North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?
US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty Anti-Empire >>
Promoting Human Rights in IrelandHuman Rights in Ireland >>
?Not Clear if Heat Pumps Will Save Money,? Government Adviser Admits Fri Jul 11, 2025 17:00 | Will Jones Heat pumps?are not guaranteed to save households money in the long-term, the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Dame Angela McLean has conceded.
The post “Not Clear if Heat Pumps Will Save Money,” Government Adviser Admits appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
How Britain Sold Itself to the World as Paradise Fri Jul 11, 2025 15:14 | Anonymous former BBC staff member The government and the BBC have cooperated for decades in an epic advertising campaign to sell Britain to the world as the best possible place to be. No wonder they all want to come here, writes a former BBC staff member.
The post How Britain Sold Itself to the World as Paradise appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Unite Suspends Angela Rayner and Threatens to Abandon Labour Fri Jul 11, 2025 13:03 | Will Jones Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been suspended by Unite the union over?the Birmingham bin strike, with the union, one of Labour's biggest backers, also announcing it will review its relationship?with the party.
The post Unite Suspends Angela Rayner and Threatens to Abandon Labour appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Why I Changed My Mind About Abortion Fri Jul 11, 2025 11:00 | Oscar Evans Growing up in 90s Britain, Oscar Evans unthinkingly accepted what he was taught: that abortion is a neutral medical procedure. His views have now changed ? and he's horrified by what Labour has done.
The post Why I Changed My Mind About Abortion appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
UN Human Rights Council Demands Criminalisation of Climate Scepticism Worldwide Fri Jul 11, 2025 09:00 | Ben Pile The UN Human Rights Council has published a report demanding the criminalisation of climate scepticism worldwide. Ben Pile skewers the absurdity of the 'human rights' authoritarians.
The post UN Human Rights Council Demands Criminalisation of Climate Scepticism Worldwide appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en
Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en
The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
Catholic Workers Head to Afghanistan in Peace & Solidarity
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
press release
Tuesday March 15, 2011 20:19 by Jake U.S.A.

List of CWers going to Afghanistan: Chris Allen Doucot (Hartford Ct CW), Clare Grady - (Ithaca NY CW), Jim Haber (Las Vegas CW), Martha Hennessy (D Day's Granddaughter), Jake Olzen (Chicago Il. CW), Scott Schaeffer-Duffy -(Worcester Mass, CW)
Dear Friends,
I will be traveling to Kabul, Afghanistan next week to meet with a group of extraordinary young people called the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers http://www.youthpeacevolunteers.org/ (AYPVs). I, along with 27 other internationals organized with Voices for Creative Nonviolence http://vcnv.org/ and supported by Witness Against Torture http://witnesstorture.org/, will spend our time listening to the struggles of what life is like in a country plagued by three decades of war. The AYPVs are committed to a nonviolent end to the wars that have ravaged their families, their fields, and their livelihoods. As an act of solidarity, we will be joining them as they speak out, with steadfast resolve and a resounding hope, the truth that they are determined to live without wars ("Our Journey to Smile").
The war in Afghanistan has now become the longest war America has waged. The costs are incalculable http://vcnv.org/incalculable. As Kathy Kelly wrote, co-coordinator of Voices and with whom I'll be joining in Afghanistan:
Recent polls suggest that while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3% took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections. The issue of the economy weighed heavily on voters, but the war and its cost, though clear to them and clearly related to the economy in their thinking, was a far less pressing concern.
U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, shooting them “one after another” this past Tuesday March 1st. (“The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.” (NYT 3/2/11)).
Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. “The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,” said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. “I myself was involved in the burial,” Noori said. “Yesterday we buried them.” (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.
We must listen to the youth of our world, of Afghanistan, and take them seriously when they tell us "I wish to live without wars." Please see the attached document for a little more information about the AYPV and ways you can support the wishes of children to live in a world without war.
For more information or to offer financial support for our collective work to end these wars, look for details at the Voices website: http://www.vcnv.org
I am grateful for all the support and prayers I've received from the White Rose Catholic Worker, Kairos Chicago, my friends and family. I bring your desires for peace with me in my heart and will share them with the men and women and children I meet.
-peace & solidarity-
Jake Olzen
White Rose Catholic Worker
2127 W. Devon
Chicago, IL 60659
773.856.0315
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4Biographies of participants in the Spring 2011 Afghanistan Delegation
led by Kathy Kelly who attended all 3 Pitstop Ploughshares trials in Dublin
http://vcnv.org/biographies-of-participants
Hi, I am a Mother and Grandmother, Great Grandmother and i am more than outraged by what i am hearing and seeing in Afghanistan and all the other places in the world that the US and its allies see fit to destroy for oil, gas, water or just power hungry control! It is time it stopped. The hundreds of thousands that have died or been misfigured physically and mentallly by what war does to everyone we pray for each day. I am very proud of the folks who put their lives on the line to make the powers that be take some notice and give hope and support to the oppressed. I also know that we could lose them in these extremely dangerous times! I will pray for their families that they return home to continue their work. In Solidarity, Shirley Hardy and Family
The Ghost and the Machine
by Kathy Kelly with research by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
February 29, 2012
Fazillah, age 25, lives in Maidan Shar, the central city of Afghanistan’s Wardak province. She married about six years ago, and gave birth to a son, Aymal, who just turned five without a father. Fazillah tells her son, Aymal, that his father was killed by an American bomber plane, remote-controlled by computer.
That July, in 2007, Aymal’s father was sitting in a garden with four other men. A weaponized drone, what we used to call an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV, was flying, unseen, overhead, and fired missiles into the garden, killing all five men.
Now Fazillah and Aymal share a small dwelling with the deceased man’s mother. According to the tradition, a husband’s relatives are responsible to look after a widow with no breadwinner remaining in her immediate family. She and her son have no regular source of bread or income, but Fazillah says that her small family is better off than it might have been: one of the men killed alongside her husband left behind a wife and child but no other living relatives that could provide them with any source of support, at all.
ARTICLE CONTINUED....
http://vcnv.org/the-ghost-and-the-machine
Salam
Afghanistan is a lot more complex. When there is no foreign invader, Afghans are fighting each other and when there is an invader we fight the invader. Good that there is support but you underestimate how bad the situation is and how it is just not the USA who is destroying our country. Don't make the mistake of preaching Christianity to Afghan unless you want to risk your life and those who show you hospitality.
Solidarity!