Tom Cahill's Report from Iraq, 21 Feb 2003

The second wave of Human Shields arrived yesterday, Feb. 21, in Bagdad. Together with members of Voice in the Wilderness and other peace groups, there may be as many as 500 of us or even more unarmed, NGO civilian peacekeepers in Iraq now with many more on the way. The London office of Human Shields is swamped with upwards of 10,000 applications to process. We learned on arrival that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said we human shields are acting against the Geneva Convention. According to other U.S. government sources. if we Americans survive and return home, we could face up to 12 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines. My response to this is unprintable. "Shock and Awe" is the name given to the very first strikes of a massive amount of missles expected to be launched at Bagdad in early March. Like the "blitzkrieg" of the Nazis early in WW II, it was designed to stun survivors, some of whom will be traumatized for life. The horror of such an attack described by U.S. military authorities in awesome detail make it seem to me more humane for the United States to just nuke Bagdad. Surely civilian casualties must be high either way. And all this to remove from office just one man since the U.S. plans to leave intact the rest of the Iraqi government, that is, those who survive. Most of the American shields I've spoken to agree we would rather die in Bagdad under a rain of missiles than live another day under the corporatist (read fascist) regime that has ruled the U.S.A. since the right wing coup d'etat of Nov. 22, 1963. This morning we visited a hospital filled mostly with children dying of starvation, malnutrtion, and disease--the result of U.S. sanctions in the ongoing 12-year war against Iraq. Many children were suffering from lukemia from the so-called "depleted uranium" weapons used by Allied forces in 1991 that will contaminate much of Iraq for centuries. Many of us broke down many times while visiting the youngsters, some with tiny oxygen masks on their faces and IVs attached to scrawny limbs. Pitiful doesn't describe the scene. Shame and rage don't express my emotions. How dare my governnent spin such rational-sounding motivations for attempting to destroy a nation in order to save it. Before visiting the hospital we wanted only to impeach Bush out of office. Now we Americans and others want him and his father and Bill Clinton tried for war crimes. Around my neck I wear a small, bright blue teddy bear on a cord. If I survive the missle attack and meet a U.S. Marine infantryman and still have my wits about me, I'll tell him to aim for the little bear. My heart is right behind it. We Human Shields stand with our Iraqi sisters and brothers and cry out to the world--save us from the American liberators and the compassionate conservatives.

Tom Cahill - I am a former resident of Fort Bragg and Napa, California, now a resident of Bagdad as in "Ich bein ein Berliner." I am a member of Veterans for Peace, Peace Navy, IWW, and Earth First and am president of Stop Prisoner Rape. All these organizations have web sites. If you pass this information on, please correct my spelling and grammar. If you want to communicate with me, let me know at my new e-mail address in Iraq:
saadoon@uruklink.net