As US re-reneges, ramps up atrocities against Afghans
Editing by Carolyn Bennett
Lies, compounded terror
Common Dreams and other sources reporting from the weekend show
US government's terrorizing of Afghans sees no end in sight.
US President Barack Obama’s “secret decision” to increase
hostilities in Afghanistan as he has done in Iraq “will keep American troops on
the ground and fighting for at least another year.”
In his latest change that isn’t, the US president – as if
laughing at fools – has given this endless ending a new name. His government
calls it “‘Operation Resolute Support.’” However, Common Dreams explains, the
United States will continue terrorizing Afghanistan’s people with “F-16 fighter
jets, Predator and Reaper drones, and B-1 bombers.”
Endless suffering
In Democracy Now interviews today, Dr. Hakim, a physician
associated with Afghan Peace Volunteers who have collected many stories from people
suffering on the ground, said, “Security in Afghanistan has been deteriorating
over the past few years in the face of the ongoing U.S.-NATO military strategy.”
Referencing existing data sources available in the United
States, he said, “A global terrorism database done by the U.S. government and
the University of Maryland has shown that since the beginning of the ‘war
against terror’ in 2001, the number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and in
the rest of the world, in Iraq, etc., have increased.” 
In view of that graph showing the increase of terrorism,
Hakim said, one has to view the war against terrorism as “a cancer that needs
to be treated.” And as a physician, he said this is how he views the “war
against terror in Afghanistan.” It is a cancer that needs to be treated, not by increasing violence; but treated as a physician would treat sickness.
I
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n an August 13, 2014, Countercurrents article, he declared, “We
are human fodder caught in the crossfire of armed groups and armed governments.
The elite 1 percent of armed groups and armed governments are waging economic,
environmental and military wars against the people! They, and perhaps we
ourselves, too, have lost our imagination and empathy.”
An estimated 50 million human beings worldwide have become
refugees.
“50 million,” Hakim emphasizes, have been driven from their
homes, displaced, forced to migrate “for the self-interests of fighting groups
and governments.” These people “have become human beings seeking refuge from
fellow human beings.” He continues:
…Whether they are Iraqi Christians,
Iraqi Yazidis, Iraqi Muslims, Ukrainian free thinkers, Ukrainian Orthodox
Christians and Catholics, Ukrainian Muslims, Palestinian Muslims, Israeli Jews,
Syrian Muslims, Syrian Christians, Guatemalan Catholics etc., they are all
refugees, and share the risks and crises all refugees face.
…Palestinians, including children who [had
taken] refuge in UN schools in Gaza, were nonetheless bombed and killed by the
Israeli military [(IDF) in a massacre characterized by UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki Moon] as ‘a moral outrage and a criminal act.’We wish to live differently
Whether war, violence, terror, intervention
is perpetrated against Afghanistan, or any country, Hakim says, “If there are
50 million refugees – there ought to at least be 50 million of us working
together to divest and boycott, to stop military mobilization and conscription,
to take the guilty elite to court, to participate in non-violent direct actions
and protests and to provide all kinds of humanitarian assistance.
“There
ought to be at least 50 million of us
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working together to
restore human dignity and freedom – including the building of small,
self-governing, non-violent egalitarian communities, as practical alternatives
to the status quo of a large, 1 percent-dominated, violent, unequal world.”
Our response, he said, should be:
‘No
to Afghanistan in Ukraine.’
‘No
to Ukraine in Afghanistan.’
‘No
to wars in the world!’
“We wish to live differently. We no longer want anyone
anywhere to be human fodder caught in the crossfire of armed groups and armed
governments.”
Sources and notes
“After Vowing to End Combat Mission in Afghanistan, Obama
Secretly Extends America’s Longest War,” Monday, November 24, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/24/after_vowing_to_end_combat_mission
“We’re Human Fodder Caught In The Crossfire Of Armed Groups
And Armed Governments: The elite 1% of armed groups and armed governments are
waging economic, environmental and military wars against the people! They and
perhaps we ourselves too have lost our imagination and empathy.” By Dr. Teck
Young, August 13, 2014, http://www.mintpressnews.com/author/dr-teck-young/
Article printed from MintPress News:
http://www.mintpressnews.com
URL to article: http://www.mintpressnews.com/human-fodder-caught-crossfire-armed-groups-armed-governments/195248/
“International Day of Nonviolence in Afghanistan,” Dr Hakim,
October 4, 2014, http://www.countercurrents.org/hakim051014.htm
Countercurrents.org
“Endless War: Obama Secretly Extends US War on Afghanistan: Obama
allowed the military to dictate the terms of the endgame in Afghanistan,” Common
Dreams staff, November 22, 2014,
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/22/endless-war-obama-secretly-extends-us-war-afghanistan
Dr Hakim, (aka Dr. Teck Young, Wee) “is a medical doctor
from Singapore who has done humanitarian and social enterprise work in
Afghanistan for the past nine years.” He has been “a friend and mentor to the ‘Afghan
Peace Volunteers,’ an inter-ethnic group of young Afghans dedicated to building
non-violent alternatives to war.” In 2012, Dr. Hakim received an International Pfeffer Peace Prize. [http://www.mintpressnews.com/author/dr-teck-young/]
The International Pfeffer Peace Prize was established in
1989 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s (FOR) Leo and Freda Pfeffer. Its
espoused purpose: to honor people around the world “who are working for peace
and justice.” Leo Pfeffer was a US “theoretician on religious liberty and separation
of church and state, who had argued these constitutional issues before the US Supreme
Court.” He was “a founding member of the Jewish Peace Fellowship.” http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/International_Pfeffer_Peace_Prize
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A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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