Fares was the Generator

Fares Al-Basyouni was 8 years old. At 10:30 pm on Fri. 16 Nov. 2012 an Israeli warplane bombarded an olive grove in the east of Beit Hanoun adjacent to Fares' home. Shrapnel, traveling approximately 100 meters, went through the wall of the home and decapitated Fares as he slept with his brothers and sisters. We visited with the family on 01 Dec 2012. Please take 20 minutes to view this unedited video and take just 1 minute to put yourself in the place of Fares' parents.

No Country Would Tolerate Missiles

Walid al Nassasra and two of his daughters stand staring into the pit where his brothers sheet-metal roofed, cinder-block home stood until it was hit in a pin-point strike with a precision guided bomb from an F-16 fighter jet (provided by the United States) on 19 Nov 2012 at 10 pm as the family slept. If not for the clothes and bedding strewn about, it would be  difficult to tell that a home once stood here. His brother Taqwfiq, like Walid, is a farmer. Their family has been farming in the Rafah area for 35 years. They are poor people, scratching out a living on a small plot of land. As we sat and talked with Walid, Israeli F-16's roared across the sky.

His brother as well as a 12 year old nephew remains hospitalized, the nephew is in the ICU with skull and hip fractures. His sister-in-law is blind after her head and upper body was severely burned.

His 4 year-old niece suffers severe burns and a fractured leg stabilized by an external fixation device. In this kind of reduction, holes are drilled into uninjured areas of bones around the fracture and special bolts or wires are screwed into the holes. Outside the body, a rod or a curved piece of metal with special ball-and-socket joints joins the bolts to make a rigid support. The fracture can be set in the proper anatomical configuration by adjusting the ball-and-socket joints. Since the bolts pierce the skin, proper cleaning to prevent infection at the site of surgery must be performed. Yes, i said his niece is 4 years old. She has been released to the home. They bring her to us to show us her damaged body, her face covered in burns, her leg with eight metal screws holding it together. She is crying.  All 9 surviving members of the family were injured in the blast.

 
2 nephews, Ahmed and Mohamed, were killed. (Yes, every Martyr, innocent civilian, and resistance fighter here has a name. Everyone killed here has family left behind who grieves for them. Everyone.)

There was no warning given. No calls, no leaflets, no roof tapping. Just an enormous explosion in the night that made Walid think his house was bombed, eighty meters away, as all the windows exploded and the walls rattled.

When Walid was asked what he would say to the people of the U.S., he said, "The American people already received our message. During Cast Lead the American people saw that the majority of the martyrs and injuries were civilians, and they didn't do anything. They deal with Israel as if it is a state in America."  

President Obama said, "There’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." We supply the planes, we supply the bombs, we supply the vetoes at the UN Security Council that gives cover to these crimes. We as Americans are complicit. The question is, "How much longer will we tolerate it?"

The Message

In Gaza. Here it is so easy to find anger. i denounce the enemy, and wonder what i am capable of. Yesterday a man told me, “I am a rocket without a base.” He raged against the injustice of it all. He was not wrong. It is easy to choose sides, factions, and flags. i consider victory. i'm lost in confusion. I stand in the rubble of broken houses and broken lives and i am ready to utter the words "i hate". Then a love sends a message and it breaks through the swirling clouds that surround me. i stand on the barricades as the sea crashes on the rocks. i find my ease, i smile and i hold everything, even my false distinctions, close.

Do you know what it is like to have such a friend? If not, maybe, just maybe, i can be that friend.

Huang Po

Give up those erroneous thoughts leading to false distinctions! There is no 'self' and no 'other.' There is no 'wrong desire,' no 'anger,' no 'hatred,' no 'love,' no 'victory,' no 'failure.' Only renounce the error of intellectual or conceptual thought-processes and your nature will exhibit its pristine purity--for this alone is the way to attain Enlightenment, to observe the Dharma, to become a Buddha and all the rest. Unless you understand this, the whole of your great learning, your painful efforts to advance, your austerities of diet and clothing, will not help you to a knowledge of your own Mind. All such practices must be termed fallacious, for any of them will lead to your rebirth among 'demons'--enemies of the truth--or among the crude nature spirits. What end is served by pursuits of those? Chih Kung says: 'Our bodies are the creations of our own minds.' But how can one expect to gain such knowledge from books? If only you could comprehend the nature of your own Mind and put an end to discriminatory thought, there would naturally be no room for even a grain of error to arise.

Tonight I am Confused

I have been in Gaza for five days now and I am having difficulty understanding the 8-day war and the subsequent ceasefire. Let me explain the difficulty I am having. The Israeli Offensive Forces insist they protect civilians in Gaza, only targeting terrorists. They have several methods to protect innocent civilians. One method is to call the civilians on the phone, another method is to drop leaflets telling them to flee for their lives, as an attack is imminent. During the latest offensive, Israeli dropped leaflets in the rural areas telling people to flee to the city. In Gaza City, leaflets were dropped warning people to flee to the rural areas. A new, ingenious method they use to protect civilians is to drop ‘loud, non-lethal bombs’ on a home as a warning for the inhabitants as to what will come. They even have a name for this warning. They call it ‘roof tapping’. Then anywhere from 3 minutes to 20 minutes pass before they bomb the house from F-16’s. These bombs are a very large and very lethal. The homes I have seen today have been completely flattened, and the houses around the target are also rendered uninhabitable.

Youth look out at remains of a destroyed home in Jabalya Camp.

The ‘non-lethal bombs’ penetrate rooftops and can travel through 4 stories. Children or other civilians sitting under these bombs lose limbs, suffer head trauma, shrapnel wounds, and other injuries. The idea behind these warnings is that inhabitants will flee their homes once they are warned. If elders, small children, newborns, or disabled people are in the home, this can be a difficult endeavor. If a child suffers an amputation, fleeing will take a little more precious time. But lets ignore these complications as they just muddy the waters. I am amazed at the generosity of the Israeli occupiers. You see, they are the “Most moral army in the world,” everyone knows this. The generals and politicians have been saying this for decades!

But this is my consternation. If you are so bent on protecting civilians and killing ‘terrorists’ why warn civilians to leave? Do they think the terrorists, who everyone knows hide behind civilians, will remain behind after the warning?

An even more confounding question remains. Why flatten an empty home?

After the most recent ceasefire agreement, it was stated that farmers would be able to reach their lands in the buffer zone that Israel established after they so generously abandoned their illegal settlements in Gaza. The farmers were thrilled that they would be able to farm on the 300-meter swath of land known as the buffer zone- better known here in Gaza as the no go zone, because if they dared try to access this land they were immediately targeted by Israeli snipers, but I digress.

On Wednesday we accompanied farmers to the buffer zone in Johr el Deek. It was amazing! We walked right up to the razor wire barrier! We watched as 2 Israeli jeeps approached the fence. I was smiling as they got out of their jeeps, but my smile was erased as they lifted their weapons and fired toward us. Of course, they didn’t shoot us, the ceasefire was in effect for an entire week! I was confused though, as they lobbed tear gas canisters at us, and continued firing over our heads as we retreated. Perhaps the soldiers were as confused as I was about the details of the agreement. After all, unfettered access to the land is a little vague. Perhaps the farmers misunderstood.

The fishermen faced a similar dilemma. After the ceasefire was announced, the fishermen were told that Israel, in it’s magnanimity, would allow the fishermen to fish in Gazan waters up to 6 nautical miles from the shore. This was double, (yes double!) the limit that has been in effect for the past 6 years. The fishermen were happy. They would have an opportunity to provide for their families. Never mind that the Oslo Accords stated fishermen would have access to 20 nautical miles of the sea. That was way back in 1993. Who could expect agreements so old to be respected now?

The fishermen I spoke with said they had access to the 6-mile limit for two whole days. Two days of fishing without risking their lives to feed their kids! It was great. So I was astonished to learn that on Wednesday, exactly one week after the ceasefire agreement, numerous fishing boats, in waters from 3 nautical miles to 6 nautical miles came under heavy attack by the Israeli Navy. One boat was sunk, 3 boats had their engines destroyed by gunfire, one trawler was confiscated and 9 fishermen were arrested. Of course, the Israeli officers made sure the fishermen stripped and jumped into the sea before they sunk the boat. They were safely in custody on the Israeli gunboat before the Israeli Navy blasted the fishing boat to smithereens.

The fishermen received no warnings. Of course everyone realizes that cell phones don’t work so far from shore and dropping leaflets would be impractical as most of the leaflets would fall into the water. And even I know ‘roof tapping’ at sea would be way too dangerous, as the possibility of harming the civilian fishermen would be high.

The best approach is to simply start firing from hundreds of meters away as the gunboats accelerate toward the fishing trawlers. This gives the fishermen at least 3 minutes to pull up their nets and escape back to port. I am not certain what changed on the third day for these fishermen, but few fish were caught.

We also visited the homes of 2 children who were killed. One was 15 year old, Hassan Jamal Nasser. The other child was 9-year old Fares al-Basyouni. Both were killed in their homes as they slept.

Fares' father stands near the spot where his son was killed.

Shrapnel that penetrated the wall decapitated Fares. His father described the horrific scene. ‘We didn’t hear the bombs. We woke to the sound of windows shattering and the house shaking. The house was full of smoke. My daughters and sons were screaming as I moved from room to room to find them.’ Fare’s lifeless torso landed on top of his 14-year old brother, who ran screaming from the house into the night.

I thought this was impossible- didn’t they receive the warnings? Hassan’s cousin Mohammed confirmed leaflets fell from the sky 20 minutes after the attack. So, you see, they were warned.

One thing is certain. Israel has a right to defend itself. President Obama said, ‘There’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.’ I agree with this wholeheartedly, who can deny it? I also understand that Israel has to teach its enemies a lesson from time to time, and I imagine the sooner the better. They certainly don’t want the people of Gaza to imagine what it must be like to be free, this would only encourage the terrorists.

So you see my dilemma. What I read in the corporate media and what I hear from my government and Israeli politicians doesn’t quite square with the eyewitness accounts on the ground. Maybe the IOF can drop some leaflets and set me straight.

Gaza Under Ceasefire (*and the Siege Remains)

The big shots of the international corporate media are gone. No more Anderson Cooper proclaiming, "That one was really close," as a bomb blast reverberates in the background and another Palestinian family is buried in the rubble. The 24 hour news cycle has moved on.

1200 injured Gazans face a shortage of drugs and medical equipment. Doctors and nurses are working double shifts everyday to help the wounded. Hundreds are children. Some, with crippling injuries, amputations, and head trauma will suffer for the rest of their days. Some, horrifically injured in bombing raids or drone attacks, have passed away today. Some will die tomorrow, some the day after.

Families are left clinging to memories, while the whole world forgets.

Sandy and Relief

Yesterday in Rockaway i was reminded of the aftermath of Katrina, the Rodney King riots and Iraq, Afghanistan, and particularly i was reminded of Gaza and the West Bank, where the 'aftermath' never comes, where just a continuous, unending calamity unfolds at the hands of America's 'democracy'.  
Yesterday we drove past lines of hundreds of people waiting to vote. All that was missing was the blue ink to dip their fingers in and to hold up to the cameras with a smile.

Yesterday we baked food to bring to hungry people who have been ignored and forgotten by our government. Mostly they are poor people, many elderly people, many children. We did not see a presence of the Red Cross, where millions of dollars have been deposited in the past week. And while we saw large numbers of cops and military convoys on the streets, we did not see them going door to door to help people who have been stranded without power for a week, many of whom can't escape the confines of their dark, cold homes. (This is not to say they are not doing great work somewhere, just in our little corner of destruction they were not to be found.) One visiting nurse told us she has been trying for a week to get help bringing 100 elderly wheel chair bound people down dark stairwells in a 20 story complex. Finally, when it was just too obvious that no help would arrive, the visiting nurse organized other nurses and residents and they carried the people down themselves. Meanwhile hundreds of ambulances and medic crews are sitting in a staging area waiting for orders. They have traveled from many places to help, because that is what they do. People have traveled from around the country to help. Can i hear a "good job Brownie" please?

Yesterday i saw hundreds of ordinary citizens taking care of themselves and their neighbors as best they can. i have seen this in all the mayhem over all the years and disasters in the paragraph above. It is what keeps me alive in this world filled with so much ugliness and neglect.

i hear Obama was reelected. 4 more years of the same old thing. Over the last year of campaigning i have come to understand that Obama is proud of what he has done and what he has done in my name as an American and for this i feel ashamed. And i am scared of what will come.

Today snow, rain, and wind is coming. Many people in the Rockaways are in desperate need of blankets. The same is so in Afghanistan where babies froze to death in their mothers arms last winter.

There are natural weather events and there are disasters. We are living in a time of great disaster worldwide which our government seems unable to heal and plays a great part in perpetuating.

The most common negative comment i hear about my writing is, "What happened to you? Why do you hate your country so much?" i can only say my government continues to fail those who depend on it the most here and around the world and this has always been so.

And i am wondering where i can find a couple of blankets.

Furkan's Birthday

Today is Furkan Dogan's birthday. He would have been 21 years old. He was summarily executed aboard the Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010 by Israeli forces. Furkan, an American citizen, was shot 5 times, including once in the face as he was lying on his back. There has been no accountability for his murder.
 

Today the Estelle was surrounded and bordered by Israeli forces. Like the Mavi Marmara they were attacked in International waters. As of now, the Israeli forces have not murdered any of the passengers.

Keep Furkan in your memories today.

Once Columbus

I love Columbus Day. Each year I recall the simple song I learned as a child about the man who “discovered” America. I still recall the innocent boy whose imagination was taken by the story of adventure and discovery.

In fourteen hundred and ninety two. Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

On Columbus Day, I reflect on the facts of that fateful discovery. Hispaniola at the time of Columbus’ arrival was home to as many as 300,000 people. On seeing the Arawak people Columbus wrote in his journal, "At daybreak great multitudes of men came to the shore, all young and of fine shapes, and very handsome. Their eyes are large and very beautiful.” In the same entry he wrote, “It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion.” Columbus kidnapped up to 25 people, although only 7 or 8 survived the journey back to Spain. By 1496 it is estimated that one third of the population had been killed or taken as slaves. In 1592 fewer than 200 Indigenous people remained. By 1555, none survived.

I realize every lie and distortion I hold of my country began in that classroom all those years ago.
I love Columbus Day. It reminds me that often, even the most God fearing individuals are the most self-deluded. In the spring of 1493 Columbus wrote to a sponsor, "They are artless and generous with what they have, to such a degree as no one would believe but him who had seen it. Of anything they have, if it be asked for, they never say no, but do rather invite the person to accept it, and show as much lovingness as though they would give their hearts." Later in the letter Columbus went on to say, "Their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need.... and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped." Though he was aware of their generosity and selflessness, rather than emulate them, he decided he would subjugate them. Columbus was the first slave trader in the Americas.

Columbus Day reminds me that my countries origin was based on violence, subjugation, racism and genocide. As the native population was decimated, it was deemed necessary to bring slaves from Africa to the “new world” for cheap, disposable labor. Throughout the years when America was a slave republic, the wealthiest Americans were those who owned the most human beings. But we should not forget that slave owners spanned all classes. This, from America, the country founded on the idea that all human beings have equal intrinsic worth, value, and rights. The “land of the free, home of the brave,” indeed.

I love Columbus Day. It reminds me that greed corrupts utterly. Columbus returned to Hispaniola to colonize the island. By 1495 Columbus and his men were terrorizing the indigenous people, demanding that they mine for gold and pay tribute to their masters. Those who could not provide the quota faced dismemberment and were sent back to their people as an example. There are first hand accounts of soldiers hunting the Arawak for sport and feeding people to their dogs. Columbus himself documented sexual slavery of young children during his reign as “governor”.  
Today in America, one in every four African-American men is likely to be imprisoned. In the “War on Drugs" black and Latino men are arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned at highly disproportionate rates than whites. Our prisons are privatized, for profit, operations whose stocks are traded on the Wall St. Whether you are a black man or woman in one of America’s prisons, or you are undocumented and work under the blazing sun on American farms, you are paid pennies as others enrich themselves off of your labor. 

Foreclosures have separated millions of black and brown Americans from their property. Of the nearly 10 million people whose homes have been foreclosed 40% are black and Latino. The net worth in communities of color has plunged to the lowest level on record. Black and brown wealth has been transferred to America’s largest banks. This theft has gone unchallenged as the banks have enriched themselves, received federal bailouts, and now investment companies seek to rent out the homes to the very people they have been stolen from. 

In 1868, the United States signed a treaty setting aside the Black Hills "for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupancy of the Sioux." Within years gold was discovered there, and after negotiations to purchase the land broke down, the United States simply took it. In 1975 the presiding judge of the United States Court of Claims, wrote, “A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing will never, in all probability, be found in our history.” This “rank case of dishonorable dealing” did not result in a return of that which was stolen. The Lakota Nation is currently raising 9 million dollars in order to buy back a small portion of sacred land in the Black Hills.

I love Columbus Day because the veneration of this man makes clear how George Bush a self described “compassionate conservative” can torture people and have a library built in his name. Barack Obama can win the Nobel Peace Prize as he authorizes summary execution of people through drone warfare and authorizes indefinite detention without trial of American citizens. Madeleine Albright, when confronted with the deaths of up to 500,000 Iraqi children during sanctions can declare, “We think the price is worth it.” She is now an author and a sought after speaker on the lecture circuit where she describes her life as “devoted to human rights.” This self-delusion and ideas of grandeur poison us as we impose the same tough sanctions on Iran and call for that nations people to be brought to their knees. Medicines dwindle in Iranian hospitals and prices skyrocket due to hyperinflation, the currency losing 15% of its value overnight. It is only a matter of time until children starve.

We can look to Afghanistan and Iraq to see our imperialist footprint spreading across the globe. Afghanistan with its untapped mineral wealth estimated in the trillions of dollars and Iraq with its vast oil fields, it’s people only considered “collateral damage” if they are considered at all. Meanwhile, we formulate agreements with the governments we impose that will allow our corporations to steal the resources and keep the citizens in penury. The footprint is on the neck of the people.

And what of Palestine, and her people? It is America that provides the weapons, the cash, and the cover in all Israel’s efforts to dispossess the Palestinian people of their land and resources. An Israeli soldier once told me to go home and deal with the dispossession of the indigenous people in America before I concerned myself with the plight of the Palestinians. He was correct in considering the parallels between genocide in America and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

As countries smolder and survivors live among the ruins, a generation lost to violence and destruction, we congratulate ourselves on “winning”, and move on to the next conflagration. Americans are lost as well. Lost in our deluded imagination of a country that wishes peace in the world, we remain blind to the horrors of “shock and awe”, drone attacks, night raids, and torture as our government sows carnage in every direction. U.S. threats to attack Iran are part of a century-old pattern of violence aimed at ensuring U.S. domination. “Freedom!” we proclaim, “Democracy! How ungrateful these people are- can’t they see we have liberated them? Why do they hate us? It can only be because we are free.” We wave our flags, paint stars and stripes on our faces and chant “USA! USA! USA!"

Columbus Day is a good day to reconsider who I am. I have been to Big Mountain, the Four Corners, and Wounded Knee. I have heard the stories of relocation, theft, poverty, and struggle. I have been to too many funerals in Marwahin, Jenin, Beit Lahiya and Gaza. I have sat in the rubble in al-Amiriya, in Qana, in Bint Jbeil, in Rafah, and in Kabul. I have cried with refugee grandmothers whose families have been scattered like seeds on the wind. I have cried with mothers whose children were torn to shreds under laser-guided bombs and whose sons have died as foot soldiers in our wars of conquest. I have cried with men who have dug the bodies of their wives and children from the rubble of their homes. I am intimate with this fella Columbus and I know too well that our national claim of freedom leaves me disgraced and dishonored.

And the blood flows.

International Peace Day from Kabul, Afghanistan

On this International Day of Peace I am sitting in Kabul, Afghanistan with a handful of youth that want nothing but peaceful coexistence in their lives. This in some respects is like a dream because their entire lives have been surrounded by war, death, corruption, and struggle. Peace has been in short supply. For three years the Afghan Peace Volunteers have worked to develop friendships across ethnic lines in Kabul and various provinces throughout Afghanistan.  The work has been difficult, trust is hard to come by in this war torn land, but they are adamant that non-violence is the only way forward. I have sat with similar groups in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, America and Israel. Rarely are their voices heard over the drums of war.

Established in 1981, by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Day of Peace was to coincide with its opening session. The first Peace Day was observed on September 21^st, 1982. In 1982 the Soviet Union was increasing its troop presence in Afghanistan and facing fierce fighting throughout the provinces.

Thirty years later Afghanistan is still at war. The opponents have changed, and the weaponry has changed. The War on Terror, Armored Humvees, IED’s, suicide bombers, night raids, smart bombs, and drones have all entered the American lexicon. 

The constant through all these years is the suffering of the non-combatants. Just this week, a van was blown up by an IED in southern Helmand province, killing 9 women and 3 children. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. A drone strike before dawn in Laghman Province killed 8 women gathering firewood and injured 8 more. I spoke with a father of six children in ParwanSa refugee camp. He has been an Internally Displaced Person for 11 years, living in a small mud-brick enclosure with a plastic, canvas, and cardboard roof. I asked if the government had offered any assistance for the coming winter. He said the government has done nothing; he could only count on God to take care of his family. Oct 7^th will mark the 11^th  anniversary of America’s war in Afghanistan. 11 years and $550 billion dollars later, peace is still elusive.

The war has pushed the Taliban out of power, but the current government is full of the very same warlords that were carving up Afghanistan prior to the Taliban’s rise. These “representatives” have very little backing among the people, mainly because they have continued to line their pockets while their constituents suffer. The call for peace may fill their speeches, but to work for peace distracts from their income.

The International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) as well as the Afghan Army and Afghan Police force, often employing strong-arm tactics,  struggle to bring a semblance of security to the countryside. Security in Kabul is tentative as well, with suicide bombings and armed attacks on the rise. On Sept 18^th, a woman rammed a car full of explosives into a van containing 9 foreign workers, killing herself, all 9 foreigners, their Afghan translator, as well as passerby. While temporary security may be imposed with an iron fist, peace cannot be forced.

On Sept 19^th, an Afghan holiday in the remembrance of the death of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a warlord turned “peace envoy” who was killed by a suicide bomber in his home, President Hamid Karzai called on Afghans to pursue peace. A generation that has known nothing but war has little faith in government calls for peace while the very same government loots the country. The government led peace initiative seems to have died with Rabbani a year ago.

The past week has been disastrous for Afghans, and points towards more mayhem in the future.  While profits are still being generated for arms suppliers, reconstruction experts, and contractors, peace has not been generated for anyone. In America, peace is never spoken of outside the context of war or security. In Obama’s acceptance speech in Charlotte, he mentioned America’s “pursuit of peace” exactly once, shortly after getting cheers for claiming, “Osama bin Laden is dead.”

A partial list of American military involvement since 1982 includes Lebanon, Grenada, Chad, Libya, Honduras, Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, Philippines, Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Haiti, Serbia, Afghanistan (currently, America’s longest war), Sudan, Iraq (again, after years of crippling sanctions that killed half a million children), and Libya (again). This is not an exhaustive list, it doesn’t include covert attacks, special operations, or America’s special relationship with Israel, which has rained down horror on Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli drones continue to kill people in Gaza on a nearly weekly basis. American drones are currently killing people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Syria and Iran loom on the horizon, with American threats of intervention and war ramping up. Death is a top American export.

On the anniversary of Sept 11^th, a hate filled Anti-Islam movie trailer was a catalyst sparking widespread protests and attacks across the world, leading to 30 deaths. On Sept 19^th a French Satirical newspaper, under the guise of “free speech” released vulgar cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace be Upon Him) adding fuel to an already volatile fire. Peace Day is likely to be fraught with violence, like most any other day.

Yet, on this International Day of Peace groups will come together around the world (and yes, even in Afghanistan) to promote peace, cooperation, friendship and love. These efforts are necessary, if for no other reason then to remind people peace is an option, a possibility, and a personal responsibility. It is necessary to counter the flames of hatred. It is necessary to be inspired by those who walked this path before us. It is necessary for our sanity as human beings. As the darkness of our violence prone world threatens to overwhelm us, it is necessary to dance, to sing, to laugh, and to open our minds to creative opportunities to live in harmony with our world. It is necessary to stand together for even just one day and say, “No, just because you have superior firepower, or can rain down hell fire missiles, or fly planes into buildings, I will not be swayed, I will not live in fear. Your sickness will not persuade me, infect me, or deter me.” In this electoral season, choosing between Obama and Romney is a huge distraction, there is real work to be done. Our perverse system of endless war needs to be dismantled, our culture realigned. We need to begin again. War is over. Peace is the path.

“We are at War. Somebody is Going to Pay.” George W. Bush, Sept 11th, 2001

Eleven years later, we are still at war. Bullets, mortars and drones are still extracting payment. Thousands, tens of thousands, millions have paid in full. Children and even those yet to be born will continue to pay for decades to come.

On a single day in Iraq last week there were 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilians and wounding another 235.  On Sept 9^th, reports indicate 88 people were killed and another 270 injured in 30 attacks all across the country. Iraq continues in a seemingly endless death spiral into chaos. In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President, Obama claimed he ended the war in Iraq, well… not quite.

The city of Fallujah remains under siege. Not from U.S. troops, but from a deluge of birth defects that have plagued families since the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus by U.S. forces in 2004. No government studies have provided a direct link to the use of these weapons because no government studies have been undertaken, and none are contemplated.

Dr. Samira Alani, a pediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, told Al Jazeera,

"We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine. There are not even medical terms to describe some of these conditions because we've never seen them until now." The photographs are available on line if you can bear to look at what we have wrought. George W. Bush will loudly proclaim his “Pro-life” bona fides, and he’ll tell you he believes “that every child, born and unborn, ought to be protected in law and welcomed into life.” Apparently, “every child” doesn’t apply to the children of Fallujah, and the “law” doesn’t apply to George W. Bush.

Our soldiers, some physically damaged by IED’s, some mentally destroyed by PTSD, will pay for these wars for the rest of their days. Drug and alcohol abuse is out of control. Suicide among the troops is an epidemic. 2,916 Americans were lost in the towers on that fateful day, many, many more have perished in the intervening years.

Today we will be asked to honor the men and woman of our armed forces, but what does honoring the veterans entail? In its most recent report, The Veterans Administration estimates about 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Mental illness plagues 45% of homeless vets and 70% suffer from some kind of substance abuse. So how do you honor our veterans? Are “Support Our Troops” ribbons still in vogue? How does our government honor our veterans other than use them as political pawns in stump speeches and cannon fodder for their wars?

84,000 American troops remain in Afghanistan. While the occupation is rarely mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media, that doesn’t mean the killing has stopped. On average, one U.S. soldier dies everyday.  Not an enormous sum, unless it is your mother, father, son or daughter that has perished. Few Americans notice. Afghan loses are not reported. They have loved ones who grieve as well.

The American public has turned their attention to feeding their families, keeping their homes, and finding employment. But what of the $2 billion dollars per week we are spending on war in Afghanistan? What would $2 billion per week look like in our devastated communities, in our schools, in creating jobs or in caring for our elders? Politicians in both parties claim our first priority is to reduce the debt. If they were really serious, if they were honest, they would end this occupation and stop calling for cuts to Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Social Security.

And what is the price extracted from the Afghan people? Security is still a dream, even in Kabul. As I write this 6 people have perished in a suicide bombing outside NATO headquarters, in the heart of Kabul. Several of them were impoverished street kids, peddling packs of gum to the westerners who frequent the area.

Hilary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Jan Schakowsky, and other prominent American women claim American forces are necessary in Afghanistan to protect the gains made in woman’s rights. On Sept 6^th, Emma Graham-Harrison reported in the Guardian that 3 women in Kabul were attacked by a group of men because of their work as television actresses. One of the women was murdered. After seeking treatment at the hospital, the two survivors were taken to prison, where they face intrusive virginity tests and possible charges of prostitution or collusion in the attack. They face long prison sentences. This is not the Taliban; this is woman’s rights in Afghanistan today, rights that Hilary Clinton fears will be rolled back!

On the streets of Kabul it is not unusual to see burka clad women clutching starving children begging for spare change. Poverty and hunger is even worse in Kandahar and Helmand, areas that have seen some of the most intense fighting of the war. In southern Afghanistan 29.5% of the children are suffering from severe malnutrition. This compares to famine stricken areas of Africa, yet, officially, there is no famine in Afghanistan and hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid has flowed into the country.

In America, 35 million people are hungry or do not know where their next meal is coming from and 13 million of them are children. Who benefits from the  “War on Terror”?

On Sept 2^nd, Hamid Karzai announced his choice for the new intelligence chief, Asadullah Khalid. Khalid is currently the country's minister of tribal and border affairs who oversees its southern security forces. In 2009 Richard Colvin, Canada's former deputy ambassador to Afghanistan, testified before Canada's parliament that his team had uncovered "very credible" evidence of torture, which allegedly included Khalid's direct involvement. “He was known to have had a dungeon in Ghazni, his previous province, where he used to detain people for money, and some of them disappeared," Colvin said in his testimony. "He was known to be running a narcotics operation. He had a criminal gang. He had people killed who got in his way." Khalid and Karzai dismiss the allegations as unfounded.

In Kabul, children freeze to death in the winter, and they starve to death all year round.  Meanwhile on the edge of Kabul a “New City” is being built. Hamid Karzai’s brother, Qayum Karzai, the owner of a construction company, benefits as his company “wins” government contracts without the hassles of competitive bidding. Karzai’s relatives are also benefiting from lucrative contracts in the oil and mineral sectors. In late 2011, Watan Oil and Gas, a company controlled by President Karzai’s cousins Rateb and Rashid Popal gained a contract with China’s National Petroleum Corporation. In 1989 Rateb was convicted for smuggling drugs in the U.S. and spent more than eight years in prison. The Popal family’s company Watan Risk Management also worked as a contractor for the US forces. In 2010, they were accused of paying off Taliban insurgents with a cut from NATO contracts. According to the NY Times, another brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai was involved in the heroin trade and was also on the CIA’s payroll for several years before his assassination in 2011. The Karzai family now brings in billions of dollars a year. 42% of Afghans live on less than a dollar a day. So we are bent on ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban while the government is full of warlords, gangsters, and drug dealers.

Since America’s intervention in Afghanistan, the heroin trade has exploded, doubling opium production. Afghanistan is now the source of 90% of the world’s heroin. This dovetail’s nicely with America’s “War on Drugs.”

The growth in the heroin trade coupled with the despair of daily living has contributed to an eruption of drug addiction. Addicts can be found huddled under bridges throughout Kabul. As these men succumb to addiction, their families are left to fend for themselves. Heroin floods the streets of Europe and Russia. Which banks benefit from the enormous cash flows generated by the heroin trade? Who in the Afghan government benefits?

The corruption is mind-boggling. We support terrorist elements, most recently in Syria and Libya, but before that in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, and then find ourselves fighting them down the road. In a reversal of our usual modus operandi, it has come to light that during the Bush years the CIA tortured numerous members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an armed Islamist Group that had worked to overthrow Gaddafi for 20 years, before transferring them to Gaddafi’s regime for further torture. Some of these same fighters rendered and tortured by America and Libya now hold key leadership posts in the “liberated” Libya.

Private interests in Saudi Arabia continue to fund Sunni extremists around the world. Wikileaks released a Dec. 2009 cable from the State Department that complained that Saudi donors remain the primary financiers of militant groups like Al-Qaeda. In May 2010, the Sunday Times of London revealed that the Afghan Financial Intelligence Unit, FinTRACA, reported that since 2006 at least 1.5 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia was funneled to the Taliban in Afghanistan, with Al-Qaeda withholding a cut for their delivery services.  Why is there no outcry from the U.S.?

In 2011 overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market. Russia was second, with $4.8 billion in deals. Who benefits from the War on Terror and who benefits when America threatens war?

Over half of the sales, or $33.4 billion, consisted of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. These sales included F-15 fighter jets, dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, as well as an array of missiles, bombs and delivery systems, as well as accessories such as night-vision goggles and radar warning systems. These sales offset the flow of US dollars to pay for Saudi oil, and this explains why there is no outrage directed toward the Saudi regime.

The War on Terror exploits the tragedy of September 11 for the benefit of a very few. Poor people continue to pay an enormous price, while the elites, including our own government and the corporations it answers to, ignores everything but the influx of cash into their coffers. The war business is profitable if you refuse to count the cost of human lives.

In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President, Obama said, "Our destinies are bound together. A freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity, is unworthy of our founding ideals." In closing, he said, "We travel together. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up.” Why is it our Presidents fail to include those they bomb in their lofty sentiments? The simple truth is our destinies are bound together with those who lie beyond the borders of our country as well.

A young, educated Afghan man, an advisor to Parliament, sees the corruption of his government and despairs. He asks me, “What is my share in this world?” He continues,  “Absolutely nothing. And for my child, the same.” His voice trails off. We sit drinking tea as night comes on.

2 Million Friends Calling for Peace

Four decades of war.  Two million people dead. Trillions of dollars spent. Money disappearing into the pockets of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, policemen and the armed forces. No accountability. No transparency. No infrastructure. The misery and poverty of the majority of the people continues unabated, decade after decade.  Children freeze to death in the winter. They starve to death all year round. The question remains, “Who benefits from this misery?” The human cost of war doesn’t enter into any politician’s calculations.

In October 2011 Secretary of State Clinton emphasized a new three-track strategy of “Fight, talk, and build,” claiming to “pursue all three tracks at once, as they are mutually reinforcing.” One year later, it is clear that the 3^rd Afghan strategy of the Obama administration can be added to the scrap heap of failed strategies along with the “Af-Pak” strategy and the “Surge”. No one is talking, nothing is being built, fighting is the only track that continues unabated. Security, even in Kabul, is tenuous. Peace seems a distant and illusory concept.

On Sunday, September 2^nd, the Afghan Peace Volunteers held a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan to introduce a new strategy, called the “2 Million Friends” initiative. Built on a foundation of hope and goodwill, this initiative calls on ordinary citizens of all countries to join with ordinary Afghan citizens, who are tired of corruption, hatred and war, to be friends. When asked about the role of international people, Roz Mohammed, a young man from Midan Wardak replied, “The international people are just like us, ordinary people who want to work with us for peace.” The wish is for 2 million friends, in remembrance of each of the 2 million Afghan victims of 40 years of war in Afghanistan, to join together and appeal for peace. 2 million friends to tell our respective governments, "Enough! We wish to live without war."

“2 Million Friends” is not just an initiative to be “liked” or “shared” on the Internet. It is about recognizing our shared humanity. When we see the suffering of a friend, we do not stand by and wish things were different, we act to end their suffering. “2 Million Friends” is a call to action here, here, and here.

On December 10, 2012, International Human Rights Day, “2 Million Friends” will present a petition to the UN calling for an immediate ceasefire in Afghanistan, leading to direct, substantial talks to end the war, end the government corruption and begin to advocate for the welfare of the majority of the Afghan people who have suffered for too long.

The Afghan Peace Volunteers is a unique organization in Afghanistan. Its members are young volunteers from all the major ethnic groups. They live together and promote peaceful coexistence, simple living and self-reliance. They receive no salary, and they don’t promote any particular religious or political party. They are truly independent. In the fractured, war torn country of Afghanistan, this alone is a remarkable achievement. When asked why they focus on the youth, Ali, a young man from Bamyan Province replied, “We need everyone’s help, but we focus on the youth because they are the future of Afghanistan.” Shaima, a young woman from Parwan added, “When the youth have information about non-violence and peace they will not be so willing to continue to fight.” The Afghan Peace Volunteers are growing, even in the face of enormous challenges, and they invite everyone who desires peace through non-violence to be their friend!

To become one of 2 Million Friends, visit http://www.2millionfriends.org

And on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/2millionfriends