[Peace-discuss] Fwd: IRAQ: Live from the Iraqi Front

[Jay Mittenthal]

>From: Peter Lems <PLems at afsc.org>
>To: AskAboutIraq <AskAboutIraq at afsc.org>
>Subject: IRAQ: Live from the Iraqi Front
>Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 08:40:16 -0400
>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
>X-MailScanner: Found to be clean
>
>published in NOW Magazine, Canada
>www.nowtoronto.com
>
>Live from the Iraqi Front...
>by Ramzi Kysia
>
>I know an Iraqi artist who paints mad, desolate
>landscapes filled with Sumerian ruins and crumbling
>statues locked in loving embrace. The paintings are
>peppered with odds and ends you might pick up at a
>Wal-Mart - if there was one in Baghdad. There is a
>local McDonald's you might just see if you look
>closely enough on Karrada Street. A small sign with
>the Golden Arches jumps out at you - pointing to a
>battered hot dog stand by the side of the road.
>
>Baghdad is the city of the surreal. Located deep
>within the "Axis of Evil," I often stroll in Paradise
>Park, a short block from my hotel: it's full of young
>children chasing each other around a dozen, small
>water fountains. I love the city's parks, and it's
>wide, tree-lined boulevards - each avenue sprouting
>date palms and poplars. On the streets, Disney
>characters seemingly adorn every other store.
>"Corvette Summer," a California beach movie from the
>late 70s, plays nightly at the local theater. Patsy
>Cline warbles "Crazy" over the radio waves, and -
>judging from the omnipresent posters - it's seems
>clear that Brittany Spears has staged a coup, and will
>shortly assume her duties as the new president of
>Iraq.
>
>She has her work cut out for her. 20 years of war and
>12 years of economic sanctions have taken their toll.
>I know so many engineers and college professors forced
>to drive taxis to earn a living. I know doctors who
>break down crying when they talk about all the
>suffering they've seen - all the patients they've lost
>because of the blockade. I know kids who've had to
>leave school, and beg in the street to support their
>families. Their faces haunt me.
>
>What will happen to these people if there's another
>war?
>
>Iraqis no longer have the reserves to withstand
>another war. Most people live in desperate poverty.
>Because of economic sanctions, most Iraqis are now
>totally dependent on food rations distributed by the
>government and the UN. 24 million people are fed each
>and every month in the largest breadline in world
>history.
>
>The UN is now spending much of its time doing
>contingency planning - going over the various war
>scenarios. Will the U.S. bomb the power plants and
>water supply again? Will roads and bridges be bombed
>again? Will the Iraqi army fall apart along religious
>and ethnic lines in a massive civil war?
>
>UNICEF is already warning that if food distribution is
>disrupted for more than a few weeks, the result will
>be country-wide famine.
>
>It's not hard to imagine cheering crowds celebrating
>the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but that fantasy says
>more about America than it does about Iraq. There is a
>human face to warfare that's missing from our
>fantasies.
>
>I know a 13-year old girl named Amira, with beautiful,
>haunted eyes and a wicked grin. She begs to put food
>on her family's table. I asked her if she had a
>message for Americans, and she answered me, "Where is
>your humanity? Where is the human rights? I want to
>say to those people-- why most people in the world
>hate America? No one can like America. If they want to
>solve our problem, let us the life."
>
>I worry so much about this girl. Will an errant bomb
>hit her home? If there's an American invasion, or a
>civil war, will she be shot in the street? Even
>without a new war, I worry what will happen to her.
>She's a casualty of sanctions, and she's too old to be
>on the streets. My Iraqi friends insist prostitution
>isn't a problem in Baghdad, and Amira vows she would
>never "do that." But I know what happens to childhood
>vows.
>
>Our critics accuse us of being "apologists" for Saddam
>Hussein - but I don't apologize for anyone other than
>myself. As an American living in Iraq, knowing what's
>about to happen to these people, knowing what's
>already happened to these people - looking through
>Amira's haunting face - I know have a lot to apologize
>for.
>
>-----
>Ramzi Kysia is co-coordinator of the Voices in the
>Wilderness' (www.vitw.org) Iraq Peace Team
>(www.iraqpeaceteam.org), a group of American
>peaceworkers pledged to stay in Iraq before, during,
>and after any future U.S. attack, in order to put a
>human face on the consequences of war.
>
>Peter Lems
>American Friends Service Committee
>1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia PA 19102
>Tel: 215/241-7170  /  Fax:215/241-7177
>http://www.afsc.org/conscience/Default.shtm