Peace Worldwide Organization Message from Founder Dr. Alavi on a Peaceful Solution for Afghanistan


As of August 2011, the United States has spent $438 billion on the Afghan War. That translates to over $3.6 billion a month or about $120 million a day. The United States military fatalities have continuously increased from 12 in 2001 to 499 in 2010. Just last weekend, Afghan militants shot a United States helicopter, killing 30 US troops, mostly elite Navy Seals, from the same unit that executed the covert raid killing Osama ben Laden. 
Apparently, the Talibans and Al-Qaedas are becoming more daring. By some estimates, over 100,000 Afghans have been killed due to the United States military attacks. What have we accomplished? Very little, if any. 
Afghans are known for courage, kindness, and hospitality. Today, the nation is uninformed. Less than 30% can read and write. Nearly all women are illiterate. Freedom cannot take root in anyone who is ignorant. Thomas Jefferson advised us over 200 years ago when he said: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." 
In 1980s, the proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan reduced the country to rubbles, becoming one of the world’s poorest and most illiterate nations. Afghans are easily manipulated by anyone who promises utopia. 
How about we stop the killings! If we truly desire freedom for Afghans, the way to do it is not to drop bombs over their homes and kill their loved ones but to help them to read and write. We can spend a part of that $120 million that we daily spend on the war to build schools in every village, town, and city in Afghanistan. How about hiring the local Afghans to build their own schools? A Taliban who dares to destroy any of those schools will have to face the local community. 
Whatever is left from $120 million, we can use it to train the Afghan’s security forces and build the Afghan’s infrastructure. If we still have some extra money left, we can expand literacy rates in countries like Chad, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. 
Please listen to what President Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” 
I believe that only through caring for others we shall achieve peace!




May peace be with you!
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