Salon.com
April 24, 2003 Thursday
SECTION: Feature
BYLINE: By Michelle Goldberg

Stationed in Iraq to witness the American invasion, these activists tell a different brand of war story.

Before the war in Iraq began, dozens of Western peace activists made a commitment to station themselves in Baghdad as witnesses. Those from America came with two groups — Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Team. Unlike the hundreds of human shields who descended on Baghdad and whom the Iraqi government deployed to power plants and other industrial sites, these activists had few quixotic dreams of using their presence to stop bombs. Their goal was both more practical and more abstract — to stand in solidarity with the Iraqis, to document the human cost of war, to try to forge bonds between citizens whose armies were killing each other.