Ed Kinane
Voices in The Wilderness
Syracuse, NY

Last spring I worked with the Iraq Peace Team in Baghdad. The US was invading then, and its bombardments were killing thousands � some within shouting distance of our hotel.

It seemed too then that, if I weren’t buried under tons of hotel rubble, my demise was most likely to come from the shattered and hurled glass of the hotel windows. I found myself dwelling on a verb that seemed � aptly or not — to capture the process: “eviserate.”

As it turned out, all of our team of about 25 survived. Our hotel, while routinely shaken, was never hit. In early April, however, a US tank shelled the hotel across the street from ours, killing international journalists. I didn’t see the shell hit, but moments later I saw flames consuming a corner of the building. News reports said the shell came from a US tank about a mile up river. It wouldn’t have taken much of a miscalculation for the shell to have hit us.

by Ed Kinane,
Voices in the Wilderness

The war hits closer to home. In our local Syracuse paper we read that Army National Guard soldiers from Central New York are now training for upcoming duty in Iraq.

I try to imagine these young men — and women — in that hellish situation there. I wonder who will help them understand the people they are “liberating.” I wonder who will help them understand why and for whose benefit they are risking their lives. I wonder who will equip these soldiers for the sacrifice they — and their families — are making.

I wonder who will — who can? — answer their questions honestly.

In thinking about these brave soldiers, I have a fantasy: it’s that we could meet. We have experience and perspectives to share. Since February I’ve spent five months in Iraq. I lived in Baghdad, but also traveled to Kurdestan, Mosul, Basra and the Kuwait border. I lived there through the pre-invasion terror and the terror of “shock and awe.” More recently I was there under the Occupation — with its own kind of terror.

Ed Kinane
Voices in The Wilderness
October 26, 2003

T.S. ELIOT & BAGHDAD U. Off to Baghdad University for an 8:30am class in one of the University’s three English departments. Cynthia and I were invited by Christian Peacemakers Team member Kathleen Namphy. Today she was to give a guest lecture on T. S. Eliot to a small MA seminar. Kathleen has been a Stanford U. English professor for many years. Cynthia tells me Kathleen was once married into the Namphy family in Haiti. There is a snafu. The professor, whose class it is and who had been out of town, didn’t know the department had made arrangements for Kathleen to come this morning. Sizing Kathleen up, she vigorously encourages her to give her lecture anyway. But Kathleen wants to have the students prepare for her by reading some Eliot in advance. As it turns out Kathleen gives a brief preparatory lecture and hands out some poems — in the hope that her CPT responsibilities will permit her to return next Sunday.

Ed Kinane
Voices in The Wilderness
October 27, 2003

EXPLOSIONS

At about 6:30 am yesterday the massively fortified CPA headquarters at the Hotel Rashid was hit by ten or twelve explosive devices. According to a soldier sentry (just out of high school) there who Cathy talked to yesterday, there were “missing arms and legs,” many casualties and some deaths. BBC this morning is reporting only one death and three injuries. Rumsfeld’s crony Paul Wolfowitz was in the hotel but escaped injury and has since returned to the States.

At 8:30 this morning we hear an enormous explosion. The noise reminds me of last April’s aerial bombs. From our roof we see billows of black smoke drifting east. Later we hear that the International Red Cross in Karrada a couple miles from us was carbombed.

Ed Kinane
Voices in The Wilderness
Baghdad
October 18, Saturday

SAMARRA

Driven and guided by our friend Ghareeb, Neville and I go north for the weekend. G. drives unusually fast, so we cover a lot of ground. First we go to Samarra, 160 kilometers north of Baghdad. There we view a huge ancient now-roofless mosque. Reconstruction work began here a couple years ago. It was interrupted by the war.

Next door is the ‘Spiral’ — a winding outside staircase about four feet wide and about seven stories high. It’s conical: broad at the bottom, narrow at the top. It’s what I, but not people here, would call a ziggurat. Nev and I climb to the top. Unlike most monuments or public works projects anywhere, the steps are spaced comfortably for walking. Far views of the flat landscape in all directions.