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CounterPunch
March 21,
2003
Relative
Calm Amid the Thunder of the Missiles
What
Would Chicago Be Like Under This Kind of Attack
By KATHY KELLY
BAGHDAD, IRAQ.
People in our team here are heartened by news
of actions in the United States to continue antiwar momentum.
The bombings last night were intense for about thirty minutes
beginning at 9:10 last night. But, compared to what people were
bracing themselves for, which was the 'Shock & Awe' saturation
bombing, these attacks have seemed limited. We're getting rumors
and some hard news, mostly from journalists who tell us what
seems to be going on.
Today I had a chance to go and visit
families in three different neighborhoods and the neighborhoods
were fairly calm. There is still not much in the way of a military
presence on the streets other than sand bags that are piled up
at various intersections.
I visited the family of a friend who
left for Amman a few weeks ago, and that is always a wonderful
place to be. Her family--all women--are full of energy, there
is no man in the house. They were very welcoming towards us and
didn't want us to go. The grandmother just held on to me, clung
to me, begged me 'Please, please stay and spend the night here
with us.' But I would be no protection. They are quite close
to what I think is a military storage depot. They begged us to
come back and eat with them. With their slim rations I think
that is very telling.
And then there is Kareema's family. They
have just now come to visit us at the hotel. This is the family
I am the most worried about. They are in a pretty precarious
spot, and their neighbors seem to know it. Many of them have
left now. I will get a chance to talk more with them this afternoon
when they come here to stay with us. But we haven't received
permission from the hotel owners for them to stay here."
It is almost impossible for me to imagine
that bombings to the extent of what I heard here last night and
the previous morning--if they happened in Chicago--would result
in people carrying on with ordinary days. Part of it is people
having been inured to warfare and its also a sign of a really
particular kind of courage and dignity within the population
here. Its really very, very amazing to me.
If Chicago was under attack--and people
known to be from the attacking country were in Chicago--it's
hard for me to imagine that they'd be sitting in a pleasant hotel
tea room together. So when I think of Baghdad and Chicago in
that light, I love Chicago, I miss it--I think it's a city that's
full of a terrific diversity of people--but I often think: What
would be happening in Chicago if what's happening here were happening
there?
I really think it is not overstating
the case, because we are hearing this kind of news from all over
the world, that we are approaching what would be near critical
mass for stopping war-makers. I hope with all my heart that the
Bush administration doesn't go ahead with this shock and awe.
I think that if they don't do it there probably will be more
of a tapering off. If they do it, I think that the momentum is
going to be very steady and every long day everybody puts in,
it can be worth it now for a long, long time.
Kathy Kelly
is co-coordinator of Voices
in the Wilderness and the Iraq
Peace Team, a group of international peaceworkers pledging
to remain in Iraq through a US bombing and invasion, in order
to be a voice for the Iraqi people in the West. The Iraq Peace
Team can be reached at info@vitw.org
Yesterday's
Features
Ben Tripp
Blood
for Oil: the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint
Them Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic
Protest for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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