Portland Press Herald (Maine)
August 2, 2003 Saturday, Final Edition
SECTION: LOCAL & STATE; Pg. 1B
BYLINE: JOSHUA L. WEINSTEIN

To some, it may sound inconsistent - heretical, even - but Kathy Kelly, one of the nation’s foremost peace activists, likes Marines.

She was in Baghdad during the “shock and awe” military campaign, and there when Marines marched into the city. Her first thought upon seeing them: They look thirsty. So Kelly, a 50-year-old who helped found the Chicago-based Voices In The Wilderness, and another American activist, brought them bottles of water.

Kelly, who will be speaking in Maine and New Hampshire next week, said that “one of the most edifying times I’ve had in my life was talking to Marines during the occupation.”

Nonviolent education and action against war and occupation in Iraq and Palestine

Members of Voices in the Wilderness, Al-Awda, the International Solidarity Movement, and Middle East Children’s Alliance take to the road in a colorfully decorated full-size school bus for the Wheels of Justice Tour. Starting in mid-August 2003, this tour will canvass the western United Sates to challenge and educate North Americans on the occupation of Palestine and Iraq.

Baghdad, Iraq
Zehira Houfani (writer and journalist),
Member of the Montreal Iraq Solidarity Project

“Under Saddam’s regime, despite all the post-war constraints, it took 48 days to re-establish electricity in Baghdad after the destruction of the first Gulf War,” says Nahla, artist and owner of a Baghdad art gallery. And she adds indignantly : “Why have the Americans, the most powerful country on the planet, not restored it more than four months after having destroyed our networks and infrastructure? See how water is getting rare in these boiling hot temperatures. I have a child of 7 years old and I suffer twice over to see him enduring this terrible heat. Just think of the millions of deprived Iraqis, babies, the ill, the aged, who are suffocating in the heat. How dare people in the American administration talk about our well-being when they are torturing us?” At that very moment the electricity was cut. “There you are!” cried Nahla. “We are entering four hours of hell!” Actually, the instant the ventilation stopped, a dreadful heat enveloped us. It was 52�C in the shade today. And it is like that for months.

The whole week I stayed in Baghdad, people never stopped complaining about the deterioration in their living conditions since the arrival of the American forces. Even those who believed the invasion was the evil for the good, no longer hesitate to say that the American army has colonised Iraq to seize its oil. “They have been spending our money for four months without concern for us, or our essential needs like electricity, water and security. Iraq has never had abductions of children or women for ransom before. I’ve been hearing about this for a few weeks and I think that it is extremely serious for Iraqi society. It really was better in Saddam’s time, believe me. Today, I cannot stop crying about what has become of my city, Baghdad, disfigured by bombs, looting, vandalism and all this machinery of war, the soldiers and the barbed wire that criss-crosses our streets. It is as though we are living in a vast prison under the yoke of the United States.”