UNCA SDS co-chair Katie Sue Campbell urges an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan at an Oct. 7 rally. Daily Planet Staff Photo

From Daily Planet Staff Reports

A series of scheduled and unscheduled speakers took turns for nearly an hour Oct. 7, wielding a bullhorn to voice their opposition to United States involvement in the war in Afghanistan on a sunny midday on UNC Asheville’s Quad in front of Ramsey Library.

Seven speakers addressed a sparse crowd of around 50 people, including a mix of college students and older community members, at the rally titled “U.S. Out of Afghanistan: End the War Now!” sponsored by the UNCA chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.

The protest, held on the eighth anniversary of the launch of the war in Afghanistan, was part of a series of planned simultaneous SDS rallies on college campuses across the U.S.

The protest was the first known rally against the Afghanistan War in the Asheville area since President Barack Obama took office about nine and a half months earlier. While the speakers expressed their ire over the continuation of, and possible expansion of U.S. involvement  in, the war, none specifically criticized Obama.

The first speaker, Kim Carlyle, of Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 of Western North Carolina, said, “Eight year ago, as we invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. State Department said we had a clear right.”

Waving a copy of War Crimes Times, a quarterly newspaper by Veterans for Peace that is highly critical of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Carlyle said the Afghanistan war “requires new thinking.

“I’m now approaching 82 — and I’ve not given up hope” for peace.

Next, Josh Sykes, a member of Freedom Road Socialist organization, said, “Where there is oppression, there is resistance ... Analysts estimate the resistance controls 70 percent” of Afghanistan’s countryside.

Vivian Moreno, a UNCA SDS member, spoke of many atrocities that, she said, the U.S. military has perpetrated on often-innocent Afghanis.

Ultimately, she asserted, “My question: Is this really necessary?”

Angela Denio, another UNCA SDS member, led a call-and-response chant in which she shouted, “Money for jobs and education!” To which the audience responded, “Not for war and occupation!” The chant was repeated about a dozen times, getting progressively louder.

Next, John Baughman, a member of Liberty Asheville, a nonpartisan citizens group seeking to keep and even extend personal liberties, started with a quote from Patrick Henry and spoke in positive terms about the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

He noted that “wars can turn costly, squandering resources and costing lives ... Why are we closing in on nine years in what appears to be a Vietnam-like quagmire in Afghanistan?”

Baughman asserted, “Freedom, not force, has the power to unite us ... We owe it to ourselves to return to our Constitutional roots” and avoid foreign entanglements.

“Trying to instill a new world order controlled by a group of ‘banksters’” via U.S. miltiary action in Afghanistan is hurting the U.S. and Afghanistan, he said. “We at Liberty Asheville oppose any escalation of the war.”

Claire Hanrahan, an associate member of Veterans for Peace and an editor of War Crimes Times, addressed the topic of military rape, claiming that one in three U.S. enlisted women in Afghanistan report “being raped by their fellow soldiers.” After a pause, she added, “And that’s just what’s reported.”

Further, Hanrahan said, “We talk about freeing the women in Afghanistan, but many of our women soldiers are afraid of going to the latrine at night and getting raped.”

Katie Sue Campbell, co-chair of UNCA’s SDS and the master of ceremonies at the rally, thanked those who attended the protest and the speakers.

Campbell then led a progressively louder call-and-response chant that repeated the following:

Campbell: “What do we want?”

Crowd: “Troops out!”

Campbell: “When do we want it?”

Crowd: “Now!”