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News Release Archive | Kathy Kelly | Accuracy.Org

Obama-Karzai Text Allows for Tens of Thousands of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

May 1, 2012


The New York Times just wrote from Afghanistan: “President Obama landed here Tuesday, on a surprise visit, to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan meant to mark the beginning of the end of a war that has lasted for more than a decade.

The Times claimed: “Mr. Obama, arriving after nightfall under a veil of secrecy at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, flew by helicopter to the presidential palace, where he was to meet President Hamid Karzai before both leaders signed the pact. It is intended to be a road map for two nations lashed together by more than a decade of war and groping for a new relationship after the departure of American troops, scheduled for the end of 2014.”

HAKIM, [in Afghanistan, available intermittently] weeteckyoung at gmail.com http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog
KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv@gmail.com http://vcnv.org
Hakim (Afghans frequently only have one name) is a member of the the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. Kelly is co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and was recently in Afghanistan. They recently co-wrote a piece that states that the text was kept from the people of Afghanistan. They wrote: “While the world may accept that the U.S. and Afghan governments have some ’state’ or ‘noble’ considerations for not revealing the contents of the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement, how about the democratic consideration of involving Afghans in their own future?

“Even the Afghan Parliament was in the dark and uninvolved until they were recently given a peek when Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, read ‘portions’ of the Agreement to assembled parliamentarians on 23rd April, saying that the U.S. will defend Afghanistan from any outside interference via ‘diplomatic means, political means, economic means and even military means.’

“The U.S. has said it expects to keep about 20,000 troops in the country after 2014. …” http://vcnv.org/the-un-may-have-silenced-the-afghan-public

Kelly added: “The SPA is likely to prolong fighting in the region because the Taliban and neighboring countries have clearly stated that they won’t accept U.S. foreign troop presence. Also, many Afghans wonder if the U.S. and NATO want to protect construction of the TAPI [Trans-Afghanistan] pipeline, which the 2010 NATO summit approved of and the New Silk Road which Hilary Clinton has promised the U.S. will construct.” Kelly is currently on a peace walk from Madison, Wisc. to Chicago, where she will arrive in time for the upcoming NATO Summit.

JACOB GEORGE, jacobdavidgeorge at gmail.com, http://www.operationawareness.org
Sgt. Geroge works with a group of veterans touring the country by bike. He recently visited Afghanistan, is based in Arkansas and is currently in Missouri. He said today: “The agreement actually allows for sustaining a ‘post-conflict’ force of 20,000 to 30,000 troops for a continued training of indigenous forces. They are pretending this is something new, but it’s not. That’s what I was doing in 2001 — and 2002, 2003 and 2004. This is just disastrous, for ten years, with the greatest military the world has ever seen, we’ve been unable to defeat people with RPGs. And a year after Bin Laden was killed, we’re still planning to keep tens of thousands of troops there.”

ABC News recently reported: “Although specific troop numbers and other military details are not included in the agreement, the U.S. has said it expects to keep about 20,000 troops in the country after 2014. They would mentor and train the Afghan National Security Forces while also taking part in counterterrorism operations.”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-defend-afghanistan-decade-drawdown-16193077#.T6BNi8dYtMG

Filed Under: Tagged With: Afghanistan, Hakim, Hamid Karzai, Jacob George, Kathy Kelly, Middle East, Obama Afghanistan Visit, US Troops in Afghanistan, US-Afghanistan Relations,

Killings in Afganistan

March 12, 2012

KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv at gmail.com
Kelly is just back from Afghanistan and may be sentenced to prison today along with other peace activists for protests outside the base. She is with the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She was on “Democracy Now!” this morning along with a representative from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. She said today: “President Obama and U.S. military brass are depicting a U.S. soldier killing 16 Afghan civilians as an exceptional event. But in fact, this tragedy reflects and encapsulates the U.S. war of choice in Afghanistan. Groups of U.S. soldiers have been breaking into Afghan homes and killing people, without cause or provocation, for the last 11 years. Civilians have been afflicted by aerial bombing by helicopter gunships, drone surveillance and attacks, and night raids.

“In the recent past, Afghan civilians have been appalled and agitated by news of U.S. soldiers that went on killing sprees, cutting off body parts of their victims to save as war trophies. They’ve been repulsed by photos of U.S. soldiers urinating on the corpses of Afghans whom they have killed. The burning of the Quran further enraged civilians. One of the greatest factors contributing to public dismay and hostility towards the foreign forces is the practice of night raids. As many as 40 of these raids happen around the country on some nights, and the U.S. military reports an average of 10 a night. U.S. /NATO soldiers burst into people’s homes and attack people in their sleep.

“The U.S. wants the Karzai government to sign a Strategic Protection Agreement that will allow U.S./NATO forces to stay in Afghanistan until 2024 and possibly beyond. This agreement will very likely frustrate possibilities for a negotiated settlement since Taliban forces have repeatedly stated their demand that all foreign troops leave Afghanistan. The Strategic Partnership Agreement has never been presented to the Afghan Members of Parliament for their consideration. No one in the U.S. or Karzai government seems concerned about how ordinary Afghans might view the Strategic Partnership Agreement.

“Arguably, people in Afghanistan are looking for ways to vent long-suppressed anger over having their future dictated by their invaders and occupiers.”

Kelly recently wrote the piece “The Ghost and the Machine: Drone Warfare and Accountability” along with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

Also see from the The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers: “2 Million Candles to End the Afghan War.”

See by Anand Gopal “Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the ‘Black Jail,’ and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan.”

Tagged With: Afghanistan, Kathy Kelly, Middle East, US Troops in Afghanistan, war,

War Protests: From Afghanistan to Hancock Air Base — to Prison?

February 29, 2012

ANN WRIGHT, microann at yahoo.com
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. She said: “There’s been real blowback from the burning of the Quran, but there has also been real blowback from the killings from continued drone stikes.” Wright is a defendant in a trial today for protests outside the Hancock Air National Guard Base in New York.

KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv at gmail.com
Kelly is just back from Afghanistan and may be sentenced to prison today along with other peace activists for protests outside the base. She is with the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Along with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, she just wrote the piece “The Ghost and the Machine: Drone Warfare and Accountability,” which profiles an impoverished Afghan family with a five-year-old, Aymal, whose father was killed by a drone attack: “Aymal’s grandmother becomes agitated and distraught speaking about her son’s death, and that of his four friends. ‘All of us ask, “Why?’” she says, raising her voice. ‘They kill people with computers and they can’t tell us why. When we ask why this happened, they say they had doubts, they had suspicions. But they didn’t take time to ask “Who is this person?” or “Who was that person?” There is no proof, no accountability. Now, there is no reliable person in the home to bring us bread. I am old, and I do not have a peaceful life.’ …

“In June 2010, Philip G. Alston, then the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, appeared before the UN Human Rights Council and testified that ‘targeted killings pose a rapidly growing challenge to the international rule of law … In a situation in which there is no disclosure of who has been killed, for what reason, and whether innocent civilians have died, the legal principle of international accountability is, by definition, comprehensively violated.’ …

“Drone warfare, ever more widely used from month to month from the Bush through the Obama administrations, has seen very little meaningful public debate. We don’t ask questions — our minds straying no nearer these battlefields than in the coming decades the bodies of our young people will — that is, if the chaos our war-making engenders doesn’t bring the battlefields to us. An expanding network of devastatingly lethal covert actions spreading throughout the developing world passes with minimal concern or comment.”

Kelly and other activists face prison time from a symbolic ‘die-in’ at the main entrance Hancock Air National Guard Base (Mattydale, NY), protesting the piloting and maintenance of the hunter/killer Reaper drones at the base. The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars released a statement today: “Nationally known peace activists Kathy Kelly (Voices for Creative Nonviolence), retired Colonel Ann Wright, Martha Hennessy (NYC Catholic Workers), Elliott Adams (past President of Veterans for Peace) and Jules Orkin (peace walker extraordinaire) will be sentenced on February 29 at 5 p.m. in DeWitt Town Court (5400 Butternut Dr., East Syracuse) by Judge David Gideon. They are the last of the ‘Hancock 38′ Drone Resisters to be sentenced.

“In addition, previously sentenced defendants will return to court. At least eleven people have chosen to send their fines to the Voices for Creative Nonviolence for the benefit of PeaceJam Afghanistan instead of to the court and will present receipts to the judge. Ann Tiffany says ‘To me it is a question of Justice.’ Many will show they do community service on a daily basis despite the judge’s sentence. There will be a press conference at 4 pm, outside of the Court House. Speakers will include Kathy Kelly, Ann Wright, Elliott Adams and Ed Kinane who has redirected his fine.

“The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars will continue to resist the use of drones. As we argued in court, drone warfare violates the Nuremberg Principles and other international, as well as moral, laws. We resist those who would normalize the use of robotic assassins as a mode of warfare and reject the policy of dehumanization of peoples in other lands.”

Contact for the Coalition: Judy Bello, judith at papillonweb.net; Peg Gefell, peg.fink.gefell at gmail.com; Syracuse Peace Council: carol at peacecouncil.net

Also see from the The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers: “2 Million Candles to End the Afghan War”

Filed Under: Tagged With: Afghanistan, Ann Wright, Kathy Kelly, Middle East, war,