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Folks, the easiest way to be peaceful is, if you don't understand something, get educated about it, not from the ignorant, the closed-minded and the uninformed, but from the best sources. Prejudice, misunderstanding and intolerance exist and thrive on ignorance. When you learn truth, you become more tolerant, because you increase your understanding. Try it!
Suggested by Jamaka Petzak on 08/11/2009 @ 04:24PM PT
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DOD!? Department of Defense!? Convert the out-of-date, counterproductive DOD to true defense of all human beings, not territories, empires, corporations, parties, governments, borders, etc. (principalities and powers)! Simply--Defend peoples' health, safety and life. In the process, the first action would be to provide safe drinking water to all humans globally. (Period!) --Rev. James L. Mengel
Suggested by james mengel on 06/07/2009 @ 08:06PM PT
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I would like to suggest An *Exitable* Afghanistan/Pakistan ("Tribalistan") Strategy
After Tamim Ansary's talk at (Seattle) TownHall May 14 2009, I'm convinced he should be advising President Obama on our Afghanistan/Pakistan policy.
Tamim said, if I can paraphrase him correctly, that the word "Taliban" should be replaced with "Talibanism" because that was more akin to the actual reality in [Tribalistan]. That is, there were "good"/useful people as well as "bad"/destructive people that believed (to one degree or another) in the *ideas* of the Taliban. eg: If you want to rid the land of destructive ideas, killing "the bad people" was far from the best solution available. Tamin expanded on this (please see the link in the bio section below and the article at http://www.chalicebridge.com/ObamaMomentum.html#Tribalistan)
On the more pro-active side of things, Tamim said (in effect, I believe) that he hoped Obama would use the military (so long as it was there) for protecting those support projects that the communities themselves expressed need for. These projects would be the actual objectives to be accomplished by the US presence, and "killing the bad guys" may happen only as necessary to accomplish the objective (and probably would, given the apparent tenacity of resistance to any outside military presence).
I don't remember if Tamim said the military should also try to initiate such community support projects, but I'm assuming he would prefer they be initiated by those who were the best available for the work at hand. Which in some cases the US military might be (?), at least until their NGO betters can get to each situation in question.
But from this point, I can see a US strategy that would be drawn fairly directly from the above: select as many towns and villages, and networks there-of, as can be supported in their best interests, provide that support on an ongoing basis until the communities are sufficiently self-supportive and/or intra-supportive as a community network, and protect that community/network as necessary until they can be self-protected or protected by Afghan nationals; bring more communities into the those developed networks as resources allow, keep the network of networks growing and expanding as appropriate for long-term stability as can be managed by Afghan national government authorities. Assist in the stabilization of the later to the degree that it supports a true Afghan autonomy. Set goals for all the aforementioned such that the US military involvement has a stopping point as regards it's interaction and deployment. Provide motivation and assistance as needed for NGO's taking over community/network support roles where this will serve the higher good of Afghanistan.
Extending this to the areas that are officially parts of Pakistan should be far less complicated (in the long run certainly) than any military strategy that we've heard about so far. I'm not calling it simple, nor as non-violent and peace-oriented as I'd prefer. But given where we already are (Spring 2009), not to mention where we most apparently are already going, this can be a strategy that, for starters, may be sufficiently clear-cut, do-able, *and exitable* for the US in Tribalistan.
I might add that what we really don't need in Afghanistan right now is a bunch of walking (PTSD-loaded) time-bombs putting our worst US faces in the Tribalistani faces. Or in economically depleted main-street American communities, but that's another essay.) One thing that really puts believers of Islam into a mood, is Christians acting like they are God in their own communities - and that's how some of our behavior hits them. That's a "holy war" message to them, whereas they do respond to what they believe are true acts of God. (I'm suggesting that) A big part of our approach, besides helping them meet their greatest support needs, needs to be around *patience* - letting their own extremists screw up - as all extremists do, revealing their hypocrisy as all extremists do - in spades. Because as long as we keep doing things that their extremists can call out as sacrilege, we might as well be marked, and the Tribalistani's will give way to their extremists.
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BIO: Tamim Ansary is a native Afghani, whose American mother taught English at the first girl's school in Afghanistan. His dad taught science and literature at Kabul University. He came to America in 1964 with a scholarship for high school. He graduated with honors from Reed College and took to the 60's counterculture wholeheartedly. Besides a having solid writer/editor career, his commentary has been heard on the Bill Moyers show, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, the Opra Winfrey Show, Hardball, and numerous NPR radio stations. This very short bio hardly does him honor, but only serves to put these notes here. His website, complete with list of his books as well as a number of other interesting features, is at http://www.mirtamimansary.com/
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The above has been excerpted from the article at http://www.chalicebridge.com/ObamaMomentum.html#Tribalistan
Thank you,
Chris Pringer
Suggested by B. Christopher Pringer on 06/01/2009 @ 05:39PM PT
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The culture of peace needs some more infrastructure before it looks "real" enough to reassure security-minded Americans that it can take care of them and their families. After all, we've been depending on a strong military for a long time. The Department of Peace is a good piece of infrastructure, and The Institute of Peace and the National Peace Academy. There isn't much infrastructure to move the information they generate to the grassroots yet though. If every town had a peace group that was solidly tied into the life of the area, who met some real community needs and offered a chance for people to develop an identity as "peace people", it would create a forum for learning about the excellent research on peace and conflict resolution that's being done. Sometimes it seems like that information just floats in a black hole someplace.
Community models for proactive peace-learning at the local level that create a positive group identity for peace. More then just organizing anti-war demonstrations. That's one thing we need.
Suggested by Gladys Tiffany on 03/19/2009 @ 11:12PM PT
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Hard, solid, objective data is an essential element if peace is to be won. If one person feels that Israeli casualties are being under-reported, and another feels that Western media neglect the plight of Palestinians, this can only be resolved by lining unimpeachable research on the number of stories, how many positive, how many negative, etc. The same thing applies to sorting out the real truth of the barrier wall and the settlements, the relationship between Israeli public opinion and government policy there, the comparison of weaponry, and so on. It is so hard to find unbiased information.
Suggested by Alexander Patico on 03/17/2009 @ 01:54PM PT
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