Obama Spiritual Counselor: Change Course on Afghanistan

President Obama, formerly of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, is currently looking for a new spiritual home. In the meantime, he is reportedly taking religious counsel from several pastors, including the Rev. Jim Wallis.

How much counsel the president is taking from the president and chief executive of Sojourners magazine and key player in a Washington-based activist network that takes the same name remains to be seen.

But we can only hope that Obama is listening to Wallis on the question of how the United States should proceed in Afghanisatn.

Here is the pastor's latest call to action regarding that issue:

Today is the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war. Six years of violence, hundreds of thousands of deaths, countless billions of wasted funds, and endless sacrifice on the part of our military families. We commemorate this day with prayer and heavy hearts, but also with thankfulness that the end of this war appears to be in sight.

Afghanistan is a different story. The war there has dragged on for more than seven years and, by all accounts, is getting worse. We believe only a surge in funding for diplomacy and development -- not more military escalation -- will bring long-term peace to the troubled region.

Tell the president you believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan will not bring peace and stability.

Now is the right time to support solutions that could lead to a lasting peace. Some economic development activity is already taking place in Afghanistan, and we applaud the president's budget request to Congress to increase non-military assistance, providing additional funding for governance, reconstruction, and other development activities that will help counter extremists.

However, instead of increasing our military profile, the U.S. should shift funding from military offensives to providing security and protection for civilian efforts to erect schools for young women, strengthen civil society institutions, promote traditional justice mechanisms that encourage the rule of law, help to remove old weapons and land mines, foster local agricultural projects, and make similar efforts. Providing a better life for the people will provide greater stability than sending additional military forces.

Take action with me today to voice your support for full funding of development assistance to Afghanistan, and oppose continued offensive military strikes.

I encourage you to keep the people of Afghanistan and our troops in your prayers.

Blessings,

Jim Wallis

Comments (14)

1. yeah...the crescendo of uproar over the neglected suckhole of afghanistan is hard to ignore.

   run in there half-assedly and distracted by the unnecesary black hole of baghdad, sort of kinda give them a few crumbs of hope, then weasel our way out so they can go back to beating their women, decapitating apostates, and blowing up priceless heathen statues just like before...

   yay! victory!!!

   well at least we killed a lot of 'em...

   Posted by dexter666 at 03/19/2009 @ 7:08pm

2. i couldn't agree more. chasing the "Taliban" whatever that terms really means is costly and counterproductive when most people just want jobs.

   check this out http://jobsforafghans.org/

   Posted by TheySayNothing at 03/19/2009 @ 8:17pm

3. The escalation is being done by the Taliban. We are just responding. You want massive development? Try doing that with the Taliban killing anyone who tries to build anything. If you want development, you must have a certain amount of stability and the Taliban can only be "stabilized" by a double hard kick in the mouth, like right after 9-11.

   Posted by pyeatte at 03/19/2009 @ 9:50pm

4. Afghanistan, graveyard to every empire that has attempted to control it.

   Is the US so exceptional?

   Wallis knows the answer. And he knows the essential question as well ... how many Afghanis are we prepared to slaughter to force them to behave as we wish ... a million? two million? three?

   We killed over 2 million Vietnamese. They're still there, we're long gone. Worth it? For many military careers & Pentagon suppliers, yes. Otherwise ...

   Posted by sloper at 03/20/2009 @ 03:49am

5. I thought Jerimiah Write was his spiritual councillor.

   Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 03/20/2009 @ 06:46am

6. So, JOHN, its OK to take counsel from religious leaders as long as the counsel jives with liberal thought processes.

   Now I understand.

   Bush was just listening to the WRONG church guys, thats all.

   Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 03/20/2009 @ 07:10am

7. Wallis is just another Jerimiah Write whacko con man - going to get rich off donations from poor people.

   Posted by pyeatte at 03/21/2009 @ 12:30am

8. How ignorant to assume that Obamanations faux religousity bears any resemblance to christianity. Neither his avowed policies nor political agenda embraces christian morality nor christian biblical doctrine. They are indefensible except as perversions of such.

   Now when it comes to liberal extremist secular humanism there is great parellels to be found. He will never be commited to any military necessity that best serves the intrest of the U.S.A. and its citizens. Only in the intrest of self serving politicizing will any such decisions be made. So sit back and quit worrying as he has demonstrated he can best destroy our nation from within!!!!

   Posted by comancheamerican at 03/21/2009 @ 01:26am

9. Yes. From Think Progress this week on the Iraq War anniversary: http://thinkprogress.org/page/2/

   "Today marks six years since former President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq -- a preventive war of choice based on "intelligence fixed around the policy." Since that time, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, over 4,000 U.S. servicemen and women and hundreds more from coalition countries have died (tens of thousands more physically and mentally wounded), nearly 100,000 (or more) Iraqi civilians have parished and nearly 5 million have been displaced. Yet the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, and many other major American newspapers are ignoring the anniversary today. Only USA Today printed a story noting the anniversary of the invasion. Today's Progress Report has more on the good, the bad, and the ugly of developments surrounding the Iraq war over the last year."

   Posted by RLawrence at 03/21/2009 @ 2:00pm

10. As for Afghanistan: Obama was chatting with Leno this week, but it was Letterman who hit the nail on the head a few weeks ago when he told some joke with a punchline about the perpetrator of 9/11, then added: "Whatever happened to him, weren't we supposed to catch that guy? It's been nine years." Well, it's been seven and a half, but there you go -- no goals achieved, the anti-democratic forces in control of much of the country, and death and destruction everywhere.

    It's one thing for a centrist Democrat to thread the "weak on defense" needle by saying, "Less Iraq, More Afghanistan" -- but, in reality, the U.S. and allies don't seem to have a game planfor Afghanistan, either.

    Posted by RLawrence at 03/21/2009 @ 2:06pm

11. "Wallis is just another Jerimiah Write whacko con man - going to get rich off donations from poor people."

    You cannot, "pyeatte," prove that either Jim Wallis or Jeremiah Wright actually is rich, and you certainly cannot prove that either man WANTS to be rich.

    This is pure projection, "pyeatte." Look in the mirror if you want to find the greed that you attribute to others, without a single shred of evidence.

    Those of us who know the works of Jim Wallis understand that he is one of those rare evangelicals who do not consider it a sin to think, to face unpopular facts, and to apply the ethics of the Gospel creatively. Your baseless smear will not affect anyone who knows Jim Wallis.

    Nor do I expect the Reverend Wallis to lose his good reputation suddenly, as many conservative pastors have, in a humiliating, tearful confession of crass hypocrisy. Wallis is a man of complete integrity. The mud that you sling does not belong to him, nor does it stick to him.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 03/22/2009 @ 02:34am

12. Take a look at Jeremiah Wright's new home. Jim Wallis is just the followup - his turn will happen if he stays at it long enough. I have heard a couple of his ranting screeds. Isn't it amazing the only way to have "integrity" is to smear your own country. You guys on the left are all the same, always will be.

    Posted by pyeatte at 03/22/2009 @ 4:41pm

13. I definitely agree that the focus needs to be moved from military escalation to satisfying the real needs of the Afghan citizens like creating schools, cultivating agricultural projects and the others that Nichols mentioned. However, the Taliban cannot be forgotten. There needs to be some sort of negotiation with terrorist organizations in order to ensure the safety of Afghan citizens. In a NY times article by Carlotta Gall, the idea of peace negotiations was explored. The article discussed the trouble with peace talks. A western diplomat with long experience in Afghanistan stated that, "we make reconciliation sound like surrender; where has that ever worked?" I think this statement is key in that it demonstrates our complete misunderstanding of Afghan culture. We must understand them as people in order to engage in successful peace talks.

    Gall article:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/asia/11taliban.html?_r=1

    Posted by epierson at 03/22/2009 @ 10:11pm

14. Wrong again, "pyeatte." The only way to have integrity is to SPEAK THE TRUTH about your country, which the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has done. However, he has also SERVED his country with distinction.

    Wikipedia gives us the following history:

    "In 1961 Wright left college and joined the United States Marine Corps and became part of the 2nd Marine Division attaining the rank of private first class. In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. [...] Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Wright was assigned as part of the medical team charged with care of President Lyndon B. Johnson (see photo of Wright caring for Johnson after his 1966 surgery). Before leaving the position in 1967, the White House Physician, Vice Admiral Burkley, personally wrote Wright a letter of thanks on behalf of the United States President."

    As we all know, a few lines from the Reverend Wright have been extracted from their proper context -- a long sermon, the point of which was to show how we all fall short of perfection and need to return to God -- to make it appear that the Reverend Wright is an America-hater. He is not, and never was. Before you judge the Reverend Wright, the very LEAST that you need to to is to listen to his entire sermon. I'm rather certain that you won't, of course.

    Barack Obama, both as a candidate and as a president, may feel it convenient to bow to the winds of popular ignorance and to distance himself from his former pastor. I am under no such obligation.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 03/23/2009 @ 09:08am