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U.S.
Activists Denounce Horror of “War on Terrorism”
By
Steve Smith, IOL Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON,
March 7 (IslamOnline) - Family members of September 11 victims have formed a
non-profit organization seeking effective alternatives to war as a response
to the attacks and to support victims of the war in Afghanistan.
The
new group, Peaceful Tomorrows, said in a statement Tuesday that it
"favors the creation of an Afghan victims fund to match the outpouring
of support for U.S. victims."
Four
family members have recently traveled to Afghanistan to meet with civilian
victims of the subsequent bombing. Rita Lasar lost her brother, Abe
Zelmanowitz, in the World Trade Center when he stayed back with a
quadriplegic friend. George W. Bush later eulogized him.
She
said today: "I found the answer to what a country looks like when it's
been at war for 23 years, and the last part of the war was done in my
brother's name."
Although
Derrill Bodley lost his 20-year-old daughter on United Flight 93 he still
said war meant more civilian victims. "When the bombing first started,
I said to myself, I hope that there are no innocent victims," he said.
"But it was a rather futile hope on my part because there's never been
a perfect bombing campaign."
Kelly
Campbell, who lost her brother-in-law in the Pentagon, said the world should
notice the plight of the poor Afghanis.
"We
see them as our sister families, people who happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time," she said. "There are women who have to
send their children out to beg for food, children who lost their limbs to
cluster bombs."
Reports
by non-governmental organizations and activists returning from field trips
in Afghanistan came back with stories of poverty, need and helplessness and
a determination to oppose the war fever in the U.S. Few U.S. media outlets,
however, paid attention to their reports.
According
to Conscience International, a U.S.-based humanitarian group, 87 percent of
the people in Afghanistan are affected in some way by the continuing
presence of unexploded land mines, and that 200,000 people have lost a limb
or been wounded by mines. Twenty-five to 35 persons are injured every day by
mines, and one in 10 victims is a child.
"Recently
in Afghanistan I saw children arrive screaming at the hospital, blinded and
maimed by American cluster bombs," said James Jennings, president of
Conscience International.
Reports
by UN and independent humanitarian aid agencies are only now beginning to
reflect the stark life-and-death reality for some of the most vulnerable
groups in Afghanistan, including 2.5 million Kuchi nomads, who have received
very little food aid.
Last
month in Herat a Conscience International team reported that thousands of
Kuch, newly-arrived at the giant Maslakh camp under worsening winter
conditions, were without food and remain ineligible for WFP distribution.
"They told us, 'Nobody has given us any food, and if we don't get food
soon, we will die,'" he said.
Freelance
journalist Erlich who has just returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan also
drew a bleak picture of the country and of the U.S. so-called “anti-terror
mission”.
"My
observations and interviews indicate that the U.S. is going to be bogged
down for a long time," he said. "There is no central government,
the security situation is bad and the drug-running is back in full swing. So
far the U.S. has been unable or uninterested in doing anything about it.
This situation is similar to the warlord fighting that destroyed Afghanistan
prior to the rise of the Taliban in the early to mid '90s.”
David
Potorti, who lost his brother in the World Trade Center attack, recently
completed a peace walk from the Pentagon to New York and said he, like many
other Americans, were increasingly against the war.
"The
phrase 'Just War,' used in reference to the battle being waged in
Afghanistan, is resonating, but not as a deep philosophical concept,"
he said. "War, to the increasing exclusion of everything else, is
almost the only thing that America collectively cares about anymore.... We
direct our attention and our resources into what we do best: war."
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