Baghdad, Iraq
John Farrell
Voices in The Wilderness

I traveled with Voices in the Wilderness members Kathy Kelly, Cathy Breen and Ed Kinane to Iraq this past Sunday to visit the Voices in the Wilderness team in Baghdad and to listen to old friends and new acquaintances in Iraq express their opinions and concerns about the current US/UK occupation of Iraq. There are many concerns. One of our goals is to convey the concerns of some of these Iraqi people to the international community both in Iraq and abroad, so that the world may advocate more clearly for justice and peace in Iraq and the US/UK presence may be held accountable for its failures and abuses of power.

The raw pain that people are experiencing in this place, however, is significant, and I have noticed it in even the very brief encounters that I have had with Iraqi people.

Very early Sunday morning, as we burned up the kilometers of the eastern Jordanian desert in our big Suburban taxi, a strikingly red crescent moon ascended over the eastern sky slowly dripped its blood onto the emerging sunrise of the Iraqi horizon. We cleared Iraqi customs just in time to watch the ominous flaming disk lift off for its daily assault of the countryside.