More troops to Afghanistan...? Nonsense...!

i'm about ready to make a fourth extended visit to afghanistan as part of my work as an organization development consultant working with business and professional organizations in that country... i just concluded a very successful intervention here in jordan where my colleagues and i assisted the leading members of the community and the local government in establishing the foundation for productive and on-going dialogue...

here's my point...

going in with a mindset that categorizes one set of people as "the enemy," an "enemy" that must be destroyed, is bound to fail... that very mindset contains the seeds of its own defeat... why...? because when one group is treated as a dangerous "enemy," it is only natural that they will rise to that expectation...

if you go in with the mindset that all stakeholders are human beings who only want what we all want - safety, security, a roof over their heads, food on the table, and the opportunity to live dignified lives together with their families in peace, it's absolutely amazing what can be accomplished...

the taliban may have, to our way of thinking, a too-rigid interpretation of their religious beliefs, but that doesn't mean they should be treated as some kind of diabolical force... i've had dealings with mujahedin and taliban commanders and they feel just as trapped as we do... they're sick and tired of the never-ending killing and destruction and they're just as much at a loss about how to break the cycle as we are... relying on military force as a solution will definitely NOT break the cycle...

i can guarantee you this... if the u.s. announced that it was committing to talking, to engaging in a serious dialogue to explore ways to bring all the parties together to bring peace in afghanistan, and that the afghans would be the ones who would take the lead in that process, there would be celebrations on the streets of kabul...

i'm glad to see that i'm not the only one thinking this way...

The administration won't be able to give a negotiated reconciliation real credence until it gets away from the perverse foreign policy thinking that couples diplomacy with military escalation. Stop listening to the same military experts who have cost our country hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives, and stop giving them promotion after promotion. Tom Engelhardt gets to the heart of this today in his discussion about the pervasive hawkishness in Washington. As it becomes clearer the crisis in Afghanistan cannot be solved militarily, then for God's sake, quit trying to solve it militarily! No one wants to eat a carrot after they've been beaten and bloodied by a big stick.

agreed...

here's a video clip that essentially makes the same points...

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