[Peace] Kathy Kelly vs. Obama's politics of illusion

[C. G. Estabrook]

APRIL 17, 2012
For You, a Thousand Times Over:
"There is War in Kabul Today, Many Bombs!"
by KATHY KELLY
At the start of The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini later  
adapted for film, a brave and selflessly loyal Afghan boy runs to help  
his much wealthier friend, singing out his love for him “For you, a  
thousand times over …” They have been flying a fighting kite, (these  
are kites with edges sharp enough to cut the strings of another kite),  
and the singing boy has gone to fetch an enemy kite they have won.  A  
dreadful betrayal ensues, its effects exacerbated horribly by the  
start of the U.S.-Soviet proxy war. Several decades pass before any  
small sort of atonement can be achieved by the book’s protagonist.

We sang that song this weekend.  I was privileged to attend several  
actions organized by Kansas and Missouri activists, beginning at Fort  
Leavenworth prison, to which Bradley Manning will likely return after  
his current ordeal in a New Jersey military courtroom. .

Manning faces a life sentence and potentially a death sentence for the  
crime of informing U.S. voters and people around the world how our  
troops and our client governments behave when we are not meant to be  
looking. One partial consequence seems to have been the democracy  
uprising of the Arab Spring. Later, at Whiteman Air Force Base, we  
presented an indictment for the international war crimes that are  
implicit in remote-controlled killing using the kind of aerial drones  
that are piloted from the base.  As three of our friends walked  
forwards with the indictment to be arrested by riot-shielded base  
police, we flew kites to remind ourselves that the blue sky above our  
heads should not be a source of fear,  and we sang, “For you, a  
thousand times over, for you, a thousand times over…”

Quite a day.  I awoke to a clock radio announcing that deadly  
tornadoes had again ravaged the plains of the Midwest.  Before I could  
think of the people I knew in their path, the next news item announced  
Taliban attacks in several locations of Kabul. It was a relief, a few  
minutes after logging in to my account, to receive a reassuring  
message from the Afghan Peace Volunteers, in whose apartment in Kabul  
I’ve several times had the privilege to stay. There were 12 of them  
together in the house in Kabul, and they were all okay. When I phoned  
them, my young friend Abdulai answered and told me, in English,  
“Kathy, there is war in Kabul today.  Many bombs!”  They had been  
staying in a rear storage room as far from the street as they could,  
they had adequate food and no need (and no intention!) to go outside,  
and Bamiyan, the town many of them call home, had had phone service  
during the morning so they could reassure their families of their  
safety.

In Kabul, they’re safe from the drone attacks, which shatter so many  
families, suspected of any contact with the Taliban, and from the  
worst excesses of the small-scale local warlords we’ve armed against  
them.  But no-one is safe in a country ravaged by four continuous  
decades of war making.

Today we were at Whiteman AFB, singing our kite runner song to pace  
ourselves and remain calm in the face of a line of advancing soldiers,  
I imagine all Air Force cadets, which had swallowed the forms of our  
three brave friends (Brian Terrell, Mark Kenney, and Ron Faust) and  
was backing us toward a border around the base into which we had  
crossed.  We had crossed into the base flying kites and bio-degradable  
balloons all bearing our message calling for an end to drone warfare,  
to indiscriminate death from above flown like toys, video-game style,  
through grainy cameras from the safety of bases like this.

We’d prepared a litany of sorts announcing our intention to release  
ourselves from domination by war and the U.S. war machine, and reading  
the names of children killed by our country’s war in Afghanistan. The  
Air Force security, decked out in camouflage-pattern riot gear with  
shields, helmets, batons, and of course guns, chanted one-two-three- 
four as they marched deliberately forward, intending of course, to  
seem as menacing as possible.  From a distance they did, but when they  
were close enough that we could see their faces, through the riot  
shields…young, dutiful, far from fearsome…..what to say?

Some two dozen of us had planned to head back off the base when  
officially warned, and as this seemed quite official, we were now  
backing deliberately, slowly away.  I had the mike, and assured them  
we meant no harm.  They were chanting one-two-three-four so I told  
them I wished I had their discipline, I had been trying to learn Dari  
and had only learned the numbers up to ten, but I counted with them  
yek, do, seh, chahar, and it quickly became clear that, between songs  
and assurances, there was nothing, simply nothing, for anyone present  
to fear in this particular face-off, except for the men facing  
imprisonment for declining to retreat with us.

Looking through the clear plastic of the shields into these young  
soldiers’ faces, I couldn’t fail to think of Bradley Manning, outside  
whose prison (though he has been, and will likely be, in many prisons)  
we had stood vigil the previous day. Such an act of unbearable,  
unbelievable courage, repaid so terrifyingly by my government – by the  
greatest military power my world has ever, and may, perhaps, ever come  
to know.  For how much of his life, over the past few years, for how  
many hours has he even seen the sky?  Not discounting the discipline  
of these young men before me, could I think of a greater hero, making  
at such great risk such sensible and visionary choices, as Bradley  
Manning?  I wondered how many decades of suffering lay before him, not  
merely because of his near-unfathomable courage, but because he was so  
alone in his courage.  None of us have faced what he is facing, and if  
more of us had, would his sacrifice have even been needed?

There were other actions this weekend – many people came together in  
Kansas City, MO, for a well-organized session of community building  
and planning.  Five people crossed the line and were arrested at a  
Kansas City factory that manufactures “non-nuclear parts for nuclear  
weapons” and is the size of 7 football fields!  And the momentum here  
ensures that there are more actions to come.  We all felt very proud  
of and moved by the people who committed civil resistance, –and we  
were grateful for all the many people who helped the weekend activity  
happen.  Honestly too numerous to name.

But I’m brought back to that story I read, in which the young boy, so  
full of service and love, runs off into danger, facing it honorably  
and with passionate courage, singing “For you, a thousand times  
over.”  I think of my brave friends organizing for peace and sectarian  
healing in blast-ravaged Kabul, and I think of Pfc. Manning, and his  
mad, wise, selfless act of love, and I wonder how many decades it will  
be, how many thousands of these vigils we will attend, before we can  
achieve some kind of atonement.

Kathy Kelly  co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She’s a  
contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion,  
forthcoming from AK Press.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/17/for-you-a-thousand-times-over/





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