Speech promotes peace, empathy

Pacifist Kathy Kelly on Wednesday night delivered a message of peace and understanding to an audience of nearly 150 people at McHenry County College.

Kelly, nominated for three Nobel Peace Prize awards and coordinator for the Voices for Creative Nonviolence, implored her audience to understand America's role in various conflicts around the world.

The Chicago resident has led 26 groups through Iraq that delivered medicine and other aide despite economic sanctions, stayed in Baghdad during a massive bombing campaign known as Operation Shock and Awe, lived in Gaza while the Israelis bombed the region and also recently visited a displaced persons camp in Pakistan.

During her discussion she talked about innocent bystanders who lost their families, homes, crops - and in some cases, even limbs and their own lives - to ongoing and sometimes misguided war efforts.

"I think it is very, very important for us to try to understand the perspective of those who have borne the fierce brunt of the war in that part of the world," she said. "Part of the problem is ... we're maybe not sufficiently sorry because we don't always know."

All of the bombings, she said, are leading to strong anti-American sentiment and people need to realize there could be dire consequences.

"We can't say to ourselves that we should not expect weapons won't be aimed back at us," Kelly said. "We have a responsibility to at least understand these people we're told are our adversaries."

Kelly served prison time for her activism, which included planting corn on a nuclear site.

She was also arrested in the spring for protesting the American use of unmanned aircraft to shoot missiles in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan,

But she keeps right on charging hard.

"To many of us, she is a model of how to truly live your faith," said Libby Pappalardo, a member of McHenry Pax Christi, one of the groups that sponsored Kelly's talk.

The talk was also sponsored by the McHenry County Peace Group and the college's Student Peace Action Network.

Officials expected protesters, who disagree with Kelly's refusal to support American war efforts with her tax dollars, to interrupt the proceedings. The Student Peace Action Network also hired a Crystal Lake police officer to assist security guards, said Molly McQueen, the network's action coordinator.

But the proceedings went on without a hitch, security officials said.