Parishioners Cautiously Embrace Obama’s Withdrawal Plan
Christian Peace Witness groups want more immediate pull-out
By Stephen Kiehl | stephen.kiehl@baltsun.com
The Baltimore Sun
March 2, 2009
In their pursuit of peace, the parishioners and leaders of Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church have marched, rallied, prayed and even been arrested. Yesterday, they celebrated. President Barack Obama announced last week that 90,000 U.S. combat troops would withdraw from Iraq by August 2010.
Some peace activists have criticized Obama’s plan because it would keep 35,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq into 2011 – months longer than the timetable he envisioned as a candidate. Congregants at Brown Memorial said they believed Obama was keeping his promise to end the war, but they also said they would not rest in their efforts for peace.
Standing on the altar of the Bolton Hill church, the Rev. Andrew Foster Connors asked his congregation to pray that God would “guide President Obama in his quest for peace and help us hold him accountable.”
In interviews after the service, Connors and others said they worried about the pace of withdrawal from Iraq, and they questioned the troop escalation in Afghanistan and the lack of an apparent plan for victory.
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While the reporter did capture a snippet of my thoughts on this issue, I provided this thought as well that didn’t make the paper:
“While I appreciate President Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq, at the same time I’m concerned that in sending additional troops to Afghanistan we would walking too close along the same path that we unfortunately took in Iraq. Too many questions remain: What is the mission in Afghanistan? How will victory (or defeat) be defined? With civilian casualties already mounting with the troops who are there, shouldn’t we explore other avenues of engagement beside leading with the gun? In the words of our President, the people of Afghanistan will judge us not on what we destroy, but on what we build. Why not aid in the strengthening of the social infrastructure of Afghanistan if we are to do anything at all? I just don’t think it should be a foregone conclusion that American Forces should be in Afghanistan. I believe it is the responsibility of the Peace Movement and other citizens of Faith or conscience to impress upon our President our desire to be a nation that promotes peace by peaceful means. We’ve learned in Iraq that promoting peace and democracy by the barrel of a gun is not effective.”
President Obama’s decision to remove troops from Iraq, and to redeploy many of them to Afghanistan, I suspect, was to placate the warhawks on the right and to bolster his presidency.
If he is not careful, Afghanistan will become his version of George Bush’s Iraq, a no win situation and an albatross around his neck! The honeymoon with the American people will be over soon, and the cloak of bilateralism removed. The real Obama will have to stand up soon, and show what it is that he really believes and intends to stand for – the natives are getting restless on both sides.