Reply to FNB group

First, what happens in Afghanistan should be up to the Afghans. If they want help, we should be send it on their asking and on their terms, not what we think is best for them and not protecting their government officials who where former drug/warlords. The people of that region have no control over what NATO troops do. Many see us an oppressive presence and many Afghans want to support the Taliban because they see it as a form of resistance to occupation. This makes it easy for fundamentalists to sway desperate youth to their cause; we are increasing terrorism.

Second, we should oppose war because it's immoral, not because of pragmatic reasons. By pragmatic reasons, I mean that "the war is not going the way we thought." That's the same reason why the majority of intellectuals oppose the Vietnam war. We have no right in forcing ourselves onto another country, making decisions for them, and making a profit from them (by contracting, weapon selling, protecting business interests). The truth of the matter is we are hypocrites. We pick and choose who we want to 'help' and when we want to get involved when it meets our interests. Eg. US supports Saddam when he commits his worst atrocities, in particular against Kurds, but US also supports Turkey's violence against Kurds living there, and supports the dictator Suharto in Indonesia. And if we can't accept and punish those responsible for our mistakes and our war crimes, we have no right to go policing others. There's a whole list of why the war in Afghanistan was illegal and wrong. But I just want to talk about war in general.

I don't know about training Afghan police and military. Again I don't know if the people we are training aren't just gonna be tools used for future oppression just as the government installed is just a puppet government.

All the money that's put into the war in Afghanistan and for security for international forces can be put to much better use if was actually going to feed, clothe, build homes and infrastructure for the Afghans, even if it wasn't spent for the impoverished here.

So I guess it's a no for the petition. WOW.