Extending Afghan war terrible mistake: US author

NEW DELHI - Describing the US troop surge in war-torn Afghanistan as a terrible mistake, a Pulitzer prize winning American author and an ardent Gandhi admirer Saturday said war cannot be ended by war.

It was a terrible mistake to extend the war in Afghanistan, said Alice Walker, an eminent American writer who was active in the 1960s civil rights movement and has also fought for womens issues and for the cause of the poor in the US.

You cannot end war by perpetuating war, said the author, best known for her novel The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer in 1983.

The book on black women’s life during the 1930s in the US, addresses numerous issues including their low status in the American social ladder.

Walker was in India as a guest of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Gandhi Smriti and Samiti, which felicitated the author at the Gandhi museum — where the Mahtama spent the last 144 days of his life and was assassinated Jan 30, 1948.

A non-violent activist and Gandhi follower, Walker was arrested during an anti-war protest rally outside the White House March 8, 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war.

Walker said she was glad that US President Barack Obama, who she thinks is a good person, was given the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Asked if she wasn’t contradicting herself by saying the Afghan war was a mistake and feeling happy about Obama getting the Nobel, Walker said: This is the way to try and move him (Obama) in a direction we would want him. This will remind him that the people expect him to make moves about peace.