Open Letter from Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq

By Peggy Gish, Anita David, Michele Naar-Obed, and Cliff Kindy
(550 words)

This Commentary is Unpublished

An open letter to the United States Administration, United States Department of State and United States Defense Department:

As members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) presently living and working in the Kurdish north of Iraq, we have closely watched the news reports that detail the Turkish military invasions and bombings of Kurdish territory over the last five months, purportedly against PKK resistance. We note that the United States has provided intelligence or those attacks and has chosen to open Iraqi air space for those incursions.

We have had regular contact with the United Nations, the ICRC and
local Kurdish NGOs that have helped the casualties from those attacks. Those attacks killed at least three civilians and injured at least six. CPT has visited two of the families who had a member killed or injured. Additionally, reports indicate those bombings have damaged or destroyed homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals.

CPT visited mayors of communities to which some of the 600-800 displaced families, approximately 3000 individuals, fled for refuge.Those mayors shared photos and videos of the damages....

(to examine the full text for possible publication, contact us).

For over twenty years, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has been an international organization of peace workers living in conflict areas around the world –from Colombia, Iraq, and the West Bank to the US–Mexico border. Peggy Gish, Anita David, Michele Naar-Obed, and Cliff Kindy are longstanding resident members of CPT in Iraq.

CPT http://www.cpt.org/

Seduced By War: Remembering Where Our Legacy Resides

(913 words)
By Andrew Murray
I am concerned about a culture that has been seduced by war. I am concerned about a culture that salivates over the raw power of military hardware but shows little sustained interest in the military virtues of courage, loyalty, honor, fidelity and justice. I am concerned that our civilian leaders on both sides of the aisle seem to have forgotten what many of our great generals and admirals including George Washington, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower always knew: that it is not America's military power that makes us great. It is our greatness that makes us powerful.

What makes us a great country is not that we can go anywhere in the world and kill anyone we want. Well, anyone we can find. What makes us great is that we work hard; we tolerate differences; we have room for faith and science. We are great because in the end we know that a healthy, prosperous and happy society not only endures, but needs, diverse opinions, cultures, life styles, fashions and beliefs. No amount of terrorism can take this away from us. We can only take it away from ourselves.

What was supposed to be the elixir that would cure the national malaise following the turmoil of the '60s and restore our faith in American power has turned out to be, perhaps, an even more difficult circumstance to reconcile. Iraq was a broken and depleted country in 2003, having already lost one war to the US, having been subject to crippling sanctions from the UN and having fought to a draw with Iran after a devastating war that lasted ten years. At the same time the US stood alone as the most preponderant military power.

...(to see full unpublished text email: PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com)

Andrew Murray is professor of peace studies and director of the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa.

Beyond the Rhetoric of Withdrawal: Our Unknown Air War Over Iraq

by Ed Kinane
(1,450 words)

A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower.

….

The American air war inside Iraq is perhaps the most significant – and underreported – aspect of the fight against the insurgency.

– Seymour M. Hersh, “Up in the Air,” Nov. 29, 2005, New Yorker

There’s an air war over Iraq. It’s invisible (here). It’s deadly (there).

The Iraq air war may be the longest such war in history. In one way or another it has been undermining Iraq’s sovereignty, destroying its infrastructure, and killing and maiming Iraqis for some 16 years.

Despite global pressure to withdraw, Bush Inc. – and indeed the broader US power structure – has no intention of giving up Iraq. The potential oil bonanza is too huge. And Iran – with its oil bonanza – is next door.

That air war is intensifying. The US dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of 2007 as it did in the first half of 2006.

... (to examine unpublished full text for possible publication contact PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com)

Ed worked in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness before, during and after “Shock and Awe.” Reach him at edkinane@verizon.net.