Peace group gathering to end America's longest war
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Bangor Daily News
Ilze Petersons
09/11/2010
On the ninth anniversary of 9-11, I recall the disbelief, shock, anger, fear and sadness I felt when I heard of the 3,000 people killed as terrorists used airplanes as weapons to attack the World Trade Center. I remember how important it was for me to be able to share with others the confusion I felt about how to respond nonviolently to such an assault.
Nine years ago, I was inspired by those who had lost family members in the attacks and formed a group called "Families for Peaceful Tomorrows." Amid all the calls for revenge and retaliation, they used their grief and sorrow to urge that no other innocent families should have to suffer as they had suffered.
However, our government bombed Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq.
Now, nine years later, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have died in our government's response to the attacks. We have watched more than 5,600 of our troops brought home in body bags and many more crippled and maimed. We have watched thousands of Iraqi and Afghan children and their families killed, their homes destroyed. During these years, we have also faced the loss of jobs in our country and cutbacks in needed services.
Nine years of retribution and war have not ended terrorism, and many say they have only increased it. Nine years of spending on war and "defense" have added billions to our deficit.
There are those who blame the deficit on government spending for social service programs. But Jo Comerford of the National Priorities Project points out: "Between 2002 and 2008, federal grant funding for state and local governments lagged behind the 28 percent growth in the federal budget by l4 percent, while military spending outpaced federal budget growth with a 41 percent increase."
As we face budget cuts for essential services needed in our communities, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has said that "if we do not make reductions of approximately 25 percent of the military budget fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity, even with the repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy."
While the loss of innocent lives, troops and dollars to war is rarely discussed, the loss of our humanity as citizens of the nation waging war is hardly mentioned. During these nine years of death, destruction and loss, I've often felt despair and wanted to distance myself from all the pain and suffering. It is the ongoing effort of our community of peacemakers that has helped me challenge the numbness and work for nonviolent solutions such as campaigns to "Bring Our War Dollars Home."
The symptoms of anger, fear, sadness and distancing are those of post-traumatic stress disorder that more and more of our soldiers experience long after they have left the battlefield. Recently, columnist James Carroll wrote an essay titled "Nation under post traumatic stress."
He asks: "Can the stories of war be told … to include aftermath wounds to society that, while undiagnosed, are as related to civic responsibility for state violence as the veteran's recurring nightmare is to a morally ambiguous firefight?"
Author Parker J. Palmer also speaks to our trauma as a society in an essay called "The Politics of the Brokenhearted." He suggests we need to "make the connections in a democracy that rises and falls on our individual and collective capacity to respond to conflict in a life-giving, not a death-dealing way." Instead, talk show pundits and others fan the flames of fear, anger and intolerance.
One person who has responded in a life-giving way is David Potorti, who lost his brother in the 9-11 attacks. He said: "I don't want anyone else to have to go through this … how can we use a smart response that does not result in the death of other innocent people?"
In 2007, he joined with others around the world who have lost loved ones in terrorist attacks: families from Israel and Palestine, South Africa, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Italy, Indonesia and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among others. Their mission statement reads in part: "We derive our strength from our common experience of loss and our common hope for a world free from violence."
Join us from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday Oct. 10 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bangor as we commemorate the ninth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan and connect the dots to the impact on our local communities with a teach-in and a keynote address by Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project.
Let's learn and talk together about how we can find the inspiration and courage to act in a life-giving way to end America's longest war, the war in Afghanistan and to reorder national budget priorities.
