining not an abstract concept of peace, but the "roadmap" for how peace is actually created on the ground, and how this has been done successfully in the past to provide a concrete "roadmap" for the future. Some people believe, myself included, that "Just Peace" is a part of an emerging "Obama Doctrine," though it is unclear to me how big a part.
At the end of the day, however, the best peace practices will only make some peace in Afghanistan, and some insurgency will remain, perhaps for a long time; some Afghans will step up, and some will also not step up, to building their own nation. This is a case for exiting sooner rather than later, as a protracted U.S. military presence may very well keep, or at least get in the way of, Afghans from coming to their own solutions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=130J-FdZDtY&feature=fvw
Collated, edited, appropriated, and revised by Kevin Stoda for our times
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.html
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to THE REST OF THE PLANET AS WELL AS ASK THAT WE RENEW THE CONTRACT TO OUR OWN PEOPLES WHICH WAS OFFERED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE 1960S TO MANY OF OUR MOST MARGINAL PEOPLES.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war.
HOWEVER, THE CONTINUATION OF LOCATING OF AMERICAN TROOPS AND GREAT MILITARY POWER IN OVER 700 LOCATIONS AROUND THE GLOBE CONTINUES TO THREATEN OUR WORLD AND OUR WAY OF LIFE.
Nor does the human spirit [WITHIN US] move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, [I.E. THE SOCALLED WAR ON TERROR] we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
Some of us who have already LONG SINCE BEGUN to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.
WORSE STILL, WE CAN EXPECT TO BE ROASTED THEN IN NIGHTLY NEWS AND LAUGHED AT BY SO-CALLED REALISTS AND S0-CALLED IDEALISTS & CHRISTIANS ALL AROUND US.
We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is SHOULD BE THE first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U&feature=related
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, IRAQ, PAKISTAN, YEMEN, AND AFGHANISTAN many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask.
INTERESTINGLY, DAILY THE SAME QUESTION IS ALREADY BEING ASKED OF OUR PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA. I, HOWEVER, DO NOT TURN A DEAF EAR ONTO MY CONSCIENCE. MANY OF THE PRESIDENT’S AIDS AND STAFF MEMBERS, SUCH AS HILLARY CLINTON SHOW A DEAF EAR TO THE SHEER NUMBERS OF VICTIMS OF WAR AND WAR-MAKING VICTIMS IN THE USA AND ABROAD.
And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions AND DEAF SILENCE suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi, THE TALIBAN, AL-QUAIDA, Nor to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia NOR THE RICHEST MEN AND LARGEST MOVERS OR SHAKERS ON THE PLANET. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam, IRAQ, AND AFGHANISTAN. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam, ANY TERRORISTS, INHUMANE WARMAKERS ANYWHERE, Nor the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. Tonight, however, I wish to speak with Hanoi, KABUL, WARMAKERS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS MONGERS and …MOST IMPORTANTLY, my fellow Americans.
Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing . . . AND AFGHANISTAN into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in … AFGHANISTAN and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. DO YOUR RECALL THE END TO THE COLD WAR? DO YOU REMEMBER THE TALK OF A REAL PEACE DIVIDENDS BEING REINVESTED IN EVERY COMMUNITY IN AMERICA?
Then came the buildup in …AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, KUWAIT, YEMEN, AND ELSEWHERE and I watched this program OR PROJECT WE CALL AMERICA OR THE AMERICAN DREAM broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam, LEBANON, NICARAGUA, SALVADOR, GRENADA, KUWAIT, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, AND YEMEN continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last FORTY-three years, especially the last FORTY-three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, "What about Vietnam?" “WHAT ABOUT IRAQ?” “WHAT ABOUT AFGHANISTAN?””WHAT ABOUT THE WAR ON TERROR?”They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
I FIRST GAVE THIS SPEECH 43 YEARS AGO AND THE VIOLENCE AND GROWTH IN SPENDING--AND COMMITMENT TO VIOLENCE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS--HAS CONTINUED ALMOST UNABATED THE ENTIRE TIME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1L8y-MX3pg&feature=related
For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957, when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America."
IN 53 PLUS YEARS WE HAVE NOT STOPPED FIGHTING FOR THE SOUL OF AMERICA. WE HAVE NOT LOST FAITH AND WE WANT THOSE WHO HAVE LOST FAITH TO REGAIN IT.
We were convinced IN 1957 that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!
THERE WAS A RIVER AND WE ARE THE RIVER—AND WE ARE IN THE RIVER, AMERICA—TO SAVE THE SOUL OF AMERICA.
Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read… "AFGHANISTAN" It, THIS WAR, can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that "America will be" are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964.* And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission OF THAT YEAR, I.E. a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances.
THIS ALLEGIENCE—GREATER THAN NATIONAL ALLEGIENCE--CONTINUES, THOUGH, TO BE AN ALLEGIENCE TO THE SOUL OF AMERICA
But even if … IF SUCH A GREAT ALLEGIENCE were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men -- for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary, MUSLUM, ARAB, LATINO, ASIAN, WHITE, GAY, PURPLE, and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong, THE TALIBAN, AL-QUAEDA, or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
Finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
THIS IS A MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY, IT IS A MESSAGE OF HUMANISTS, IT IS A MESSAGE CONTAINED IN THE KORAN, IN THE TEACHINGS OF BUDDHA…YOU-NAME-IT. IT IS AT THE CRUX OF WHAT MAKES MAN DIFFERENT THAN THE BEASTS OR ANIMALS UNDER HEAVEN.
And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam, AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND ELSEWHERE and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that NOW-SOMEWHAT-FORGOTTEN peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost … SIX continuous decades now.
I think of them, too, THOSE IN AFGHANISTAN LIVING ALREEADY UNDER FOUR DECADES OF WAR because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.
They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954 -- in 1945 rather -- after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.
SIMILARLY, IT TOOK US OVER 5 YEARS TO ALLOW THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ TO HAVE SOME SELF-GOVERNANCE. SIMILARLY, WE ARE STILL PRESENT THERE. MEANWHILE, THIS VERY MONTH THE CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION HAS CONTINUED TO INCREASE U.S. MILITARY COMMITMENT TO WHAT-EVER-FORM OF GOVERNMENT IS THERE. HOWEVER, OUR INSATIABLE PREOCCUPATION WITH CONTROLLING OTHER’S DESITNIES MARCHES ONWARDS.
THIS HAS TAKEN PLACE EVEN THOUGH LEFT-AND-RIGHT VOICES IN AMERICA HAVE SPOKEN OUT AGAINST THIS NONSENSE AGAIN-AND-AGAIN.
With that TYPE OF tragic decision we HAVE rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China -- for whom the Vietnamese have no great love -- but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.
WITH THAT KIND OF PATRIARCHIAL DECISIONMAKING PROCESS, AMERICA HAS ONCE AGAIN LODGED ITSELF INDEFINATELY IN A GROUND WAR IN ASIA SINCE 2001—AND THERE IS NO REAL END IN SIGHT.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.
SIMILARLY, THE ONCE-VAUNTED NORTH AMERICAN TREATY ALLIANCE IS BEING PROPPED UP BY USA MILITARY DOLLARS, EQUIPMENT AND LIVES IN AFGHANISTAN—AND AT WHAT EXTREME COSTS, MILITARILY, SOCIALLY, FINANCIALLY, SPIRITUALLY, AMERICA?
After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.
NATURALLY, THIS IS ONLY PART OF THE WHOLE STORY. HOWEVER, IN THE CASE OF AFGHANISTAN AS A LONG-TERM MORAL, FINANCIAL QUAGMIRE WE FOUND FIRST A REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION AND NOW A DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION COMMITTED TO SHOWING THAT MULTIPLE BAD DECISIONS WILL MAKE THINGS RIGHT—AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL LOVE OR RESPECT THAT IN AMERICA IN THE END.
THAT IS A DREAM. THAT IS NOT REALITY ON THE GROUND, AMERICA.
THE FACT IS THAT ACCORDING TO BOTH THE D.O.D AND G.A.O EVERY DEAD AMERICAN SOLDIER COSTS IN DOLLARS 1 TO 2 MILLION DOLLARS ANUALLY—AND THE NUMBERS OF DEAD HAVE BEEN RISING FOR ALL OF THE PAST TWO YEARS. MEANWHILE, SCHOOLS DON’T HAVE TEACHERS. LIKEWISE, ELDERLY, POOR, AND NEED GO WITHOUT MEDICINE AND OTHERS WITHOUT HOMES—IN THE USA AND IN AFGHANISTAN.
CONCERNING, AFGHANISTAN HISTROY--DURING THE 1970S AND 1980S, The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow …AFGHANI (SOME PLAIN TERRORISTS), the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.
So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals AT TIMES with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one … TALIBAN-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children AND THE AGED. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children AND WOMEN degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers—EVEN IF THESE ARE ONLY LIES OR HALF-TRUTHED PROPAGANDA BY AL-QUAEA-TYPES.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords—THE WARLORDS AND CHIEFDOMS-ON-THETAKE-- and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land AND POLITICAL reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent …AFGHANISTAN we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have HELPED TO destroy… their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing MANY OF the nation's only ….STABLE FORCES. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of KABUL AND ELSEWHERE. We have corrupted their OLDER LEADERS, THEIR women and children--and killed their men.
Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets."
DO YOU REMEMBER THOSE IN VIETNAM—‘FORTIFIED HAMLETS’—NOT TOTALLY UNLIKE THE CURRENT GREEN ZONE IN BAGHDAD OR THE 500-MILLION DOLLAR EMBASSY PLANNED FOR AFGHANISTAN—AS AMERICANS REMAIN EMPOVERISHED AT HOME.
The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new …AFGHANISTAN on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.
….
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND ELSEWHERE and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in…THESE LONG-ENTRENCHED ASIAN CONFLICTS AND WARS is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are AND HAVE BEEN adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among… THE AFGHANI TRIBES AND FAMILIES—AS WELL AS AMONGST THE DOZENS OF OTHER“–STANS” [FROM KURDISTAN TO PAKISTANT & ON TO KAJIKASTAN], and the more sophisticated AMONG OUR FORCES surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, THE POWERFUL, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of …ALL OF ASIA. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double [OR TRIPLE THE] price of smashed hopes at home [AND SMASHED REGIONAL & LOCAL ECONOMY], and dealt death and corruption in THE MIDDLE EAST AND IN AFGHANISTAN.
I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. THIS IS THE TRUTH OF THE WELL-STUDIED AND PRACTICED MAN OF WHATEVER FAITH. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:
Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the hearts of the … ASIAN WAR VICTIMS and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.
Unquote.
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in AFGHANISTAN—EVEN AS IT HAD BECOME LONG AGO THAT THE U.S.A. LEADERSHIP HAD ANY INTEREST IN THE MASSES OF THOSE LIVING IN Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of …AFGHANISTAN immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we—AND OUR NATO PARTNERS--have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese, IRAQI, AFGHANI, AND OTHER ASIAN peopleS. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam AND THE MIDDLE EAST, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
I would like to suggest … THREE concrete things that our government AND ITS CITIZENS should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:
(1) SUPPORT THE PEACE JIRGA PROCESS, WHICH INCLUDE:
The Loya Jirga calls for several things:
• To act and comply by the teachings of Islam and respect the aspiration of the people of Afghanistan for lasting peace and ending war and fratricide through understanding and negotiations. The peace and reconciliation initiative shall be for and among Afghans only and does not include in anyway foreign extremist elements and international terrorist networks.
• No peace efforts should question the achievements made so far or their legal values, and should not lead to a new crisis in the country.
• As a gesture of a goodwill, to take immediate and solid action in freeing from various prisons those detained based on inaccurate information or unsubstantiated allegations;
• The government, in agreement with the international community, should take serious action in getting the names of those in opposition removed from the consolidated blacklist. The government and the international forces should guarantee protection and safety for those who join the peace process and should provide for a safe return of those in armed opposition;
• The disaffected in armed opposition should renounce violence and all other activities that result in killing our people and destroying the infrastructure, and should dissociate themselves from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups;
• The international community expedite the process of equipping, training and strengthening Afghan national security forces, so they can acquire the capability to take responsibility for providing security for their own country and people;
• The representatives want and urge a long-term international commitment, so Afghanistan does not become again a playground for regional conflicts, and that external interferences can be averted and thus space for stronger regional cooperation can be provided;
• They call on the international community to support the peace process led by the government of Afghanistan;
• The government, with public support, should take every necessary step to deliver good governance, make sure appointments are made on the basis of merit, and fight administrative and moral corruption as well as illegal property possession at both national and provincial level. This will boost public confidence in the government and the chances for a successful peace process;
• The people of Afghanistan demand a just peace which can guarantee the rights of its all citizens including women and children. For the purpose of social justice, the Jirga urges that laws be applied equally to all citizens of the country;
• A High Peace Council or Commission should be created to follow up on the recommendations made by the Jirga and the Peace Process. The Commission shall form a special committee to handle the issues related to the release and return to normal life of prisoners.
• The government and the international forces should guarantee protection and safety for those who join the peace process and should provide for a safe return of those in armed opposition
The West and the Muslim world, including Pakistan, should support this effort because it is a good first step towards peace.
Peace negotiations should start in Saudi Arabia with those Taliban elements who want to join. Others, like those firing grenades at the assembly, will stay out for now.
NATO must plan these negotiations as an integrated part of its overall strategy for Afghanistan, supplementing its military campaign.
Until now the U.S. plan has been lacking this element.
They should not wait for a successful military operation but act immediately in the framework of a new NATO double strategy of power and reconciliation that includes both soft and hard factors.
http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?Article_ID=18315,18267,18190,18148,18194
(2) FOLLOW EUROPE’S LEAD AND SEEK A MORE NON-VIOLENT PATH OF RESOURCE AND MANPOWER USAGE IN AFGHANISTAN. THIS MEANS SEEKING AN AFGHANI—RATHER THAN FIREPOWER SOLUTION.
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/355352/publicationFile/137226/100128-deutschesStrategiepapier.pdf;jsessionid=CE7756C44A6340605014BA1BC3249CD9
(3) TAKE A MORE SPIRITUAL AND SPIRITUALLY UNITING PATH TO SOLVE THE AFGHANISTAN DILEMMA
AS MANY GOOD THEOLOGIANS, SUCH AS SUSAN BROOKS THISTLETHWAITE, AND SPIRITUAL PEOPLE HAVE NOTED CONCERNING WAR IN GENERAL:
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/susan_brooks_thistlethwaite/2010/06/are_we_there_yet_the_ethics_of_a_prudent_exit_from_afghanistan.html
First, no war is "necessary." The only thing that is actually necessary is greater peace and stability in the world, and there are many paths to get there. Force is becoming more and more a "last resort" because in today's world, the use of force just seems to lead to the use of more force.
One of the great moral hazards of our time is that wars don't seem to end. There is the creeping concept of the "long war," the idea that military engagement can have no real end because modern war has no end. And it is true that many regions of the world are not exactly at war, at least by the old standards of war, and they are by no means at peace, if by peace you mean human security from organized violence by "insurgents."
Older thinking on war and peace can still be useful here. Just War theory, the tradition of moral reasoning on war and peace fashioned by two Christian saints, asks some useful questions of those who would engage in war. One very useful question is whether there can possibly be a "good outcome" for a war. That question is supposed to be asked before you undertake to engage in armed combat. There is supposed to be a "there" and you are supposed to be able to know it when you see it. Even now, Americans from the highest level of government to the ordinary citizen need to keep asking and striving to answer the question of what "good outcome" means for today's conflicts. It may very well not include the primary use of military force, but instead include involving regional stakeholders through diplomacy, involving national stakeholders in a conflict resolution processes, and the economic empowerment of ordinary citizens even in on-going conflict situations. People need a stake in the stability of their own society or they won't "own" the peace. This is very much the case in Afghanistan.
Second, it is necessary to know what peace looks like, and how it comes about. A prudent exit strategy will come about because the concrete elements of peace are known and pursued in a practical and coordinated fashion. For example, this will have to include the realization that indigenous forces like the Taliban, or at least some members of the Taliban, must be involved in "getting there" or protracted civil war will continue whether we stay or go. There are now relatively few al Qaeda members in Afghanistan. They are in caves on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are not a spent force, by any means, but dealing with the Taliban in practical and prudent manner is a crucial issue for crafting an exit strategy for Afghanistan.
It was absolutely fascinating, and a modest source for hope for the U.S. beginning to exit from Afghanistan in a prudent way, to listen to the Senate Confirmation hearings of General Petraeus. Under signs of "success" to date in Afghanistan, the "immunization of children," the increase of children attending school from one million under the Taliban to now "seven million," and the Peace Jirga recently held in Kabul were the items listed by the General. Thus, when General Petraeus later affirmed his commitment to a "civil-military partnership" in the question and answer session, it had the ring of truth.
While the recent "Peace Jirga" had many problems, not the least of which were the exclusion of key stakeholders, yet the controversial issue of engaging in conflict resolution processes with "moderate" Taliban elements who agree to lay down their arms and accept the Afghan Constitution, did get raised.
This is the kind of on-the-ground peacemaking that those who plan for an exit from Afghanistan must consider most seriously. This is now called a "Just Peace" approach. Just Peace is the emerging fourth paradigm on thinking about peace and war in today's world, beyond pacifism, Just War, and Crusade. Just Peace has as its goal defining not an abstract concept of peace, but the "roadmap" for how peace is actually created on the ground, and how this has been done successfully in the past to provide a concrete "roadmap" for the future. Some people believe, myself included, that "Just Peace" is a part of an emerging "Obama Doctrine," though it is unclear to me how big a part.
At the end of the day, however, the best peace practices will only make some peace in Afghanistan, and some insurgency will remain, perhaps for a long time; some Afghans will step up, and some will also not step up, to building their own nation. This is a case for exiting sooner rather than later, as a protracted U.S. military presence may very well keep, or at least get in the way of, Afghans from coming to their own solutions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=130J-FdZDtY&feature=fvw
Labels: IF THIS SPEECH WERE GIVEN TODAY BY MLK riverside church
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 9:40 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home