“It will require us to be willing to take risks, major risks.”

Cliff Kindy, of the Christian Peacemaker Teams writes to us from Iraq about present and future war and OUR FUTURE without war. Cliff implores each of us to take “back the decisions that affect our lives.” Where will you start?

By Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Dear Friends, Family, and All Good People,

This morning, January 19, there were six explosions before 9AM. This is the fifth day that Baghdad has been without public water. Several days ago our landlady asked us to conserve water because the tanks on the roof are our only supply. These events are bad for the people of Iraq and all foreigners in Iraq, but another story probably has more damaging long-term significance for Iraq and the world. Check out Gwynne Dyer, Future Tense.

On January 17, Seymour Hersh posted an article titled “The Coming Wars” for the New Yorker Magazine. Hersh details the consolidation of intelligence analyses and the ensuing covert operations within the office of the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Hersh lists Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Malaysia, and Tunisia on the list of targets for those strategic efforts. Hersh makes clear that Iran is already being targeted by covert operations from this office, and that there is no congressional approval or oversight of this new policy.

I realize that half of the US population does not approve of present policy in Iraq and may not give their support to the developments in the above paragraph. I heard today that a BBC worldwide poll indicated that a vast majority of the global population feels the world is a much more dangerous place since the US invasion of Iraq. So. And?

I have just re-read A Man to Match His Mountains, about Badshah Khan, and A Force More Powerful, about the nonviolent movements that have shaped history in the past century. They depict the creative genius of unarmed people facing Nazi Germany, powerful dictators, overwhelming terror, massive empires, and brutal injustice; and successfully bringing the changes they intended. The stories show that the results depend on careful analysis, strategic planning, undergirding faith, and bold action. Changes came as a few people began to work for the changes they wanted and others joined them.

By Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams

There are eons of time compressed into the seconds of a crisis. It sounded as though several of them were attacking our hotel door that night. We were in an old hotel in the center of the city. Even though we came in after dark, those with an interest in foreigners must have spotted our entourage.

Earlier in the day we had safely covered the dangerous miles between Baghdad and Kerbala. Media regularly carries stories of attacks on the various routes that carry travelers between these two cities - kidnappings, murders, and beheadings. NGO security reports, U.S. Warden messages, and close friends advised extreme caution as we contemplated travel plans. Yes, there were carcasses of old burned out vehicles along the roadsides and Peggy counted 15 checkpoints, manned by Iraqi security. Four U.S. convoys passed us along the route. But we arrived without problems.

By Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams
Read Cliff’s blog from Iraq
January 14, 2005.

Dear Friends, Family, and All Good People,

Desmond Tutu writes, “If the victim can forgive only when the culprit confesses, then the victim would be locked into the culprit’s whim, locked into victimhood, whatever her own attitude or intention. That would be palpably unjust.”

Iraq needs to move beyond the injustice of the US invasion and occupation, but it must be in Iraq’s own time. Yes, the US manipulated the causes for the war, all later shown to be false; yes, the occupation has been brutal and further destroyed a society already devastated from twelve years of US sanctions. But Iraq will recover only as the people can move beyond anger and begin the process of rebuilding their lives and society, in their own creativity and with their own resources.

By Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams

Sheila Provencher and Cliff Kindy met with Haji Ali at a human rights office in central Baghdad. Haji Ali is a staff person for another human rights organization, Victims of American Occupation Prison Association. He says he is the person in the famous picture from Abu Ghraib Prison, a hooded detainee standing on a stool with electrical wires attached to his body. CPT has met several times with this group because of their direct connection to Iraqi detainees. It has been very difficult to get information to confirm media reports that the detainee population has doubled since the U.S. assault on Fallujah in November 2004.

Haji Ali said that they have contacts with all kinds of people, even the resistance. He continued, “U.S. prisons are the best training grounds for the resistance. Prisoners feel hopeless when they are mistreated. Will this treatment make U.S. citizens feel safe in Iraq or the Middle East? Kuwait has been the strongest ally of the U.S., but the people there reject the U.S. The United States is fighting terrorism and pushing people into being enemies.”

By Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams
January 5, 2005

Dear Friends, Family, and All Good People,

The good news is that we had 5 electrical generating towers burning a week ago and one day we had 17 hours of electricity from the grid! The bad news is that two days later the oil refinery in Dura got bombed and the fuel capacity for the electricity plants in Baghdad was knocked out and we have had only 3 - 7 hours of grid per day since then. The good news is the warm weather and sunshine that came since Christmas. The bad news is that we have had so many suicide bomb blasts and so much helicopter and fighter jet traffic that the smog blocks the sun. But I am alive, my spirits are good, and spring is just a month or so around the corner!

This week we have received more information about Fallujah and the 200,000 refugees who fled that city of 300,000. We have visited refugees, gotten our own reports from Red Crescent, and talked with Iraqi and foreign journos who have been in the refugee camps. I read a report that said the US invasion of Fallujah was one of the largest armored invasions in history. The resistance was well dug in and able to knock out Abrams tanks with shoulder fired rockets. Many US soldiers and resistance fighters died, but the civilian population bore the brunt of the catastrophe. The resistance still controls large sections of the city. Little infrastructure is left, half of the 90 mosques are totally destroyed, reports I have seen mention that homes are unlivable, belongings have been trashed and burned. Detainee numbers have nearly doubled, we heard today from a human rights worker west of Baghdad. He says that the prisons and the treatment of detainees by the US is the best training camp for the resistance. Our contacts in the US military and Iraqi government tell of two prisons; this colleague shared an al-Harat report from Britain detailing 19 US prisons across Iraq and 150 contractors working on another huge one near Nasariya. We have not been able to get reliable reports of what is happening with these detainees from recent operations. This HR worker says many are being held long-term in US military bases so they are not listed on the detainee files.