[Rescuers come from all over the world following an earthquake,
but when wars are waged, governments send only more munitions,
prolonging the agony. Those who have an insatiable appetite for war
seldom heed the wreckage they have left behind.]
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WILL WE ALWAYS BE THIS WAY?  
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Kathy Kelly
March 27, 2023
The Progressive
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_ Rescuers come from all over the world following an earthquake, but
when wars are waged, governments send only more munitions, prolonging
the agony. Those who have an insatiable appetite for war seldom heed
the wreckage they have left behind. _

U.S. Army soldier and Iraqi child in Riyahd village, 2007, Staff Sgt.
Andy Dunaway/U.S. Air Force/pingnews

 

wenty years ago, in Baghdad, I shared quarters with Iraqis and
internationals in a small hotel, the Al-Fanar, which had been home
base for numerous Voices in the Wilderness delegations acting in
open defiance of the economic sanctions against Iraq. U.S. government
officials charged us as criminals for delivering medicines to Iraqi
hospitals. In response, we told them we understood the penalties they
threatened us with (twelve years in prison and a $1 million fine), but
we couldn’t be governed by unjust laws primarily punishing children.
And we invited government officials to join us. Instead, we were
steadily joined by other peace groups longing to prevent a looming
war.

In late January 2003, I still hoped war could be averted. The
International Atomic Energy Agency’s report was imminent
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If it declared that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction
(WMD), U.S. allies might drop out of the attack plans, in spite of the
massive military buildup we were witnessing on nightly television.
Then came Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003, United
Nations briefing, when he insisted
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indeed possess WMD. His presentation was eventually proven to be
fraudulent
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every count, but it tragically gave the United States enough
credibility to proceed at full throttle with its “Shock and Awe”
bombing campaign.

Beginning in mid-March 2003, the ghastly aerial attacks pounded Iraq
day and night. In our hotel, parents and grandparents prayed to
survive ear-splitting blasts and sickening thuds. A lively, engaging
nine-year-old girl completely lost control over her bladder. Toddlers
devised games to mimic the sounds of bombs and pretended to use small
flashlights as guns.

Our team visited hospital wards where maimed children moaned as they
recovered from surgeries. I remember sitting on a bench outside of an
emergency room. Next to me, a woman convulsed in sobs asking, “How
will I tell him? What will I say?” She needed to tell her nephew,
who was undergoing emergency surgery, that he had not only lost both
his arms but also that she was now his only surviving relative. A U.S.
bomb had hit Ali Abbas’s family as they shared a lunch outside their
home. A surgeon later reported that he had already told Ali that they
had amputated both of his arms. “But,” Ali had asked him, “will
I always be this way?”

Ireturned to the Al-Fanar Hotel that evening feeling overwhelmed by
anger and shame. Alone in my room, I pounded my pillow, tearfully
murmuring, “Will we always be this way?”

Throughout the Forever Wars of the past two decades, U.S. elites in
the military-industrial-Congressional-media complex have manifested an
insatiable appetite for war. They seldom heed the wreckage they have
left behind after “ending” a war of choice.

Following the 2003 “Shock and Awe” war in Iraq, Iraqi novelist
Sinan Antoon created a main character, Jawad, in _The Corpse Washer
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felt overwhelmed by the rising numbers of corpses for whom he must
care.

“I felt as if we had been struck by an earthquake which had changed
everything,” Jawad reflects. “For decades to come, we would be
groping our way around in the rubble it left behind. In the past there
were streams between Sunnis and Shites, or this group and that, which
could be easily crossed or were invisible at times. Now, after the
earthquake, the earth had all these fissures and the streams had
become rivers. The rivers became torrents filled with blood, and
whoever tried to cross drowned. The images of those on the other side
of the river had been inflated and disfigured . . . concrete walls
rose to seal the tragedy.”

“War is worse than an earthquake,” a surgeon, Saeed Abuhassan,
told me during Israel’s 2008-2009 bombing of Gaza, called Operation
Cast Lead [[link removed]]. He pointed
out that rescuers come from all over the world following an
earthquake, but when wars are waged, governments send only more
munitions, prolonging the agony.

He explained the effects of weapons that had maimed patients
undergoing surgery in Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital as the bombs
continued to fall. Dense inert metal explosives
[[link removed]] lop off people’s
limbs in ways that surgeons can’t repair. White phosphorus bomb
fragments, embedded subcutaneously in human flesh, continue to burn
when exposed to oxygen, asphyxiating the surgeons trying to remove the
sinister material.

“You know, the most important thing you can tell people in your
country is that U.S. people paid for many of the weapons used to kill
people in Gaza,” Abuhassan said. “And this also is why it’s
worse than an earthquake.”

As the world enters the second year of war between Ukraine and Russia,
some say it’s unconscionable for peace activists to clamor for a
cease-fire and immediate negotiations. Is it more honorable to watch
the pile-up of body bags, the funerals, the grave digging, the towns
becoming uninhabitable, and the escalation that could lead to a world
war or even a nuclear war
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U.S. mainstream media rarely engages with professor Noam Chomsky,
whose wise and pragmatic analysis rests on indisputable facts. In June
2022, four months into the Russia-Ukraine war, Chomsky spoke
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two options, one being a negotiated diplomatic settlement. “The
other,” he said, “is just to drag it out and see how much
everybody will suffer, how many Ukrainians will die, how much Russia
will suffer, how many millions of people will starve to death in Asia
and Africa, how much we’ll proceed toward heating the environment to
the point where there will be no possibility for a livable human
existence.”

UNICEF reports
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months of escalating devastation and displacement affect Ukrainian
children: “Children continue to be killed, wounded, and deeply
traumatized by violence that has sparked displacement on a scale and
speed not seen since World War II. Schools, hospitals, and other
civilian infrastructure on which they depend continue to be damaged or
destroyed. Families have been separated and lives torn apart.”  

Estimates of Russian and Ukrainian military casualties
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but some have suggested that more than 200,000 soldiers on both sides
have been killed or wounded.

Gearing up for a major offensive before the spring thaw, Russia’s
government announced it would pay
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bonus to troops that destroy weapons used by Ukrainian soldiers that
were sent from abroad. The blood money bonus is chilling, but on an
exponentially greater level, major weapons manufacturers have accrued
a steady bonanza of “bonuses” since the war began.

In the last year alone, the United States sent
[[link removed].] $27.5
billion in military assistance to Ukraine, providing “armored
vehicles, including Stryker armored personnel carriers, Bradley
infantry fighting vehicles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles,
and High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled vehicles.” The package also
included air defense support for Ukraine, night vision devices, and
small arms ammunition.

Shortly after Western countries agreed to send
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Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense
Ministry, Yuriy Sak, spoke confidently
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getting F-16 fighter jets next. “They didn’t want to give us heavy
artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us Himars
systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now
they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is
nothing left that we will not get,” he told Reuters.

Ukraine isn’t likely to get nuclear weapons, but the danger of
nuclear war was clarified
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a _Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_ statement on January 24, which
set the Doomsday Clock for 2023 to ninety seconds before the
metaphorical “midnight.” The scientists warned that effects of the
Russia-Ukraine war are not limited to an alarming increase in nuclear
danger; they also undermine global efforts to combat climate change.
“Countries dependent on Russian oil and gas have sought to diversify
their supplies and suppliers,” the report notes, “leading to
expanded investment in natural gas exactly when such investment should
have been shrinking.”

Mary Robinson, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights,
says the Doomsday Clock sounds an alarm for all humanity. “We are on
the brink of a precipice,” she said. “But our leaders are not
acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and livable
planet. From cutting carbon emissions to strengthening arms control
treaties and investing in pandemic preparedness, we know what needs to
be done. The science is clear, but the political will is lacking. This
must change in 2023 if we are to avert catastrophe. We are facing
multiple existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset.”

As do we all. The Doomsday Clock indicates we’re living on borrowed
time. We needn’t “always be this way.”

Over the past decade, I was fortunate to be hosted in dozens of trips
to Kabul, Afghanistan, by young Afghans who fervently believed that
words could be stronger than weapons. They espoused a simple,
pragmatic proverb: “Blood does not wash away blood.”

We owe to future generations every possible effort to renounce all war
and protect the planet. 

_Kathy Kelly, a peace activist and author, co-coordinates the Ban
Killer Drones campaign and is board president of World Beyond War._

_Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent
and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech._

_Based in Madison, Wisconsin, we publish on national politics,
culture, and events including U.S. foreign policy; we also focus on
issues of particular importance to the heartland. Two flagship
projects of The Progressive include Public School Shakedown
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to resist the privatization of public education, and The Progressive
Media Project [[link removed]], aiming to diversify our
nation’s op-ed pages. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization. Donate [[link removed]]_

* Iraq War
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* Afghanistan
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* Doomsday Clock
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* peace movement
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* Ukraine
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