Rochester Teacher in Jordan- Tom's Report from the Middle east

Transfered from old site

By Tom Little-Moore
 

 
The people returning from Baghdad say that the bombing was increasingly involving civilian targets. Busses and cars were targets on the highway. Cluster bombs were used in a market place near where they stayed. The human shield people have been effective apparently because so far as I have heard not one of the 70 around the city were hit, all remain in Baghdad. As for the CPT they are all but one I think, out of the city. Kathy Kelly remains in her hotel with 2 others.
 

 
I had interviewed as a volunteer with the red crescent and they said no one was using the Iraqi refugee camps anywhere except for those separate ones for third country nationals. Those you probably know are for nationalities other than Iraqi and they were nowhere near filled to capacity. The crescent said they were over-staffed, so there wasn't even a remote chance that I would ever be called on to volunteer. As recent as last week when a group of CPT were coming out of Baghdad they were processed at the border as third country nationals. The Iraqi camp is right next door and they could see that it remained empty. That same week some 5000 Iraqi migrant workers swelled the offices of Jordanian immigration office to receive special passports so that they could return to Iraq, presumably to either be with love ones or fight the invaders. I had heard but it wasn't confirmed, that the same was happening in Syria.
 

 
Jon, when I was in Egypt, I spent the night with a couple. He was Egyptian and she was Iraqi. He had owned a restaurant in Baghdad that was popular with the political and social elite. He had many acquaintences among the elite. He was thrown in prison for three years for not serving Saddam as an informant. He was tortured off and on during his first year, and he would not have survived, he explains, had it not been for his wife coming every day during the last two years. Eventually he was expelled. He lost everything, yet he was adamantly opposed to this war. He said there were three types of Iraqi. Those who stay and cower under Saddam, those who support him, and those who remain outside of the country and await new leadership. He didn't relay ratios but said no one in their right mind wants this war. It will certainly not serve the people of Iraq. Saddam may be bad but no Iraqi he knows wants this "liberation." His wife agreed. They both said that it is not for an outside force but the Iraqis themselves to make for changes. He agreed with many others I talked to that this is just the beginning of something really bad for the entire world. I have talked with plenty of Iraqis and have yet to find one that says "thank God for Bush and his liberating army." Almost every single one look at Saddam for all his crimes, as being the hero of the Middle East to take on the imperial forces. So there you have that, but maybe you heard that story already.
 

 
I am coming home soon, see you then, Tom