After the fall of Kabul last week, the Bush administration said the war on terrorism in Afghanistan is off to a "good beginning." But there are those in DuPage County who regret the war even started.
Through vigils and demonstrations, they are sending a message that violence brought against us should not be countered with violence of our own.
Stephanie Downs Hughes of Naperville is one of the leaders in the peace campaign.
"It is sort of crazy to be responding to crimes with war," said Hughes, a member of the DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition. "Many people still have an old-fashioned war mentality."
Hughes says there are alternatives to waging war, such as bringing terrorists to justice in international courts of law. She also says Americans are woefully ignorant of the culture, religion and politics of the Middle East. Such misunderstanding makes it too easy to think our country is in the right to bomb Afghanistan when we have made mistakes of our own in the conduct of international affairs that have bred anger and violence.
"We need to educate people and not more about the people of that region," said Hughes. "People also agree with need to understand the facts of what the history."
Tom Cordaro of Pax Christi DuPage, an international, Catholic peace movement, says those facts reveal terribly flawed foreign policy that just encourages a vicious cycle of violence. For example, he points to our "fighting the Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union by supporting so-called Afghan freedom fighters that later turned terrorist against us.
"Every time we fight evil, the blowback -- a term the CIA uses -- is disastrous for us," said Cordaro, who also chairs the national chapter of Pax Christi.
Cordaro says we are making the same mistake again.
This struggle against terrorism is a clear example of the futility of the kind of violence we engage in," said Cordaro. "With every bomb we drop and civilians are inadvertently killed, you are creating a new terrorist."
Cordaro believes the U.S. should not have ignored the Taliban's offer to enter into negotiations before they would consider turning Osama bin Laden over to the U.S.
I hardly think we should have wasted any time believing there would be value in talking with people that befriend brutal terrorists like Osama bin Laden. But Cordaro says we should have at least opened communications to gauge the level of the Taliban's sincerity.
In DuPage County, and elsewhere, the war protesters are far outnumbered by the war supporters. What does Hughes have to say to those who believe she and others in her cause are not good Americans?
"You can be a patriot and not agree with what the Bush administration is doing."
I agree with what Me Bush administration is doing And though I respect the compassion and thought- of the local peace protesters, I do find myself shaking my head at the naivete of some of their suggestions.
But this peace movement takes me back to one that whirled around me in 1960s. I can remember walking past an anti-war protest on the campus of Indiana University with a friend who had fought in Vietnam. I remember him getting angry over one protest sign that said something about the war being about profits for the rubber companies.
My friend said something like this: "You know, I would respect these protesters if their signs said 'I don't want to die.' That would be honest. There is nothing over there worth dying for. But be sincere,"
I don't sense that insincerity among the small crowd of protesters in DuPage County. And they are, as Hughes says, free to call themselves patriots.