War's Grim Echoes at Home

This article I wrote appeared in the Marin Independent Journal yesterday. I'd love to read people's thoughts in response. -- Norman

By Norman Solomon

Today, the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is beginning its tenth year, with 100,000 American troops in that country nearly a decade after the invasion started on Oct. 7, 2001.

When I returned home from a brief visit to Afghanistan a year ago, my life resumed in the pleasant, familiar surroundings of Marin County. Yet my head was still in Kabul, with people whose voices are routinely drowned out by the foghorns of war.

In the media echo chambers, many of the buzz phrases that were popular during the Vietnam War -- “cut and run,” “stay the course” and the like -- are still blaring. And many of the political dynamics are eerily similar.

History may not repeat itself, as the saying goes, but it tends to rhyme an awful lot.

It’s not easy to challenge an escalating war, especially when the president is in the same political party. But, as John F. Kennedy once said -- and as his brother Robert later embodied when he spoke out against the Vietnam War -- “sometimes party loyalty asks too much.”

When I listened to children from Helmand province at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul, it was clear that they didn’t know or care whether the man in the Oval Office had a “D” or an “R” after his name. They, and their surviving parents, were trying to stay alive.


For all the talk about winning hearts and minds, the refugee camp told a different story about priorities. I met people with families that had been decimated by bombardment. The U.S. government drew on ample funds to wage an air war, but evidently there was no line item to help the survivors who were crowded together under makeshift tents. They lived on handouts from Kabul businessmen.

Back here in beautiful Marin County, sometimes it’s hard to believe that I’m on the same planet as the people whose desperate circumstances I glimpsed in the Afghan capital.

Of course we’re told that our government must continue with a war on terrorism. But I think of something that retired U.S. Army Gen. William Odom said way back in November 2002. Appearing on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” program, he told viewers: “Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic. It’s about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we’re going to win that war. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism.”

We hear very little on the subject from elected officials in local government. But it’s a mistake to believe that the war in Afghanistan is truly separate from local concerns.

Driving on Highway 101 last week, listening to news about the Afghanistan war, I realized that the federal government’s new fiscal year had just begun. Later, I checked some numbers. During the next 12 months, the taxpayers of Marin County are scheduled to send the IRS a total of $165.8 million that will directly pay for the war in Afghanistan.

According to data from the National Priorities Project, that’s enough money to provide healthcare to 87,537 children for an entire year.

Despite overall affluence, we’re struggling with a perennial healthcare crisis in this county. More than 16 percent of Marin residents lack health insurance for all or part of each year. Seven percent of children have never seen a dentist.

Behind such numbers are real people, suffering consequences of misplaced priorities that squander massive resources on the warfare state.

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West Marin author Norman Solomon is national co-chair of the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, launched by Progressive Democrats of America.