Hello my friends,

For those of you who didn't know, I was scheduled to go
to Iraq for two weeks at the end of November with a peace
delegation. It had previously been cancelled this past
spring and has been cancelled again. The next *tentative*
delegation is in February, and I have put my name in for it.

The reasons it was cancelled this time as well as in the
Spring, along with an October delegation are several. The
primary reason is that there is so much widespread
resentment for what our country is doing there that not
only are westerners at risk of retaliatory anger, but also
the Iraqis with whom westerners interact. It is for this counterproductive reason that permanent Team members in Iraq advised against visiting delegations at this time.

Meanwhile there are several members of the permanent
team in Iraq who are focusing most of their efforts on
documenting and advocating for victims of human rights
violations.

I have felt a mixture of disapointment and relief over the
recent cancellation. While I have felt my participation in
the delegation was a necesary witness, I also temper my
desires by what is best for the Iraqi people. I also wish to
mention that in the six months since the spring
delegation was cancelled, many of my fears about going
subsided. In the last few weeks I even felt an excitement
to meet Iraqi people, folks who have suffered so much under a war many of us really tried hard to stop.

The group that I have applied to go with is the Christian
Peacemaker Teams. They are an ecumenical organization
headed by Quakers, Mennonites and Church of the
Brethren- the historic peace churches. These are good
folks (not the proselytizing type) who have permanent
peacemaker teams througout the world including
Colombia, Hebron Palestine and of course Iraq as well as
in the Canada in the Grassy Narrows Indian Nation and on
the Mexican border in Arizona, where many refugees have
been dying in the desert. Their work includes
documenting human rights abuse as well as direct work
such as accompanying Palestinian children to school,
where they are often attacked by fundamentalist settlers.

While I am still hopeful of being able to complete a peace
witness to Iraq, I am also considering a delegation to one
of the other places CPT works. I will keep you posted.

I want to thank the my many friends and aqaintances in
the Chicago activist community as well as in my former
town of DeKalb for all of the support, both monetary and
emotional. I will keep everyone updated as developments
develop.

peace,
garth