Ed Kinane
Voices in The Wilderness
Baghdad
October 9, 2003, Thursday

Neville is 74 today. Six months ago today the US Marines arrived outside our hotel. I’ll never forget Neville standing on the Al Fanar balcony overlooking the troops with his sign: WAR=TERRORISM.

BBC news: in this morning’s rush hour a suicide bomber drove headlong toward a Baghdad police station. Police opened fire. The explosives in the car detonate, killing the driver, several police and several others � nine in all. Forty are wounded. The BBC commentator explains that the police are seen as collaborators with the CPA. These days police stations are heavily fortified.as
Also today: a Spanish diplomat is assassinated on a Baghdad street.

Ed Kinane
Voices in The Wilderness
Oct 10-11, 2003
Baghdad

PRE-OCCUPIED

In an article I wrote a few weeks ago, I asked which was the wilderness: Iraq or the US? Of course, in their own way both are wildernesses.

The CPA has 10,000 detainees. By contrast, the US, a country only ten times as populous as Iraq, has a million detainees.

Iraq is occupied by foreign military. The US is occupied by a domestic military and police machine. This machine abuses human rights and chills democratic initiative both internationally and domestically.

Elements within Iraq resist an Occupation still struggling for control. In the US the Occupation is vastly far more successful and systematic. It is vastly more subliminal and entrenched. Read, for example, Herbert Marcuse’s classic, One Dimensional Man.

By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad
October 12, 2003

Dear Friends,

Last night was a restless time. Besides getting up every couple of hours to check to see if water was coming into the house from the street so that we could pump some into the house tank, there was a great deal of shooting going on. At one point Cynthia and I retreated hastily inside as about 5 male figures appeared on the roof that looks down on ours from across the street. A full moon made us feel like sitting ducks! After a while our imaginations and suspicions calmed down and we decided to return to our mats on the roof.

There has been a marked increase in the number of attacks these last days. The Iraqi police and civilians are being targeted now, and a Spanish correspondent was killed this past week. A trusted friend of ours dropped by in the afternoon. He said that “the American troops have no idea of the Iraqi reality or society . . . the governing council is no longer effective, and they have a bias toward the Americans . . . People are losing patience and are just waiting. It is worse now. The next 2 months, he feels, will be decisive. . .

By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad
October 14, 2003

The roar of helicopters circling low overhead as I write is unnerving. It is so hard to concentrate. One is filled with a sense of dread wondering what is going on.

Yesterday we had a most unexpected visit from two prestigious Shia Imams from Hilla, the site of a holy shrine. Bearded, tall and stately, they were cloaked in black robes and turbans. They know of our group as one of the Imams is the brother of a friend of ours, someone who is a constant guest at our house. Haythem, “just happened” to return home and, after greeting them with the utmost respect, he sat down willingly to translate for us.

The clerics represent the religious/political direction established by Muqtada al-Sadr, sthe son of a famous Shia leader. One is the chief of the Sadr office in Hilla, the other an Imam in one of the mosques there. They came with an invitation for us to attend a press conference this afternoon in Najaf, to be followed by a demonstration on Friday in Hilla.

Cynthia Banas
Voices in The Wilderness
From the Occupied City of Baghdad
October 13, 2003

From October 2002-2003 I lived in Iraq: during the build-up to the war, during the war, the bombardment , the invasion, the “liberation”, and the occupation. Returning to the States, I accepted many invitations to speak about my experiences in Iraq, and was gratified that so many people were eager for information about Iraq; especially from a perspective different from the USA official view.

12 days ago I returned to Baghdad to rejoin members of the Voices in the Wilderness Team. We are here to renew acquaintances with friends, to listen to their stories; to be present to them; to communicate these stories to people back in the U.S.A.. A strong bond was formed between people who remained with the ordinary Iraqis during the terribly anxious time of the build-up to war, the reality of war and all its terror, the bombardment, the looting, the very short “liberation” which turned into an inept, unbelievably cruel occupation in which the Iraqis are once again the victims. And the American soldiers are also victims. They are victims of fear caused by many factors, among them, irresponsibility and failure of the people who planned this war. The number of suicides of American soldiers here is increasing and 478 soldiers were sent home for mental-health reasons. (USA TODAY-Gregory Zoroya)