Matthew Hoh and Daniel Ellsberg recently sat down for a conversation about the war in Afghanistan.
Matthew Hoh made headlines late last month when he resigned from the U.S. State Department. Hoh, 36, became the first known U.S. official to resign in protest over the war in Afghanistan. Ellsberg, gained notoriety in 1971, after he leaked parts of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times as part of an effort to end the Vietnam War, a war that he argued was “a wrongful war.”
Below are two clips from Hoh and Ellsberg’s exchange documented by Brave New Films.
Both wonder what the US is doing in Afghanistan, arguing that American hubris is one of the things keeping the country from learning the lessons of the Soviets’ War in Afghanistan.
Former CIA officer and author Robert Baer argues that “Afghanistan is a quagmire that everyone wants us in,” in a new video segment from the Brave New Foundation’s “Rethink Afghanistan” project.
Baer observes that Russia and Iran are seeking expansion and are happy that US troops are stuck in Afghanistan, whilst it is in Al Qaeda’s interests for the US to be in a war where Muslim civilian casualties are unavoidable.
The California Democratic Party speaks with an loud voice in national politics.
It is, by any reasonable measure, the biggest party in the biggest state in the nation.
And it is a well-organized, forward-looking organization that since the 1950s has had a tradition of delivering vital messages from the base to national Democratic leaders. Indeed, in the 1960s, California Democrats were among the first and loudest critics of President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to expand the war in Vietnam. They were not merely opposed to the war; they were worried, wisely, that committing resources, governing energy and political capital to an unwise and unnecessary war would undermine the ability of an otherwise popular Democratic president to deliver on his ambitious domestic agenda.
With their history and their heft in mind, it is reasonable to say that when California Democrats take a strong stand on a contentious issues, it matters — both as a signal with regard to popular sentiment within the party and as an indicator of the issues that could cause political headaches for a Democratic president.
So what does the California Democratic Party have to say about the global conflict that many believe could be for Barack Obama’s presidency what Vietnam was for Lyndon Johnson’s?
“End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.”
That’s the title of a resolution endorsed over the weekend by the 300-member executive board of the California party.
The resolution calls for establishing “a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel” and seeks “an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties.”
In place of a continuing U.S. military presence, the California Democrats are urging Obama “to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.”
That’s sound advice for a president who is wrestling with the issue of how to respond to a request from some military commanders for a surge of more troops into what looks to a many savvy observers like a quagmire.
An Afghanistan and Iraq veteran, Reyes was particularly blunt in his criticism of the corrupt regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The veteran told members of the California party’s executive board that: “We dishonor the patriotism and the sense of justice of our brave men and women by sending them to fight, proclaiming that they sacrifice for democracy and national security when really they struggle and die in support of nothing more than a proven criminal regime.”
In addition to bringing Reyes to the executive committee session, proponents of the resolution showed clips of Robert Greenwald’s groundbreaking documentary “Rethink Afghanistan” to drive home their points.
Winograd, who is challenging Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman, a war supporter, in a 2010 primary in a Los Angeles area district, called on state parties across the country to send similar anti-war messages.
“We need progressives in every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan,” said Winograd. “Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young into the room, and demand an end to this occupation that only destabilizes the region. There is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that requires we cease our role as occupiers if we want our voices to be heard. Yes, this is about Afghanistan — but it’s also about our role in the world at large. Do we want to be global occupiers seizing scarce resources or global partners in shared prosperity? I would argue a partnership is not only the humane choice, but also the choice that grants us the greatest security.”
…That investigative reporting was on full display here in the last week, as Reporter Aram Roston (supported by The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute) revealed that money is flowing from the Pentagon to insurgents in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. We’re literally paying insurgents to let our supply lines pass, so that our soldiers have supplies to fight insurgents. It’s an outrage, and it demonstrates once again the folly of escalation in the region as President Obama nears his fateful decision. Here’s MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and Brave New Film’s Robert Greenwald discussing the story:
Robert has been outspoken in his effort to encourage America–and the Obama Administration–to “Rethink Afghanistan.” We appreciate his work, and the efforts of Schultz, The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, and leading newspapers around the world (including The Guardian) who have helped move Aram Roston’s story into the mainstream in the Afghanistan strategy debate.
SAN DIEGO — While the Administration mulls four different levels of troop escalation in Afghanistan, the California Democratic Party today presented a very different position, as the party took a step towards rejecting any further U.S. military expansion in the war-torn Central Asian republic. On Saturday, a committee of the party’s executive board voted in support of a resolution which calls for an end to the 8-year military intervention in Afghanistan, including demands for a cessation of the aerial bombing campaign.
This stance represents the first significant opposition to the Administration’s current Afghanistan military policy from within the President’s own political party.
Noting that polls “show a majority of Americans are increasingly disturbed about the toll” of wounded and traumatized American troops, the resolution renews the call for a time-table for a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, adding a demand to “end to the use of mercenary contractors, as well as an end to the air war on civilian populations, and urges our President to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.” (full text can be found here.) The testimony of war veteran Rick Reyes was seen by many as instrumental to building broad support for the policy position. The former U.S. Marine Reyes declared his concerns that the policies of the last eight years have failed. “There is no military solution in Afghanistan. The problems in Afghanistan are social problems that a military cannot fix.”
Reyes, who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, told the committee:
“We dishonor the patriotism and the sense of justice of our brave men and women by sending them to fight, proclaiming that they sacrifice for democracy and national security when really they struggle and die in support of nothing more than a proven criminal regime.”
After his testimony to the Democratic Party’s executive board, Corporal Reyes spoke to the Progressive Caucus, citing his recent experience meeting with legislators in Washington D.C. The 29-year old former Marine urged members of Congress to rethink their Afghanistan positions before approving any further emergency appropriations. Reyes’ lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill were joined by former female Afghanistan Parliament member Malalai Joya.
A native of Los Angeles, Reyes served tours of duty in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. Reyes had previously testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 2009 — precisely 38 years to the date after a young Vietnam veteran named John Kerry posed his own question to the Senate, “How do you ask a person to be the last man to die for a mistake?”Reyes is motivated by his concerns for the safety and well-being of his fellow Marines. “Congress must hear more voices like ours before escalating this war any further. More veterans need to speak out.”
The Afghanistan resolution’s co-authors are prominent members of the Democratic Party of California, and include Progressive Caucus Chair Karen Bernal and Congressional Candidate Marcy Winograd. Joined by the party’s Women’s Caucus, Bernal and Winograd held a forum called “Exiting Afghanistan,” featuring clips from the new Robert Greenwald documentary “Rethink Afghanistan.” Resolution co-author and journalist Norman Solomon also recounted his experience meeting with displaced Afghanis living in a wretched refugee camp outside of Kabul. Solomon, a Sonoma County resident, served as a delegate for Barack Obama at the party’s 2008 nominating convention in Denver. Having passed through the resolutions committee successfully, the timely Afghanistan de-escalation resolution now goes to a Sunday floor vote of the Democratic party’s executive board.
Matthew Hoh, the highest-ranking foreign service officer to resign his post in Afghanistan, says he completely understands US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s move to privately speak out against an escalation of forces, given the corrupt central government in place in the country.
Hoh, the former Marine Corps captain who served in a civilian capacity in eastern and southern Afghanistan and made headlines with his resignation, participated in a panel discussion on the eight-year war after a screening of Robert Greenwald’s “Rethink Afghanistan” last night in Los Angeles. He believes that there is a window of opportunity for those who want to stop the escalation in Afghanistan while Barack Obama muses over his decision. “We have a window. Maybe not to end the war tomorrow, but to make it a year instead of four or five years, and save a lot of lives. We may not have this opportunity again.”
Hoh served under Eikenberry while in Afghanistan and did brief him a couple times about the provinces where he was posted. “I briefed, had a couple heart-to-heart talks with him. I’m glad he spoke out internally. And I’m not surprised.”
Hoh described Eikenberry as one of the more credible voices on the situation in the country. “He’s basically lived there since 2003, his wife lives there with him now.” But he was clear that Eikenberry was not alone in his skepticism of the Afghanistan project. “There are a lot of guys, not just in the foreign service but in the military, who are looking at this thing and they don’t understand what we’re doing there. I get emails all the time from junior and midlevel officers, telling me, ‘Keep it up. This makes no sense to us.’”
Hoh was joined in the panel discussion by antiwar activist and local radio host Sonali Kolhatkar, filmmaker Robert Greenwald and famed Vietnam-era activist Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon papers. Ellsberg praised Hoh for speaking out. “People are more aware of the internal dissents now than they ever were during Vietnam, because of people like Matthew,” he said. “We are at the same moment that Lyndon Johnson was in the summer of 1965, and there were a lot of dissenting voices in Washington then – George Ball, Clark Clifford, even Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President, much like today, who told Lyndon, ‘You will lose the nomination of your party if you go through with this.’ But now we have the possibility of acting as citizens to help stop this war. We know more today.”
Ellsberg called for Eikenberry to immediately return to Washington for Congressional hearings, along with Hoh. While Hoh has spoken to members of the Administration and Congress, he has not been invited to formally testify, nor has there been practically any floor debate or hearings on the matter of escalation, as deliberations have taken place entirely inside the White House. “(Eikenberry) should be brought immediately back to Congress,” Ellsberg said. “The range of debate has been between 10,000 or 25,000 or 40,000 more troops, not whether we stay or go. And that should change.”
For his part, Hoh said there’s a lot of receptivity to other points of view on the war in Washington. “That’s because this doesn’t pass the sniff test. It’s irrational and illogical, and they all know it. 60,000 troops doesn’t bring stop Al Qaeda. It doesn’t stabilize Pakistan. Our presence there doesn’t make us safer. The majority of the people fighting don’t want us or the central government in their valleys and villages. They feel like they’re defending their way of life.”
He had a particular scorn for Hamid Karzai, who he charged with operating a kleptocracy. “We’re propping up a government that isn’t worth dying for.”
