“I was in Iraq in ’03, and what I saw there crushed me,” former U.S. Army sergeant Ash Woolson told thousands of people last Sunday afternoon from a makeshift stage at the edge of the security perimeter around Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center, where the NATO summit was being held.

As the international meeting was getting underway that day, thousands marched for peace through the city’s downtown. They were led by contingents of U.S. veterans like Woolson organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, 40 of whom eventually mounted the ad hoc stage, where they brought the symbolic and tangible purpose of the week’s protests into sharp focus by attempting to publicly return their service medals, including their Global War on Terror awards.

Just before Woolson lobbed his medals in the direction of the NATO gathering (the organizers had requested that an official accept them, but this was turned down), he added: “I don’t want us to suffer this again, and I don’t want our children to suffer this again, and so I’m giving these back!”

This was the largest organized medal return since April 1971, when more than 800 veterans deposited their medals on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to dramatically repudiate the Vietnam War. Like that event four decades ago, Sunday’s ceremony was moving and powerful. It crystallized in a clear but visceral way the realities of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time it spelled out the critical importance of undertaking deliberate and potentially risky resistance for healing and nonviolent change.

This riveting event could well have become the indelible image of this week’s NATO protest. Even more importantly, it might have prompted a renewed national focus on the realities and costs of the last dozen years of war-making.

So far, neither has happened. Although there was some media coverage of the medal return ceremony (including a piece on local television and extensive reporting on Democracy Now!), it was largely overshadowed by the clash between police and protesters that took place almost immediately after the vets exited the stage. The march permit expired and most of the thousands of marchers drifted away, but a couple of hundred people stayed put in the streets. Hundreds of police in riot gear then flooded into the area. As an Associated Press story reports:

Some of the most enduring images of the event were likely to be from the end — when a small group of demonstrators clashed with a line of police who tried to keep them from the lakeside convention center where President Barack Obama was hosting the gathering. The protesters tried to move east toward McCormick Place, with some hurling sticks and bottles at police. Officers responded by swinging their batons. The two sides were locked in a standoff for nearly two hours, with police blocking the protesters’ path and the crowd refusing to leave. Some protesters had blood streaming down their faces.

This description conveys little of the ferocity of the tense confrontation that erupted after the permit expired and a huge police contingent swarmed into the space, intent on pushing people out of the intersection and keeping them from moving toward the convention center. News accounts and video clips from the scene show that the police tactics were hugely confrontational and aggressive; the police attacked and pummeled many protesters. At the same time, video clips show objects being hurled at police officers, including a police barricade, and protesters pushing police. Both sides were confrontational, as this raw video indicates.

My spouse Cynthia and I brought our two-year-old daughter Leah to this march. (The coalition website said that this event would be “family friendly,” and we took it at its word.) We were one block from the stage, but left a couple of minutes before the permit expired because Leah was getting hungry and thirsty; it had been a long, hot day. As we walked north, a long phalanx of police officers in riot gear were trotting single file toward the intersection, where only a few minutes later they would be swinging batons at marchers unwilling to budge. Some would be bloodied; others arrested.

There is no excuse for the actions of the police. At the same time, the lack of nonviolent discipline among the remaining protesters contributed to escalating this confrontation. The media frame on this story shifted almost immediately from “peaceful march” to “street fighting,” and the powerful action of the Iraq and Afghanistan vets was largely lost in the inundating shuffle.

Well before all of this, Suellen Semekoski and I were asked by Iraq Veterans Against the War to co-facilitate the nonviolent action training that would support the vets in preparing for their medal return. We were happy to do so, and on Saturday afternoon and evening we plunged into this process with them.

In our six hours together, we sensed the depth of hope that this public action was generating for them as individuals and as a community. Throughout the day the participants repeatedly stressed that nonviolence was going to be crucial to this event and that they were committed to maintaining this spirit. In addition, we were joined by three members of Afghans for Peace who were collaborating with IVAW on this event. They were also resolute about the importance of nonviolent discipline. The success of this action, they said, depended on it.

These survivors of war — U.S. veterans and Afghan peaceworkers — were creating a rare public space where they sought to call on the nation and the world to reflect deeply on the reality of this past, present and future destructiveness. They were very clear that nonviolent strategies, tactics and atmosphere would be vital to achieving this.

Unfortunately, there was little infrastructure in place to support that possibility. While many of us led numerous nonviolence trainings in the Chicago area in the run-up to the NATO mobilization, there were no agreed-upon nonviolence guidelines to serve as a foundation for nonviolent action. (The “Chicago Principles” did not serve this function.) Nor were there adequate numbers of peacekeepers prepared to intervene in order to maintain this nonviolent atmosphere. (In January, some of us had offered to train 500 peacekeepers, who would be equipped to respond to outbreaks of violence. This was based on the experience some of us had had in Seattle in 1999 at the World Trade Organization meeting, where 200 peacekeepers had been an inadequate number. We were told that the coalition was already training peace guides.)

There are many reasons such infrastructure was not in place, including a sensitivity to the now classic debate between nonviolence and diversity of tactics. Nevertheless, I suspect that we are at a crossroads as a movement for change and, at some point, we must make a difficult but important choice.

From my perspective, people power depends for its lifeblood on nonviolent discipline.

Nonviolent action is more effective than violent action — including the kind of heated scrum that took place in Chicago this past Sunday — because it keeps us on message (focused on the issue, rather than the tired tit-for-tat narrative), it is more likely to alert, educate and mobilize the population (the lynchpin of successful movements), and it communicates a vision of the kind of society we want (veterans creating the space of transformative healing and social change rather than the push-comes-to-shove dynamics of retaliatory violence).

If these things are true, then we must engage in nonviolent struggle with those for whom nonviolent struggle is dispensable. The challenges our world is facing are too grim to move forward without the strength and effectiveness of disciplined nonviolent people power. There are lessons everywhere — even from what went down in Chicago on Sunday.

The past couple of weeks have been something of a roller-coaster for National Nurses United and it all culminates this Friday morning with the first major march and rally in what is expected to be a weekend of protest in Chicago. But it was a fight to get even there. Last Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration announced that the National Nurses United (NNU) protest against austerity measures that benefit NATO, the G8, and other elites would not be allowed to end its May 18 rally in Daley Plaza. The anti-NATO-G8 protest—billed as “a rally to tax Wall Street and heal America” — will likely draw thousands into the Loop on a workday afternoon and, as such, was threatened to be marginalized to Grant Park’s Butler field, according to NNU organizers.

NNU Midwest Director, Jan Rodolfo, RN, speaking at a press conference last Thursday morning, spoke on the union’s plans to file for injunctive relief in federal court rather than succumb to the city’s demands of either to accept the permit changes to the route or have it rescinded entirely. The city gave the union two days to make a decision. Organizers and counsel decided to pursue legal avenues to assert their right to protest, but would rally in Grant Park if their legal challenge failed.

“The city wants to push us aside to Petrillo Bandshell, [in Grant Park],” said Rodolfo, “rather than have us march into the heart of downtown Chicago to Daley Plaza, clearly a center of symbolic protest. We will not be silent. We did not cancel our event when the G8 decided to hide at Camp David. We are not going to cancel our event now.”

Amidst the widespread outcries and protests on behalf of the NNU, the city reversed its decision earlier this week.

National Nurses United, with more than 170,000 registered nurses, is the largest nursing union in the country and allied with other unions across the globe — many of whom have expressed outrage at the Emanuel administration’s last-minute decision to change the permit conditions. Their event is shaping up to be quite the kick-off event to the NATO Summit as they advocate for a “Robin Hood tax” on Wall Street.

While Occupy Chicago and other groups have a week’s worth of events planned, the National Nurses United march — featuring Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello — promises to be the first mass gathering of protesters against next weekend’s NATO summit.

The city had cited the addition of Morello to the rally line-up as the reason for the change in permit status. But what the city should really be worried about is not the handful of well-known musicians, journalists, activists and other pseudo-celebrities of the left drawing large crowds. Rather, the Emanuel administration should worry about the way many movements are converging under the banner of resisting NATO-G8 policies.

The press conference, hosted by Occupy Chicago, included an impressive lineup of organizers and spokespersons united against the NATO summit, with representatives from the anti-war movement (CANG8, IVAW, and Network for a NATO Free Future) along with supporters from labor, independent media and community groups. This showing of solidarity is a force to be reckoned with, as days of action for education, the environment, immigration reform, economic justice, counter-summits, popular assemblies, concerts, marches and rallies will consume Chicagoans and visitors from across the globe for more than ten days.

Mainstream media is predicting smaller numbers of protesters filling the streets of Chicago than if the G8 summit would have remained in the city. But such an assessment is premature. The Obama Administration’s decision to move the G8 meetings was seen by many as victory for the converging economic justice and anti-war movements made possible by the Occupy movement.

Furthermore, the focus on NATO, in the words of CANG8 organizer Joe Iosbaker, “as the armed wing of the one percent,” combines the 99 percent meme of economic justice and anti-austerity protests with the kind of anti-militarism that made Dr. King’s prophetic condemnation of capitalism, racism, and militarism so volatile for the vital interests of the oligarchy. While such an analysis may have once been relegated to radical cafés and Marxists’ FBI dossiers, it is becoming a commonplace occurrence in occupations and dinner tables across the country as the dots between austerity and militarism are getting connected.

Everyday, more organizations and people are endorsing the NATO protests and planning to join in. Across the country, buses are being booked and church halls and couches filled as people are realizing just how historic of a moment this convergence is going to be. A number of protests have already occurred, including civil disobedience at the Obama campaign headquarters, immigration and foreclosure actions, and a Black Bloc FTP/Anti-Capitalist march on the Southside of Chicago.

NNU’s original plans for their protest was to focus on economic inequality and the G8 meetings. Now, the NNU and others are forced to broaden the scope of their analysis and protest to explain the connection between NATO and the G8 to their large constituencies. NNU’s commitment to protest at the NATO summits, and the allies they’ve found in their fight against the city, reflects the convergence — or spill over — across different movements that made the Seattle 1999 protests so well-attended and successful.

Administrative hurdles and legal challenges to impede the coming together of a real solidarity of interests — labor, environmental, economic, peace — while annoying, questionable, and unjust also reveals the emerging battleground between a movement, powerholders, and the public. So while National Nurses United are at their wits end with the Windy City’s bureaucracy, this is an unfolding drama that is just getting starting.

Catholic Workers outside Chicago's Prudential Building, via Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune.

Catholic Workers and friends gathered yesterday morning at the Prudential Building in Chicago — home to President Obama’s campaign headquarters — to say “No to NATO; Yes to Community.”

“We are here today,” said Chantal de Alacuaz from Chicago, “to boldly proclaim our desire to live in a world where we say no to NATO and yes to community. As Catholic Workers, we serve the poor by practicing the works of mercy by feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and taking care of the sick. The works of war are directly opposed to that.”

Our intention (disclosure: I am a Catholic Worker myself and helped organize the action) was to invite Obama and other NATO leaders to break bread with us over a symbolic meal to discuss how to transform NATO from an instrument of war and empire into an instrument of peace and love, embodied by the biblical works of mercy. We sang songs, held signs, shared bread with commuters, passed out leaflets and spoke to media before entering the building.

More than 125 of us streamed into the building, through the lobby, up the elevators, past the security check point and into the elevator banks before they were shut down, preventing us from reaching the offices. At that point, we joyfully sang our vision of a world without NATO with modified lyrics to tunes such as “Down by the Riverside,” “This Little Light of Mine,” and “Oh, Freedom.” Then, as bike police barricaded the entrance to the building and security began warning us to leave, the mic check started, reading a carefully crafted statement declaring our intentions to live “A Week Without Capitalism.”

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO forces — led by U.S. interests and the West’s insatiable appetite for oil and free markets — have been controversially involved in conflicts in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. In 2010, NATO countries spent a collective $1.08 trillion on defense and military expenditures, including a resurgence of nuclear weapons. The U.S. and NATO are leading the way for the militarization of the globe at the expense of human and environmental needs. We say no to nuclear weapons, no to the out-of-control defense spending and no to the logic of violence.

The G8 — the Group of Eight, including the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, Italy, Germany, France and the U.K. — represent the destructive engines of capitalism whose “growth-at-all-costs” mentality has desecrated communities, the environment and human rights all in the name of progress. As people of faith and conscience, we advocate relationships and economics rooted in love: the works of mercy at a personal sacrifice, craft and worker-based cooperatives, gift and barter economies, agrarian communities and a more simple lifestyle. Let love be our guide for our collective future without war and capitalism.

As Catholic Workers, we call for May 18-21 to be a weekend of nonviolent protest against the capitalism and militarism of NATO/G8. Catholic Worker communities around the country are invited to engage in “A Weekend without Capitalism” — a four day act of noncooperation where we refuse to participate in the political and economic structures that oppress our sisters and brothers, harm our communities and destroy our environment. We will take time off work and school and, instead, invest this time into healthy, just and sustainable alternatives for our communities. We will not support the corporate state by using our cars or consuming goods or services from which the state profits. Instead, we will do as Jesus taught us: feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. We will protest injustice and war, host free markets and skills shares, work on community gardens, invest in alternative economics, act as peacemakers and organize our neighborhoods for direct action.

The building manager told us we had to leave and the police echoed his sentiment, warning that arrests would follow if we did not leave. But eight people chose to ignore this warning, demanding to at least be able to deliver their invitation to the Obama campaign. They were arrested and are currently being held in Chicago’s First Precinct. The National Lawyers Guild, which is providing free legal and jail support for all NATO protesters coming to Chicago, is following the arrestees’ status through the system.

Our hope for yesterday morning’s action was to create a narrative of possibility and hope in the power of community over NATO’s continued war-making in Afghanistan and its role of corporate protector. Our protest — nonviolent but assertive, invitational but clear — was intended to counter the dominant myth that our only choices are violence or passivity. It was very clear who had the power in the lobby in the Prudential Building and it was only cooperation that prevented mass arrests from happening, which was never our intention anyway.

The media response has been overwhelmingly positive — thanks in part to hard work, a creative (and fun!) action, boldness, a willingness to risk and a little bit of grace. As a movement, we are succeeding in connecting economic austerity and militarism for a larger public as well as encouraging more resistance, protest and disruption to NATO as legitimate activities for ordinary people. We are grateful for the convergence of movements that are uniting in the Chicago streets this week, culminating with the May 20 CANG8 rally and march against NATO/G8, as well as the May 21 day of action to shut down Boeing. The Catholic Workers will be a part of them.

People all over the world know the struggles and problems their communities are facing and are the ones best poised to solve them. The paradigm shift that we — along with so many others, like the Occupy movement — are calling forth, is that we can live in a world without NATO and the G8 by empowering our own communities to be places of justice, sustainability, peace and hope.

We caught glimpses of that reality yesterday as police officers slipped us quiet words of encouragement and firefighters excitedly honked their horns for us. The systems of violence and capitalism that keep us apart need to be forcefully challenged with attractive alternatives. For us, our alternative is love, community and powerfully confronting violence with creative nonviolence.

A mural by students at Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy in Chicago depicting the realities of NATO.

As NATO forces find themselves under fire in Afghanistan, NATO’s spokespersons are taking to another battlefield to win the hearts and minds of an increasingly skeptical populace: Chicago Public Schools. Last month, the Chicago Tribune reported from a sixth-grade classroom where representatives from the Chicago NATO Host Committee gave a primer on NATO and its member countries to the Walt Disney Magnet School on the Northside of Chicago.

According a Host Committee press release, the classroom visits and programming are part of a whole series of events “designed to engage and educate residents about the upcoming NATO Summit.” Other events include sponsored sports competitions, culinary classes and specialized menus at Chicago restaurants featuring NATO member countries’ heritages, and a three-part speaker series:

The first will focus on the future of the transatlantic alliance, the second will examine American leadership in the 21st Century, and the third will give Chicagoans an opportunity to hear from visiting NATO leaders.

A Host Committee spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comments on the goals or content of the CPS programming.

Chicagoans are not likely to hear about the civilian deaths that NATO “covered up” during the 2011 Libyan uprising against Col. Qaddafi or the migrants left to die at sea after NATO failed to respond to distress calls. Furthermore, a recent NATO report leaked to The New York Times reveals what many already know: NATO is the U.S.’s wingman and can barely function without it. Alongside a faltering mission against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, NATO is facing a crisis of legitimacy as citizens of its member countries are mobilizing for protest and anti-NATO education en masse.

“AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) is working to combat the pro-NATO discussion happening not only at CPS but in general as well,” explained Barbara Morenoan, an AFSC intern, by email. Moreno has helped put together a number of resources to challenge the NATO narrative and has taken its presentations advocating protest to Chicago Public Schools. Along with students from Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy, AFSC has created a mural depicting the realities of NATO.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, nearly 500 people were arrested in protests at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels in early April. The protests reveal the increasing anti-militarism and anti-nuclear sentiments among many Europeans.

“We neither want the anti-missile shield, nor intervention by NATO in Libya or Afghanistan, nor nuclear bombs that are illegal in our country,” said Benoit Calvi to Agence France Presse about the April 1 action.

As the NATO summit nears, drawing protesters from around the world, local resistance is increasing. On Monday, clergy, along with labor leaders, announced their opposition to NATO at the Chicago Temple; the United Methodist Church, located in the Loop, is the oldest church in Chicago. Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Phil Blackwell, two long-time Chicago leaders, both stated their intentions to march against NATO. The Chicago Temple, in conjunction with SCUPE — a Chicago consortium of cross-denomination seminaries — announced a Chicago-wide discussion amongst pastors on NATO, the G8 and economic justice, following by strategizing for action.

The May 20–21 meetings are less than two weeks away and the summit’s theme — “CHICAGO 2012 — the Global Crossroad” — is uncannily prophetic as thousands of protesters plan to converge in what may be the largest demonstration against NATO in history. And the lead up to those protests will see more educational events and teach-ins all over the city as to why people should be concerned about NATO.

Occupy Chicago’s “People’s Summit” will take place on May 12–13, featuring speakers and workshops about developing protest actions for the NATO summit as well as visions for inhabiting a world without NATO.

Other Chicago churches are also hosting education classes. The Maryknoll Affiliates have organized a program, “Peace through the Lens of Faith: A Reflection on G8 and NATO,” for Catholic churches, and it is being hosted in Chicago-area parishes across the city. Meanwhile, St. Luke’s Lutheran in Logan Square has a four-part series on how people of faith can respond to conflict in the world.

In an email, organizer Joe Scarry explained that St. Luke’s hopes that by the time neighboring congregations join together for morning worship before the May 20 NATO protest, the community will “have a greatly expanded understanding of the significance of NATO, of our own responsibility for addressing the growing militarism in the world, and for coming up with ways that conflicts can be resolved without violence.”

Members of the First Lutheran Church of the Trinity, although media spokespersons denied to comment, are apparently planning a fast at city hall to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s invitation to NATO and highlight the suffering and war it causes.

Rev. Loren McGrail, from Wellington Avenue UCC, which is also planning to be involved in the protest, explained how the Protest Chaplains connected to Occupy Chicago are gearing up for the May protests as they meet this weekend to discuss what kind of response that they as pastors will have during the NATO summit.

“We want to be able to provide emergency pastoral care, kind of like street medics or peacekeepers, to people coming to the protests,” said McGrail when I spoke with her by phone.

So is this what the legacy of NATO has come to: people questioning NATO’s legitimacy in church and NATO selling itself to middle-schoolers? Anti-militarism is becoming much more prominent in economic justice movements like Occupy, signifying that the “global crossroads” in Chicago may be a pivotal moment for the growing worldwide opposition to institutions like NATO. Just as NATO is losing the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, the slick advertising of “Peace and Security” campaigns and target-audience programming suggests NATO is facing a crisis of legitimacy around the world.

NATO’s attempts to re-brand itself and distance itself from egregious human rights violations and faltering missions will only be further complicated in May when all eyes are on Chicago. And as NATO’s security and counterinsurgency experts know all too well, whoever controls the narrative controls the conflict. Unfortunately for NATO, it may be losing both in Chicago.

Dear friends of ordinary 99 percent Afghans,

We thank you for your love and your hands and feet, in organizing for the upcoming Chicago protests!

In these killing days, we in Afghanistan do not expect the interests of people to triumph over self-interests. But your efforts prove that another world is possible.

However, respectfully, late May demonstrations are probably too late to request that the majority of public opinion against the Afghan war be placed on NATO’s table, so as to end the ineffectual wasting of tax money on a futile war strategy. War doesn’t work!

By the time you take to the streets in Chicago on May 20, the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement for a long term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will have been signed.

As General John Allen remarked last Sunday:

The US is fully committed to an enduring strategic partnership with Afghanistan … and now that we have concluded these two critically important MOUs [memorandums of understanding] — one on detentions and one on special operations — we are ready to look forward to a successful summit in Chicago in the wake of the signing of the Strategic Partnership.

The talk of a 2014 withdrawal is a distracting side show, and the recently clinched “important MOUs” for detentions and night raids/special operations were the token bait. In General Allen’s declaration, we will be protesting “in the wake” of the signing of this so-called partnership. Permits! Protests! The deal will have been done.

Perpetual war in South Asia will have been sealed in Washington and Kabul, in the sacred names of global and national security.

But, our names are not global and national security.

Our name is love.

If at all possible, please take to the streets earlier.

For us here in Afghanistan, where the streets are too deadly, on April 21 we’ll take to the Afghan airwaves again!

With year-round gratitude and spring warmth,

The Afghan Peace Volunteers

Afghans for Peace

Robert Bales in August, 2011.

I spent yesterday morning listening to my local NPR station, which was broadcasting a discussion amongst a panel of military veterans who had returned from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The six panelists were male and female, black, white and Latino, and spanned a few generations. I had one of those clichéd “driveway moments” that NPR loves to raise money from — when you sit in your car in your driveway because you can’t stop listening — even though I don’t even have a driveway. They said all sorts of extraordinary things (and I am paraphrasing here because I wasn’t taking notes at the time):

“To put it bluntly, I killed people. That was my job in the Army.”

“I did not fight for the politics or the big picture; I fought for the guy on either side of me.”

“I’m glad I went in. I got to experience different things.”

As I listened, I realized that I have no close friends who are recent veterans.

I know people in Iraq Veterans Against the War, and I like them, but they are not close friends; we show up at the same meetings and events rather than hang out together on weekends. My friends have traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Christian Peacemaker Teams and other groups. Unlike many Americans, I know the names of some Afghan and Iraqi civilians. But I have only second-hand relationships with people currently or recently in the military — a guy I went to high school with who is my friend on Facebook is in the Army, my sister-in-law’s friend’s ex-husband was in the Navy, my husband’s cousin whom I have never met was in the Army. That kind of thing. But how can I be compassionate and constructive when I know so little about what the lives of men and women in uniform are like? How can I be nonviolent?

In this militarylessness, I am not alone. In fact, I am the majority. (Finally, I’m in some majority in this world!) According to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center, just one half of one percent of American adults has served in active duty at any given time — 15 million of the 240 million Americans over the age of 18. That is startling. What is also startling is that if you are in the military, it is likely that your parents, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins are also in the military, and so are your friends.

Admiral Mike Mullen told Time magazine, “We come from fewer and fewer places — we’ve BRAC-ed our way out of significant portions of the country.” The retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was referring to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission process that has shuttered hundreds of military posts across wide swaths of the nation, meaning that most members of the military come from and return home to fewer but concentrated areas. There is a disconnect between the civilian and military spheres.

Why is this important? Because into that disconnect steps judgment, condemnation, assumption and ambivalence. And now is not the time for any of those sentiments.

Troops from Iraq are returning to the United States — haunted, disabled, addicted, proud, grown-up, transformed. But troops in Afghanistan are facing a new phase of that protracted battle in the wake of Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales’ massacre of 17 civilians in Kandahar on March 11. We still don’t know the whole story. In fact, the number just changed from 16 to 17 dead, with no explanation given by military investigators. Now it is nine children and eight adults who were killed.

Six of the children were part of one family, including four sisters — Masooma (9), Farida (6), Nabiya (4) and Palwasha (2) — and their brothers — Faizullah (12) and Ismatullah (13). Their mother, Bibi Zohra, and grandmother, Shah Tarina, were also killed. Mohamed Wazir — father of the six children, husband and son to the two women — mourns them all. He told The Wall Street Journal that he is haunted by guilt, “It hurts me a lot when I remember occasions when I shouted at my sons because I asked them to do something and they ignored it… I feel so very sorry now.” His brother Akhtar Mohammed (20), his brother’s new bride, Bibi Nazia (18), and a nephew, Essa Mohammed (15), were also among the dead.

Will we ever know what went through Robert Bales’ mind as he shot and killed nine children and set bodies on fire? Will we ever know if he was alone or if he acted with others?

We do know that he is married to a woman named Karilyn and that they have two children, Quincy and Bobby. We know she kept a blog about the ups and downs of being a military wife and that soon after Bales was identified and accused, she issued a statement. It is worth reading in full:

What happened on the night of March 11 in Kandahar Province was a terrible and heartbreaking tragedy.

My family including my and Bob’s extended families are all profoundly sad. We extend our condolences to all the people of the Panjawai District, our hearts go out to all of them, especially to the parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents of the children who perished.

I know that all good people around the world, regardless of nationality, religion or political values, join me in grieving that such a terrible thing could happen.

Our family has little information beyond what we read and see in the media. What has been reported is completely out of character of the man I know and admire. Please respect me when I say I cannot shed any light on what happened that night, so please do not ask.

I too want to know what happened. I want to know how this could be.

I have no indication that my family’s own safety is at risk, but I appreciate the efforts that have been undertaken to protect us. I hope there will soon be no reason for protection of families, whether here or in Kandahar Province, or anywhere, because the pain inevitably inflicted in war should never be an excuse to inflict yet more pain. The cycle must be broken. We must find peace.

I know the media has a right to pursue and report news. As you do your jobs, I plead with you to respect the trauma that I and my extended family are experiencing. Please allow us some peace and time as we try to make sense of something that makes no sense at all.

All I can do now is emphasize my sadness and my condolences to the families in Panjawai for their terrible loss. The victims and their families are all in my prayers, as is my husband who I love very much.

I am really grateful for that statement — for her compassion, empathy and courage. I came across a blog which compiled a number of responses to Mrs. Bales’ statement and earlier writings, and this leapt out at me: “The one thought that keeps coming back to me is there but for the grace of God… This could have been anybody’s spouse.”

That is a heavy thing to say. Anyone in the military could have snapped, could have killed nine children and almost as many unarmed, pajama-ed adults. What this nation — what this war machine — demands of men like Robert Bales and women like Karilyn Bales is too much, it is wrong, it is criminal, it must end. Acknowledging that, and working for the end of the wars, will not return Mohammed Wazir’s family to his open arms. But it does begin to bridge the divide.

Ghulamai in Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan.

When we finally stepped off the helicopter and greeted the mountains of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, I was exhausted. A full day and a half after our departure, my eyelids were heavy and I was hoping, desperately, for a cup of warm, life-giving tea and a pile of blankets to collapse into. But the group of Afghans who invited us there — not an elite assembly of men with corporate interests or a bureaucratic non-profit, but a rag-tag group of teenagers who believe in the power of nonviolence — had a different idea in mind.

We dropped off our bags in the rooms we would be staying for the next week and were led, a boy on each arm, through the winding streets of Bamiyan City after dark. Like most Afghans, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers live in a province that is extremely poor, with very few opportunities for paid work and little infrastructure. The city of 60,000 has no indoor plumbing and generators that provide only a few hours of dirty electricity a night — so the youth there long ago memorized the geography of the dirt roads for navigating them at night.

We came upon a restaurant and filed in, and though the delegates knew no Dari and the teenagers only said a few words in English, we were able to communicate through smiles and laughter our deep gratitude for being in the presence of one another. They pointed and giggled at my backpack. Most of us fought stifled laughs when one of the boys farted. And then my eyes fell on Ghulamai, the 12-year-old across from me whose broad smile seemed to reach all the way to his ears. He had been laughing with the others, but with a tone of seriousness, of gravity. He motioned to Hakim, our coordinator and translator, and spoke more loudly, I suspect, than he had meant to, and too hurriedly. The room went silent. Hakim paused and then spoke.

“Ghulamai asked, ‘Do you think we are animals?’”

His question left me speechless. To a 12-year-old, and I’m sure to many Afghans much older than Ghulamai, this question comes from a place of sincerity. The United States, since invading in 2003, has communicated to him only through weaponry: the monstrous tanks that roll through his city, the white men covered in assault gear, the night raids, the bombings, the assassinations. Our military’s actions, and later the actions of NATO, have only communicated inconceivable levels of violence and oppression. I, too, would feel like an animal trapped in this deranged culture of dehumanization.

The 28 countries that comprise NATO spent $1.1 trillion on defense and military expenditures in 2010. While NATO is touted both as a mechanism for humanitarian assistance and as the only option for our globally secure future, its aggressive, expansionist policies have sponsored conflicts and suffering all over the world. Its first security operation outside its member countries was launched in 2003, when NATO took control of security in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul. NATO is responsible for immeasurable amounts of economic and ecological exploitation and control. It acts outside the apparatus of international law and invades, occupies and controls any country it sees fit to bow to the interests of its member countries.

Chicago will host the NATO Summit in May, where the military arm of centralized power and control will discuss its global agenda. Not surprisingly, Afghanistan’s future is the top priority. Obama will be petitioning NATO to share more of the financial costs of the war, to draw down the bloated budget of the U.S. in the military alliance — a concept known as “burden sharing.” The walls will reverberate with lectures made by heads of state on security, military strategy and the economic drain of “transition.”

But what is the human cost of such concentrated power and wealth? We can ask my young Afghan friends, who live in a country of perpetual crisis — a country where one in four kids won’t reach the age of five, where the average life expectancy is 42 years old. More than 60 percent of the population suffers from PTSD and other war-related mental illness. “We can’t talk of peace,” said Hakim, “outside of food security and economic justice.” An ordinary Afghan, if asked to speak to a forum of representatives of NATO, would have a simple message: We want enough food to feed our families and an opportunity to throw off the chains of this desperate, disparaging poverty. No more killing. No more war.

We would be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful vision of the future of Afghanistan than that of Ghulamai, whose hopes for peace have no place in the logic of NATO’s heads of state. Which is the more human, really?

Today, March 16, marks the 44th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. When the story broke — first in Europe, while American media and politicians ignored and doubted the merits of the account, and then in the U.S. after Seymour Hersh’s investigative reporting — the American political machine under President Nixon went into high gear to contain whatever domestic or international blowback there might be. It took more than a year for the American public to know a massacre had even happened and much longer to understand the full details of the so-called “isolated incident.”

Outrage over another massacre, this one decades later and in Afghanistan, is much more prescient, but the American political establishment remains stubbornly predictable. The Obama administration has had to apologize again to the Afghan people for another tragic “isolated incident.” This time, a lone American soldier — it’s always one bad apple — stationed in Kandahar left Camp Belambay in the middle of the night on Monday, March 12, walked more than a mile to the village of Najibian, broke into multiple homes and indiscriminately shot and stabbed men, women and children. Sixteen Afghan civilians — mostly poor farmers and their families — were murdered by an Army sergeant for no reason other than being Afghan.

The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, a growing group of young peacemakers in Afghanistan, released the following statement after the attack:

A grieving mother in Kandahar, holding a dead baby in her arms, said, “They killed a child. Was this child the Taliban? Believe me, I haven’t seen a 2-year-old member of the Taliban yet.”

This Afghan mother is questioning the global war against terrorism, asking us who the Talib/terrorist is, her 2 year old sleeping child or the U.S. military whose soldier killed her child along with 15 others.

We, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, join her in grieving and questioning. We call for all to stop killing, to be calm, non-violent, brave and kind to one another, as we discuss how to end the Afghan war. We prefer the decisions of our Egyptian and Iraqi friends, that is, we wish for non-military, diplomatic strategies, not military strategies that have destroyed our land over the past 4 decades. We believe that nonviolent international relations are what all of humanity yearns for, and we look for a world in which violent acts like the Kandahar killing spree are resolved in peaceful ways.

Meanwhile, President Obama, along with British Prime Minister David Cameron, were sticking to their guns as they spoke at a joint press conferenceon Wednesday. “If we maintain a steady, responsible transition process, which is what we’ve designed,” said Obama, “then I am confident that we can put Afghans in a position where they can deal with their own security.”

“We will not give up on this mission, because Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for al-Qaeda to launch attacks against us,” echoed Cameron.

Their comments come in the midst of criticisms and questions regarding the U.S.-NATO strategy in Afghanistan. The long-term plan, known as the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement, creates an alliance of semi-permanent U.S. military bases, was stalled in negotiations in early March. U.S. geopolitical interests rest on its ability to maintain a military and political presence in the region. These interests lie in what Pepe Escobar calls “Pipelineistan,” the “the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean.” Considering what is at stake for U.S.-NATO powers and interests, it makes the shoddy apologies and short-term memory repulsive.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling the incident “inexplicable,” said:

[It] will certainly cause many questions to be asked. But I hope that everyone understands in Afghanistan and around the world that the United States is committed to seeing Afghanistan continue its move toward a stable, secure, prosperous, democratic state.

That goodwill Clinton is hoping for seems dubious. It was only about a year ago that the Afghanistan “kill team” story was reported by Der Speigel and Rolling Stone. The Kandahar killing spree incident comes out of that same unit, reports the BBC, which suggests this is anything but isolated. That seems to be a good place to start asking questions about continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

While American analysis, including a recent New York Times op-ed, has been quite critical of the U.S. military’s continued deployment and treatment of soldiers with mental health issues and PTSD, the tragic incident in Kandahar compromises the military’s own counter-insurgency strategy of winning over the populace.

Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, in an Al Jazeera interview, remarked on the reported nervous breakdown the alleged soldier was suffering:

[C]razy or not crazy, it is very difficult for the Afghan person to distinguish between a crazy person or a non-crazy person. All they can see is one American soldier coming to their homes and killing their loved ones. This is going to have an adverse reaction in Afghanistan.

The political consequences from Monday’s massacre are already rippling through Afghanistan. The New York Times reported on Friday morning that the Taliban have canceled negotiations and President Karzai has demanded that U.S.-NATO troops begin leaving Afghan villages immediately. The announcements make the Obama administration look rather foolhardy in its attempt to convince the American and Afghan publics that the 2014 withdrawal strategy is working just fine. U.S. Representative Raul Gijalva with Michael Shank co-wrote an editorial for The Huffington Post calling for an expedited withdrawal to begin before the Chicago NATO summit in May. Their call is finding increased support in the U.S. Congress and among the American public. President Obama would do well to heed that call, particularly if he wants to avoid another infamous 1968 event this spring.

• Several hundred Tibetans have protested against Chinese rule in the western province of Qinghai since a monk there set himself on fire earlier this week. The advocacy group Free Tibet has posted what it calls “unprecedented footage” of this highly restricted and restive part of western China.

• Between 5,000 and 7,000 Chilean high school students marched down Santiago’s main avenue on Thursday to demand free quality education and protest the expulsion of about 100 students who joined last year’s protests. Police broke up the march with water canons after a few hundred students crossed a police barrier and tried to march to the education ministry.

• Thousands of union workers gathered across Illinois on Thursday to protest Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed budget cuts that include mass layoffs and the closure and consolidation of several state facilities, including prisons.

• Hundreds of people gathered in the Rotunda of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday to urge Gov. Gary Herbert to veto a bill that would forbid school districts to teach use of contraceptives.

• Russian opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov started a hunger strike on Thursday after being sentenced to 10 days in jail for disobeying the police following a rally against Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

• Afghans took to the streets on Thursday to demand a U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 civilians be prosecuted in Afghanistan as word spread that the American military moved him out of the country.

• A group of about 75 demonstrators assembled at LOVE Park on Wednesday to support immigrant rights. Two college students were arrested after blocking traffic with banners and refusing to move

• Hundreds of thousands of people in 60 cities across Spain took part Sunday in demonstrations called by the country’s main trade unions to protest the government’s tough new labor reforms and cutbacks.

• Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday protested against the U.S. and the American soldier who killed 16 Afghan civilians in a shooting spree on Sunday.

• Tens of thousands of people joined an opposition rally in Bangladesh’s capital on Monday to demand that a nonpartisan caretaker government oversee the next general election.

• Tens of thousands of people rallied near Japan’s crippled Fukushima plant Sunday demanding an end to nuclear power as the nation marked the first anniversary of a disastrous quake and tsunami.

• Thousands of students at an all-female university in Saudi Arabia boycotted classes on Saturday, protesting against poor services in a rare display of dissent from women in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

• Tens of thousands of pro-union demonstrators descended on the Wisconsin Capitol on  Saturday to voice their anger at Gov. Scott Walker and his conservative agenda, using the anniversary of the passage of his signature collective bargaining law  to rally support for efforts to remove him and five other Republicans from  office.

• Tens of thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated outside the capital Manama on Friday to demand political reforms, a year after the Gulf Arab state crushed an uprising.

• More than 50,000 workers in Italy participated in demonstrations and a nationwide strike on Friday, calling for democracy in the workplace and accusing the government of acting in the interests of the banks and industrial groups.

Taking nearly everyone by surprise, the White House announced last Monday that the world’s economic leaders with the G8 would not be enjoying the sights and sounds of a democratic #ChicagoSpring. The announcement that the G8 would be skipping President Obama’s hometown in favor of the much more remote and secure Camp David location reveals the fears the administration has of public assembly and popular protest.

Huffington Post’s Julie Pace reported that “security and the possibility of protests were not factors in the decision” made by the White House. Not a security concern? That is a hard pill to swallow, considering the city expects to spend between $40 and $65 million to police the Chicago protests and Obama’s recent signing of HR 347, the “anti-Occupy” law officially known as the Federal Restricted Building and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. Clearly, the administration is anticipating “security concerns” regarding the thousands of citizens nonviolently demanding more democracy, justice and peace.

Sugar Russell, an activist on the Occupy Chicago Press Committee, spoke with me via email about the Chicago Spring and the G8 move. “The location of G8,” said Russell:

will not affect our plans to voice dissent against the atrocities that G8 inflicts upon the global population. The move signifies that they are afraid of the global voices that will be gathered in Chicago and that they feel the need to hide.

While the G8 summit has been rescheduled for May 18–19, NATO leaders will still meet in Chicago on May 20–21. Even though most activists consider this a people’s victory—one of the key goals of rallies and marches (and the threat of them) in nonviolent strategic action is a public show of force—some have speculated that the NATO-G8 may also split what was shaping to be a historic union of antiwar and economic justice groups. The Occupied Chicago Tribune, however, claiming victory for the relocation, printed a joint statement from Occupy Chicago and CANG8 that suggests the movement has, in fact, been strengthened:

The G8 moving to Camp David represents a major victory for the people of Chicago. The leaders of the 1% are moving because of the overwhelming resistance to the NATO-G8 war and poverty agenda in Chicago. Our city is filled with tens of thousands of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water, fighting against the effects of the economic crisis caused by the leaders who would have been gathering here. The communities of Chicago are fighting to save their schools, keep healthcare available, and to defend their jobs from cutbacks that are a hallmark of the governments of the G8.

The city has carried out a campaign to intimidate and vilify protesters, claiming that protests lead to violence. In fact, the main source of violence in the world today is the wars being waged by NATO and the US.

We will march on May 19 to deliver our message: Jobs, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Our Pensions, the Environment: Not War! We and tens of thousands will be in the streets that day for a family-friendly rally and march, with cries so loud they will be heard in Camp David and across the globe. We will be in the streets that day to fight for our future, and speak out against the wars and their cutbacks are designed to benefit the 1% at the expense of the 99% of the world.

Russell affirmed Occupy Chicago plans to continue focusing on the Chicago gatherings, which includes an April 7 kickoff rally for #ChicagoSpring, the May 1 “Day without the 99%” and the People’s Summit and Occupy Festival on May 12–13. “We are sure that there will be some protesters going to Camp David,” said Russell about the NATO-G8 protests on May 19–21, “although we are already receiving a groundswell of support from around the country. People are letting us know they will be in the streets of Chicago this spring.”

Ministerial meetings and summits like the G8 have increasingly been held at remote locations to lessen the likelihood of mass protests, which have become common venues for democracy and global justice activists to mobilize around. When the G8 was last in the U.S., it was hosted at the isolated and luxurious Sea Island Resort in Georgia.

The institutional violence and anti-democratic nature of NATO-G8 is again affirmed by Obama’s unilateral decision to move the G8 summit. Neither of these bodies allow for the people to participate directly in crafting the policies that affect so many and to characterize the talks as needing protection from interruption—as HR 347 does by criminalizing the protesting of persons or events under Secret Service’s direction—reveals the authoritarianism of the system. Without provocation, it is unlikely that the state will outright suppress the Occupy movement with direct violence. Rather, the state needs the force of the law to protect itself from protest and civil unrest, particularly when that defiance is nonviolent and more difficult to counter.

The assault of peoples’ rights to assemble and petition are under attack by Congress and the President—the so-called democratic representatives of the people. “HR 347,” said Russell,

interferes in [our] ability to petition our government directly through means of peacefully protesting by making it a federal charge to do so. Our country has operated and been able to keep our elected officials safe without making peaceful protesting a federal crime, so we ask, “Why now? What has changed?” The answer is that there is a popular uprising happening in this country and our government is scared of what the people have to say about how they are operating.

A workshop led by the author's Organization for Social, Cultural, Awareness, and Rehabilitation.

A recent report by the Asia Foundation cites corruption—next to security and poverty—as one of the three issues Afghans are most concerned about. A recent example of corruption can be found in the transportation of timber in Kunar. According to a member of the Lower House of Afghanistan’s parliament, who did not want his name to be disclosed, the Afghan Ministry of Finance has estimated that the revenue generated from the transportation of the timber from Kunar to be over 2,000 million Afghanis ($50 million USD), but after the timber was taken away the Kunar provincial government says that they collected just 480 million Afghanis from it. The problem in the Kunar timber industry is just one of the many examples of widespread corruption in the country.

Most Afghans see the direct impact of corruption in their daily lives. We have to pay bribes to the government officials for minor services, such as getting a national identity card. Provincial officials use their political influence to obtain shares in the development projects that are implemented in their province. Nepotism and political corruption has increased to drastic levels. The central Afghan government is not only callous to this, but its complicity is apparent. Meanwhile, provincial officials are becoming increasingly despotic as they compete with one another for more of the spoils. They act is if they are not accountable to the people, the Constitution or a system of law. Unfortunately, they are right.

There is no manner for the population to hold the government to account. In cases of extreme pressure, the central government sends a delegation to evaluate an issue in a province. The delegation goes to the province, spends its time with the corrupt official, and returns with gifts and pockets full of cash. Thousands of such commissions and delegations were made by the Afghan government in the last decade, but they have not shown any positive results.

I have often been asked what are we Afghans doing to change this situation. My answer is always the same: We are not doing anything. Ordinary Afghans feel helpless. We feel stuck with this government, and we feel that international intervention is necessary to make it any different. We are so tired of these paradoxes of conflict that we can only think about our lives at this moment, today. Tomorrow is too far, as if beyond the next mountain. This ethos of survival has made our people passive, and even numb, towards these abuses.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government has done little to win the hearts and minds of its people. It seems that politicians either do not want to act against corrupt officials, because they benefit from the graft, or they are incapable of acting against them, because they are politically so weak. The level of foreign assistance and the careless involvement of the international community generally exacerbates this problem. If the international community intends to achieve the goal of stability by representative democracy, then it needs to start helping Afghan civil society mobilize itself against corruption. Civil society should be encouraged to exercise nonviolent civic mobilization on the local level against corrupt officials.

Some of the tactics of nonviolent civic mobilization, such as protests and boycotts, have already been used in Afghanistan against the government and other entities. Even the Afghan Mujahideen, while fighting against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, created a parallel government in Peshawar as a tactic of nonviolent civic mobilization. Further, Afghan culture has some institutions—like the Jirga, a consensus-based tribal assembly—that can be used for mobilizing against corruption.

However, our civil society is not yet well-organized in a way that cuts across ethnic and linguistic boundaries. It lacks the knowledge and experience to launch strong civic mobilization campaigns. A low level of organization in such campaigns can make them easy to hijack by politicians or insurgents.

Nonviolent civic mobilization campaigns are necessary for bringing Afghans from passivity to activity. If people are empowered, then they can affect change in their society. Changing people’s mentality to think that this is even possible, however, is the first and most important step in empowerment. It is a long process and should not be expected to take place overnight.

People must be first educated, disciplined in thought and then mobilized for change. Citizens of Afghanistan must be taught nonviolent conflict as a means of struggle, especially through its roots in Islamic tradition. Afghan civil society throughout the country must convey the message that people have a right to employ nonviolent struggle for making a difference in their lives.

A workshop led by the author's Organization for Social, Cultural, Awareness, and Rehabilitation.

Part of the problem, too, is that Afghan security forces, particularly the police, lack a culture of tolerance. They do not recognize that ordinary citizens have a right to participate in peaceful demonstrations and protests. The Afghan security forces need to be educated in nonviolent civic mobilization and other related legal issues so they do not continue to needlessly suppress peaceful protestors and violate the basic civil rights of others.

Youth across Afghanistan, particularly in big metropolitan centers, have realized the need for nonviolent mobilization. They are mobilizing. Almost every week, we read that youth and university students are taking action for bringing change to their country. Volunteer non-political associations have been established, Facebook groups have been created, and youth are organizing against the status quo of conflict and corruption.

The Arab Spring has shown the world that Muslims can ably employ methods of nonviolence and democracy. Many Afghan youth would like to follow suit, but they lack guidance and direction for implementing such campaigns. They lack expertise in organizing across ethnic groups and mobilizing the whole population. They do not know where to begin or how to begin. They need experience and leadership.

Once Afghans understand that they are empowered, they will find their own ways to eradicate corruption and struggle nonviolently against ineffective officials in their localities. This will help strengthen governance, bringing Afghans closer to a more legitimate democratic government than the international community ever could.

Members of the Afghan Youth for Peace Volunteers in the greenhouse

We were lucky enough to receive an invitation in December to visit a self-run community called Chelsitun on the edge of Kabul in Wasalabad; it’s a mixed Tajik and Pashtun community split into 8 sections, consisting of 2,000 households each having its own representative which implements government initiatives and also manages security in the area.

We were told that the community practices religious and ethnic tolerance and has one of the only Mosques which welcomes joint worship by both Sunnis and Shias with the two Muslim groups sharing funerals and ceremonies. When we arrived in Chelsitun the pathway were unusually set with concrete; an independent initiative by the community (paid for by the people within the area) as a move towards installing proper infrastructure.

Our group was directed into a compound and then into the office of the community elders. It was like stepping back in time into what I imagined pre-war Afghanistan to be like; exquisite prayer mats hung on the war, the traditional ornate Afghan rugs; a greenhouse conservatory made of improvised plastic sheeting with the lushest greenery I have seen since leaving the UK.

We were warmly greeted by an assembly of community elders clad in the traditional Afghan turbans, long white beards; many were wrapped in the classic camel colored Afghan blanket. Once the greetings had been administered the elders took their seats cross legged on the floor. I was amused to see pinned up on the wall a very familiar poster which every co-op in the UK has displayed somewhere—the image of two donkeys tied with a rope heading in different directions trying to reach separate piles of hay, then a picture of the donkeys going towards the same pile of hay and both getting a share. The message: co-operation is better than conflict.

Once we sat down in the nicest of Afghan hospitality the secretary of the group “Tea for Peace” outlined the ethos of their work: “We want to control corruption in the area and the abuse of power especially among the marginalized of the community.” It was interesting to observe that a group of traditional Afghans had taken on ideas and practices you wouldn’t necessarily associate with such a culture. He continued to consult his written notes and explain the group further: “If there is a conflict in the community they bring the two parties together, have tea and aim towards bringing those parties together.”

It quickly struck me that this community was practicing strong elements of anarchism. The middle-aged secretary with round Gandhi-style glasses went to explain that their aim is to bring national unity, to get rid of discrimination whether religious of ethnic, that everyone is free and that no one should be discriminated against. He also emphasized that when interacting with one another they make sure there is no discrimination and that democracy and human rights are practiced within the community. They even have a letter of praise from the Human Rights Commission. They are all working in a voluntary way, and they do not take funds from the government.

One of the other elders chipped in to explain some of the result of their community focus: a concrete pathway, schools and piping for the whole area. This was all brought about as people want control of their area and in affect they’re freed from difficulties with the authorities and the massive current corruption problem of land grabbing.

Another elder with a long white beard and intense eyes stated with passion: “The people want peace so much, they take their lessons from the Quran which says that peace comes from a place of well being. They have no problems with any human being—all people deserve respect.” He went on to explain: “Peace can begin to be built in this country if interference in the region stops and also interference by foreign forces. There has been a betrayal by international communities, especially when the killing of Afghans is silent.” He went onto to explain that the people are under so much pressure with 44 NATO countries who are supporting the land grabbing and government. There are no honest people who work for the government. If the people rise they will face guns. The U.S. is behaving like a dictator and that’s not what the people want.

I learned that for their work within “Tea for Peace” they very much believe in empowering people, they feel it’s important for the people to get together and form a group, to work from the foundations addressing the root problem. To bring reconciliation where there is conflict they also use their faith.

Their words made be remember a teaching in the Quran which AYPV Roz Mohammed had shared with us only the day before. It roughly translates that God made lots of tribes on the earth so people can get to know one other (apparently it is written in the prayer room at Kabul Airport).

There was strong consensus in the group of elders that involvement of international forces has been extremely unhelpful and detrimental on various levels ranging from the bombing of civilians on the one hand by international forces against the people. It would be better for both sides to sit down together, with no party left out of resolution process. Internationals need to support the people, otherwise they won’t solve the problem

I was interested to hear about how they would deal with the Taliban, especially as international forces use the Taliban as one of the main justifications for being in Afghanistan. The elder with the big white turban addressed the question: “The Taliban themselves have been nurtured by foreign elements. The mujahudeen had been armed by the U.S., while the people of Afghanistan are trapped in a game which is hard to get out of. If there was no foreign interference then the Taliban could sit down with other Afghans and deal with their own problems, but with foreign interference there is always a condition which they will find impossible to accept. Afghans themselves can sit down together, however, it is impossible with foreign interference.”

Kathy Kelly asked a question relating to the planned Silk Road Path running through the country which will allow the transportation of raw materials mined within Afghanistan and will also act as a central trading route for the countries surrounding Afghanistan. A cross legged elder immediately jumped in: “It is very clear to Afghans that any minerals taken away from the country will not benefit the people. If in an ideal situation the pipeline and minerals went to helping the people of Afghanistan then that is acceptable, Afghans will not accept these initiatives. They can not accept them if this mining is being owned by foreigners. Foreign businesses must realize that they will not be able to exploit these natural resources unless the conflict is resolved.”

Another elder then chipped in: “The people that the U.S./ NATO have placed in power are thieves and murderers. They need to be taken out of power and placed somewhere else. If they could fill the parliament with 100 members of the people then peace would come to the country.”

The meeting ended with the message that unity is the key to uniting the people of Afghanistan. With the elite in power they do not understand how the common people live. Foreign money to the government disappears before it gets to them. If we want change then you can’t expect the current people in Parliament to bring it. We need representatives from the people.

It was very exciting for me to hear these viewpoints, I got the impression that their opinions hadn’t been formed by reading political books but from their first hand experience, wisdom and intelligence.

We were then shown around the lush greenhouse warmed by the traditional Afghan wood stove. I got to duck into the living quarters of an elder (to use the restroom) whereby I was fortunate enough to meet children playing in the yard and some of the women. It was explained to me that an extended family of around 45 people lived in the homes surrounding the yard and there was a communal water well where those in the area without running water come for supplies. I was very impressed by the organization of the community and radical ethos of the “Tea for Peace” group, which was definitely not what I or most Westerners would necessarily expect.

Only three days after celebrating the Son of Man’s birth, the Christian church elects to expose the greedy underbelly of Roman rule by commemorating a group of young martyrs who have come to be called the “Holy Innocents.” According to Matthew’s gospel, King Herod of Judea became “greatly troubled” when three wise men, traveling through his kingdom from the east, inquired as to the birthplace of “the newborn king of the Jews.”  Fearful of the impact of this event on his own ability to govern, Herod implored the three to seek out the new king so that he might “worship” him. Since Jewish scripture pointed to Bethlehem as the site of the Savior’s birth, the king ordered all males in the region under the age of two be slaughtered, thus insuring the child would never take his place on Herod’s throne.  Many Christians feel these children gave their lives for the newborn infant.

The Holy Innocents described by Matthew have many siblings in today’s Afghanistan. United Nations figures place the number of street children in Kabul alone at close to 60,000. In the neighborhood where I’m living, they can be seen on the sidewalks selling candy or balloons to passersby.  At congested roundabouts, they wander among stalled traffic, filthy rags in dirty hands, wiping the sides of cars and buses, hopeful that someone will condescend to drop them a few Afghanis. Some of these kids have homes to return to; many don’t. They receive no schooling, little medical aid, and scrounge for food wherever they can find it, often in the city’s ever-present, overflowing dumpsters, where they fight for scraps with the small herds of goats and sheep.

Though we see these children everywhere, we rarely meet Herod.  Who is he, and where does he live? Herod lives in the 49 countries currently composing the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, countries that fund and carry out the constant warmaking that sacrifices this nation’s children. Herod is alive and well in the nation’s president, Hamid Karzai, whose corrupt and ineffectual government robs so much of the money intended for the care of Afghanistan’s youth.  He dwells in the hearts and minds of those conservative Islamic clergy who conscript women into a humiliating subservience to the nations’ male population.

Most of all, though, Herod lives in you and me.  He inhabits all of us who sit smugly by the Christmas tree, fat with the knowledge that our stomachs are full and our families happy. Although we’ll all grumble when those inevitable forms from the IRS arrive next month, we’ll pay what Caesar demands, unconcerned that the money we render will supply the weapons that kill kids not yet old enough to attend school. Until we say “No!” to the killing, “No!” to funding an arrogant ally who cares little for the welfare of his people, you and I are actively and culpably complicit in the slaughtering of Afghanistan’s innocents.  The time has long since passed for each of us to stand up and demand an immediate halt to America’s participation in this ten year war designed to install and perpetuate yet another American power base in an area already saturated with warlords and ethnic struggle. As we commemorate once again those Holy Innocents who died at the hands of a cruel and jealous tyrant, let us vow to stand on the side of those who demand that America leave Afghanistan, not at some ever changing point in a nebulous tomorrow, but now!

It’s early evening near Pole Sorkh (po-lay sork) Square in western Kabul.  Although it’s barely 6:00, winter’s cold bare feet have already started their walk across our apartment. Ali, Abdulai, Roz Mohammend, and Faiz have joined Maya and me on the floor of a small room that later will double as a bedroom for a quiet evening of reading and studying. Like most of the others, I’ve cocooned myself in a thick quilt and I’ve begun reading Ha Jin’s novel of the Korean War, War Trash.

Not five minutes into the Prologue, I sensed Faiz edging his way over to me. His voice quiet, almost a whisper, slips out into the room; “Will you study with me?”  Over the next fifteen minutes, we worked our way through three short lessons in a workbook written for first graders.  Each consists of a simple, one page story followed by a series of questions based on the text. They are extraordinarily simple; they seem almost humiliating for a twenty year old young man. As we study, nineteen-year-old Roz Mohammed shyly carried his blanket and English language dictionary to our corner and settled in.  Every so often, he’d shyly interrupt Faiz as he read and say, “Teacher, what does this word mean?”

Across the room, Maya and Ali worked on the meanings of basic words culled from a middle school dictionary.  Ali studied intently, pronouncing each word carefully, as if it were an egg that might easily be broken. “Basket. Bully. Bundle,” he would say, repeating each word until he got it right.

A half hour after we began, still only a few sentences into Ha Jin’s prologue, I looked across at Maya and asked, “Where in America can you find anything like this?  A cold room, nothing but quilts and a kettle for tea on the floor, and four boys asking us question after question about a language they’re trying to learn.”  In truth, this type of thing happens all the time in our small apartment.  The five young Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers who live here with their friend and mentor, Hakim, never go anywhere without a workbook or dictionary. After breakfast, one pulls a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and begins to study.  Waiting for a ride, another asks, “What does this mean?”

Across the hall from us live four university students.  One is studying electricity; one aspires to be a pharmacist.  Two days after our arrival, one of them, a young man named Said, knocked on our door and asked if one of us would like to help them learn English.  Maya and I settled on meeting them in their apartment at 7 pm that night.  The first class had three students; the second, five; now there are six.  We work from copied pages and a white board.  Each student actively participates.

Each of these young men, all symbols of the “new Afghanistan,” possesses a thirst that won’t be quenched.  In our conversational practice, we talk of how they will shape their country in the years ahead. According to some figures, 68 percent of Afghanistan’s thirty one million people are under eighteen years old. No matter what the old guard wants to believe, the future of Afghanistan belongs to the young. We can only hope they won’t be co-opted by the temptations dangled before them by western “leadership.” We can only hope they’ll grab the reins of power and gallop off in a new direction, one of peace and reconciliation.

If the world you and I inhabit really wants to help these young people, and I doubt very much it does, it will do all it can to slake their thirst for knowledge. It will provide all the help they ask for, and nothing more. It will respect their intelligence and desire to find their own way. These students deserve our respect. They know, no matter what we say, they don’t have it now.  It’s about time they do.