By Peggy Gish
Christian Peacemaker Teams

“I guess if we want to be safer, we should move to Fallujah,” one of my teammates, here in Baghdad, said jokingly when he read a news article that said Fallujah is the safest city in Iraq. I picked up the article and read that 8,000 people from Fallujah, a city of 300,000, had voted in the election.

I found the article’s observation sobering. It reported that some refugees had returned to Fallujah and were trying to clean the rubble and prepare to rebuild. The premise was that it is safe now, because insurgents are gone. But the journalist also described other conditions: little water and electricity, heavy curfews and restrictions on moving around the city.

A Military Wife Speaks
Bruderhof Communities

A soldier’s wife, Monica Benderman of Hinesville, Georgia, used to be admired. But not anymore. In December 2004, facing a second tour of duty in Iraq, her husband, Sgt. Kevin Benderman, applied for conscientious objector status - and was promptly charged with desertion.

For the past several weeks, my husband, Kevin, and I have answered questions from reporters, and other interested citizens from almost every state in the union, and about eight foreign countries. After all of these interviews, I have a few questions and comments of my own.

What’s gone wrong when a man and his wife receive phone calls and emails from all over their country asking them to explain themselves, calling them cowards, wondering if they have ever read the Bible or studied the scripture, all because that man has chosen to speak out against war and violence, and his wife has chosen to stand with him?

An Interview With an Iraqi Friar

By Sheila Provencher
Christian Peacemaker Teams

Yousif Thomas Mirkis, O.P., is an Iraqi Roman Catholic priest. He recently welcomed me to his community home in Baghdad, the convent of the Dominican friars. In the courtyard, he pointed to the ground. “Look,” he said. A cross lay molded into the tiles. “This is to remind us that the cross is down here, with us. The cross is in the mud.” At 55, Father Yousif has spent most of his life working “in the mud,” striving to heal his society’s wounds and build healthy communities. He teaches theology and ethnology at Babel College in Baghdad and is the chief editor of Christian Thought, Iraq’s oldest theological journal. Amid the current strife, Father Yousif works to foster peace through understanding. He views education as the best way to respond to the poverty, illiteracy and subsequent violence created by years of war and sanctions. His current projects include a popular university for the working poor, an online distance-learning program for foreign languages and numerous dialogues with Muslim and Christian leaders.

“I have no fear,” he says. “I am prudent, I try to seek wisdom. But I am not afraid.” The following interview was conducted in Baghdad last November.