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Aghast at Afghan voter fraud

06 Sep 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday's reading from the Letter of James urges us to "show no partiality." As top envoys for Afghanistan gathered in Paris Wednesday, claims of massive vote fraud in the recent elections called into question the Afghan government's claims of partiality and cast a pall over peace efforts. U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke joined counterparts from 26 countries and organizations for talks on Afghanistan's future after the August 20 vote, which has been mired in allegations of ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation. Afghanistan's election commission is investigating more than 2,500 complaints of irregularities. With ballots from nearly half the polling stations reported, President Hamid Karzai was leading his main rival Abdullah Abdullah but was short of the majority needed to avoid a run-off. The meeting comes two days after U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan presented a gloomy assessment of the war, calling for a shift in strategy in the nearly eight-year campaign to defeat the Taliban. Already 2009 has been a record-breaking year for the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan and questions are being asked over the fate of billions of dollars in international aid that has poured into the country. Washington's relations with Karzai have grown increasingly strained while public opinion in the U.S. and Europe has turned cold over what many see as an ill-defined Afghan campaign. Source: Articles by Dexter Filkins for the New York Times and Agence France Presse

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War in Afghanistan: widening or winding down?

06 Dec 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth," this Sunday's gospel says of the mission of John the Baptist. The long and difficult war in Afghanistan took another turn Tuesday with President Barack Obama's speech to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the speech the president explained his decision to commit 30,000 additional U.S. troops to the conflict and also outlined his exit strategy. He said the additional combat troops would be in place by next summer but promised to start bringing them home by July 2011. "I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said. "This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak." But noting the nearly $1 trillion spent so far on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama refused to commit to a prolonged engagement. "I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interest," he said. Obama's decision came after months of deliberation--described by detractors as "dithering"--on the course of a war that has already lasted eight years and claimed the lives of 929 U.S. troops. The president appeared sensitive to the charge of indecisiveness, assuring those who will be doing the fighting that his lengthy policy review allowed him to "ask the hard questions and explore all the different options." "I do not make this decision lightly," Obama said, stressing that he recognizes how weary Americans are with war and how eager they are to focus on rebuilding the battered U.S. economy. "If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan," he said, "I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow." In authorizing the accelerated deployment, the president made it clear he would demand a far greater effort from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to root out corruption in his government and from Afghan soldiers and police officers to join the effort. Obama's strategy won quick backing from NATO allies who meet next week to consider his request that they add additional troops as well. Some Democrats criticized Obama's escalation of the war, while some Republicans said they were unhappy with his promise to begin withdrawing troops in 18 months. Congress nevertheless appears willing to approve the buildup's $30 billion price tag. Source: Articles by Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes and Christi Parsons for the Los Angeles Times, Anne Flaherty and Anne Gearan for the Associated Press, Dexter Filkins for the New York Times, and Steven Thomma for McClatchy Newspapers

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U.S.-Afghan partnership faces loyalty test

26 Aug 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s readings present tests of fidelity: Joshua challenges the people upon entry to the land of promise to “decide today whom you will serve,” while Jesus faces desertion in the ranks and knowledge that he will be betrayed. Top U.S. military brass are convening in Afghanistan this week to confront a deepening crisis of mistrust between U.S. service members and their presumed Afghan allies after a two-week stretch in which 10 Americans have been killed by Afghan security forces in violence designated as insider or "green-on-blue” attacks. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Afghanistan on Monday for discussions on the progress of the war even as New Zealand became the latest coalition partner to announce an accelerated troop withdrawal. The visit by Dempsey was characterized by NATO as one of his regular trips to Kabul, but it comes after the trust-eroding two-week stretch of insider attacks. Dempsey met in Kabul with Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, as well as other senior coalition and Afghan officials, said Jamie Graybeal, a NATO spokesman. The visit comes as the military has moved insider killings to the top of the agenda because of heightened worries about how coalition troops can protect themselves while training members of the Afghan army and the police—a central part of the U.S.’s withdrawal strategy. Last Saturday U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai by phone to urge him to find new ways to stop the attacks. On Monday President Barack Obama expressed concern about the killings and said in a White House news conference that he, too, would be conferring with Karzai about them. Source: An article by Graham Bowley for the New York Times

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Will peace elude Afghanistan again?

23 Jun 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Letter to the Galatians this Sunday describes how faith ends all divisions, uniting one and all as children of God. The announcement Monday that the U.S. and Afghan governments would begin direct talks on national unity with representatives of the Taliban insurgency gave the world at least a brief glimmer of hope the 11-year-old Afghan war might be coming to an end. But within hours the Afghan government had suspended the talks and insurgents had carried out an ambush on an American convoy near the Bagram Air Base north of the Afghan capital, killing four American soldiers.Afghans of nearly every political stripe expressed outrage and concern at widely broadcast news images of insurgent envoys raising the white Taliban flag from their days in power and speaking as if they had set up an embassy for a government in exile—including posting a sign that described the office as the political arm of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the formal name of the old Taliban government. Qatari-based news organizations, including Al Jazeera, later broadcast several interviews with the envoys making their case for international attention.The Afghan government, furious that assurances from the Americans the Taliban would not use the Doha office for political or fund-raising purposes had been flouted, suspended bilateral security talks with the U.S. earlier Wednesday and said they would not send their peace emissaries to Qatar to talk to the Taliban until there was a change.American officials, worried that painstaking efforts to restart the peace process after 18 months of deadlock were crumbling right at a breakthrough moment, moved quickly to try to resolve the Afghan government’s objections to what increasingly appeared to be a publicity coup by the Taliban.At the same time President Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office that the U.S. had said one thing and done another while arranging informal peace talks with the insurgent Taliban movement. “We had anticipated that at the outset, there were going to be some areas of friction, to put it mildly, in getting this thing off the ground,” Obama said.Homily hint: If we are indeed all children of one God, why can’t we stop fighting with each other and learn to get along? Perhaps because we haven’t learned to listen to our divine Parent, preferring to remain immature and rebellious and think we know better. Encourage those who are gathered to pray that we all grow up to recognize and heed the reconciling call of the Parent we are blessed to share. Sources: Articles by Alissa J. Rubin and Rod Nordland for the New York Timesand Kathleen Hennessey and Hashmat Baktash for the Los Angeles Times

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Peacemaking efforts around the world

01 Dec 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Christians await the Prince of Peace during Advent, just as the 8th-century prophet Isaiah foresaw a time of universal peace among the nations when “one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” While recent diplomatic efforts haven’t achieved quite so dramatic a breakthrough, there has been progress towards peaceful settlement in some areas of conflict:• Even though denounced by Israel as a "bad deal," a breakthrough agreement between Iran and six world powers to restrain its nuclear program should nevertheless make it significantly harder for the Islamic state to build any atomic bomb, experts saidBy halting Iran's most sensitive enrichment of uranium, last Sunday's interim accord is designed to stop the expansion of Iranian atomic activities and buy time for negotiations on a final settlement of the decade-old nuclear dispute. Iran will for now retain thousands of centrifuges refining uranium,but only to concentrations far below that needed for nuclear weapons, and also keep a stockpile which could potentially be used for bombs if processed much more."The short-term deal accomplishes a great deal," nuclear proliferation expert David Albright of the U.S. Institute for Science and International Security said. For example, he said, it would eliminate Iran's stock of uranium gas refined to a fissile purity of 20 percent, a source of deep concern for the West as it represents a relatively short technical step away from bomb-grade material.Under the agreement, Iran must halt this higher-grade enrichment and also dilute or convert its existing reserve of such uranium to a form that is not suitable for further enrichment, according to a U.S. fact sheet.The interim agreements leaves heavy economic sanctions against Iran in place while the world community works toward a permanent solution over the next six months.• From Afghanistan, a nation hoping to emerge from more than a decade of war, the news is less optimistic. Afghanistan's president and the U.S. delivered blunt messages to each other Monday which gave no indication of a resolution of their disagreements over a pact that governs the future of the American troop presence in the country.Hamid Karzai said he won't back down from his refusal to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement during the rest of his term in office, with National Security Adviser Susan Rice responding that would mean the U.S. would then start planning to pull out all its forces after 2014.Their meeting in Kabul came the day after Karzai's surprise decision to ignore last Sunday's recommendation by an Afghan assembly of dignitaries to sign the agreement, a refusal that cast doubt on whether American and allied troops would remain in Afghanistan to train Afghan forces after most foreign troops depart next year.The U.S. has urged Karzai to sign a deal that would allow about 8,000 U.S. troops to stay in the country beyond a 2014 withdrawal deadline. The two-term Afghan leader has insisted that the winner of an April 5 election to succeed him should be the one to sign the deal. More than $8 billion in annual funds for Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces and development assistance also are at stake.• On a third front, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis spoke a united word in favor of peace in Syria on Monday, agreeing in what the Vatican called cordial discussions on the need for the end of violence and a diplomatic solution in Syria. The United Nations announced this week that talks between the Syrian government and opposition representatives will begin January 22 in Geneva.Homily hint: Peacemaking is tiring work. Conflict seems to come more readily to the human race than cooperation. All the more reason we need to redouble efforts to be be peacemakers—in our homes and communities, our churches and cities. A peaceful people builds a peaceful world. Advent is the season to begin. Sources: Articles by Patrick Quinn for the Associated Press, Reuters,Patrick J. McDonnell for the Los Angeles Times, and VOA News

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Over and out in Afghanistan?

02 Mar 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

We learn this Sunday that the psalmist rests securely only in God, “my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.” In the aftermath of a decade of war and foreign military presence, many in the Afghan government as well as the Afghan public believe continued U.S. troop presence is essential to keep the country from descending into chaos and civil war.Even so, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign an agreement that would keep several thousand American troops in the country after combat operations conclude this year. As a result the Obama administration Tuesday alerted Afghanistan it has started planning for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of the year if the security agreement is not finalized.Statements by the White House and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel showed President Barack Obama's impatience with Karzai's refusal to sign. In a phone call with Karzai on Tuesday to discuss upcoming elections for a new Afghan leader, Obama made clear that time was running out to properly plan for keeping any U.S. forces in the country beyond 2014, the White House said."President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014," said the White House statement.The statement noted that a deal remained possible with a new Afghan leader even if Karzai fails to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) before the April election chooses his successor. “We will leave open the possibility of concluding a BSA with Afghanistan later this year."Meanwhile a senior Pakistani official warned that pulling out U.S. troops could have dire consequences, leading to a civil war in Afghanistan. Speaking on condition of not being identified, the official predicted that 30 percent of Afghan forces would desert if U.S. forces leave the country.Homily hint: Many Americans have been troubled from the beginning by the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Long after the troops are gone, the rebuilding and healing must continue. Consider helping via an organization with a special program for the nation, such as Oxfam.org. Source: An article by Barbara Starr and Tom Cohen for CNN

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