America’s longest war should come to an end
by Lewis W. Diuguid
Before New Year’s Eve, people of conscience and people who refuse to accept war as a solution should go to the Central Library downtown.
Until Dec. 31, they’ll find the “Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan” murals on display. The gigantic art illustrates the bloodshed and costs of America’s longest war and helps inspire creative solutions.
Kathy Kelly, who coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, spoke about the same concerns this month at the library beneath the murals and at Holy Family Catholic Worker House. “If people knew what was happening in direct consequence of our war of choice, if people knew they would say no,” Kelly said. “This is not how we want to be.”
It’s why the war in Afghanistan must end just as this nation was relieved by the war’s conclusion this month in Iraq.
Kelly is no stranger to Kansas City, having been jailed in the 1980s for planting corn on missile silo grounds. She has visited Afghanistan four times with others interested in peace to learn about the effects of the war on everyday Afghans and neighboring Pakistanis. She shared those stories in connection with the American Friends Service Committee library exhibit.
One mural depicts scenes of U.S. drones, silhouetted children scattering, bloodshed and the unmanned planes flying off in a mechanical detachment from the trauma they caused on innocent civilians. Kelly, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is a petite, nonthreatening, 58-year-old Chicago native. She carried no weapons in Afghanistan, wore no armor and was not embedded with the U.S. military.
Like Mohandas Gandhi, her presence and voice bring peace to war-torn areas. Kelly pushed peace in Iraq before and during that war. She’s at it again in Afghanistan. She told stories of kids gathering firewood being slaughtered by drones.
In another instance, women going to market in three vehicles were attacked by drones. Two of the vehicles were destroyed.
Information that the vehicles may have contained women and children was overridden in the interest of U.S. troop safety. What’s clear is the information from drones and other technology exceeds military intelligence’s ability to digest it and act accordingly.
“My friends, war is always counterproductive and futile,” Kelly said. “The military is accelerating our decline.”
When it comes to drones, President Barack Obama is worse than President George W. Bush. According to one report, by March 3, 2011, Obama had ordered 180 drone strikes compared with Bush’s 42.
Kelly met several individuals who had no idea what 9-11 was or any knowledge of a terrorist attack in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, which provoked the 10-year-old, $2 billion a week war in their country.
Americans must constantly combat what President Dwight Eisenhower correctly called the military industrial complex, which uses U.S. lawmakers and profits from endless wars. People need to see the devastating effect fighting has on innocent civilians.
The downtown library exhibit focuses on that in the traumatized expression of a girl in a scarf in a mural titled “The Children of Afghanistan.”
The horror is in a mural of a woman with a prosthetic leg titled “What’s Lost.”
Kelly said a man who showed her photos of members of his family who had been killed in the war asked, “Do you think that we like to live this way?”
Kelly urged the audience to get involved to end the war and get the United States to rebuild that nation, which for 30 years has suffered from warfare. “People have the capacity to end wars by raising their voices,” she said.
The silence is consent, and no one can afford to sit by and be silent anymore.
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