Afghanistan

The path out of war seems to involve creating peace where we can, in earnest community with people whose basic needs aren’t met. It involves creating a green and equal world, acting conscientiously to abolish war. 

“Afghanistan experienced three decades of war,” said Esmatullah. “I wish that one day we’ll be able to end war. I want to be someone who, in the future, bans wars.” It will take a lot of “someones” to ban war, ones like Esmatullah who become schooled in ways to live communally with the neediest of people.

Our young friends have had enough of war, displacement, trauma and hunger.  60 million people, worldwide, now seek refuge, many of them fleeing war and violence. Shameful warlords and war profiteers, such as those who commandeered U.S. wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, destabilize defenseless populations. 

According to the CIA World Factbook, an Afghan's life expectancy is merely 45 years.That's 20 to 30 years less than neighboring Pakistan and all other surrounding countries. It is just one result of the ongoing devastation in that country.

Despite ten years of occupation and untold millions of dollars spent on rebuilding Afghanistan’s broken judicial and criminal justice system, the Afghan courts are “still too weak.” The number of Afghans detained at Bagram has tripled over the past three years to more than 2,600 and the new construction will raise the capacity to 5,500 prisoners.

As Pakistan begins an all-out air and land assault on its own people and its president asks America for drones, we must ask: can Pakistan succeed in defeating the Taliban when America has not?