Britain must tell Obama: the alliance of denial has to endSimon Jenkins, The Guardian: Diplomacy, your hour has come. There is no way soldiers will find an exit from Afghanistan. They can deliver defeat or they can deliver bloody stalemate. They cannot deliver victory and every observer knows it. This conflict will end only when the courage being daily demanded of soldiers is also shown by politicians...
The president now owns Afghanistan. As a result, he and his British ally, Gordon Brown, are sucked into mendacity... Ministers know this. Why do they lie? The answer is because they are trapped in an alliance with America, a country also in denial...
After 9/11, local intelligence in Afghanistan screamed for America to be patient. An immediate 1,000-strong clerical shura in Kabul declared sympathy with the dead Americans and voted for Bin Laden and al-Qaida to be told to leave the country... Instead George Bush attacked and cemented their alliance, making Bin Laden the region's hero... The Taliban has never shown any interest in international terrorism, only in ridding their country of foreigners...
For progress to be made down this messy road, the gung-ho militarism of Petraeus and the British Army must be countered... The hyping of British casualties is wrong, as it suggests any withdrawal will be defeat. The Canadians, who have suffered terrible losses, have shown their sovereignty by signalling their intention to leave in 2011. Why not Britain?
EKOS: Canadians have turned decisively against Canada's participation in the military mission in Afghanistan... 'We have been polling on this question since the mission began,' said EKOS President Frank Graves... 'Opposition has grown from a trivial mid-teen level to nearly well over 50 per cent. Support has collapsed from more than 2 in 3 at the outset to just 1 in 3 now. And none of this is an ephemeral, excited response to news headlines; it has been a steady and gradual shift in public judgment of the mission.'
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: US Army Specialist Victor Agosto served a 13-month deployment in Iraq... 'What I did there, I know I contributed to death and human suffering.'... His experience in Iraq, coupled with educating himself about US foreign policy and international law, has led Agosto to refuse to deploy to Afghanistan... 'I'm not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong.'...
In November 2007, the Pentagon revealed that between 2003 and 2007 there had been an 80 percent increase in overall desertion rates in the Army... Between 2000 and 2006, more than 40,000 troops from all branches of the military deserted, more than half from the Army. Army desertion rates jumped by 42 percent from 2006 to 2007 alone...
Agosto stands willing to face the consequences of his actions. 'Yes, I'm fully prepared for this. I have concluded that the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] are not going to be ended by politicians or people at the top... They're responsive to corporate America. The only way to make them responsive to the needs of the people is for soldiers to not fight their wars. If soldiers won't fight their wars, the wars won't happen.'...
'One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.' -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
