PUBLIC DEBATE OBAMA’S AFGHAN WAR

PUBLIC DEBATE OBAMA’S AFGHAN WAR: Should foreign troops withdraw?
Date: Wed 15 July 2009 7pm
Venue: Davenport Hotel, Merrion Square, Dublin
Speakers:
* Robert Faucher (Chargé d'Affaires, US Embassy),
* Jonathan Neale (US Author),
* Sahar Saba (Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan).
Chairman: Deaglán de Bréadún.
Background Information
* Why has Obama declared Afghanistan "the good war?"
* Why are so many Western troops, including Irish military, involved in this war?
* Why is the anti-war movement calling for all troops to be withdrawn?
Afghanistan is descending into a hell-hole of chaos, corruption, crime and death. Estimates
of civilian deaths caused by the 2001 invasion vary from 6,300 to 23,600. In May this year,
U.S. planes dropped 2,000-pound bombs on three mud-brick villages in Western Afghanistan,
killing up to 140 people. Over 1100 coalition soldiers have also been killed.
The effects of the occupation have swelled support for the Taliban. The war is escalating
and has spilled over into neighbouring Pakistan where attacks by US drone planes and the
US backed Pakistani army assault on villages in the Swat Valley has left hundreds dead.
and, Trócaire says that up to two million people have been displaced.
Western forces are rowing ever further in behind the invasion. U.S. troop reinforcements,
some 30,000 soldiers are beginning to arrive in southern Afghanistan. added to the 32,000
already there. The White House also wants to give Pakistan nearly $1.5 billion a year
development aid and $400 million in fresh military assistance.
Europe is deeply involved. ISAF troops (International Security Assistance Force) working
under an expanded NATO command number 61,000 from 42 different countries, including at
least ten officers from Ireland. Since October 2006 This is truly a war waged by western
powers against a small poor country that has the misfortune to have a prized strategic position.
Yet the west’s war is not popular with Afghanis. Opinion polls show Afghan confidence in the U.S.
and the Afghan government plummeting, with now only 32% - down from 68% in 2005 - supporting the
US performance. Yet this is the war that Obama wants to make his own. The stakes are very high but
what is the war all about? Representatives from both the US Embassy (confirmed) and the Irish Dept.
of Foreign Affairs have been invited to debate American and Afghani anti war activists. Come along
and find out about this horrific situation.