When Kathy Kelly first went to take toys and medicine to hospitalized Iraqi children, she met one little girl whose abdomen had literally been ripped open.
Another three-year-old boy, whose arms vaguely resembled dead tree branches, forlornly looked up at her and asked, "Will I always be this way?"
Kelly, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and a founding member of the anti-war organization Voices in the Wilderness, spoke at length last night about this experience and others like it during her stay in strife-ridden Iraq, which lasted six months.
The speech attracted a crowd of about 60 to 70 people, mostly community members. The audience also appeared to have strong liberal leanings -- when a former faculty member introducing Kelly asked rhetorically, "Is anyone here a Republican?" no hands went up.
Kelly focused her talk on the plight of Iraqi children, calling the last 10 years' economic sanctions "a policy of child sacrifice." Forty-seven thousand Iraqi children have died since the last Gulf War, and childhood cancers have quintupled.
She described visiting a special school for musically gifted children before the war and teaching the children a hymn about peace written after World War One.
When Kelly returned to the school months later, after the bombings, the beautiful facilities that she remembered had been destroyed. In the ruins, she found a tape of a concert in which the children had sung the peace hymn.
"I could never play that tape for an American audience," she said.
Kelly spoke as well about the sufferings of expectant mothers who asked their doctors to perform Caesarian sections, risking their own health and their children's, rather than risk trying to give birth in the midst of war.
She noted how common high levels of anxiety were among Iraqis, and quoted one Iraqi friend who told her about seeing a second war that "it is as though we have awakened from one nightmare and descended into another."
And though most of Kelly's speech consisted of anecdotes about the everyday horrors of war rather than statements of policy, she did speak several times about her views on why this particular war was wrong.
Noting that the war cost the United States government approximately $1 billion a day, she said, "If even a fraction of that money had been invested in education, communication, social services -- perhaps Iraqi society could have moved toward more democratic government, maybe they could have eventually overthrown Hussein."
She also saw the horrors of the Iraqi war as one battle within two greater wars: the "war against the biodiversity of the earth" and "the war of the West against weaker countries whose resources we want to control."
Only a "change in our culture of consumption and waste" can end these types of conflict, Kelly said.
She acknowledged the difficulties of changing this culture, admitting that she flew to New Hampshire on an airplane and routinely consumes more than her share of jet fuel.
But she is notwithout hope for the future -- "I standbefore you now and say, I need to change, I want to change."
She cited many historical examples of social change created by individuals -- including the civil rights and suffrage movements -- in American history.
Later, Kelly suggested that, since the American taxpayers typically foot the bill for major military campaigns, planning one's finances to withhold funds from the federal government can serve as one viable form of revolt.
"I haven't paid federal income tax since 1980," she said, also noting that her contact lenses are the most expensive things she owns.
Kelly's travels to Iraq have led to brushes against American law: She herself has been fined $10,000 by the U.S. government Office of Foreign Asset Control, and Voices in the Wilderness $162,000.
Both refuse to pay, citing the fines as unjust and unconstitutional.The speech was sponsored by the Center for Women and Gender, Upper Valley Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace and Voices in the Wilderness.
