Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

While the level of violence in Iraq was less than it hs been in the past few days, several reports today relate just how dangerous the "everyday" situation there has become. And while there were upbeat statements about the fate of captive US reporter Jill Carroll, there was no news today of the fate of Tom Fox and the other CPT peaceworkers also held captive. The Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq witnesses to nonviolence and respect for all Iraqis have now been held or more than three months. Again we cry, set asside one more day for blessed relief, – let them all go!

A letter from Iraq CPT delegate Allan Slater speaks about the curfew in Bagdhad:

From the roof we could see that our neighbours were enjoying the sun out on our street. I walked down to join in a conversation with our friend Abdul and four other neighbours. They were discussing the various points of view people had expressed about the recent violence. They must have been worried but they seemed jovial as they speculated about who might be benefiting from all the violence.

I walked on down to our main street--normally jammed with cars. I saw almost none. Most shops were closed. But the mood on the street was festive. People were strolling with babes in arms and toddlers at their sides. Groups of people were chatting. Boys playing soccer and boys careening by on their bicycles with radios blasting loud music had taken over the street. [...]

When something hands them even one day of blessed relief from the chaos and violence, they sure know how to make the most of it.

Slater's message calls to mind a reflection Tom Fox shared with us eight months ago:

Our apartment is across the street from a park. Many evenings around the time we are gathering for supper a mother and her three children walk by our living room window. The western sun illuminates her face and the faces of her young children. I don’t know her but in a way I feel I do.

She looks tired. So many, many people here in Iraq are so very tired. She looks a bit fearful. Will today be the day when the insurgents set off a car bomb near the park? Will today be the day when the young men of the Iraqi National Guard, riding like cowboys in the back of their pickup trucks, get trigger happy and start shooting with her and her children in the line of fire?

Yet day after day I see her taking her children to the park. Underneath the fatigue and the fear I can sense the hope and the courage in her heart. It reflects on her children as does the setting sun reflect on the nearby Tigris River. She gives me courage to face the overwhelming difficulties of life in this broken land. She is living in the present moment fully aware of the dangers and uncertainties and yet she has not given up hope, she has not given in to despair, she has not let herself be driven into hiding by men with guns and bombs.

She is my teacher. She teaches me how to live fully conscious of the horrors of today and still be able to envision a future of promise, peace and plenty. I would pray that we all live each day, no matter where we are, “for the sake of our children.”

From Reuters: Urgent action needed to head off civil war

"It's now up to Iraq's religious authorities to urge their followers to remain calm in the face of provocations, and up to political leaders to lower their dangerously inflammatory rhetoric," warned ICG Middle East Project Director Joost Hiltermann, "lest a low-intensity conflict turn into a full-scale sectarian war and the country disintegrate".

Another report from Reuters highlights the proliferation of militias and armed gangs in Iraq. According to the Associated Press, a new study by the Special Inspector General sites poor planning for this postwar chaos.