“Today, Afghanistan and the U.S. initialed and locked the text of the strategic partnership agreement,” said President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed….”

Why “lock” or “close” the future of Afghanistan to 30 million ordinary Afghan citizens?

What is the Afghan street opinion?

While the world may accept that the U.S. and Afghan governments have some “state” or “noble” considerations for not revealing the contents of the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement, what about the democratic consideration of involving Afghans in their own future?

Even the Afghan parliament was in the dark and uninvolved until it was recently given a peek when Afghanistan’s national security adviser, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, read “portions” of the Agreement to assembled parliamentarians on April 23, saying that the U.S. will defend Afghanistan from any outside interference via “diplomatic means, political means, economic means, and even military means.”

The U.S. has said it expects to keep about 20,000 troops in the country after 2014.

What is the Afghan public’s opinion regarding the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement?

Does anyone know?

In an article dated July 11, 2011, Iman Hasan of The News wrote:

[T]he Afghan public has outright rejected the U.S. plans as the results of a survey conducted by U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) suggest. UNAMA with its 23 offices in Afghanistan conducted the survey across the country some two months back and hasn’t published it. Although, the survey’s findings are widely known. If published, the stark survey results will undermine the U.S.’ future strategic plans.

Out of curiosity, the Afghan Peace Volunteers pursued the question of whether the U.N. had actually conducted such a survey.

We sent emails to friends with the Fellowship of Reconciliation U.S.A. who have correspondence and contact with the U.N. Below was the reply that was forwarded to us.

April 14, 2012

Dear XXX,

I sent an email inquiry to the U.N. coordinator in Afghanistan to ask about the survey.

As I suspected, I did not receive any response. It seems they are not willing to talk about it.

But I will keep watching for any future publications.

Best,

XXX

We also asked a staff member at McClatchy newspapers in Kabul if he could ask some questions at the U.N. office in Kabul. We have not heard any news from the McClatchy staff.

So we still don’t know if there was ever such a survey conducted by the U.N. office in Kabul.

We feel that even if there was no such survey, then a survey should be conducted under the auspices of the U.N. and its results made known before the signing of the agreement, to rebuild trust in the U.N., the U.S., and Afghan governments’ democratic processes.

The contents of the U.S. Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement should be “unlocked” to the American and Afghan publics, and the survey should be conducted among Afghans in every province, particularly in the provinces where the joint military operations of the Strategic Partnership Agreement will continue to be launched beyond 2014.

Has the U.N. silenced the Afghan public?

But perhaps, participation in today’s democracy is designed to be “locked” away.

We, the Afghan Peace Volunteers, respectfully ask for the key.

The Canadian Peace Alliance and Afghans for Peace strongly condemn this potential extension and once again call on the Harper Conservatives to respect the will of Canadians and the Afghan people and bring the troops home now. A recent Angus Reid poll found 58 per cent of Canadians strongly disagree with keeping troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014. A CBC news live poll found a whopping 95 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the extension.

In the context of a global economic crisis and austerity budgets at home, the last thing we need is for the Conservative government to spend tens of millions more dollars enforcing a brutal occupation. The Afghan people want schools and hospitals, not more guns and special forces troops.

The war in Afghanistan has been a disaster for the Afghan people who have had to endure a decade of night raids, bombings and the deaths of thousands of civilians. The recent high profile attacks by a U.S. Soldier in Kandahar which killed 17 civilians is but the latest in a litany of abuses meted out to the Afghan people at the hands of NATO. And the attacks on the NATO and the Afghan parliament this month prove that the goal of providing a security for the Afghans is an illusion. NATO can’t even control the central area of Kabul where there offices are located.

It is far beyond time to get all NATO troops out of the country. Harper is floating this idea of an extension now that the U.S. Afghan strategic partnership has just been ratified. The partnership will keep a permanent presence in the country and Canada is being asked to help the U.S. in continuing this war. Canadian foreign policy should not be set by the Pentagon or NATO but by the people of this country who are overwhelmingly calling for peace.

Canadians will stand in opposition to this new extension and will stand in solidarity with the Afghan people until all occupying troops are removed

Canadian Peace Alliance
Afghans for Peace

On May 1st, 2012, inspired by 126 years of workers’ struggles, the Arab Spring, the Indignados of Spain, the global fights against austerity, and the Occupy movement, we take to the streets again! This year the march has the following six themes: (1) Respect Indigenous sovereignty, (2) No One Is Illegal, (3) International Workers Solidarity, (4) Defend and expand public services, stop prison expansion and corporate bail-outs, (5) End imperialist wars and aggression, (6) Build people’s power, and to move beyond capitalism.

Afghans for Peace will be speaking regarding the 5th theme – End imperialist wars – and particularly, Canada’s involvement in the occupation of Afghanistan, other imperialist wars around the world, as well as Canada’s military build up.

Take the day off in support of May Day, spread the word to friends and family, and join the demonstration in solidarity with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, Afghans for Peace and ordinary Afghans.

In response to the appeal from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in Afghanistan to “take to the streets earlier“, Afghans for Peace is taking part in this year’s Occupy Toronto/MayDay protest. While the mass demonstrations are for a number of related causes, AFP will be representing the Afghan voice for Peace in solidarity with AYPV and the people of Afghanistan.

For more info on AFP:  facebook.com/​AfghansForPeace
Spread the word on Facebook by visiting the AFP event page

We will be gathering at Nathan Philips Square at 4 pm. Here’s a complete schedule of the day’s Occupy activities:

#May1TO

*No Work *No School *No Shopping *No Banking *No Housework

The winter slumber is over. Time to take the streets!

Documented or undocumented. Paid or unpaid. We are Workers. We are Students. We are Families. We are the 99%.

The 1% carry out war, throw us in prisons, make us poor, destroy public services, attack unions, and poison the environment. They deny us freedom and dignity.

So We Fight and We Resist.

On International Workers Day, join us and our allies No One is Illegal Toronto, the May 1st Movement, and dozens of community groups in the city for a rally and march to respect Indigenous sovereignty, insist that no one is illegal, for international workers solidarity, to defend and expand public services, to stop prison expansion and corporate handouts, to end imperialist wars and aggression, to build peoples’ power, and to move beyond capitalism.

They are few, we are many. Join us.

Endorsed & Supported by Afghans for Peace, CAMP Sis, Canadian Auto Workers Union, Centre for Social Justice, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Committee for the Defence of the Iranian Peoples Rights (Canada Organization), Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians, Communist Party of Canada, DAMN, Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly, Health for All, International Council of Latin American and Caribbean Women in Canada, International Federation of Iranian Refugees, Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network, Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network, Law Union of Ontario, Maggie’s: Toronto Sex Workers Action Project, Metro Toronto Labour Council, Mining Injustice Solidarity Network, Movement Defence Committee, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Ontario Federation of Labour, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation District 12, OPIRG Toronto, OPIRG York, ProtestBarrick, Rhythms of Resistance, Socialist Project, Stop the Cuts, Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, Toronto Socialist Action, Trans Film Screenings, Tudeh Party of Iran – Canada Organization, United May Day Committee, Unity Against Unemployment in Iraq, Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto], Workers Action Centre, Workers Community Party of Iran and more…

Media Sponsor: rabble.ca

More RSVPs on our Outreach page: https://www.facebook.com/events/283487608393208/

After decades of military devastation, Afghans are traumatized.

By Terry J. Allen

War makes people crazy.

The war in Afghanistan has taken a devastating toll on mental health–from depression to suicide, domestic violence to murderous rampages. And financial and family strains, as well as attempts at self-medication, have exacerbated the casualty count.

I am talking about the war’s effect on Afghans. But after U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly massacred at least 17 civilians, including nine children, on March 11, media and experts quickly rallied to lament how the mental stress of Bales’ multiple combat deployments provided sympathetic context to the Panjwai butchery. The ignored context is an Afghan population traumatized by more than four decades of cultural and military devastation wrought by invading armies, mercenaries, women-hating Taliban and warlords – on top of a life expectancy in the low 60s.

Many Afghans–blameless in ways that volunteer soldiers never can be–have been pushed past sanity by violence; by becoming refugees or internally displaced; and by losing family, culture, educational opportunities, professions, houses, rights and hope.

“[V]iolence is now embedded in daily routine,” concluded the Dutch nongovernmental organization (NGO) Healthnet. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that 60 percent of Afghans have mental illnesses including anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Women and children bear the brunt: More than half of all women are depressed, with 78 percent suffering anxiety disorders, according to Healthnet researchers. And 80 percent of children surveyed in Kabul “felt frightened, sad and unable to cope,” with 90 percent believing they will die in war, according to a 2011 report by the U.K.-based NGO Tearfund.

While 227 health professionals serve the 40,000 troops at Bales’ military base – Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash. – Afganistan’s 26 million inhabitants have a few dozen trained providers, and they lack medications and adequate facilities. Services in rural areas, where 75 percent of the population lives, “are nonexistent,” WHO reports.

Not surprisingly, many of the country’s mentally ill turn to self-medication, either with over-the-counter balms such as benzodiazepines (e.g. Valium) or with illegal opium and heroin. A 2009 U.N. study found that war trauma is a key factor for the almost 1 million Afghans with drug problems.

Some Afghans pay $100 or more a month to have loved ones treated at religious shrines where they are chained and fed only bread and water. One shackled patient scratched a drawing of a plane on his wall “so he can fly out of here,” his uncle told the Chicago Tribune.

Victims are plentiful in this ill-conceived war, in which America invaded a hostile and already brutalized nation instead of targeting a group of terrorists. The media have dissected Bales’ psyche, exploring reasons why he may have “snapped”; describing him as a family man, a good soldier, disgruntled, disappointed, disillusioned; and suggesting a host of mitigating factors: repeated tours, a house with an underwater mortgage, watching his comrade’s leg get blown off, and suffering a concussion, possibly not the first brain injury for the former high-school football star.

Bales is not undeserving of compassion. With the collaboration of a military that failed to monitor his mental health, his government sent him again and again into combat that was beyond his ability to endure. Yet the most tragic victims are the dead and their families, along with the millions of Afghans for whom the traumatic wartime conditions Bales faced for several years have been the norm for generations.

In their 1946 study of World War II Army combatants, psychiatrists Roy Swank and Walter Marchand found that after 60 days of continuous combat, 98 percent of the surviving soldiers had become psychiatric casualties. And the remaining 2 percent were identified as “aggressive psychopathic personalities,” or mentally ill to begin with.

If the researchers are right, it is inevitable that many people brutalized by war will become aggressive or mentally ill. But while the experience of war makes people crazy, those who perpetuate or profit from this failed conflict have no such mitigating context.

This article was originally published on inthesetimes.com. Terry Allen is an In These Times senior editor.

By Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

This video was filmed as we kept each other company nearby the attacks on the Afghan Parliament building, the Parliament being one of seven separate locations in Kabul where the ‘Taliban’ launched 18 hours of co-ordinated attacks on the 15th of April 2012.

In the video as it was in our hearts that day, the senseless sounds of the fighting could be ‘felt’.

Most of us could not sleep through that night, especially in the early hours of the next morning, when the U.S./NATO-backed Afghan forces with their helicopters moved in for their kill, human beings killing fellow human beings, or in the ironic but human ‘affection’ of President Karzai, ‘our Taliban brothers’.

This ‘human pallor’ needs to end.

Transcript of video

He whipped everyone. Those who were whipped had marks here & there on going home.

That was the first time I saw the Taliban & then not till now. Thanks be to God!

How long before the new government came? ( sound of firing )

About 4 or 5 months…..( sound of rocket blast )

No teacher, this ( firing ) doesn’t affect people very much.

I’m in the room.

Yes, I can hear you. Are you fine?

Is the bullet or the pen better? The pen, teacher!

Were they firing? Yes, there were blasts and firing.

We left ( school ) immediately and ran.

They’re really near! ( sound of blast )

Let’s go! Let’s go!

At such a time, they are playing M&M rap on the radio. Farhad Darya? No, M&M.

At school, everyone was worried.

The female teacher initially said,’ Be calm.’ Later, she turned pale.

You’re also perspiring. Yes, I was nervous.

Dear, do you know why we all came to this room?

Yes, teacher. In the other room, if a rocket strikes, we may all die. Here, at least one of us will survive.

Yes, I understand now.

The Taliban has come, okay?

Yes, I thought that a bullet had passed close by this way.

Yes, I definitely heard the bullet myself…shoosh….I knew that the ( curse ) had passed by.

Hey boy, they’ll be worried. Call them.

No, they know that if anything happens, I’ll go to my uncle’s house nearby.

A woman under a burqa was crying, helpless.

Boys, wear your turbans…

Peace on earth!

Where is the peace? There’s fighting now.

Things are getting worse. From fear, I’m tying my turban now.

If they come, I’ll say, “I’m an Afghan ( in Pashto )”

God be your refuge.

No to all armed groups and militaries.

Dear friends of ordinary 99 percent Afghans,

We thank you for your love and your hands and feet, in organizing for the upcoming Chicago protests!

In these killing days, we in Afghanistan do not expect the interests of people to triumph over self-interests. But your efforts prove that another world is possible.

However, respectfully, late May demonstrations are probably too late to request that the majority of public opinion against the Afghan war be placed on NATO’s table, so as to end the ineffectual wasting of tax money on a futile war strategy. War doesn’t work!

By the time you take to the streets in Chicago on May 20, the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement for a long term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will have been signed.

As General John Allen remarked last Sunday:

The US is fully committed to an enduring strategic partnership with Afghanistan … and now that we have concluded these two critically important MOUs [memorandums of understanding] — one on detentions and one on special operations — we are ready to look forward to a successful summit in Chicago in the wake of the signing of the Strategic Partnership.

The talk of a 2014 withdrawal is a distracting side show, and the recently clinched “important MOUs” for detentions and night raids/special operations were the token bait. In General Allen’s declaration, we will be protesting “in the wake” of the signing of this so-called partnership. Permits! Protests! The deal will have been done.

Perpetual war in South Asia will have been sealed in Washington and Kabul, in the sacred names of global and national security.

But, our names are not global and national security.

Our name is love.

If at all possible, please take to the streets earlier.

For us here in Afghanistan, where the streets are too deadly, on April 21 we’ll take to the Afghan airwaves again!

With year-round gratitude and spring warmth,

The Afghan Peace Volunteers

Afghans for Peace

Today, it is apparent that whatever the political ideology, left or right, the 1% dominate, and the rest of us are still unable to govern ourselves.

The ground realities in Afghanistan make ordinary Afghans feel like ‘trash’. Who takes notice of or listens to ‘trash’?

We are in need of a different world.

We are in need of a dignified, non-violent way of governing ourselves.

In Afghanistan, as nothing seems to be working for ordinary people, we do need everything to change. We need to occupy everything.

But how do we begin, and how do we persist?

Here in Afghanistan, we can’t yet occupy any physical space with ease of mind. Even the Afghan airwaves are occupied by the very 1% who rule over us. The 1% saturate the airwaves with their militarized money, crafting double-speak schemes that discourage and divide us.

Therefore, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers had decided months ago that we would at least ‘Occupy the Afghan Airwaves’. You could help us ‘Occupy the Afghan Airwaves’ by participating through the website facility called http://globaldaysoflistening.org , even if only for a few minutes of your time.

We the 99% need more listening, more conversations, more general assemblies, brainstorms, heart-storms, music, art, sports and every kind action until we conscientiously forge a new way of living and interacting with one another. A new economy, a new education, a new environment, new politics and new ways of self-governance.

Humanity may not have developed this new world yet, but a lack of vision, unity, perseverance or hard work mustn’t be hindrances on the long road ahead.  We shouldn’t defeat one another. We shouldn’t defeat ourselves.

Unfortunately, the ‘war movement’ is a lot more organized and driven than the ‘anti-war movement’. While the ‘anti-war movement’ may not be small in numbers, we are so separated by artificial barriers of language and economy, politics and religion, methods and personalities that we remain tiny, isolated groups of 1%.

We have not become the 99% we ought to be yet. We have not become a global tree yet. The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers dream not only of the world becoming a unified 99%, but of humanity becoming united by the commitment to equality and to non-killing methods.

We hold the hope that 100% of all human beings are, at their very depths, anti-war. Human beings do not naturally want to be oppressed or killed in wars.

Our wish is that the popular movements we’ve witnessed in the world last year, as embodied by Time Magazine’s acknowledgment of ‘The Protester’, would gel together into a globally coordinated 99%, because we know for sure that we cannot bring change alone, not in the face of an excessively rich and powerful 1%.

The Power and Money games of the Afghan and international elite are hurting us.

It is obvious that the international community in Afghanistan is not the international community representing the 99%. It is the international community representing the 1%.

Their strategy is failing at the people’s expense.  They themselves are falling apart.

Please help us to stand against this economic and strategic war by urgently addressing and debating its perpetuation through the Pentagon plan of signing the US Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement. The US Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement that the Obama administration hopes to sign before the Chicago NATO conference in May is essentially a plan for long-term, joint US/Afghan military forces in Afghanistan beyond 2024.

The speed and nature of withdrawal isn’t that important to the Powers. It’s the long term economic and military agreements that matter.

When President Obama said that the U.S. will not be in Afghanistan longer than is necessary, he is speaking of a manufactured necessity that is traditionally perpetual, as in the perpetually necessary Okinawa military base.

We will try to cling to those human values that prevail through time and adversity, the values of love and truth. Please cling on to those values too, as we try to change everything.

And, forgive us if we fail.

Much peace and warmth from what has been an exceptionally cold winter in Kabul,

The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

http://ourjourneytosmile.com

http://globaldaysoflistening.org

Canadian Militarism in Action

A Six-Point Peace Plan for Afghanistan 

Date: Saturday April 21st 2012, 1-5pm
Location: University of Toronto: Galbraith Building, Room 120 (35 St. George St)

Speakers include:

Dr. Michael Skinner
Dr. John Duncan
AFP Rep. Abdul Rahman Nekzai

Admission: Free
Donations welcome

In the last month following the Panjwai massacre and a series of events initiated by Afghans for Peace, AFP received a lot of feedback with a handful of criticisms from those who disagree with our stance against the presence of NATO troops inside Afghanistan. We saw this as a great opportunity to create a safe space for a facilitated dialogue on the War in Afghanistan.

We want everyone to ask questions and try to find answers. Lets learn to disagree with one another respectfully. Only then can we learn, grow and come up with effective strategies that many of us can get behind.

In this open forum, we wish to have:

- A non-hierarchical democratic consensus based model, where everyone is equal and respected. All are welcome to participate by representing themselves as ordinary people.
- Open dialogue. NO silencing
- Discuss a variety of strategies on how to organize our communities
- Skype call conversation with other Afghans around the world (e.g. Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers inside Afghanistan)

Click here for the Facebook link.

Organized by:
Afghan Student Association @UofT
Afghans for Peace