Just Foreign Policy News
November 3, 2009

Obama's Decision on More Troops to "Someone Else's Civil War"
In his letter of resignation, Matthew Hoh wrote, "I fail to see the value ... in continuous U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war." A prominent American agrees: "It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war." That was Senator Barack Obama, announcing his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007. A search through the New York Times and the Washington Post for the last 12 months turns up exactly one article mentioning the idea that there is a civil war in Afghanistan: the Post article on Hoh's resignation.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/389

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
No decision has been announced. Call Members of Congress, ask where they stand, and report the results.
http://NoEscalation.org

Rethink Afghanistan: "Congressman Alan Grayson on Afghanistan"
"I think that the aid program is a fig leaf to try to make Congress and the American people feel better about war...I think the basic premise that we can alter Afghan society is fatally flawed…everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that's the best foreign policy of all: just to leave people alone."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVLJUUgIOv4

Veterans Brock McIntosh & Rick Reyes on Afghanistan

On October 27, the Washington Post reported the resignation of Matthew Hoh, a top U.S. civilian official in Afghanistan, in protest of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Hoh charged that "the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war," the Post reported. In his letter of resignation, Hoh wrote,

"I fail to see the value ... in continuous U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war."

"The Pashtun insurgency," Hoh asserted, "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."

The appearance in mainstream U.S. media of the credible assertion that the United States is intervening militarily on one side in another country's civil war, especially a conflict with an ethnic character, might be expected to have a significant impact on public perceptions of whether continuation of U.S. military involvement was justified. One of the great political and media debates of 2006-7 was whether the United States was involved in a civil war in Iraq.

Just Foreign Policy News
October 29, 2009

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
Help us by calling Members of Congress, asking where they stand, and reporting the results. You can also post press clips documenting Congressional opposition to the war.
http://NoEscalation.org

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Anti-war activists have seized on U.S. Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh's resignation to make their case against the war in Afghanistan, NPR reports. "He's challenging fundamental premises of the war. He's not just saying this is going badly. He's saying what we are doing doesn't make sense," said Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy. The Hoh letter suggests that the U.S. is essentially intervening in an ongoing civil war in Afghanistan, Naiman said.

Senator Kerry - chair of Senate Foreign Relations - and Rep. Berman - chair of House International Relations - have written a letter of protest to the Librarian of Congress over a Law Library of Congress report that sought to justify the coup in Honduras.

Kerry and Berman request that the Law Library of Congress withdraw the report and issue a corrected version, noting that the report "has contributed to the political crisis...contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis..."

The letter is published here.