Tom Hayden

South Korea should be the most faithful of US allies in the Afghanistan War, but a visit here last week revealed the hollowness of the US-led alliance. There still are 27,000 American troops at the Demilitarized Zone, one of the remaining flash points of the Cold War. A huge American base is located in the center of Seoul. The US troops stand astride the external defense boundary of the US, in Pentagon-speak. Thousand(s) of American lives and billions in tax dollars have been spent in making South Korea a key factor in the Pacific power balance.

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The need for greater linkages between the environmental, peace and Wall Street reform movements grow by the day in the face of the epic oil spill caused by British Petroleum, a multinational firm tied to Goldman Sachs and Halliburton in oil wars from the Gulf of Mexico to the Persian Gulf. Peter Sutherland, chairman of BP’s board for the past decade, had headed Goldman Sachs International and, in the 1990s, was a director of the World Trade Organization. According to Bloomberg/Business Week, Sutherland is connected to 124 corporate board members in seven companies spanning 16 industries.

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Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War, which projects an "arc of instability" caused by insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia that will last between 50 and 80 years. According to one of its architects, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are just "small wars in the midst of a big one."

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It's been a long winter for the peace movement. Waiting for Obama has proved fruitless. The Great Recession has strengthened Wall Street and diverted attention from the wars. The debate over healthcare still won't go away and has demoralized progressive advocates. Given a chance to exit from Afghanistan when the Karzai election proved to be stolen, President Obama escalated anyway, but also promised to "begin" exiting almost before an opposition could mobilize at home.

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Ignoring the overwhelming Democratic-voter opposition to the Afghanistan war threatens to cost Barack Obama the support of young people and anti-war voters who helped make him president. It could destroy any possibility of achieving his robust domestic agenda as well. President Obama needs an exit strategy instead of an escalation strategy.

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