Iraq

Ever think about those killed in the war in Iraq?  You know the collateral damage of war - the people who didn't sign up for a war.

Conservative estimates peg the war dead at around 100,000. Other scientific estimates, which take into account unreported deaths, range up into the 1.4 million range. It's an impressive toll for 8 years of war.

The Iraq Memorial to Life - a project of the Fellowship of Reconciliation - is a memorial to Iraqis who have been killed as a result of the war.

It is an attempt to keep us from forgetting these Iraqis.

This past week, during the holiday period after Christmas and over the new year, a group of young Iraqis gathered at the headquarters of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Upper Nyack, New York. They were all university students attending U.S. colleges, whose schooling was organized by the Iraqi Student Project -- an initiative modeled on FOR's Bosnian Student Project from the 1990s. An article in today's Journal News, the newspaper of New York's Rockland & Westchester Counties, profiles the hope of these young people as they seek a better future than that seen amidst the war they left behind.

Some FOR members have asked if FOR and other faith-based organizations have access to the President Obama's assessment process concerning his Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy. The answer is yes on a number of levels.

The digital world provides a field of communication which makes it much easier to test and construct messages and bring many individuals and organizations into line behind consensus messages. This means that almost anyone can direct a message to the President's team, or gather signers to statements and documents. We do that with increasing frequency and we also use this path to leverage our support across collections of allies like UFPJ and PeaceAction for example, or Christian Peace Witness (CPW) and the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership (OBIPP). Letters and statements are typically signed by dozens if not hundreds of individuals and groups. Petitions are signed by thousands. Telephone and email campaigns may generate still more responses.

Yes, that's right the Impossible has happened.   Where were you 20 years ago today?  In Germany and throughout Europe and North America, the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has been celebrated today.

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill used the phrase the "Iron Curtain" in a speech in Westminster College in Fulton, MO.  That reference to the social, political and economic division of Europe became symbolized by the Berlin Wall.  The date of Churchill's speech is often cited as the start of the Cold War.  More than a continent was divided.  With the division of Europe and the Cold War, a mindset was developed.  That mindset was a lens through which the world would be seen and understood by millions.  What was possible was framed by that mindset.

Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, a Freeman Fellow of FOR, spent a week in Lebanon following his presentation at the Interdependence Day meetings in Istanbul, Turkey in September. Following three days of visits in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, Rev. Sekou presented a lecture exploring connections between events in Baghdad, Beirut and New Orleans. A transcription of the lecture will be available in a few days, but attached is a jazz-video-montage of his visit: http://www.mydeo.com/videodownload.asp?YID=303&CID=276222

Several great news stories from the past few days have FOR connections. No less a media source than The New York Times finally gave the anti-war community its due this weekend, profiling several of FOR's key allies in the movement -- including United for Peace & Justice, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and CodePink -- in its almost-alliterative piece "American Antiwar Movement Plans an Autumn Campaign Against Policies on Afghanistan."

It's a special opportunity to meet two different anti-war world travelers on the same day, and I had such an opportunity at the Nyack headquarters of the Fellowship of Reconciliation last week when I was introduced to a young U.S. Army veteran who left Iraq as a conscientious objector as well as a British peace activist who has entered military bases on Ploughshares-like actions. They had come from -- and were heading in -- different directions, but we found a lot of common cause during our brief time together.

It was a regular Saturday a couple of weeks ago -- I was sitting in my class like usual, wishing I were outside and enjoying the DC springtime, when I felt my phone vibrate, meaning I was receiving a text message. Trying not be noticed, I snuck my phone out of my pocket to read the message. "Do you want to go see Lady Sovereign tonight? I can get tickets," it said.

For those of you that don't know, Lady Sovereign is a British hip-hop artist that has enjoyed some commercial success here in the States. She's not especially political, as far as I can tell, and her lyrics don't seem to be very profound. (For all the die-hard Lady Sovereign fans reading this, I admittedly don't know her music very well, nor is this the point of this posting.) At any rate, for once I didn't have class the next day and was looking forward to a night out, so I said that yes, I'd love to go. Tickets to the show were bought, and the evening proceeded from there.

I am visiting Iran during these wonderful spring days, and in this visit, of course, I did not want to miss the opportunity to see my new friend Habib, who is as busy and as energetic as always. He shared with me one of his new writings; another memoir of war. 

Please join the Fellowship of Reconciliation in the following two actions today. First, in follow-up to yesterday's wonderful news about the Iranian court system's release of journalist Roxana Saberi, today is the global day of action for Doctors Kamiar and Arash Alaei, pioneers of harm reduction and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in Iran. The brothers, both medical doctors based in the United States but working around the world, have been detained for almost a year and sentenced to prison in Tehran. The Iranian government says they used trips to AIDS conferences worldwide to foment a velvet revolution.