President Barack Obama's announcement this week of his decision to send two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan by this summer earned a swift response from peace groups.

In an e-mail to supporters announcing its Afghanistan Peace Campaign, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), called on members and supporters to urge President Obama to not 'let Afghanistan become your Vietnam.'

The FCNL message urged alternatives to military intervention in Afghanistan. 'Bombing civilians and wielding the barrel of a gun will only help extremists recruit more fighters,' it stated. 'It failed in Iraq, and it will fail in Afghanistan. What we need is diplomacy, development, and cooperation with China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India and other important regional actors.'

FCNL pledged to organize meetings with members of Congress on Capitol Hill and to carry on e-mail, telephone and fax campaigns to the White House to pressure for alternatives to the planned military surge.

The country's largest coalition of peace organizations, United for Peace and Justice, circulated a message urging direct messages to the White House expressing opposition to the surge and calling for non-military approaches to solving that country's problems. In its e-mail to supporters UFPJ urged a reduction of troop levels in Afghanistan, especially an immediate withdrawal of US troops, 'a commitment to diplomacy involving all major regional players,' and a surge in development programs 'through Afghan NGOs, using local labor and services.'

In its own message, Voters for Peace expressed similar sentiments but added the US economic crisis to the argument against expanding war in Central Asia. '[T]he economic collapse in the US and much of the world makes spending hundreds of billions on the Afghan and Iraq war unaffordable,' the message noted.

'This is a big disappointment,' filmmaker Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation, said in a recent press statement. 'This is the wrong decision and a troubling one, especially at a time when the country is in serious economic crisis. It will be very difficult to advance his domestic agenda while dealing with a quagmire on his hands.' Greenwald's organization is promoting a new documentary video series called Rethink Afghanistan.

Other organizations and individuals not traditionally associated with the peace movement also urged a significant shift in US policy away from an emphasis on military action in Afghanistan.

A recent report from the Rand Corporation urged different tactics that focus on political engagement with local leaders, economic development and improving local security forces. It further urged a strengthening of the general influence of Afghanistan's central government. The report's authors further called for engaging Taliban forces and disrupting links to Al Qaeda.

The view that military action cannot resolve the conflict in Afghanistan appears to be shared by some in the military community, including General David McKiernan, who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan. McKiernan recently told reporters, 'There are the baseline problems of poverty and literacy and violence that have occurred over the last three decades in that country, so that's not going to turn around quickly.'

Similarly, in an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show, former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski expressed agreement with this point of view. Brzezinski, who spearheaded US efforts to aid mujahideen forces during the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan in the 1980s, added that from an historical perspective the Soviet Union at its peak put 160,000 troops in Afghanistan and could not win.

Brzezinski also said that after the initial US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 led to a swift victory against the Taliban with a relatively small force, the Bush administration 'wasted seven years pursuing ill-defined policies in Afghanistan.' The international affairs expert added that the Obama administration must adopt non-military efforts, including talking with those Taliban elements that seek a break with Al Qaeda. However we may find the politics and culture of the Taliban distasteful, it is an 'Afghan movement' that we should not be fighting, Brzezinski added.

The US should do more to boost the legitimacy of both the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments, Brzezinski noted. The US should also work to avoid getting involved with military conflicts in Pakistan itself.

For his part, in his campaign and after his election, President Obama has emphasized the need to use non-military options such as economic development and regional diplomacy.

See Brzezinski on The Rachel Maddow Show here: