December 1, 2002

by Linda Martin

Can we have freedom while standing on territory safeguarded by killing of innocents? Aren’t we losing a part of ourselves, when we allow innocent people to be victims of our warring governments? I feel so sad whenever I hear about people suffering because of the war. Just like in World War 2 when thousands of innocent Japanese civilians were killed by US bombs, I am distressed to know that children have died in Afghanistan during this conflict. Even hearing that the ten year old son of one of the Taliban leaders was killed distressed me. I don’t care who his father was – I do not want children to be cut down before they even get a chance to live. I have a young son about that age! I guess I lost my enthusiasm for this fighting at about the time the wrongful killings began.

I was reading an article in the SF Examiner yesterday about children – about 450 of them – in an orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan. Most of the children had at least one parent, but that parent didn’t feel able to feed their child. So – there was a picture of little boys with smiling faces, eating plain rice for dinner. Is that all? Just rice? It was the only thing on their plates. It seems like the USA, land of prosperity, could do something to help those poor children return to their families with food in hand. How tragic for the people there, to be so destitute that they think their child will eat better in an institution.

What kind of freedom is this? I will never be free of the memory of these starving and dead children.