Kathy Kelly with Host Amy Goodman (democracynow.org); Brent E. Huffman, Saving Mes Aynak; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
This is an extended conversation with Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. She has made many trips to the U.S. War on Afghanistan and wrote an article for The Progressive headlined, “Afghans, Parched for Water, March for Peace.”
Mes Aynak ("Little Copper Well") is one of the world's largest unexcavated deposits of copper, gold, and rare earth minerals.
China paid impoverished Afghanistan for the mineral right of what has turned out to be the world's largest unexcavated Buddhist temple complexes. It is a vast square mile of monuments, reliquary mounds (stupas), statues, jewelry deposits, and an archeological dig site that would take generations to uncover.
U.S. Professor Brent E. Huffman is one of the only international voices trying to save Mes Aynak before it's even unearthed. Here Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow.org interviews peace activist Kathy Kelly about the situation in the area around Kabul.
The current capital of Kabul (Kabil, Kapil) is very reminiscent of the ancient Buddhist Kapilavastu, where the Buddha was raised, according to maverick Indian historian Ranajit Pal, Ph.D.
The Scythian/Shakyian (Saka) Land of the Buddha and his extended family/tribe is described in the texts as a vast and rugged land, uneven and uncultivated. It includes the three ancient former seasonal capitals all generally referred to as Kapilavastu but which likely included Mes Aynak and Bamiyan as the other two.
Of the three places the Shakyian/Saka/Scythian Prince Siddhartha was raised, Dr. Pal suggests Bamiyan was his home. But the texts clearly indicate that he had three, each with their own palace.
Bamiyan is the site of the world's largest Buddha statues, the largest of which is still in the ground and undamaged. According to National Geographic it is a 1,000-foot-long reclining-into-nirvana Buddha figure.
Mes Aynak is the richest, full of gold and copper. And Kabul is almost certainly the most strategically useful for maintaining a foothold on the land by an extended family, a great janapada.
- US airstrikes as Afghans march for peace (democracynow.org) (June 8, 2018) As U.S. intensifies deadly airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pashtun men stage 400-mile walk calling for peace
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