America Does Little to Build World Peace
Reader comment on item: Al-Marayati's Dangerous "Diplomatic" Ideas

Submitted by Philip Henika, Oct 12, 2012 13:13

America is at war with everything from cancer to climate change to terrorism etc. War is America's choice for conflict resolution. It was therefore of interest that the Obama Administration conducted both a military and civilian surge recently in Afghanistan. The civilian surge produced very little in results but there were two efforts that merit attention. One was the work of Carter Malkasian and two was the possible introduction of cotton as an economically viable alternative crop to poppies (see Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasekaran). The cotton idea was buried by obstruction the latter of which seems to the favored means of stalling peacebuilding efforts. The principles of obstruction were, as expected, the drug cartels and the Karsai government but one of the talking points of US Republicans is that any negotiation with terrorists is weakness. Neither Republicans or Democrats want to appear to be "soft" on terrorism so peacebuilding initiative which is dependent on negotiation really does not stand much of chance in American foreign policy. Finally, I read the quotes by Salam al-Marayati and IPT's return criticism and it seemed like Marayati made his points and IPT made its points. America, with its love for War, has committed its own atrocities and so why shouldn't Marayati speak of America's atrocities?

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