An Open Letter to President Donald Trump Attending UN Meetings in New York By: Siddieq Noorzoy, Emeritus Professor of Economics   the Week of September 24, 2018   We ask you to stop the war and end the occupation of Afghanistan Mr. President, in reading the reports of your attendance at the UN annual meeting in New York during the next few days the list of countries with issues you are covering includes North Korea, the conflict in Syria , US bilateral policy toward Iran, and meetings with several state heads according to the news from AP reporters covered by MSN News September 24, 2018. Unfortunately, we do not read or publicly hear again anything about the US- cum-NATO war in Afghanistan going on for 17 years. The facts of this war are covered up by official circles . But the facts are made available by many independent media sources describing the real conditions and consequences of how this war is conducted and the suffering of the Afghan people as the innocent victims. Mr. President, ‘success’ in ending this war will not be achieved through aerial bombing of villages and night raids of villagers where in recent days several homes were raided, burned, and the occupants were killed in eastern Afghanistan in the Khogiani district and Maidan- Wardak district in central part of the country according to several Afghan media sources. These kinds of atrocities have been carried out for 17 years with devastating effects on the rural country side communities of Afghanistan where 80 % of the people live. These policies are not the road to peace in Afghanistan and in fact never have been the means of achieving peace in the country. Only a generation ago the Soviets tried the same policies even with more ferocity destroying more than 11, 000 villages in Afghanistan during the war of 1979-1989. That war was ended only through a peace deal in 1989 with the Soviet forces pulling out of Afghanistan. The UN was instrumental arranging the peace making through the Geneva Accord on Afghanistan in 1988. The UN can be instrumental in ending this war with the parties to the war agreeing to the format, place and issues to end the war. However, what we have read in some media sources with US asking for permanent military bases in Afghanistan as a precondition for peace making. This is unacceptable to the Afghan people. We hear from many Afghan sources that a clean peace agreement should be clear of all military involvement by the US and NATO in the future of Afghanistan. The Afghan people have made this very clear through their support for the Taliban. All the neighbors of Afghanistan have been concerned about this issue also. Yet, several of the neighboring countries have been interfering in the internal affairs of Afghanistan because of the war and the presence of the US-NATO. A clean peace agreement is necessary to remove this problem assuring the full sovereignty of Afghanistan. Let the Afghan people rule their country with full sovereignty. There are many reasons for ending the longest war the US has fought through peace making. The failure of this war, per se, to bring peace and security is the most obvious reason. The loss of human lives, the monetary costs, the consequences of this longest war in Afghanistan. The killing of innocent civilians which has escalated sharply since last year, the massive internal refugees created, destructions of properties , the rampant corruption , the rise in poverty among the people accompanied by high unemployment, creation of a group of war profiteers, chaos and lack of justice, which negate any successes in some areas. Mr. President, the above Associate Press report mentions your attendance at the meeting of the World Drug Problem. A most potent reason to end the war is the fact reported widely that Afghanistan became a hub for world drug production and trade since 2002 under US-NATO occupation. We appeal to you to use the opportunities at the UN meetings in New York to announce a peace deal for Afghanistan to end the war and occupation of the country. We hope the UN will be willing to assist. We ask that the Afghan people and Afghanistan be treated fairly after such a long war which was imposed on the country wrongly and unjustly. Sincerely, Siddieq Noorzoy, Emeritus Professor of Economics Family, Friends and Colleagues

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