[Peace-discuss] Speaking Truth to Power

[C. G. Estabrook]

[AWARE agreed to support this campaign when it was proposed last year.]

	Speaking Truth to Power
	by Kathy Kelly, January 09, 2010

There’s a phrase originating with the peace activism of the American Quaker
movement: "Speak truth to power." One can hardly speak more directly to power
than addressing the presidential administration of the United States. This past
October, students at Islamabad’s Islamic International University had a message
for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One student summed up many of her
colleagues’ frustration. "We don’t need America," she said. "Things were better
before they came here.”

The students were mourning loss of life at their university, where, a week
earlier, two suicide bombers walked onto the campus wearing explosive devices
and left seven students dead and dozens of others seriously injured. Since the
spring of 2009, under pressure from U.S. leaders to "do more" to dislodge
militant Taliban groups, the Pakistani government has been waging military
offensives throughout the northwest of the country. These bombing attacks have
displaced millions, and the Pakistani government has apparently given open
permission for similar attacks by unmanned U.S. aerial drones. Every week,
Pakistani militant groups have launched a new retaliatory atrocity in Pakistan,
killing hundreds more civilians in markets, schools, government buildings,
mosques, and sports facilities. Who can blame the student who believed that her
family and friends were better off before the U.S. began insisting that Pakistan
cooperate with U.S. military goals in the region?

In neighboring Afghanistan, 2009 was the deadliest year for Afghan children
since 2001, according to the Afghanistan Rights Monitor. In a Jan. 6 statement,
the group noted that in 2009 about 1,050 children had died in suicide attacks,
roadside blasts, air strikes, and the crossfire between Taliban insurgents and
pro-government forces, both Afghan and foreign. The group’s director, Ajmal
Samadi, noted that this figure amounted to nearly three children per day. It’s
estimated that nearly one third of these children’s deaths were caused by
U.S./NATO coalition forces. This week, hundreds of Afghans have taken to the
streets in protest after the Afghan government said its investigation has
established that all 10 people killed by U.S.-led forces on Jan. 3 in a remote
village in Kunar province were civilians and that eight of those killed were
schoolchildren, aged 12-14. The London Times reports that the U.S.-led troops
were accused of dragging the innocent children from their beds, handcuffing
several of them, and then killing all eight of them.

Stories of carnage, horror, and impoverishment aren’t new in Iraq, Afghanistan,
or Pakistan. Ten years ago, each of these countries suffered under severely
repressive governance and extremes of poverty. In the case of Iraq, these
conditions were made immeasurably worse by U.S.-imposed economic sanctions that
punished innocent Iraqi citizens for their inability to rise from under Saddam
Hussein’s brutal regime, all the while rendering them completely dependent on
Hussein’s regime to meet their basic survival needs. Yet in all this suffering
that preceded the U.S. invasions of the region, there were very few accounts of
suicide bombings in the lands where the U.S. is now at war. The
kidnapping-and-torture-for-ransom industries, now rife in all three countries,
had not developed, and their entire economies had not been hobbled by blatant
official corruption.

What has U.S. invasion and occupation unleashed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Pakistan? And how are these wars creating security for the American people?

The New York Times reported on Nov. 14, 2009, that, according to internal U.S.
government estimates, it costs $1 million to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for
one year. Consider this sum in light of the fact that, in Afghanistan, district
governors earn $70 per month. Their operating budget is $15 per month, and half
of them have no dedicated office. The UN estimates that the gross domestic
product per capita in Afghanistan is less than $1,000 per year. And the United
Nation’s Children’s Fund, better known as UNICEF, says Afghanistan is the worst
place in the world to be born, having the highest infant mortality rate in the
world, with 257 deaths per 1,000 live births. Only 70 percent of Afghans have
access to clean water.

Kai Eide, the outgoing United Nations special representative for Afghanistan,
briefed the UN Security Council on Jan. 5, 2010. With regard to military
activities, he bluntly stated that "civilian casualties, house searches, and
detention policies are sources of recruitment for the insurgency."

President Obama’s administration is soon expected to request another “emergency”
supplemental expenditure for the Iraq and Afghan wars, this time for between
$40-50 billion dollars. If (some would say when) this figure is approved, it
will make 2010 fiscally the most costly year of the ongoing War on Terror,
surpassing former president Bush’s expenditures by a significant margin. Before
the year is out, President Obama will also have submitted a budget item to fund
the wars in 2011, with military services already planning to request something
in the range of $160-165 billion.

The U.S. Constitution states that Congress shall make no law abridging the right
of people to assemble peaceably for redress of grievance. We are deeply
aggrieved by the folly of these wars. Our right to free speech is irrelevant if
we don’t exercise it, so we intend to raise the lament of those who bear the
brunt of our wars but whose voices seldom reach U.S. government figures.

For two weeks this January, leading up to the date when President Obama is due
to submit his budget for fiscal year 2011 to Congress, Voices for Creative
Nonviolence and friends will gather in Washington, D.C., for a Peaceable
Assembly Campaign project. We’ll be meeting with elected representatives to
raise questions about the folly and the crime of war, holding daily vigils at
the White House, and engaging in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to
emphasize our refusal to cooperate with the war-makers.

We urge you to join us in this year-long campaign, whether in Washington, D.C.,
this month or participating locally where you live. Please make sure to visit
the Voices Web site to learn more about ways to become involved, both locally
through this coming summer and in the Days of Resistance in Washington. We’ll be
there from Jan. 19 through Feb. 2.

http://original.antiwar.com/kelly/2010/01/08/speaking-truth-to-power/


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