Sophia's Peace Work

Saturday, June 04, 2005

A Few Good Quotes from the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq

Over the past several days I have spent time with a CPT delegation here in Iraq. We listened to a lot of different people speak. Because the people in Iraq, Iraqi or other wise, always ask us to tell people abroad what they have to say, here are some of their quotes:

"I am not special," one of our translators told us as he talked about the violence here in Iraq. "Everyone has seen what I have seen."

"It has been two years," the psychiatrist said, "and not much has changed."

"It is like trying to yell through concrete walls. The sound comes back and hurts your ears so you stop yelling; he has made the concrete that thick." One of our translators said about Iraq under Saddam and why the rest of the world never paid attention to the cries of the Iraqi people.

"I was a resident of an American colony," an Iraqi said with a smile as he referred to his time in a U.S. run prison in Iraq.

"They should all be killed," said an Iraqi friend when he talked about the insurgents that the Multinational Forces and Iraqi forces have captured.

"When your hand is in the fire, it is different than when your hand is in the snow," a Chaldean priest told the delegation. His reference was towards the violence and lack of security in Iraq and why he, a priest, carries a gun.

"Ultimately, the U.S. forces are going to pull out," a U.S. major told us at a military base outside the city of Kerbala.

"Satellite television; praise be to God," said one of our drivers.

"Iraq is not only Fallujah. Now a days many villages, many towns are the same," a woman told us. She talked about the suffering of the people in Fallujah and Iraq in general after the U.S. invasion last fall.

"The occupation is responsible for bringing terrorists from outside the country to inside the country," a woman stated to the delegation.

"If America wanted to eliminate terrorists, they could make it, but they…. use Iraq as a big magnet to attract terrorists from all over the world," said the representative of a shrine in the city of Kerbala.

"Yes, there are foreign terrorists here. They are from the U.S., Britain…. Italy," said one woman when asked if she believed foreign militants were responsible for the violence in Iraq.

"On this channel we have a show called Oprah," our landlord said while we watched T.V.

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