Brooklyn Asks - "Which Way Afghanistan?"

Feb 9, 2010

A large crowd of Brooklyn residents filled the Park Slope United Methodist Church last night. It was one of the city's coldest winters in recent memory but that didn't stop people from turning out to discuss the escalating war in Afghanistan and its impact on the world, the country and, more immediately, on life in their own city and neighborhoods.

A large crowd of Brooklyn residents filled the sanctuary at the Park Slope United Methodist Church.

Initiated by the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) and supported by Brooklyn For Peace along with a dozen or so of the borough's peace and justice organizations, the forum featured Congress member Jerrold Nadler and reporter Anand Gopal who had been embedded with the Taliban and had dispatched many reports from that beleaguered country.

The flyer for the meeting.

The meeting was opened by CBID chair, Lucy Koteen, who welcomed people and described the work of her organization, which is one of Brooklyn's most active Democratic reform clubs with a long history of progressive activism. She then turned the meeting over to Brooklyn For Peace's Vice Chair, Rusti Eisenberg, who introduced the two speakers. Eisenberg is one of the founders of Brooklyn For Peace and a professor of history at Hofstra University.

CBID Chair, Lucy Koteen, opens the Afghan forum meeting. Seated, left to right, Rusti Eisenberg, journalist, Anand Gopal, Congress member Jerrold Nadler.

BFP Chair, Rusti Eisenberg, introduces the speakers.

Representative Nadler read the statement he had made to Congress in opposing President Obama's announcement of escalation and took to task the notion that our country should use massive military occupation of foreign lands in order to deal with what even the CIA has said is "a hundred or so Al Queyda" remaining in Afghanistan. He deplored the fabulous expense of dependence on military solutions which, he said, is wreaking havoc on our ability to solve the huge problems we confront at home. In the long run, he pointed out, using military occupation of countries produces the opposite of what we hope to accomplish since it inspires hatred of the U.S. and helps to fill the ranks of extremist organizations aimed at doing harm to the United States.

Nadler -- these endless, expensive military adventures make it impossible to solve pressing problems at home.

As if to prove Nadler's point, the next speaker, journalist Anand Gopal, related an experience he reported on when he was embedded with the Taliban as a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. He had interviewed a young, teenage Afghan boy imprisoned for an attempted suicide bombing. The boy's experience, as related by Gopal, horrified the audience and was symbolic of the problems resulting from the massive U.S. military presence in Afghanistan ---

Walking home one day, the young man witnessed a crowd in front of his house or what used to be his house. It had been reduced to rubble from a U.S. bomb attack. Sifting through the rubble for a trace of his family of sixteen (all sixteen innocents had perished in the attack) he came across the severed head of his mother.

This propelled the young man into a traumatized, almost catatonic state, and for days he wandered the town aimlessly, clutching his mother's head in his arms. No one could persuade him to let loose of the head and permit it to be buried. Finally, a village elder convinced him to relent and to take up arms with the insurgents in order to avenge his horrific loss.

The young man was thus thrust into the arms of the Taliban -- he was recruited to the bombing attempt only to land up in a Afghan government dungeon.

This tale, which Gopal said is not uncommon, dramatically brought home the counter-productive results of the U.S. war. While the administration says its war is fighting terrorism and terrorists to make American safer, the horrific civilian casualties (the drone attacks that are glorified by the Pentagon are said to have a civilian-to-terrorist kill ration of 55 to 1!) are actually driving Innocent victims into the hands of the Taliban and other extremists and thereby making us more endangered.

Gopal - Massive U.S. military action in Afghanistan only serves to build hatred of America and fill the ranks of the terrorists.

A dramatic high point of the evening was the presence of large numbers of guests from Brooklyn's South Asian community. Bobby Khan, activist and director of the Coney Island Avenue Project spoke, and while attacking the extremist elements in the Taliban, he also opposed the war for the misery and devastation it is bringing to the people of Afghanistan. U.S. bombs dropped from pilotless planes will not solve the problems of the Afghan people he said and said it is the Pakistani authorities and intelligence agents who are largely to blame for the spread of the Taliban's insurgency. He introduced one guest who had lost his young son to the Taliban's murderous attacks.

Bobby Khan (left) of the Coney Island Avenue Project brought guests from Brooklyn's South Asian community.

Guests from Brooklyn's South Asian community.

After the speakers, Lucy Koteen turned the meeting over to questions from the audience. Nadler, in answer to one question, made a passionate defense of civil liberties which, he said, are very endangered by the war atmosphere. Throughout American history, he said, whenver there has been war, civil liberties has been brushed aside and he said the same thing is happening today. A leading Democrat, he nevertheless decried the current administration's continuation of some of the more onerous authoritarian practices inherited from the Bush regime and said the Bill of Rights could well become a "dead letter" unless Americans stand up to defend it right now.

Doug Biviano, a candidate for City Council in Brooklyn's 33rd district in the last election, asks Congress member Nadler a question.

As the meeting adjourned, both Koteen and Eisenberg said that discussion is good but not enough. Right now, they said, it's only action and pressure from the grass roots that can save the day and end the war. Esienberg asked people to involve themselves in the peace movement, to join protests against the war and to continue pressure on Congress which will soon be asked for even more money to continue that war. Only that can help bring a quick end to the war in Afghanistan she said.

To get active visit the Brooklyn For Peace Website. or write to info@brooklynpeace.org

Two Things You Can Do To Help STOP These Wars

1Oct 13, 2009

It seems like yesterday that folks were gathering in cities throughout the U.S. - marking the anniversary of five years of war in Iraq. (see my post from that event. But that was already a year-and-a-half ago. Here we are still engaged there - still losing soldiers, still occupying a country that never did anything to harm our country or our people. Here we are, six-and-a-half years later and five million Iraqi refugees later - not to mention tens and hundreds of thousands dead and a country divided and utterly destroyed. Like the song says - "War ... What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again!

Listen to Joan Osborne sing War!

Last week we marked another gruesome anniversary - eight years of war in Afghanistan. In response to the horrific attack on the World Trade Center, Bush decided to punish the Afghan people by invading and occupying that country. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops were sent to capture and punish several hundred terrorists, hiding out in the hinterlands. Never mind that, in eight years, the villains have never been found or caught ... Bush had bigger fish to fry in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 911 but that did have the world's 2nd largest oil reserves!

Mission Accomplished!

January, 2009 - enter a new President who inherited the Boy Wonder's stupendous mess created in eight years of hideous aggression, malfeasance and ineptitude. Obama would end the war in Iraq, he promised, and bring the troops home - hopefully this will be done and soon - yet to this day a full complement of U.S. troops remain in Iraq. On Afghanistan, Barack Obama painted himself into a corner from which he's now finding it hard to extricate himself. Declaring Afghanistan the "right war" (is there such a thing?) and trying to prove that Democrats could indeed be "strong" on national security, he vowed to conduct that war in a "smarter" way than Bush had done in Iraq. Well, truth be told, smart would be not succumbing to the war hawks and war profiteers in the Pentagon, the war corporations and the Right. Giving in to that crowd would not be smart but really, really dumb! Just ask Linden Johnson whose Great Society drowned, submerged by the Vietnam war.


Afghanistan is a morass in the making. Alexander the Great, the British and the Russians can tell you something about that. They failed miserably, with endless suffering to all involved, to occupy and dominate this aptly-named Graveyard of the Empires. The point? - that there is no military victory to be had in Afghanistan. Just more and more misery and death and destruction for the Afghani people. More young American lives to be cut short. More of our national treasure squandered while urgent problems at home go unattended. Isn't it amazing that the conservatives in both parties can wring their hands and rail about the unaffordable and extravagant expense of health care for our citizens? But, mind you, not an utterance from these same penny-pinching blowhards on, what Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize recipient and Professor of Economics at Columbia, calls the three trillion dollar wars!

Our President has also been given a Nobel prize -- for peace!
We ought to dismiss outright the mad rantings emanating from the bowels of the insane Right regarding that award and congratulate the President, but also congratulate ourselves for electing him in November of last year and putting an end to eight years of extremist damage and destruction brought to us by Cheney and Bush. But let us also realize, as did the Nobel committee so wisely understand, that peace has not yet been achieved and it will be up to the American people, once again, to demand the fulfillment of the promise that was made. And, yes, even though he said that Afghanistan was the "right" war, I believe that the President is having serious second thoughts about proceeding in the direction that the Pentagon generals have demanded. This is not a dumb President after all (unlike his predecessor) - he is well read and knows, full well, what escalation in Afghanistan portends for his Presidency, not to mention for the progressive goals that he enunciated during his campaign. He will need all the support that we can muster to push him and support him when he stands up to the warmongers. The cacophonous bellowing that will emanate from these war boosters, should Obama back away from pursuing an elusive military victory (whatever "victory" means), will be vicious, strident and unending. But we must remember one thing - They lost! We won! There's no reason to be depressed or defeatist. Let's stand up, as the majority that we are, and demand peace and the benefits of peace. That was what that election was all about - let's remember that and act on it.


Here are two events (I guess you were wondering when I would get back to that) taking place this week that can help build the demand for peace right here in little old Brooklyn. Both are being sponsored by my favorite organization, Brooklyn For Peace.

If you're in Brooklyn, please come out and join in.

But if you can't make it, consider making a generous donation to Brooklyn For Peace as it celebrates its 25 year anniversary. You can contribute easily online right here.
Twenty-five years of working for peace -- now that's an accomplishment you can believe in! Your donations will help support another 25 years - and we're gonna need a strong peace movment in the years ahead!

Thursday, October 15, 4:30 to 6:00 pm,
Brooklyn Borough Hall
(Joralemon St., between Court St. and Boerum Pl.)

Protest Vigil:
Mark the 8th Anniversary of War in Afghanistan
and demand an end to the war NOW!



Sunday, October 18, 8:00 pm to 2:00 am
Concert - Brooklyn Get Radical!
at Public Assembly - 70 N 6 Street, Williamsburg

• Music - Hip Hop and other genres
• Spoken Word
• This will be for all ages - youth and older! This event will rock you and roll you and will raise much needed funds for Brooklyn For Peace, celebrating its 25th anniversary.
• You can order tickets online: Order Here,