Posts
Greetings everyone,
Our team has decided that I and my teammate Stewart Vreisinga will return
to Baghdad this weekend to re-assess conditions for the rest of our team
to return and resume work. Our friends in Iraq are telling us they are
overwhelmed with human rights testimonies to record. Please pray for our
safe travels, the well-being of all civilians, especially the Iraqi
children in Fallujah and Najaf; and that the U.S. stands down from its
sieges of Fallujah and Najaf. Our soldiers are dying only for the
stubborn pride of our administration. Pray also for their families who
struggle with the loss.
There are far less violent and deadly ways to arrest those wanted for the
killing of the four U.S. armed security guards, or Sadr, who is wanted on
a murder conspiracy charge. What if we used the same tactics every time a
person was wanted on a murder charge in New York City?
For those of you who feel led to speak out further against the violence,
you may wish to use the recent CPT releases I have sent you to write a
letter to the editor of your local paper. Many people who feel that all
U.S. uses of violent force in Iraq are justified will still resonate with
the suffering of soldiers and their families. Speak to those what they
will hear.
waiting, working, searching for peace,
Le Anne
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
Waiting... (on exile in Amman)
Hi everyone,
We have been in Amman now, our Iraq-team-in-Diaspora, for a little over a
week, waiting for the time when we can return to our work.
It is difficult to be waiting.
First of all, we are spending more time around each other than ever, and
therefore have more time to get into arguments, or ponder, “What exactly
did he mean by that?” Perhaps I am more vulnerable to this than my
teammates. And then there is Matthew, who is a philosophy major just out
of college last year and still eager to debate. Without the interference
of actual work or war zones, there have been some pretty intense
hashings-out. Still we are friends. Hopefully, we are getting to a point
where we can begin to laugh about this. Myself included.
Jeering travelers call this place the ‘Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom,’ a
waiting room, a crossroads to more interesting places and people to do
those things with. It still strikes me as amazing that cars are lined up
across the street to Syria, Lebanaon, and Saudi Arabia—it’s as close as a
car ride away now, but also as far as arranging a visa in times like
these. I also then remind myself that I have team responsibilities—and so
could not even begin to fathom such a fantastic trip. Even a quick zip
into Palestine (which is never really a quick zip when dealing with
Israeli border security) is just far enough beyond me as I cannot just
ditch the team for a few days.
Fortunately, there are meetings with other humanitarian workers who have
departed Baghdad, once a week. Sometimes we can go to meetings twice a
week. At least one of my teammates is going because there are cookies. I
am going partly to keep up on what they are doing, and partly just to see
some other like-minded souls. Thursday nights include plenty of social
invitations from the other organizations also, and these have been much
welcome. Throughout the week, friends we didn’t know were here have been
showing up to take us to dinner, to tea, to watch a video, even some of us
went to the Dead Sea. We haven’t been for lack of things to do, actually.
We are still working, yes, but we are doing so while sitting in a hotel,
which makes you feel like you’re not working, and then you wonder why you
are tired.
A good chunk of our work is discernment about the timing of our return,
and indeed the future of this project. Discernment is difficult. It was
unnerving trying to do discernment in a country about to blow apart, and
it is equally difficult to do so in this vacuum of a country, although in
different ways. We are meeting roughly two hours per day.
Baghdad, as with the region, was and is quite a high-pressure environment.
We do wonder if we ourselves and each other are up for the task of
returning.
In Baghdad, we were waiting for a plane, or waiting for trouble to show up
at our doorstep before we could get to the plane, or—could we still
imagine?--waiting for things to get better. The waiting there was
draining enough in itself, probably a good additional reason for our
tiredness now. We were running so much on adrenaline, and eventually the
adrenaline stops.
Our team is tired—deeply tired, we tend to hold our meetings in horizontal
positions, sprawled across the beds in my room by the end. We each zonk
out in the afternoons for a few hours. We’re almost too tired to go see
the ruins downtown, which are actually interesting.
It is difficult to get through on the phone lines to Baghdad. We have
been able to communicate with far fewer of our friends and neighbors than
thought. This also adds to our sense of limbo, not having known what is
really happening on the ground for such a long period of time.
Finally today, we got through and got some solid news to go on. That in
itself is quite energizing. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Our Iraqi friends are saying it’s calm in Baghdad now but give it a few
days. Our landlord’s family misses us. Our friendly taxi-arranger at the
hotel here says the same thing. Our international colleagues who were
hunkering down, then wrote to say they were flying out to join us, then we
didn’t hear from them for several days—finally also, contact at last.
They are well. They are able to do some work, but still it’s difficult
for them to leave the house.
Perhaps we will not be waiting forever.
We have been in Amman now, our Iraq-team-in-Diaspora, for a little over a
week, waiting for the time when we can return to our work.
It is difficult to be waiting.
First of all, we are spending more time around each other than ever, and
therefore have more time to get into arguments, or ponder, “What exactly
did he mean by that?” Perhaps I am more vulnerable to this than my
teammates. And then there is Matthew, who is a philosophy major just out
of college last year and still eager to debate. Without the interference
of actual work or war zones, there have been some pretty intense
hashings-out. Still we are friends. Hopefully, we are getting to a point
where we can begin to laugh about this. Myself included.
Jeering travelers call this place the ‘Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom,’ a
waiting room, a crossroads to more interesting places and people to do
those things with. It still strikes me as amazing that cars are lined up
across the street to Syria, Lebanaon, and Saudi Arabia—it’s as close as a
car ride away now, but also as far as arranging a visa in times like
these. I also then remind myself that I have team responsibilities—and so
could not even begin to fathom such a fantastic trip. Even a quick zip
into Palestine (which is never really a quick zip when dealing with
Israeli border security) is just far enough beyond me as I cannot just
ditch the team for a few days.
Fortunately, there are meetings with other humanitarian workers who have
departed Baghdad, once a week. Sometimes we can go to meetings twice a
week. At least one of my teammates is going because there are cookies. I
am going partly to keep up on what they are doing, and partly just to see
some other like-minded souls. Thursday nights include plenty of social
invitations from the other organizations also, and these have been much
welcome. Throughout the week, friends we didn’t know were here have been
showing up to take us to dinner, to tea, to watch a video, even some of us
went to the Dead Sea. We haven’t been for lack of things to do, actually.
We are still working, yes, but we are doing so while sitting in a hotel,
which makes you feel like you’re not working, and then you wonder why you
are tired.
A good chunk of our work is discernment about the timing of our return,
and indeed the future of this project. Discernment is difficult. It was
unnerving trying to do discernment in a country about to blow apart, and
it is equally difficult to do so in this vacuum of a country, although in
different ways. We are meeting roughly two hours per day.
Baghdad, as with the region, was and is quite a high-pressure environment.
We do wonder if we ourselves and each other are up for the task of
returning.
In Baghdad, we were waiting for a plane, or waiting for trouble to show up
at our doorstep before we could get to the plane, or—could we still
imagine?--waiting for things to get better. The waiting there was
draining enough in itself, probably a good additional reason for our
tiredness now. We were running so much on adrenaline, and eventually the
adrenaline stops.
Our team is tired—deeply tired, we tend to hold our meetings in horizontal
positions, sprawled across the beds in my room by the end. We each zonk
out in the afternoons for a few hours. We’re almost too tired to go see
the ruins downtown, which are actually interesting.
It is difficult to get through on the phone lines to Baghdad. We have
been able to communicate with far fewer of our friends and neighbors than
thought. This also adds to our sense of limbo, not having known what is
really happening on the ground for such a long period of time.
Finally today, we got through and got some solid news to go on. That in
itself is quite energizing. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Our Iraqi friends are saying it’s calm in Baghdad now but give it a few
days. Our landlord’s family misses us. Our friendly taxi-arranger at the
hotel here says the same thing. Our international colleagues who were
hunkering down, then wrote to say they were flying out to join us, then we
didn’t hear from them for several days—finally also, contact at last.
They are well. They are able to do some work, but still it’s difficult
for them to leave the house.
Perhaps we will not be waiting forever.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Lead-up to Evacuation
Still Just Fine
April 9, 2004
Greetings all,
Just a quick note to let you all know I am fine here and our neighborhood
is unusually deadly quiet. We are being cautious of course but our
neighbors and friends are checking in regularly. Tonight Sheila and I are
singing in the church choir. Have a blessed Easter weekend!
peace,
Le Anne
---
Evacuations Begin
April 13, 2004
Hi everyone,
Most of the international humanitarian community here in Iraq has decided
to evacuate. We may still have an option to provide a violence-reducing
presence in other cities in the coming days, at which point we would move
our project there. Otherwise, we plan to depart to Jordan by this weekend
and stay for at least a week. There is a long backlog of humanitarian
workers and Iraqis trying to leave the country.
The consensus of the international humanitarian community about the
situation in Iraq is that aggressive U.S. military tactics in the past
week have escalated the violence, leaving many innocent civilians dead and
injured, has led to the increased threat against humanitarian workers in
particular. Statements such as Gen. Sanchez' vow to kill or capture Sadr
are not helpful in reducing violence or improving security in Iraq. Stay
tuned to the cpt website for our Urgent Action call-in to your members of
congress for the U.S. military to cease its 'offense strategies'in
military action, and I will try to pass along our latest release about the
massacre in Fallujah. Until Friday, you may contact our team via phone at:
1-914-822-9707 (is a U.S. cellphone which works in Iraq)
011-964-1-716-7163 office/house phone
011-790-1-33-9537 Iraqi cell phone
Please feel free to invite press contacts of yours to call for an interview.
April 9, 2004
Greetings all,
Just a quick note to let you all know I am fine here and our neighborhood
is unusually deadly quiet. We are being cautious of course but our
neighbors and friends are checking in regularly. Tonight Sheila and I are
singing in the church choir. Have a blessed Easter weekend!
peace,
Le Anne
---
Evacuations Begin
April 13, 2004
Hi everyone,
Most of the international humanitarian community here in Iraq has decided
to evacuate. We may still have an option to provide a violence-reducing
presence in other cities in the coming days, at which point we would move
our project there. Otherwise, we plan to depart to Jordan by this weekend
and stay for at least a week. There is a long backlog of humanitarian
workers and Iraqis trying to leave the country.
The consensus of the international humanitarian community about the
situation in Iraq is that aggressive U.S. military tactics in the past
week have escalated the violence, leaving many innocent civilians dead and
injured, has led to the increased threat against humanitarian workers in
particular. Statements such as Gen. Sanchez' vow to kill or capture Sadr
are not helpful in reducing violence or improving security in Iraq. Stay
tuned to the cpt website for our Urgent Action call-in to your members of
congress for the U.S. military to cease its 'offense strategies'in
military action, and I will try to pass along our latest release about the
massacre in Fallujah. Until Friday, you may contact our team via phone at:
1-914-822-9707 (is a U.S. cellphone which works in Iraq)
011-964-1-716-7163 office/house phone
011-790-1-33-9537 Iraqi cell phone
Please feel free to invite press contacts of yours to call for an interview.
Evacuation, U.S. Massacre at Fallujah
Hi everyone, here is the release I just finished. Now time to go home and
pack. The humanitarian orgs here are urgently appealing for a UN (NOT US
military) airlift, otherwise it's Royal Jordanian at big bucks. I don't
think a single humanitarian worker would have their dead body carried out
on a U.S. plane at this point, considering the army's absolute stupidity
this week.
not feeling too peaceful at the moment,
Le Anne
-----------------------------------
Peace Worker Details Massacre in Fallujah
by Le Anne Clausen
April 12, 2004
IRAQ—“U.S. Marine snipers are firing at everyone moving,” report
colleagues of CPT who returned Sunday from an overnight humanitarian
mission to Fallujah. Six international and six Iraqi peace volunteers
entered the city on Saturday, April 10 in a bus loaded with medical
supplies from agencies in Baghdad. The city has been under siege for the
past six days.
Hospital workers report 518 Iraqis killed by U.S. fire as of Sunday,
including at least 157 women and 146 children. Of the children, one
hundred are under age twelve and of those, 46 are under age five. More
than 1,200 have been wounded. The casualties continued to rise through
press time.
U.S. forces bombed and destroyed the main hospital in Fallujah earlier
this week. Medical staff opened a makeshift clinic in an area garage, but
the volunteers report there are no sanitary facilities there in which to
work. Aid is getting through, but the clinic needs more supplies, such as
blood donation and testing kits, tracheotomy kits, and Cesarean section
tools. There are neither anesthesia nor blankets in the medical center.
Exhausted doctors struggled to respond to the constant streams of wounded.
The volunteers saw several older women and two children arrive with
numerous gunshot wounds. The two children died. The volunteers saw one
man who was burned from head to foot, and another who was bleeding from
several wounds. The men reported being injured by a cluster bomb.
One of the volunteers accompanied an ambulance crew to pick up a woman who
was going into premature labor. On the way, U.S. snipers began firing at
the ambulance. The ambulance turned off its sirens, then its lights, but
the soldiers continued firing. The ambulance began backing away from the
soldiers, but they continued firing and blew out the vehicle’s tire. The
crew escaped without injury, but they were unable to reach the woman.
Elsewhere in Fallujah, Marines granted the volunteers permission to
evacuate wounded persons, women, children, and the elderly from houses. An officer added, “We’re going to begin ‘clearing’ the houses shortly.” When the volunteers
pressed for details, the officer explained that they would go from house to house to
pick up any men of fighting age and any weapons. They described men of fighting age as “anyone under 45.” Jo Wilding, one of the volunteers, later said, “not all men
are armed and not all want to fight. Still, they are trapped.”
The volunteers also retrieved bodies of Iraqis killed. One body of an
unarmed man lying face-down in the road had only a small bullet entry hole in his
back, but massive abdominal ‘exit’ wounds, indicative of high-velocity bullets.
When the volunteers turned the body over to reveal the wound, children in the
nearest house began screaming and crying “Baba! Baba! (Daddy! Daddy!)” The volunteers
loaded the body into a pickup truck and evacuated the wife and children. The family
said their father had just stepped out of house when he was shot. The family had no
way to reach the body in the street before the volunteers secured permission from
the Marines.
The volunteer team recovered two additional bodies lying near a U.S.
checkpoint, but abandoned a completely burnt third body, due to outbursts of gunfire and the Marines' return fire. “We don’t know if that is friendly or hostile fire,
so we have to respond,” the soldiers said.
On Sunday, the volunteers returned to Baghdad with fourteen wounded people. As they passed the checkpoint out of Fallujah, they saw long lines of people
waiting to flee. The volunteers hope to return, although deteriorating conditions
within the city may prevent them from carrying out further work.
“This was a massacre,” said Wilding, “and it will get worse.”
pack. The humanitarian orgs here are urgently appealing for a UN (NOT US
military) airlift, otherwise it's Royal Jordanian at big bucks. I don't
think a single humanitarian worker would have their dead body carried out
on a U.S. plane at this point, considering the army's absolute stupidity
this week.
not feeling too peaceful at the moment,
Le Anne
-----------------------------------
Peace Worker Details Massacre in Fallujah
by Le Anne Clausen
April 12, 2004
IRAQ—“U.S. Marine snipers are firing at everyone moving,” report
colleagues of CPT who returned Sunday from an overnight humanitarian
mission to Fallujah. Six international and six Iraqi peace volunteers
entered the city on Saturday, April 10 in a bus loaded with medical
supplies from agencies in Baghdad. The city has been under siege for the
past six days.
Hospital workers report 518 Iraqis killed by U.S. fire as of Sunday,
including at least 157 women and 146 children. Of the children, one
hundred are under age twelve and of those, 46 are under age five. More
than 1,200 have been wounded. The casualties continued to rise through
press time.
U.S. forces bombed and destroyed the main hospital in Fallujah earlier
this week. Medical staff opened a makeshift clinic in an area garage, but
the volunteers report there are no sanitary facilities there in which to
work. Aid is getting through, but the clinic needs more supplies, such as
blood donation and testing kits, tracheotomy kits, and Cesarean section
tools. There are neither anesthesia nor blankets in the medical center.
Exhausted doctors struggled to respond to the constant streams of wounded.
The volunteers saw several older women and two children arrive with
numerous gunshot wounds. The two children died. The volunteers saw one
man who was burned from head to foot, and another who was bleeding from
several wounds. The men reported being injured by a cluster bomb.
One of the volunteers accompanied an ambulance crew to pick up a woman who
was going into premature labor. On the way, U.S. snipers began firing at
the ambulance. The ambulance turned off its sirens, then its lights, but
the soldiers continued firing. The ambulance began backing away from the
soldiers, but they continued firing and blew out the vehicle’s tire. The
crew escaped without injury, but they were unable to reach the woman.
Elsewhere in Fallujah, Marines granted the volunteers permission to
evacuate wounded persons, women, children, and the elderly from houses. An officer added, “We’re going to begin ‘clearing’ the houses shortly.” When the volunteers
pressed for details, the officer explained that they would go from house to house to
pick up any men of fighting age and any weapons. They described men of fighting age as “anyone under 45.” Jo Wilding, one of the volunteers, later said, “not all men
are armed and not all want to fight. Still, they are trapped.”
The volunteers also retrieved bodies of Iraqis killed. One body of an
unarmed man lying face-down in the road had only a small bullet entry hole in his
back, but massive abdominal ‘exit’ wounds, indicative of high-velocity bullets.
When the volunteers turned the body over to reveal the wound, children in the
nearest house began screaming and crying “Baba! Baba! (Daddy! Daddy!)” The volunteers
loaded the body into a pickup truck and evacuated the wife and children. The family
said their father had just stepped out of house when he was shot. The family had no
way to reach the body in the street before the volunteers secured permission from
the Marines.
The volunteer team recovered two additional bodies lying near a U.S.
checkpoint, but abandoned a completely burnt third body, due to outbursts of gunfire and the Marines' return fire. “We don’t know if that is friendly or hostile fire,
so we have to respond,” the soldiers said.
On Sunday, the volunteers returned to Baghdad with fourteen wounded people. As they passed the checkpoint out of Fallujah, they saw long lines of people
waiting to flee. The volunteers hope to return, although deteriorating conditions
within the city may prevent them from carrying out further work.
“This was a massacre,” said Wilding, “and it will get worse.”
Sunday, April 04, 2004
On Armies and Palm Sunday
Hi everyone,
It does feel like I'm counting the weeks until the end of my time here,
but at the same time, I'm floating right along in the midst of things.
It's been a good week. The delegation is here and I tried to attune them
to the culture and lay of the land. I also tried to cook biryani, which
is the Iraqi national dish, for their first night here. It didn't turn
out quite right, so I called it 'yani', which in Arabic means, 'whatever.'
They still liked it.
It is Palm Sunday today and I am hoping that the church will have a
processional. They didn't have a separate Ash Wednesday service, which
was disappointing for me. They have plenty of palm trees around here
anyway though, so I am hopeful.
This next week promises to be tough. After hearing increasing stories of
Iraqi women being sexually abused by U.S. troops in prisons and around the
country, I am trying to follow up and collect testimonies. I half don't
expect people to agree to be interviewed, not because I don't believe
these things are happening, but because so much shame is attached,
particularly in this culture. One lead is a woman impregnated in prison
and since released. There is certainly no such thing as a consensual sex
act when you are in prison. The other lead is a teenage boy who was
gang-raped by several soldiers and is quite out of his head since then. I
am working through friends of the families to arrange the interviews. I
don't have much else to say at this point except that I hope to see truth
and justice prevail whatever the stories' details.
I am writing the team updates right now and the stuff we are seeing and
hearing is just stunning. I will try to forward some of these to you so
you see what I mean. I guess what I have recently been reflecting on is
that soldiers are soldiers no matter what the nationality and no matter
Injustice, secrecy, and abuse of power are endemic to the systems of
militarism. It is never a matter of 'a few bad eggs.' Having lived in
two war zones for so long and having seen such breadth and depth of human
rights abuses, and having researched other conflicts in the past century,
no, I will never be able to believe that again. I think rather it is a
matter of a few good souls struggling to do good in the larger mechanisms
which in their very nature produce suffering and death.
Late one night then last week, I wrote the following poem. I don't claim
that it is a good poem, but it expresses what I needed to say. Maybe I'll
add more to it later.
In the meantime, team life has been wonderful. We're pretty small right
now, but it's beautiful to get to really know a few other people so well.
As a team we have spent much time talking about how to celebrate life in
the midst of so much death. Ritual becomes so important in marking the
hours in the midst of cycles of destruction. We are learning to set aside
time to be together and have fun. It is so easily lost working here, when
everything seems so urgent and the work never stops. But you can become
death like the death around you, or you can choose life and hope others
around you will follow.
We finished our vigils in Tahrir Square and will now spend the next three
days 'on the road' in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad, Abu Ghraib prison
camp, and in Kerbala between the twin shrines to the Shi'a martyrs Ali and
Hussein. On Saturday, we hope to vigil at the children's prison here in
Baghdad. It also seems to be the senior citizens' prison as well.
According to lists from the CPA, some 400 Iraqis between ages 85-95 are in
the U.S. detention system. Stewart has been pretty amazing with crunching
statistics out of the information we can get. Either the number
represents a colossal problem with accurate recordkeeping, or they are
going after far more than terrorists and Baathists.
I think I will try to squeeze in a Sunday afternoon nap, and get the
laundry done as well.
Peace,
Le Anne
----
What is an army?
It is all the dignity and refinement of a high school locker room, dressed
in brown uniforms and given weapons and authority over the populace of a
small, demonized country.
And that is why Iraqi women are being raped and impregnated in the prison
camps.
And that is why children are blown to pieces while riding in their cars or
sleeping in their homes.
And that is why young men are beaten and drowned,
And old men are suffocated with plastic sandbags pulled over their heads
Dying in their pleading sons’ arms
And the system feels no remorse nor need to explain.
Because all our good American fathers and sons and brothers and nephews
and boyfriends
Couldn’t possibly ever do a thing like that
The things which happen every day
Here in Iraq
Now and thirteen years ago
There in Viet Nam,
Korea, Japan,
There in Germany
Where we also fought to ‘liberate’ the masses
“Allies” is such a deceptively friendly term
when we bombed the churches
and rained fire on innocents
When will we ever come to terms with all that we have done?
It does feel like I'm counting the weeks until the end of my time here,
but at the same time, I'm floating right along in the midst of things.
It's been a good week. The delegation is here and I tried to attune them
to the culture and lay of the land. I also tried to cook biryani, which
is the Iraqi national dish, for their first night here. It didn't turn
out quite right, so I called it 'yani', which in Arabic means, 'whatever.'
They still liked it.
It is Palm Sunday today and I am hoping that the church will have a
processional. They didn't have a separate Ash Wednesday service, which
was disappointing for me. They have plenty of palm trees around here
anyway though, so I am hopeful.
This next week promises to be tough. After hearing increasing stories of
Iraqi women being sexually abused by U.S. troops in prisons and around the
country, I am trying to follow up and collect testimonies. I half don't
expect people to agree to be interviewed, not because I don't believe
these things are happening, but because so much shame is attached,
particularly in this culture. One lead is a woman impregnated in prison
and since released. There is certainly no such thing as a consensual sex
act when you are in prison. The other lead is a teenage boy who was
gang-raped by several soldiers and is quite out of his head since then. I
am working through friends of the families to arrange the interviews. I
don't have much else to say at this point except that I hope to see truth
and justice prevail whatever the stories' details.
I am writing the team updates right now and the stuff we are seeing and
hearing is just stunning. I will try to forward some of these to you so
you see what I mean. I guess what I have recently been reflecting on is
that soldiers are soldiers no matter what the nationality and no matter
Injustice, secrecy, and abuse of power are endemic to the systems of
militarism. It is never a matter of 'a few bad eggs.' Having lived in
two war zones for so long and having seen such breadth and depth of human
rights abuses, and having researched other conflicts in the past century,
no, I will never be able to believe that again. I think rather it is a
matter of a few good souls struggling to do good in the larger mechanisms
which in their very nature produce suffering and death.
Late one night then last week, I wrote the following poem. I don't claim
that it is a good poem, but it expresses what I needed to say. Maybe I'll
add more to it later.
In the meantime, team life has been wonderful. We're pretty small right
now, but it's beautiful to get to really know a few other people so well.
As a team we have spent much time talking about how to celebrate life in
the midst of so much death. Ritual becomes so important in marking the
hours in the midst of cycles of destruction. We are learning to set aside
time to be together and have fun. It is so easily lost working here, when
everything seems so urgent and the work never stops. But you can become
death like the death around you, or you can choose life and hope others
around you will follow.
We finished our vigils in Tahrir Square and will now spend the next three
days 'on the road' in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad, Abu Ghraib prison
camp, and in Kerbala between the twin shrines to the Shi'a martyrs Ali and
Hussein. On Saturday, we hope to vigil at the children's prison here in
Baghdad. It also seems to be the senior citizens' prison as well.
According to lists from the CPA, some 400 Iraqis between ages 85-95 are in
the U.S. detention system. Stewart has been pretty amazing with crunching
statistics out of the information we can get. Either the number
represents a colossal problem with accurate recordkeeping, or they are
going after far more than terrorists and Baathists.
I think I will try to squeeze in a Sunday afternoon nap, and get the
laundry done as well.
Peace,
Le Anne
----
What is an army?
It is all the dignity and refinement of a high school locker room, dressed
in brown uniforms and given weapons and authority over the populace of a
small, demonized country.
And that is why Iraqi women are being raped and impregnated in the prison
camps.
And that is why children are blown to pieces while riding in their cars or
sleeping in their homes.
And that is why young men are beaten and drowned,
And old men are suffocated with plastic sandbags pulled over their heads
Dying in their pleading sons’ arms
And the system feels no remorse nor need to explain.
Because all our good American fathers and sons and brothers and nephews
and boyfriends
Couldn’t possibly ever do a thing like that
The things which happen every day
Here in Iraq
Now and thirteen years ago
There in Viet Nam,
Korea, Japan,
There in Germany
Where we also fought to ‘liberate’ the masses
“Allies” is such a deceptively friendly term
when we bombed the churches
and rained fire on innocents
When will we ever come to terms with all that we have done?
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