Web Letters | The Nation

Web Letter

I must say that in all the years that we have been subscribers to The Nation, I have not read a more clear and reasonable paper on Afghanistan. The agency that is keeping the door closed to reasonable proposals such as Professor William Polk's is the Pentagon and the industrial-military complex. They are determined to maintain their power over foreign policy dominating the world and our Congress and the president. Polk has outlined a way that President Obama must take to escape the quagmire of another Vietnam. He also points out the dangerous encroachment of the Pentagon into our foreign policy. This article is but another reason for The Nation being one of the top news magaazines.

Web Letter

Surely the most powerful man in the world has access to the information in this article. Obama states that we’re Afghanistan to make us safer, but the occupation only makes us less safe. Given that, there must be some hidden reason to stay or escalate in Afghanistan. Is it money? An oil pipeline? Some backroom political alliance? Not wanting to be perceived as weak? With so many lives hanging in the balance, we need the news media to expose the reason so we can address it. It could be the most important fact we need to end this immoral and wasteful war.

Web Letter

Hey, if we abandon them, we can salve our consciences with foreign aid. How about more battery acid to help them blind more schoolgirls?

Web Letter

I appreciate Professor Polk’s attempt to shed light on the longstanding Kashmir conflict. However, I have to object to his assertion that given a plebiscite, “the Kashmiris would probably accept modestly enhanced autonomy under India.” This argument hardly seems to be based on any objective facts; in fact, virtually every objective attempt at determining public opinion in Kashmir has shown that the overwhelming majority of Kashmiris do not want to remain under Indian occupation. In a 1995 survey, India’s Outlook magazine found that only 7 percent of Kashmiris would be satisfied with greater autonomy under India; 19 percent favored merger with Pakistan, while 72 percent wanted independence. In 2002, UK-based MORI carried out another poll across Kashmir with similar results--9 percent of Kashmiris favoring Indian citizenship, 13 percent preferring Pakistani citizenship and 78 percent showing no preference (presumably because independence was not an option on the survey). More recently, a 2007 survey sponsored jointly by the Indian Express, Pakistan’s Dawn, and CNN-IBN, found that 87 percent of Kashmiris want independence, while only 7 percent want to remain under Indian rule.

I understand that these surveys can be flawed, and they are hardly a substitute for an impartial plebiscite. However, given the fact that they have consistently shown that only a small percentage (less than 10 percent) of Kashmir’s population would be satisfied with greater autonomy under Indian rule, I think Professor Polk’s assertion is rather absurd. Moreover, to allow India and Pakistan to “inch toward accommodation” as Professor Polk suggests, would almost inevitably result in a “solution” that is deeply unsatisfactory to the people of Kashmir. There can be no stable resolution to this conflict until the will of the Kashmiri people is taken into account.

Web Letter

For those who believe in "finishing the job" concerning war, invasion or getting back at those who somehow wronged us, I can sympathize with the notion that one should not start a project unless willing to see it through to the end. That is a principle (one of many) on which this nation was built. Through the lens of history, William Polk however, asks us to seriously look at the real politics of insurgency and its result. This request sent to President Obama needs serious attention. Had attention such as this been paid to other Near and Far East challenges in the past, (and for that matter, around the world affecting other Third World nations) the United States would not be in anything like the political and foreign policy straitjacket in which it now finds itself. This includes situations from as far back as the Boxer Rebellion in China to the Palestinian situation, where we are accused of helping to promote a colonization of the Palestinian territory.

We can speak of objectives to solve the Afghanistan problem until doomsday, but the quest for peace undeniably lies in the mutual and demonstrable respect that nations have for each other. Without question, the United States has not played that part well, especially in the recent past. That countries of Islamic origin begrudge the peace and quiet that America seeks is founded on history that has proven US deviancy; it is all too noticeable in how the United States, a "Christian" nation, has pandered to a nation such as Israel that has attacked and stolen land, forcibly, using the point of a gun, even though the Bible specifically prohibits supporting those that commit such atrocities. Additionally, we should not lose sight that there are counterparts in the Middle and Far East to scholars of William Polk's caliber. While William Polk is well versed in Islamic culture, his counterparts in the Islamic world also write about the values of Christianity and American culture. They ask then, that if the Bible forbids killing, war, coveting (not only a man's wife, but everything else of value), how is it that Americans are over here doing exactly what the Bible is forbidding them to do? We know that atrocities such as 9/11 don't just happen. Clearly, there was a reason and now, as long as we stay there, the reason will only be further embedded.

Had the United States really been interested in finding justice for the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which left almost 3,000 dead and their families distraught for years to come, we would have reached out to the Islamic world and requested a twenty-nation (Arab and US) summit to delve to the root of the problem. Although there likely would have been some nations that would not have attended, I suspect many would have, thereby leaving our current position to fiction. Instead, the foundation of this war was created by incompetents who have done nothing less than tie President Obama's hands in dealing productively with this war.

William Polk's conclusion rings like a clear bell. Some will argue that we may have squandered our chance to have the Pakistanis help us broker a deal with the Taliban. Yet, if we are to believe news accounts that purport to show that the Pakistani military still has connections with the Taliban, it is worth a try engaging the Pakistanis, to help us sit and negotiate an end to a war that will only push US forces and allies into bombing blunders that leave hundreds of civilians dead just because they happened to be at a wedding.

Web Letter

Open note to President Obama: Just read The Ugly American and get new advisors. Mr. Polk seems like a good start, especially if he knows at least two languages other than English (which should be a requirement for everyone who advises you on foreign affairs).

Web Letter

If 9.7 percent unemployment is promising, quadrupling the debt left by Bush, bureaucratization of the US economy through his health plan, then losing the war in Afghanistan would be the icing on the cake. Ummm, yummy.

Web Letter

I appreciate the thoughtful open letter from Professor Polk on the perils of defeating insurgency with only foreign troops, and share much of his concern. That said, his letter simply doesn't go far enough in positing a progressive plan for engagement around the world. It seems to fall back into reflexive antiwar isolationism as the "progressive" position, and we all know that is not very progressive.

Whether we are talking about ethnic cleansing in future Rwandas or Kosovos or international terrorism around the world, progressives need to wake up to the fact that powerful nations have serious responsibilities as a member and leader of a world community of nations, and if these responsibilities are ignored they will also adversely effect our ability to govern and become elected (or re-elected in Obama's case).

The sad fact ignored by Professor Polk's letter and by many progressives is that if we just withdraw and allow the Taliban to re-emerge as the de facto government in Afghanistan, we really do create the prospect of a another terrorist attack being planned by terrorist guests in the region. Such attack will instantly kill "any" prospect for an Obama re-election, as the critics could easily make the case that "Obama told us we took our eye off Afghanistan by invading Iraq, and now he too has made the same mistake and has made America less safe as a result."

Ultimately, ISAF-like forces that are truly international must replace the Unite States as the world cop. This is just common sense, in light of our history of being pushed into war because of the military-industrial-complex and other narrow economic interests that have very little to do with US or global security.

The world will not stand still simply because the US withdraws. Progressives need to take note of this fact and come up with a viable alternative strategy for dealing with the wide range of international threats--some of which are not tied to nationality nor directly affect the security of this nation.