No one needs to memorize or learn all these points, but we
hope they are useful building blocks as we talk with neighbors and other
military families, write letters to the editor, give interviews to media
outlets, compose leaflets, write and talk with politicians, and dash off blog
entries. The formulations below are not meant necessarily to be positions that
all MFSO members agree with. They are designed as suggestions to help us
articulate and explain our opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in
accessible ways that we hope will move many people.
Please let us know about ideas for additions and
modifications of these points, questions that are challenging for you to
answer, and effective turns of phrase you use to concisely and dramatically
convey our message.
1. Bring my loved one home now. Don’t send my loved one (back) to Iraq or
Afghanistan. (Tell your MFSO story).
1.A. Speak from your experience and your heart. Your personal stories of
how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have impacted your family’s lives contain
compelling reasons for bringing our troops home now. This is especially
effective when you explicitly explain how your own experience parallels the
situation of thousands of others.
1.B. Try to always mention MFSO when you speak, write, or give interviews –
it lets other military families who oppose these wars know that they are not
alone and that there is an organization that can help us make our voices heard.
1.C. If getting the support of other MFSO members has helped you, please
tell those stories.
1.D. When representing MFSO, please focus political questions on our points
of political agreement, and if asked about other political questions
(especially regarding electoral choices), make clear that we are a nonpartisan
organization with diverse views. We agree about:
1.D.1 Pulling our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now.
2. If it was wrong when Bush did it, it’s wrong when
Obama does it. Military occupation is wrong.
2.A. As military family members, we call on the President and Congress to
bring our loved ones home now. Funding the wars is killing our troops – and the
people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Support our troops and our families -- by
bringing the troops home now.
2.B. There are more US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan combined now than
during the Iraq war surge during the Bush administration: US military personnel
deployed in these war zones now: Iraq (124,000), Afghanistan (65,000), Total
(189,000). During Bush’s surge in 2007: Iraq (160,000) and Afghanistan
(26,000), Total (186,000). The WashingtonPost reported that Obama secretly
deployed 13,000 more US troops this spring than had previously been admitted (Washington
Post, http://tinyurl.com/ylbv2jj).
The US military Central Command estimated in June 2009 that there are an
additional 73,000 US military contractors stationed in Afghanistan (see Reuters, http://bit.ly/Afcontractors),
and an additional 119,000 contractors in Iraq (see Congressional Research
Service, http://bit.ly/IrAfContract).
3. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are exacting a
terrible toll from our loved ones in the military, our country, and the Iraqi and Afghan people.
3.A. The wars have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq (see
this OpenDemocracy article about a 2008 World Health Organization study, http://bit.ly/23IlMJ)
and over ten thousand in Afghanistan (see a number of estimates listed in the
Wikipedia article at http://bit.ly/43ROSG).
Each one of these Afghans and Iraqis was treasured by their families just as
much as we treasure our loved ones in the military. We want the long nightmare
of these wars to end for the families of Iraq, Afghanistan -- and the U.S.
3.B. As a result of Obama's military escalation in Afghanistan, more
civilians are dying. According to the United Nations, civilian deaths in 2009
are 30% higher than 2008 (see the United Nations Afghan Military Assistance
report, http://bit.ly/AfDeaths200908).
3.D. Gold Star Families Speak out members grieve for their loved ones and
work to prevent other families from having to endure the same incalculable
loss.
3.E. Matthew Hoh resigned his State Department position in Afghanistan
saying, in his October 2009 letter, “The dead return only in bodily form to be
received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a
purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams un-kept. I
have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made. As such, I submit my
resignation.” (See the Washington Post, http://bit.ly/AfHoh)
3.G. There are an estimated half a million U.S. veterans with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (also known as Combat Stress) and/or traumatic brain
injuries from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (see the National Council on
Disability report "Invisible Wounds: Serving Service Members and Veterans
with PTSD and TBI," http://tinyurl.com/yz77tph). Military families
are struggling to provide the care and support these veterans need. The US has
a shameful legacy of not caring for atomic veterans, veterans who suffer from
PTSD and Agent Orange poisoning from the war in Vietnam, and veterans with Gulf
War illnesses from the first Iraq war. We need to change and reverse this
legacy.
3.H. For those of us who are military families, there is no peace. We are
living with these wars every moment of every day. We’re living with the fear,
uncertainty, pain, and trauma of worrying about our loved ones. We worry,
"are they still alive?" We worry about the violence they’re being
ordered to inflict, and we’re terrified of the violence they’re enduring. We
know that combat causes psychological wounds for everyone involved.
3.I. For those of us whose loved ones have come home but are still active
duty, we worry about the next deployment. With the current deployment tempo and
shortened dwell times, they have barely arrived home before they’re preparing
to get sent back into the war zones. If Obama further escalates deployments to
Afghanistan, our loved ones will have even less time at home. The military
knows that the risk of PTSD increases both with multiple deployments and with
less time to recover between deployments. The Defense Science Board recommends
at least two months back home before redeployment for every one month deployed
(see the National Council on Disability report, http://tinyurl.com/yz77tph). Yet now our
loved ones are often getting less than one month of time at home for every
month deployed. Our loved ones are being rushed back into combat even though
the President, Congress, and the Pentagon know it will kill many of them, wound
countless more, and permanently damage their mental health. There's a bill in
Congress, sometimes colloquially referred to as the Dwell Time bill, that would
limit deployment tempo (see http://bit.ly/DwellTimeBill).
This bill received majority support in 2007 but was blocked by a filibuster in
the Senate and a threatened veto by President Bush. This Dwell Time bill could
help, but it doesn't go far enough, because it only mandates a 1:1 ratio
between time at home and time in theater. More importantly, if Obama and
Congress ended the wars and brought the troops home, we wouldn’t have to worry
about dwell times and operational tempo. Passing a dwell time bill would be a
start, but let’s bring our loved ones home.
3.J. Children of deployed military personnel are our “youngest draftees.”
The Defense Manpower Data Center estimated in 2007 that two million U.S.
children have suffered through one or more of their parents’ deployments to
Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and over 230,000 have a parent who is currently
deployed (see ParentZone, http://bit.ly/1fPsMd).
According to a study published in the Journal of Developmental and
Behavioral Pediatrics, nearly 1/3 of
children of deployed parents are at “high risk” for developing psychological
problems, a rate 2.5 times higher than the national average (see
News-Medical.net, http://bit.ly/2tzUD3).
3.K. The economic cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been and
continues to be enormous. The Bush Administration claimed before the Iraq war
began that the cost would be $60 billion (see Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes,
"The $3 Trillion War," http://bit.ly/466GPp),
and Paul Wolfowitz even claimed the war could pay for itself. In fact, the US
taxpayer has paid over $630 billion in total direct costs to date (November
2009) for the war in Iraq, and over $230 billion for the war in Afghanistan,
according to the Congressional Research Service. Taxpayers are paying over $60
billion in Afghan war costs in 2009 alone (see National Priorities Project
(NPP), http://bit.ly/1zMdg4). (The cost to
each community is huge, and you can get up-to-date statistics on the cost to
your community from the NPP at http://www.costofwar.com/).
But even these figures are gross underestimates, according to Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor of Public Finance
Linda Bilmes. If we factor in the cost of paying for disability and health care
for our wounded loved ones, and interest on the national debt from the deficit
spending caused by the wars, the total cost exceeds $2.8 trillion (see Stiglitz and Bilme's website, http://bit.ly/466GPp).
4. Our loved ones are being ordered to fight to prop up a corrupt Afghan
government. This doesn't keep us safe.
4.A. Why are our loved ones fighting and dying to prop up a corrupt
government in Afghanistan? The Karzai government stole the latest Afghan
election through massive vote fraud (see the UK Guardian, http://bit.ly/3XMh5w). Even before the latest
election, the Karzai government was widely viewed by the Afghan people as a
foreign-controlled, corrupt, feckless coalition of warlords and heroin
smugglers which really only controlled Kabul.
4.B. The Karzai government is not a defender of Afghan’s women’s rights.
The Karzai administration sponsored and passed a law in the spring of 2009
making marital rape legal for Shiite men (see Radio Free Europe, http://tinyurl.com/AfghanWomenProtestLaw),
legislation which Afghan women’s groups protested. Women who speak up for
women's rights are often targeted for assassination by factions within the
Karzai coalition (see MADRE, http://bit.ly/AfWomenFund).
4.C. Matthew Hoh, the ex-Marine and State Department official in
Afghanistan who resigned from his post in protest against the war, explained in
his resignation letter that it made no sense to wage war in Afghanistan in an
attempt to try to prevent a terrorist attack on the US. "I find specious
the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in
Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent
al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and
occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Pakistan
has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly
fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear
weapons.... More so, the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and
London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a
point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or
political boundaries."
4.D. There is every indication that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have
made the US less safe. US government agencies have repeatedly pointed to a rise
in extremist organizations since the beginning of these wars, not a decrease in
their membership or abilities. For example, McClatchy Newspapers reported on
October 15, 2009 that even as NATO forces in Afghanistan have increased
dramatically over the last year, U.S. Intelligence agencies estimate that
Taliban full time troop strength has increased 25% over the last year, to about
25,000 full-time fighters (see McClatchy Newspapers, October 14, 2009 http://bit.ly/9HfNW). As the article mentions, this increase possibly
suggests, "that the growth in international forces is bolstering an
impression among many Afghans that they're under foreign occupation.”
5. There are alternatives to the war in Afghanistan.
Bring our loved ones home now.
5.A. Solving the many problems caused by thirty years of war and more than
eight years of occupation by NATO won’t be easy. There are no easy answers. But
there is no military answer to the political, social and economic problems
besetting Afghanistan. The military occupation is part of the problem, not the
solution. Military escalation means sending our loved ones back into the fires
of war -- again. Military escalation means throwing more good money after bad.
5.B. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan deny the right of self-determination
to the people. Let the people of Iraq and Afghanistan decide their own course.
Many Iraqi and Afghan peacemakers are calling for negotiations to end the
fighting, including the La Onf network* in Iraq (See http://laonf.net)
and the Peace Jirgas (gatherings) in Afghanistan (See Peacework Magazine, http://bit.ly/AfPeaceJirga).
We don't know what will happen if the US military pulls out, but we do know the
US military occupation is making things worse, and that many people in
Afghanistan are calling on the US military to leave.
5.C. The US military spends close to $100 million a day in Afghanistan,
while the average amount of all donors' aid per day is only $7 million (see
“The US War in Afghanistan: A Primer for US Peace Activists,” by September 11
Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, http://bit.ly/2yVSfE).
Yet "in Afghanistan, 25% of children die before their fifth birthday, and
50 women die each day from pregnancy-related complications." (See PBS’
Independent Lens, http://tinyurl.com/AfghanHealth).
5.D. By tying humanitarian aid to the cooperation of Afghan villagers with
the US military, the US is militarizing humanitarian assistance and associating
aid workers with the occupying military. The militarization of humanitarian aid
is actually endangering aid workers, according to Interaction, a coalition of
159 aid agencies in Afghanistan. They have called for the US military to stop
endangering aid workers by conflating military and humanitarian operations (see
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, http://tinyurl.com/yhpjz8g).
5.E. There is no military solution to the social, political, and economic
crises in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing the occupations is only creating
more resentment, more suffering, and more death. We are not experts on Iraq and
Afghanistan, but we need to listen to the voices of family members and
civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq who yearn for an end to the wars. Our
counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan grieve for their family members killed in
the wars, and also suffer the anguish of not knowing whether their loved ones
at the front will return home alive. Human rights advocates (see Afghan
Independent Human Rights Commission, http://www.aihrc.org.af/English/),
labor organizers (see http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/), feminists
(see Peacework Magazine, “Violence
Against Women in Afghanistan: Documenting Prevalence, Organizing for Change,” http://bit.ly/3fo8wr), and peace advocates in
Iraq (see http://www.laonf.net) and
Afghanistan (see the Afghan ex-Parliamentarian and Anna Politkovskaya
Award-winning human rights and feminist activist Malalia Joya, http://bit.ly/bw2UY) are working bravely to
nonviolently transform their societies. They are calling on us to help rebuild
their countries with job programs (see http://jobsforafghans.org/exitstrategy.html),
health care (see PBS’ Independent Lens, http://tinyurl.com/yf732cx), and schools (see
interview with Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, http://www.pbs.org/now/news/309-transcript.html),
not with occupying troops.
5.F. Poppies are currently being grown for opium and sold to enrich both
corrupt officials inside the Afghan government, apparently including President
Karzai’s brother (who is both smuggling heroin and on the CIA payroll, according to the New
York Times) and to fuel the Taliban’s
insurgency (see New York Times, October 28, 2009, http://bit.ly/gDio4).
Yet, there is a worldwide shortage of morphine and pain-relieving drugs that
could be made from the poppies. Morphine is often not available even in
Afghanistan itself, (see the heart-rending International Council on Security
and Development short video, http://bit.ly/AfAgonyWOmorph).
Instead of futilely trying to eradicate the poppies, one alternative approach
might be to pay poppy farmers for their crop and use the poppies to make
pain-relieving medicines instead (see Senlis Council, http://www.poppyformedicine.net/).
5.G. Congress has the power and the responsibility to end the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan by rejecting authorization and appropriations bills which
include money to continue and escalate them. If Obama proposes a significant
escalation in Afghanistan, Congress will most likely have a chance to vote yea
or nea on a supplemental funding bill in late winter or early spring. In the
meantime, the coalition behind www.noescalation.org
is calling on House members, “to affect President Obama’s decision: to speak
out publicly against a troop increase; to co-sponsor Rep. Lee’s bill HR 3699
prohibiting an increase in troops; and to co-sponsor Rep. McGovern’s bill HR
2404 calling for an exit strategy from our military occupation of Afghanistan.”
On the Senate side, noescalation.org is calling for Senators to take a public
stand against escalation, and to introduce legislation to parallel the House
bills. These bills don’t go far enough, but as we push for troops to be brought
home now, they do represent opportunities for us to press Congress to move
towards our position.
5.H. (Side note on Iraq). When President Bush ordered our loved ones to
fight in an illegal war in Iraq, we spoke out. The country elected a President
who promised to end that war and bring them home. But President Obama is
continuing the war in Iraq. Obama postponed his promised deadline for bringing
all the troops home until December 31, 2011, the same date that Bush had
promised (CNN, February 27, 2009, http://tinyurl.com/akgzfd). President Obama has
increased the number of military contractors fighting in Iraq (Statistics from
Gary J. Motsek, the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Program
Support), via Jeremy Scahill, see http://www.truthout.org/060309B).
Mention of Iraqi and Afghan organizations in this
document is meant to illustrate the point that there are Iraqis and
Afghans who are speaking up for nonviolent alternatives. We know that
there are many organizations in Iraq and Afghanistan striving for peace
and justice and our referencing of these particular groups is not designed
to exclude others nor does it indicate an endorsement of the organization
by MFSO.
P.S. This background memo is
the first version, 1.1, November 6, 2009.
