MVPJ Attends White House Teleconference on Afghanistan

The White House held a teleconference today to discuss the President’s announced plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan. I attended representing Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice.

The teleconference didn’t help to overcome the disappointment our steering committee experienced last night listening to the President speakat the US Military Academy, or our deep concerns for the upcoming increase in military forces in Afghanistan, but it did provide me with some hope that there’s more going on than just the “surge.”

(Contents of this article also appear on Tikkun Daily)

For this phone call, the White House pulled together senior administration officials from the White House, the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Defense Department. Obviously the White House is trying to get organizations like mine to understand and perhaps support the plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and I was impressed by the level of people with whom we got to speak, AND, the fact that they took quite a few questions from us after they made their presentations (and actually answered those questions).

During the presentation, one administration official mentioned that significant work was being done to create jobs in Afghan agriculture. This, in my opinion, is one of the most important tasks for us and the Afghan government. If we had really worked on that in the two years after the Taliban fled Kabul we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in now. Al Quaeda and the Taliban have an easier time recruiting people because so many Afghan men can not feed their families. Jobs are critical to drying up the pool of insurgents. And, all we have to do is beat what the militants and drug trade currently pay, which in many cases is a mere few dollars a day. Plus, building up Afghanistan’s food agricultural programs will also help decrease poppy production that helps feed the insurgency the cash it needs to continue fighting against ISAF and Afghan forces. Getting Afghans working to feed themselves and their neighbors strikes a double blow to the insurgency, without having to drop a single bomb.

While I was pleased to hear about the focus on agricultural jobs, I asked why more wasn’t being done across the entire country, to help Afghans find work in other fields. The answer was encouraging.

In addition to the investment already underway in agricultural conversion, the White House is pushing Congress to pass legislation to create “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones” in Afghanistan so that other industries can create products that can be imported/exported without tariffs. The State Department is also working with the European Union and other key allies to get similar legislation passed. This could help to create a lot of jobs for Afghans PLUS put Afghanistan back into its historic position as a center of trade. To make that work, however, both Pakistan and India need to support Transit/Trade agreements that will once again open up that historic passage between all the countries in that region. Today, as you can imagine, the idea of making passage between those three countries is somewhat frightening given the level of terrorist attacks we’ve witnessed in the past few years, but those fears need to be overcome and those passages need to be opened, if Afghanistan is to become a vital trading region again.

Perhaps the 110,000 troops the United States will eventually have in Afghanistan can help in reducing the threat and opening up those historic trading routes again. That could be one positive outcome that we could measure as a sign of success.

Another encouraging tidbit offered up during the teleconference was that the White House was already well under way in its plan to triple the number of civilians working in Afghanistan. Plus, they announced that they will be creating a civilian counterpart to the ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) military commander. For those of us who feel that there is NO purely military solution to the problems facing Afghanistan, an emphasis on a civilian surge is critical.

Last night, one of the people who watched the President’s speech with the MVPJ steering committee at the First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, said at the end, that it was the first time she heard “President Obama sounding like President Bush.” Indeed some of the things he said seemed to come directly out of the Bush playbook and that saddened me as well.

Yet, can you imagine the Bush White House, the day after one of his speeches, holding a teleconference with people from across the country, including folks who might support the administration as well as those who oppose its plans, and actually taking questions from and listening to those people?

I can’t imagine that.

So, despite being very worried about the plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan, I feel good knowing that unlike the previous eight years, this White House, including senior people like David Sedney (Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense), Paul Jones (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Afghanistan and Pakistan), and Denis McDonough (National Security Council Chief of Staff) are interested in hearing our voices, listening to our questions, and actually answering them.