News Release

Wright and Kelly in Afghanistan

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AfghanistanKATHY KELLY [back in the U.S. Jan. 4]
ANN WRIGHT [back in the U.S. Dec. 28]
Kelly is co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence; she is also available via Skype: kathy.vcnv. Wright, a former State Department diplomat and retired Army colonel, helped re-open the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2001. She resigned from the State Department in protest of the Iraq invasion in March of 2003.

Wright said today: “The U.S. needs to be removing its troops from Afghanistan. This increase in military operations in Afghanistan with massive loss of life, multiple times more than previous years — plus the reach into Pakistan — is making things much more unstable, not stable.”

Kelly said today: “Commenting on impoverishment and displacement caused by military offensives, a Pakistani op-ed recently compared hunger and anger to two live wires. When the wires touch, they create an incandescent and uncontrollable flash.

“It’s hard to imagine the extent of explosive popular rage that would result if the shoe were on the other foot, if U.S. people were subject to aerial bombing, night raids, destruction of civilian homes, displacement and starvation. In reality, the live wires of hunger and anger could exist in our lives too; we could be angry, very angry, about this war, angry enough to make it a political issue. But if our hunger were for an end to the war, if our hunger even signaled a desire to rethink and repent our murderous policies, if we honestly sought forgiveness from Afghan civilians who’ve borne the brunt of our war of choice, then perhaps an uncontrollable and incandescent flash of fairness and peace could govern our future.”

See Kelly and Wright’s interviews focusing on reports of the U.S. escalating war in Pakistan on RT (toward bottom of page)

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167