[Peace-discuss] If One Phone Call Could End the War

[Robert Naiman]

[Our Rep, Tim Johnson, is already on board; you could call and thank
him. Or maybe you know someone in one of the 417 House districts whose
Reps have not yet signed on to the Kucinich resolution who would be
moved to act...]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/if-one-phone-call-could-e_b_489921.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/8/104112/6977

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/506

If you could end the war in Afghanistan by making one phone call,
would you make that call? Would you press 10 buttons to stop the
wanton destruction of the lives of American soldiers and Afghan
civilians?

I suspect that the majority of the literate adult population in the
United States, if faced with that choice, would press 10 buttons to
end the war.

Unfortunately, there isn't one phone call that will end the war. But
there is a plausible chain of consequence that connects a phone call
made to Congress today to ending the war in the foreseeable future.

In the next few days the House of Representatives is expected to
debate and vote on a "privileged resolution" - H.Con.Res. 248 -
introduced by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich that would establish
a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from
Afghanistan.

No reasonable person would take an even bet they couldn't afford to
lose that this resolution will become law as introduced. But as Rocky
Balboa could have told you when preparing for his first fight against
Apollo Creed, that wouldn't be the right standard for measuring
victory. The debate and vote on the Kucinich Resolution will be the
opening round for the coming fight - if indeed it will deserve to be
called a fight - over the Pentagon's $33 billion war supplemental to
pay for the current military escalation. If the Kucinich Resolution is
squished like a little bug, the prospects for a meaningful fight on
the war supplemental will decrease. If the Kucinich Resolution makes a
strong showing, Members of Congress will be encouraged to oppose the
war supplemental and to try to attach real conditions to it, like a
timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.
Congressional advocacy of a timetable for withdrawal was a key cause
of the current drawdown from Iraq, and it's reasonable to expect that
Congressional advocacy of a timetable for withdrawal would shorten the
war in Afghanistan.

Last summer, the majority of House Democrats voted for an amendment
introduced by Representative McGovern that would have required the
Pentagon to present Congress with an exit strategy from Afghanistan by
the end of the year. That was a vote of no confidence from House
Democrats in the Pentagon's plans for military escalation.

The political goal of the recent military assault on the militarily
insignificant Afghan village of Marjah was to put House Democrats back
to sleep so they would pass the war supplemental without trying to
attach meaningful conditions. Forget about the last seven and half
years of endless war, forget about the planned cuts in domestic job
creation, education and other public services to fuel the Pentagon war
machine as far as we can see. The Marjah assault didn't seem to
disturb Congress very much - U.S. press reports only brifely noted the
killing of a handful of U.S. soldiers and a few dozen Afghan civilians
- so now the Pentagon expects Congress to fork over more money for
military escalation without asking when it ends, and to go play in its
domestic policy sandbox where it can decide which domestic programs it
wants to cut.

Once the war supplemental is passed without conditions, then the
Pentagon can launch its offensive on Kandahar, which will inevitably
kill far more U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians than the assault on
little Marjah, perhaps leading to some Congressional hand-wringing.
But with the war supplemental passed, Congress would have given up its
main leverage to change U.S. policy for another six months.

There is a way to break this cycle, and that's for Members of Congress
to speak up now. But Members of Congress will only speak up if they
hear from their constituents, and that's why it's important for
literate American adults to call Congress today and urge their
Representatives to support the Kucinich Resolution. The Capitol
Switchboard is 202-224-3121.

--
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

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