Jo Wilding
April 17th
Falluja/Baghdad

Sergeant Tratner of the First Armoured Division is irritated. “Git back or you’ll git killed,” are his opening words.

Lee says we’re press and he looks with disdain at the car. “In this piece of shit?”

Makes us less of a target for kidnappers, Lee tells him. Suddenly he decides he recognises Lee from the TV. Based in Germany, he watches the BBC. He sees Lee on TV all the time. “Cool. Hey, can I have your autograph?”

Lee makes a scribble, unsure who he’s meant to be but happy to have a ticket through the checkpoint which all the cars before us have been turned back from, and Sergeant Tratner carries on. “You guys be careful in Falluja. We’re killing loads of those folks.” Detecting a lack of admiration on our part, he adds, “Well, they’re killing us too. I like Falluja. I killed a bunch of them mother fuckers.”

Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear-whistle blower, will be released from Ashkelon Prison in Israel on Wednesday, April 21, after serving an 18 year prison term. For background information on this remarkable advocate for peace and disarmament, please see www.vanunu.com.

Kathy Kelly, from her prison cell in Pekin, Illinois, joins many in the world community in celebrating Mordechai’s release. Kathy writes:

“Thinking of Sam Day and his determination, after becoming blind, to help Mordechai Vanunu freely see the light of day, I think an hour must have passed while I read and re-read this passage:

Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine,
But clouds instead and ever during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature’s work, to me expunged and raised.
And wisdom, at one Entrance, quite shut out.
John Milton, Paradise Lost–Book III

Sam might have thought Milton was a mightily mistaken fellow — misogynist, bigotry-prone, depicts untamed wilderness as the haunt for devils — yet Sam would, I think, have nodded thoughtfully at the above passage. Milton tucks it into the beginning of Book III.

This I know! Sam dove into the campaign to free Mordechai Vanunu and Sam would revel in the group assembling to welcome Mordechai out of prison. If there is an email means to wish Ken, Cynthia, Scott Schaeffer Duffy, Audrey Stewart, Grace Ritter and other friends heading to Ashkelon my very best, please do! Thanks! –Kathy”

Also, Amnesty International published a press release yesterday which urged the Israeli authorities not to impose any restrictions or conditions on the former nuclear technician upon his release. Read more.

By Mary Foster
Iraq Solidarity Project
Montreal
18 April, 2004

As US bombers continued to terrorise people in Fallujah, and as their troops surround the holy city of Najaf, a small group of people in Montreal succeeded in closing down the US consulate for four hours on Friday.

Five organisations - Block the Empire Montreal, Canadian Muslim Forum, Iraq Solidarity Project, Parole Arabe, and Voices of Conscience - came together for the first time to plan the interruption of business as usual at the imperial outpost. The Canadian government having failed to condemn the war crimes and the illegal occupation of Iraq, it is left to us to respond. So we lay seige to the consulate and break the guilty silence with anti-war music and the protest of our pots and pans orchestra, slogans and drums. A security agent who works at the building tells us that only a few consulate staff have showed up because of the shut-down.

By Dan Winters
Voices in the Wilderness
April 20, 2004

The Denver Post editorial of April 1 called for the continued occupation of Iraq. I disagree. The time to call for the US to lead in rebuilding is long since past. The best that we can do is to assist a UN effort (which may now be too late) to help rebuild what two wars and thirteen years of sanctions have destroyed.

On the same day your editorial appeared my son arrived in Baghdad. My son, who lives in Hawaii, was activated with his Army reserve unit and will serve for 18 months (12 or more in Iraq). He leaves behind his wife and their 3 daughters who are 12, 7 and 5.

It is heartwarming to read Post articles about our men and women and the sacrifices they are making and the loved ones they left behind. When I say these men and women symbolize what America stands for the Bush administration nods their head in agreement. When I ask why our sons and daughters are bleeding and dying for a war built on fabrications - that same administration accuses me of being un-American and unpatriotic. President Bush needs to understand that those of us who strongly disagree with his war on Iraq also love our flag.