Afghanistan: Make Jobs Not War

As we begin the process of ending the Iraq war, we must not get bogged down in a perpetual war in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, there are those who profit from keeping America in a permanent state of war, but we the people must say no to endless war that drains the U.S. treasury and puts enormous stress on our troops who have to endure repeated deployments. History teaches us that those nations that rely solely on military force eventually fail.
Instead of spending hundreds of billions more on war, we need to support the Afghan people through the funding of a Jobs for Afghans program. These are poor people who are tired of war, and the ordinary Afghan is not our enemy. We need to bring hope to the Afghan people, not more war. As General Petraeus, General Karl Eikenberry, Vice President Joe Biden, and even Time Magazine have all indicated, seventy percent of the Taliban are men who fight only because the Taliban pays and they need the money to feed their families, since there are no other jobs. Give them jobs, and they will stop fighting.
General Petraeus has said that ”those who are simply fighting to support their families should be given an economic alternative.”
General Karl Eikenberry, former Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan has testified that: "Much of the enemy force is drawn from the ranks of unemployed men looking for wages to support their families."
We must urge Congress to work toward the creation of a Jobs for Afghans program. The basic elements of the program would include:
-- The passage of funding, which is the equivalent of a mere two months of military operations, for widespread cash-for-work projects which puts money directly into the hands of poor Afghans for day labor. These kinds of projects have already been successful and just need to be expanded. USAID launched a $3 million pilot project in January that points the way. More than 10,000 cash-strapped Afghans in the northern province of Balkh are taking spades in hand instead of rifles. Three main types of projects are underway, including the clearing of springs, the dredging and removal of silt from irrigation canals, and reforestation projects. Afghans will happily work for $10 a day at the hardest labor, as the country has 50 percent unemployment. The Taliban pays $8 per day, and is all too often the only job in town.
-- Giving priority to small, village-level projects like clearing canals and springs, clearing and digging new irrigation ditches, and improvement of basic dirt roads. These kinds of projects address critical problems in Afghanistan. Three quarters of the country has no access to safe drinking water, and the roads are in terrible condition.
-- Cash-for-work programs in Afghanistan are tried and proven. The opportunities for corruption are minimized, as it is easy to count heads at a worksite to see that money is being properly spent. They require little equipment besides hand-tools. Most importantly, it gives Afghans an alternative to joining the Taliban in order to feed their families, as General Petraeus and other military commanders have noted.
Congress should immediately fund the Jobs for Afghans program, which would create at least 500,000, cash-for-work, day labor jobs paying $10 per day, which is a good wage in Afghanistan. We need to fund this program for at least $4 billion this year, which is a fraction of what we spend on the military there in a year. Ask Congress to move this program forward as quickly as possible. We want the war in Afghanistan to wind down soon, for our troops to come home, and for peace and friendship to exist between the Afghan and the American people. We need an exit strategy from Afghanistan and this jobs program is a key component of that strategy.

Join with the Spirit and Act!

As a progressive and a peace activist, I often find it difficult to speak of the true source of my hope and what I believe to be the only true basis for lasting, peaceful, compassionate change in our society and the world. That source is divine spirituality. Call it what you will—God, Spirit, the Light, Christ, Allah, Brahman. I believe that we exist in a spiritual force field that guides us and works with our individual and collective consciousness to co-create the world in which we live. Spirit makes immanent our deepest and truest desires, when backed by co-creative action on our part. When we are grounded in love and compassion, our work will bear loving and compassionate results.

This is what I believe in a nutshell-- Good will ultimately prevail over evil in the long run. In fact, in a true spiritual sense, evil does not exist because evil is simply the absence of love. I firmly believe that love and compassion will prevail in the end.

But if we want to see the results of love and compassion in our lives and those of our children, we have to get working now. The forces arrayed against us are busy promoting war, conflict, greed and selfishness. But if we get working soon enough and in sufficient quantity for the good, our efforts will prevail. It may be a long time coming in human years, but very positive and lasting results are possible even in the short term if we pool our spiritual resources. The simple fact is that our common fate depends upon our collective spirit-led actions.

Since 9/11 we have been bombarded with constant messages of fear and hated, not love and compassion. Meister Echkart, the great mystic, said this; "It is a lie, any talk of God that does not comfort you." How much does war and hatred comfort you? The extreme fundamentalists of the world (both Christian and Muslim) have turned the God of Love into a God of War.

Now here is the problem today. The old energy based on fear and violence is fighting back with a vengeance. We are caught now in a huge clash for the energy and consciousness of humanity. The old guard senses that it is losing its hold on people. That is why its actions and pronouncements are so dramatic and hysterical. It fears its end is imminent without a frontal assault against the growing power of spirit-led action.

Here in America, in some ways, it appears the resurgence of old energy has been winning. But our people largely support compassionate societal arrangements and policies that support the common good. Large majorities support some form of universal health care; better environmental protection; a dependable, compassionate safety net for the less fortunate; effective regulation of business to protect the people; and the preservation and protection of our civil rights and liberties. A majority opposes the Iraq war and a hostile and aggressive foreign policy.

We don’t always see these Spirit-led policies being pursued because the old energy is strong and has a huge store of old energy power (money) behind it. We don’t have the old energy’s money, but we do have ourselves, our greater number and the ultimate power of Spirit behind us. Political organizers say the way to beat organized money is with organized people. Spirit says the same.

So we are facing the old energy making a determined last stand. It will not go quietly. It is desperate and terrified. It actually believes the loss of its power will lead to the end of the world, because for it, the old world based on fear, selfishness and violence will, in fact, end.

What we need to prevail is for enough of us who seek the good to get off the fence and get working. We all know the Edmond Burke quote: "The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

The opposite, of course, and the hope for our age is: all that is needed for good to triumph is for good people to do something.

When enough of us begin to work consistently, diligently and with compassionate hearts to seek the greatest good for the most people, we will prevail. Love cannot be stopped, for love is the ultimate power. But we have to work, we have to get involved. And, yes, that means getting involved in politics and in social activism. NOW!

The emergence of a better world can only be delayed by apathy and cynicism. We must join with the Spirit and act with the Spirit to create the emerging world of love and compassion that waits for us to claim it. This is what I believe and this is what I act upon.

Stop A New War On Iran

The Bush administration, in rhetoric that is eerily similar to that used to build the case for a war against Iraq, asserts that the Iranian Quds Force is arming anti-American groups in Iraq and providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated rockets. It dismisses the National Intelligence Estimate conclusion that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program. The White House has not provided evidence to back up its claims. I suspect it never will. And when Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz tells the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth an attack on Iran is “unavoidable” if Tehran does not halt its alleged nuclear weapons program, what he is really telling us is we should prepare for war.

An attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel and the ensuring regional war will propel us into the Armageddon-type scenario in the Middle East relished by the lunatic fringes of the radical Christian right. And so, we barrel mindlessly toward a Dr. Strangelove self-immolation. No one will be able to say we did not go out with a spectacular show of firepower, gore and death. Our European and Middle Eastern allies, who are numb with consternation over our death spiral, are frantically trying to reach out to Tehran diplomatically.

The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps triple. This price increase will devastate the American economy. The ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well as on American military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as a war against Shiism. They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies. Hezbollah will renew attacks on northern Israel while Hamas increases its attacks in southern Israel. And the localized war in Iraq will become a long, messy and protracted regional war that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the American empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins.

The Israeli leadership, like the Bush White House, is increasingly bellicose and threatening. The Israeli prime minister, after a recent 90-minute meeting with Bush in the White House , said the two leaders were of one mind. “We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat,” Ehud Olmert said. “I left with a lot less questions marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term in the White House.”

This time around, unlike about the war with Iraq, the Washington bureaucracy, loathed by the Bush White House, did not remain silent and complicit. The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program released last Dec. 3 distinguished Iran’s enrichment of uranium at Natanz and Arak from its formal nuclear weapons program, which it said had halted in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq. Adm. Fallon, who put his country and his integrity before his career, spoke out against a war with Iran, tried to stop it and lost his job as the head of CENTCOM. He has been replaced with Gen. David H. Petraeus, whose devotion to his career admits no such moral impediments.

The American people must act to stop this madness. We must raise our voices in protest. We must demand that Congress exercise its constitutional authority and block a war on Iran. We cannot allow the Bush neocons to act out their final bloody fantasy and destroy all hopes for peace in the Middle East.