Rethinking Afghanistan

Posted by Geoff_Kennedy

Posted: November 4, 2009 - 3:59 pm

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A friend asked me to mention the upcoming documentary, “Rethink Afghanistan,” by Robert Greenwald to be shown this Friday at 7PM in room 118 of the Social Sciences Building at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

After considering the request, I thought it might be a good idea for me to do exactly what the movie proposes. I have never publicly opposed the war in Afghanistan, not because I supported it, but because the occupation of Iraq drew my attention and my outrage away from the other war.

I had to ask myself why we got into this Afghanistan war in the first place. From what I remember, our government accused the Taliban government of harboring al Qaida terrorists.

Afghanistan isn’t the only country to harbor terrorists. To my knowledge, Guatemala hasn’t driven out the death squad terrorists linked to the murders of 200,000 civilians in that country. I’m unaware that neighboring El Salvador has gone after the terrorists linked to 70,000 murders in that country.

Then there’s the United States of America. Robert L. Zangrando’s “Reader’s Companion to American History” lists 4,743 lynchings from 1882 to 1968 in our own country. There are no exact figures on how many lynchings were committed by the terrorists in the Ku Klux Klan, but Zangrando’s book accounts for 3,446 black Americans lynched. Last I looked the homegrown terrorist group is still around and still protected by US laws their members so eagerly broke. There’s no absolute proof but considerable evidence the KKK terrorists have murdered more Americans than al Qaida. Besides, one can argue that lynching itself is a terrorist act. That’s important to me because, as an American, I am more responsible for the behavior of my own country than the behavior of other countries. (Don’t get me wrong. If we give handouts to foreign bad guys, we’re not responsible for their bad actions, but we are responsible for financing their bad actions.) Yeah, I know, it's not politically popular to notice crimes in our own country when it's so much easier to focus on foreign criminals. But principles interest me more than political popularity.

I remember reading about New York banks with their special kind of IRA accounts. In this case, IRA stood, not for individual retirement account, but for Irish Republican Army. There were widespread reports of people in our country’s largest city bankrolling IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland.

Last I looked, El Salvador terrorists Juan Garcia and Carlos Casanova, linked to the murders of four American churchwomen in 1980, were living in and protected by Florida.

So, if it’s appropriate to bomb places that support and harbor terrorists, should we not be bombing Guatemala, El Salvador, New York, and Florida, among other places?

I think it’s a legitimate question to ask whether we should have a morally consistent position on fighting terrorists or whether we should be concerned only with foreign terrorists, who don’t happen at the moment to be allies of US politicians. Once upon a time Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were allies of US politicians.

I think it’s also legitimate to ask how many innocent victims of “collateral damage” do we allow in fighting terrorists? How many innocent New Yorkers, Floridians and other Americans in KKK country is it legitimate to kill as we search for and destroy domestic terrorists today?

My church allows war as long as four criteria are met. One of them is that the aggression by the other side must be certain. That means we cannot attack Afghanistan unless we can demonstrate Afghanistan is or was certain to attack our country. Violating any of the tenets of the just war doctrine is immoral. As an American, I am responsible for opposing immoral actions of my government.

The founder of my church, Jesus Christ, advocates loving our enemies and returning good for evil. He was not a big fan of security as we consider it today. In fact, he promised that if we seek first the kingdom of heaven, all these things will come to us. And he told us the sparrows and the lilies of the field get along fine without fretting about their security and our heavenly father loves us a lot more than sparrows and lilies.

Some 40 years ago, I was inclined to think Jesus was merely talking about an ideal world, not the practical realities in the real world. But after Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve had to reconsider whether frivolous wars we get ourselves into are all that practical.

Over the years, my faith in the competence of Jesus has grown and my faith in the competence of the politicians who get us into wars has diminished.

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