On this show, we speak with Kathy Kelly about the situation of young women in Afghanistan. Since 2021, she and an ad hoc circle of internationals have assisted young Afghans to resettle in safer havens. She co-coordinates the BanKillerDrones.org campaign, is board President of World BEYOND War, and is planning the 2023 Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Kathy Kelly and an Iraq Peace Team lived in Iraq during the Shock and Awe attack and invasion. She had traveled there with 27 previous delegations to defy U.S./UN economic sanctions. With Voices in the Wilderness companions, she helped organize 70 delegations to deliver medical relief supplies from 1996 – 2003. She openly violated the sanctions and steadily developed friendships with families in Baghdad, Basra, and other Iraqi cities.
Kathy Kelly (born 1952) is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and, until the campaign closed in 2020, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US–Iraq wars. From 2009 to 2019, her activism and writing focused on Afghanistan, Yemen, and Gaza, along with domestic protests against US drone policy. She has been arrested more than sixty times at home and abroad, and written of her experiences among targets of US military bombardment and inmates of US prisons.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate
1 Comment
Great interview/conversation! In Wikipedia, there is a quote of Kathy Kelly’s that is, “One of the most important ‘Spiritual Directors’ in my life has been the Internal Revenue Service … finding ways to live without owning property, relying on savings, or growing attached to a job … Becoming a war tax refuser was one of the simplest decisions I’ve ever made”.
“…finding ways…” that’s our job. We can find our own ways to contribute.
This lady is great!