A rainy, cold day didn't stop about 20 pacifists from protesting the United States' military strikes against Afghanistan in front of a Naperville post office on Sunday.
Holding signs that read "Stop the Bombing," "Peace is Patriotic" and "USA for Peace," the protesters - all from the DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition - quietly stood along the sidewalk of the Washington Street post office for an hour.
The coalition believes the best way to punish terrorists is to use the United Nations and apprehend them as criminals.
"A military response is not an effective response to terrorism," said Kevin Lindeman of Winfield. "It's been raining bombs down on Afghanistan for weeks now. The fact is, we're possibly killing more innocent civilians than the number of people who were being killed in the September 11 attacks."
The coalition has staged two other protests since it formed at the end of September, one in Villa Park and one in Wheaton.
Response to the Naperville protest was quieter than the other two, the protestors said, though the occasional driver would honk or shout out either encouraging or insulting words.
Though polls have shown public support for the war on terrorism is high, Lindeman said that won't last long.
"We have more opposition to this war than the Vietnam War did at this stage," he said.
And those who oppose the military strikes in Afghanistan are not wavering in their convictions that responding to violence with violence only makes matters worse.
"We're creating more bin Ladens with every bomb we drop, every baby we kill," Naperville resident John Bagley said.