Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Code Pink's more nuanced Afghanistan policy, TONIGHT: An Afghan Woman (Zoya) Speaks Out

Hi. This morning on KPFK's 'Uprising,' Sonali K interviewed
Zoya, the primary speaker in tonight's event, listed at the bottom
of this newsletter. She was incisive, informative and honest.
Tom Hayden, Rick Reyes and a film by Rbt. Greenwald fill the bill.
Check it out. -Ed

From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=49766&tsp=1

Code Pink's more nuanced Afghanistan policy

By: Joe Garofoli
SF Gate/SF Chronicle Blogsite: October 20, 2009

As throngs of protesters from across the political spectrum churned outside
President Obama's San Francisco fundraiser Thursday, one of San Francisco's
best-known anti-war activists, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, was in
Washington having just returned from a week in Afghanistan.

She returned from her fourth trip to Afghanistan since the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks with a perspective on the U.S. war in Afghanistan that's a
bit more nuanced than the sign she and her fellow activists carry: "Bring
the troops home now."

Now, she faces the same challenge that divides Obama's liberal supporters
and has baffled invading armies for centuries: Realizing there are no easy
answers in Afghanistan.

She and Code Pink still strongly oppose increasing troop levels. (Obama is
now weighing the recommendation of top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen.
Stanley McChrystal, to add 40,000 troops). And the organization believes the
U.S. should increase its role in peace talks there and "get serious" about
training Afghan security forces.

If 90 percent of what the U.S. spends on its Afghanistan effort is devoted
to military forces and the rest to diplomatic and economic outreach,
Benjamin would like to see that ratio reversed.

But while she was there with a Code Pink entourage Sept. 27 - Oct. 6, native
Afghans told them that they don't want the U.S. to pull out immediately.
Women, especially, fear that would hasten a return of the Taliban.

"Women want to be involved in the peace talks," she said. "Any talks with
the Taliban without women would be disastrous because they would just
compromise women's rights further."

While Afghans told Benjamin that they don't want U.S. forces in the city
centers, "they want them in their bases, as sort of a deterrent" to further
attacks or guarding the Pakistan border.

"Yes, it's time for a new strategy, but they didn't think that more troops
was the answer," she said. "When they see U.S. troops, they are afraid of
the guns and the troops and they feel that the troops are magnets for more
attacks."

While Benjamin's core "Bring the troops home" mantra hasn't changed, it has
become more complicated.

"What I was left feeling is that I don't know what would be a realistic
timeline without first coming up with the exit plan," she said. Before she
went there, "I felt that troops should start coming home now."

"My position hasn't been changed. But I feel now I have a better
understanding from the many people we spoke to that an exit strategy has to
have several components to it. The sooner there is a commitment to come
home, the faster that peace talks can happen."

She feels Obama has been backed into a "disastrous" political corner now
that McChrystal's proposal for a troop increase is public.

"Now it pushes him into a corner of being labeled as not supporting the
commanders on the ground," she said, "which is a very vulnerable position
for him to be in."

***

<http://www.alternet.org/world/143340/codepink_founder_jodie_evans>_

CodePink Founder Jodie Evans Challenges Obama Up Close and Personal on His
Afghanistan Policy

By Don Hazen,
AlterNet: October 17, 2009.

Armed with the signatures of thousands of Afghan women asking him not to
send more troops, Evans told Obama that women must have a seat at the
negotiating table.

Everyone in the universe by now knows that the progressive anti-war group
CodePink has plenty of chutzpah. But co-founder Jodie Evans really doesn't
mess around. She went straight to the top and challenged Barack Obama
face-to-face on his visit to San Francisco on Thursday night at a
high-priced fund raiser at the Westin St. Francis hotel.

Armed with the signatures of thousands of Afghan women who don't want Obama
to send more troops, and for the U.S. occupation to come to an end after a
reconciliation process, Evans had an intimate on-on-one with the president,
where she told him explicitly that women need to be at the table in any
negotiations to alter or end the war. She was wearing a pink shirt with "End
The Afghan Quagmire" written on it, and showed her sartorial splendor to
Obama.

Evans told me later that the evening at the Rain Forest Action Network
fundraiser at the Bentley Reserve that Obama was friendly and listened
carefully -- you can see in the video that he has his arm around her -- but
that he didn't quite get her message at first. According to Evans, when she
raised the issue of women and war, he said, "Well we have Hillary and the
Ambassador. And I said no, the Afghan women. And he said oh. "

How did Evans manage to have this little chat with the President? Well, the
old fashioned way. She paid for it. Realizing that they had an opportunity
to get through to the Commander-in-Chief unfiltered, a supporter forked over
$30,400 for two tickets to attend the super-intimate gathering, where only
the crème de la crème of big money donors were hanging with the president.

Earlier in the month, Evans recently visited Afghanistan over a ten-day
period along with a group of CodePink activists, and she was clear in a
recent AlterNet article about what she saw -- a humanitarian crisis: "The
United States has spent a quarter of a trillion dollars in eight years of
military action: what have we achieved? Most of the country is in worse
condition, the bordering countries are less stable and death fills the air.
According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is ranked 181 out of 182
countries for human development indices. Life expectancy has fallen to 43
years since the U.S. invasion. Forty percent of the population is
unemployed, and 42 percent live on less than $1 a day."

There is a schism among American feminist groups, where some -- particularly
Ms. Magazine and its parent group The Feminist Majority Foundation --
support escalation in Afghanistan as a strategy for protecting women's
rights. But many other women -- particularly activists like the women of
CodePink, who have a long anti-war history -- think that is a huge mistake
and insist that most of the women in Afghanistan do not want more military,
more war. It makes their lives even worse, if that is possible, while the
discredited President Karzai, whose re-election seems fatally tainted by
fraud and corruption and the warlords who control chunks of the countryside,
shows little interest in supporting women's rights -- a recent law
"explicitly legalizes marital rape as well as forcing women to dress and
make themselves up (while in the home, of course) according to their
husband's
demands, outlawing the ability to leave the home without a husband or a good
reason to do so, and automatically granting custody of children to the male
relatives (fathers or grandfathers)," according to an article posted on the
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

In a recent CodePink video interview, Afghan Parliament member Roshanak
Wardak makes the position clear: "Most of the women do not want more
troops -- they need support to sustain their lives." The CodePink delegation
spoke with journalists, doctors, activists, NGOs, members of government and
average Afghan women. The main message they heard is they "want the U.S.
investment to reflect what is needed to bring peace. They need investment in
the people of Afghanistan."

"In truth, 90 percent of U.S. funding to Afghanistan is used for military;
only approximately 10 percent has been used for any kind of development."

Meanwhile, President Obama continues to deliberate over whether to send tens
of thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, while Vice President Biden
seems to be in an influential position to help resist military pressure for
escalation. Biden has been the leading skeptic in the administration toward
Gen. Stanley McChrystal's call for escalating the war with 40,000 more
troops. Biden's argument appears to be that the strategy should focus more
on taking out top Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan with drones and Special
Forces and shifting security responsibility to the Afghans. Time will tell
which of the arguments wins the day.

***

http://afghanwomensmission.org/index.php

An Afghan Woman (Zoya) Speaks Out Against the U.S. War

There Will Also be a Screening of "Rethink Afghanistan"
A Short Film by Robert Greenwald

Hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar of KPFK
Plus Tom Hayden & Rick Reyes

Wednesday, October 21st, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock
2225 Colorado Blvd. Los Angeles 90041

For more information call: 626-676-7884

As part of her major national speaking tour of the United States, Zoya, a
member of RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), will
address two important events in Southern California this October. Coming to
California after an extensive tour of the East Coast, Zoya will share the
experiences of ordinary and struggling Afghans, how they are responding to
the US war, and whether or not the war should continue.

In addition to Zoya, acclaimed activist and writer Tom Hayden, and Afghan
war veteran Rick Reyes will speak. There will be a screening of a short
film, Rethink Afghanistan, and Afghan crafts for sale. This special event
will be hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar of KPFK.

Sponsored by Afghan Women's Mission, Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, Cafe
Intifada, and KPFK Radio. This event is wheelchair accessible.

Hi All,

Hope you can make it to this event in Los Angeles with Zoya, one of
the most incredible young women I have ever met. I will be hosting.

Please pass on the announcement

Thanks!

Sonali Kolhatkar
Host of Uprising on KPFK 90.7 FM Radio

www.uprisingradio.org

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