Santa Fean Joins WH Protest on Afghan/Iraq Wars

[CodeManBob]

This Op-Ed piece was printed in the Sunday Jan 2 New Mexican:

MY VIEW: ROBERT STEARNS
Civil-Resistance Spotlight on Afghanistan, Iraq Wars
On Thursday December 16 in freezing snow, some 500 Americans, with
at least one from Santa Fe, took part in civil resistance at the White
House to underscore citizen opposition to our military action in
Afghanistan and Iraq. The majority were veterans of the armed forces.
Organized by Veterans for Peace and other groups, its participants
included the leaker of the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, an ex-
CIA analyst, an FBI whistleblower and a Pulitzer-winning journalist.
Some 135 of the resisters were arrested by D.C. police. Despite the
newsworthiness of the event, it was largely ignored by the mainstream
media. Yet the protest well represented widespread disenchantment
among fellow Americans, six in ten of whom said in a recent poll that
the Afghanistan war is “not worth fighting.”
The event coincided with release of the first full-scale review of
President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan. The review’s conclusions
were extremely disappointing to the millions of U.S. citizens who
oppose that war. Though the administration says it will, as promised,
begin to withdraw troops in July, it also signaled that we will remain
involved in major fighting until the new date of 2014 when Afghan
forces are expected to finally be able to pacify their country. Highly
questionable, since as even Defense Secretary Robert Gates concedes,
this part of the world has never had a strong central government.
Why does the Obama administration believe we have a vital national
interest that justifies the grim cost of American dead and wounded,
along with the far higher toll of Afghan casualties caused by our
being there. Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, has
seemingly vanished into the Pakistan wilderness and is largely
impotent. The ones now to fear are the Jihadist sympathizers in Yemen,
Somalia, Sudan and many other countries. Their ranks are constantly
swelled by Muslims around the world, angered at what they see as an
America on crusade. Rather than waste our soldiery in pursuit of
guerrilla snipers and bomb smugglers, we’d be far better off working
more with other nations on international police and detective work
aimed at foiling Al Qaeda and other terrorists before they can act.
Our NATO allies face the same deep public disapproval. Germany is
withdrawing its troops soon and Britain and France seem likely to
follow. Meanwhile, the corrupt Karzai government in Afghanistan, along
with its devious counterpart in Pakistan, are taking us for a costly
ride by bleeding our protective and developmental efforts there for
their own political gain and private profit. We taxpayers have spent
more than a trillion dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while our own
people face increasing joblessness and poverty. It’s clear we can’t
afford this type of grandiose foreign intervention.
The Afghan war, our nation’s longest, is ending its deadliest year.
It is well past time to stop digging deeper the hole that we are in.
Ken Mayers, former Marine officer and past president of Veterans for
Peace Santa Fe, was arrested at the White House protest. He said “This
small instance of civil resistance will not by itself make a
difference. But if it can contribute one spark among other sparks,
the fire of needed transformation may get the start that it needs.”

Robert Stearns is a veteran of World War II and a member of the Santa
Fe chapter of Veterans for Peace