Feingold's public thinking on Afghanistan hasn't changed since December when he opposed the president's escalation, according to the Wisconsin senator's staff. Feingold previously has proposed a "flexible timetable for reducing our troop levels" and opposed the defense appropriations bill because of its inclusion of Afghanistan funding.
Feingold and McGovern are expected soon to cooperate in proposing an exit strategy that contains a timetable for troop reductions. Defining such an exit plan quickly is key to the administration's policy for Afghanistan, since the negotiated departure of US troops won't happen without one. And most observers of Afghanistan say the Taliban cannot be drawn into a peace process or political negotiations without a concrete assurance that the military occupation will end and US/NATO/USAF troops will be withdrawn or replaced by peacekeepers.
Secret talks with the Taliban have intensified since spring 2009, the respected Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote recently in The New York Review of Books. Rashid is an official adviser to the US diplomatic team led by Richard Holbrooke. In a recent essay he floats a negotiating scenario which seems quasi-official and, of course, is officially deniable. His seven-point proposal includes lifting current sanctions on Taliban leaders so that talks can occur in a neutral venue, formation of a legal Taliban political party in Afghanistan and a seriously-funded "reconciliation body" to create security for returning Taliban members to Afghanistan.
Rashid's proposal implies, but does not include, a US troop withdrawal, the key condition demanded by the Taliban in exchange for starting all-party talks. It is possible that Obama's pledge to "begin" withdrawing in 2011 is an initial signal of the intention the insurgents want to hear.
In that case, the McGovern and Feingold initiatives can be crucial to moving the United States, Afghan and Taliban positions closer to a formula for reconciliation or, more likely, coexistence. The only alternative is the perpetuation of the neoconservatives' Long War scenario, at trillions of dollars in budget expenditures and/or an outbreak of civil war in Afghanistan.
Whether Congress has the backbone seems to depend on whether there is the force of public opinion to implant one. The previous experiences of Vietnam, Central America and Iraq have shaped a skeptical mood within that public, but it is not sufficiently angry yet to force the end of the war. A deepening battlefield quagmire will only cement that skepticism, but Congress has to channel the public mood into political impact.
Congress's inherent problem is its failure to collaborate with grassroots opinion in fostering public antiwar sentiment. Instead, as with the Kucinich measure, at most the members of Congress expect activists to endorse, support, leaflet, bird-dog and light up the phone lines to pressure other members to vote their way. Too often they fail to use their enormous resources to bring attention and public engagement to issues not (yet) arousing public opinion or media interest.
Tellingly, the CIA's secret war in Pakistan, which includes the escalation of drone attacks, has drawn no meaningful Congressional opposition. The likely reason is that, with the exception of reports by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, the casualties and costs of the drone war have been hidden from the American public.
The re-emergence of a coherent peace movement could help push the McGovern and Feingold measures forward, and also mount pressure for hearings on the secret war before it engulfs Pakistan. The protests planned nationwide in March will revive needed attention to Afghanistan in many local areas around the country. But on the national level, the demise of United for Peace and Justice leaves a vacuum that narrow ideological groups are unable to fill. The dispersal of protest energies towards other issues--Wall Street bailouts, healthcare, Copenhagen, marriage equality--weakens any possibility of a unified focus around Afghanistan.
Despite these organizational obstacles, the ongoing wars will inflict serious political and moral consequences. Without a greater role by the organized peace movement, large numbers of voters will become passive, or drop away, during the forthcoming Congressional elections and the next presidential one. The Obama administration has never treated the peace constituency as one worth cultivating, though the Iraq War was the critical issue difference in the primaries and general elections in 2006 and 2008. In turn, the peace constituency has never turned into a permanent, organized, well-funded lobbying force in Washington--except for the brief flare-ups like those of MoveOn in the 2004-06 cycle.
As a result, everything may depend on whether popular perception is that Obama and the Democrats have turned promises of peace into action. At the moment, such potential support is being drained into despair. Congress and Obama will have to work to bring it back.
About Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden, a former California state senator, is the author, most recently, of The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama
* Copyright 2009 The Nation
Feingold and McGovern are expected soon to cooperate in proposing an exit strategy that contains a timetable for troop reductions. Defining such an exit plan quickly is key to the administration's policy for Afghanistan, since the negotiated departure of US troops won't happen without one. And most observers of Afghanistan say the Taliban cannot be drawn into a peace process or political negotiations without a concrete assurance that the military occupation will end and US/NATO/USAF troops will be withdrawn or replaced by peacekeepers.
Secret talks with the Taliban have intensified since spring 2009, the respected Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote recently in The New York Review of Books. Rashid is an official adviser to the US diplomatic team led by Richard Holbrooke. In a recent essay he floats a negotiating scenario which seems quasi-official and, of course, is officially deniable. His seven-point proposal includes lifting current sanctions on Taliban leaders so that talks can occur in a neutral venue, formation of a legal Taliban political party in Afghanistan and a seriously-funded "reconciliation body" to create security for returning Taliban members to Afghanistan.
Rashid's proposal implies, but does not include, a US troop withdrawal, the key condition demanded by the Taliban in exchange for starting all-party talks. It is possible that Obama's pledge to "begin" withdrawing in 2011 is an initial signal of the intention the insurgents want to hear.
Whether Congress has the backbone seems to depend on whether there is the force of public opinion to implant one. The previous experiences of Vietnam, Central America and Iraq have shaped a skeptical mood within that public, but it is not sufficiently angry yet to force the end of the war. A deepening battlefield quagmire will only cement that skepticism, but Congress has to channel the public mood into political impact.
Congress's inherent problem is its failure to collaborate with grassroots opinion in fostering public antiwar sentiment. Instead, as with the Kucinich measure, at most the members of Congress expect activists to endorse, support, leaflet, bird-dog and light up the phone lines to pressure other members to vote their way. Too often they fail to use their enormous resources to bring attention and public engagement to issues not (yet) arousing public opinion or media interest.
Tellingly, the CIA's secret war in Pakistan, which includes the escalation of drone attacks, has drawn no meaningful Congressional opposition. The likely reason is that, with the exception of reports by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, the casualties and costs of the drone war have been hidden from the American public.
The re-emergence of a coherent peace movement could help push the McGovern and Feingold measures forward, and also mount pressure for hearings on the secret war before it engulfs Pakistan. The protests planned nationwide in March will revive needed attention to Afghanistan in many local areas around the country. But on the national level, the demise of United for Peace and Justice leaves a vacuum that narrow ideological groups are unable to fill. The dispersal of protest energies towards other issues--Wall Street bailouts, healthcare, Copenhagen, marriage equality--weakens any possibility of a unified focus around Afghanistan.
Despite these organizational obstacles, the ongoing wars will inflict serious political and moral consequences. Without a greater role by the organized peace movement, large numbers of voters will become passive, or drop away, during the forthcoming Congressional elections and the next presidential one. The Obama administration has never treated the peace constituency as one worth cultivating, though the Iraq War was the critical issue difference in the primaries and general elections in 2006 and 2008. In turn, the peace constituency has never turned into a permanent, organized, well-funded lobbying force in Washington--except for the brief flare-ups like those of MoveOn in the 2004-06 cycle.
As a result, everything may depend on whether popular perception is that Obama and the Democrats have turned promises of peace into action. At the moment, such potential support is being drained into despair. Congress and Obama will have to work to bring it back.
About Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden, a former California state senator, is the author, most recently, of The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama
* Copyright 2009 The Nation
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