February 8, 2003 - Kentucky Herald Leader: Swaziland RPCV Joan Moore brings word from Baghdad

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Headlines: Peace Corps Headlines - 2003: 02 February 2003 Peace Corps Headlines: February 8, 2003 - Kentucky Herald Leader: Swaziland RPCV Joan Moore brings word from Baghdad

By Admin1 (admin) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 4:28 pm: Edit Post

Swaziland RPCV Joan Moore brings word from Baghdad





Read and comment on this story from the Kentucky Herald Leader on Swaziland RPCV Joan Moore who recently visited Baghdad as part of the national organization, No Iraq Attack, which opposes a U.S. attack on Iraq. Moore is not a pacifist. She said there could be circumstances in which she could support the use of U.S. military force. But Moore said that President Bush has not made a convincing link between the attack on the World Trade Center and the need to go to war against Iraq. "There was the whole thing with 9/11 and Afghanistan, and suddenly out of nowhere comes Iraq," she said. "There's so much fear in this country right now about terrorists. I think it's going to make things worse in terms of terrorism. War is not the answer. It's not going to make anything better, and it may make a lot of things worse." Read the story at:

BEREAN BRINGS WORD FROM BAGHDAD*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



BEREAN BRINGS WORD FROM BAGHDAD

Iraqis fear Hussein, criticize the U.S.

By Art Jester

HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

BEREA - Everywhere Joan Moore went in Iraq last month, she received and returned the customary Arab greeting: "Salaam aleikum" ("peace be with you").

Although the greeting expressed a desire for peace, she also found that most Iraqis were resigned to a war with the United States.

"There's despair, but they can't focus on it or they won't go on," Moore said. "They have been involved with war or the threat of war so long they didn't talk about it all the time."

Moore, 48, a certified family nurse practitioner at the Berea College Health Service, went to Iraq as one of 35 members of Academic Airlift.

The group represented a national organization, No Iraq Attack, which opposes a U.S. attack on Iraq. The organization says it is made up of more than 33,000 college and university personnel and students.

Moore is a member of Bereans for Peace. In the past year, the Berea peace group has protested against the nerve gas stored at Bluegrass Army Depot and against a U.S. war against Iraq.

The U.S. academics in her party attended a three-day symposium with Iraqi scholars in Baghdad. Some of the older Iraqi professors had gone to school in the United States.

"People in Iraq were warm and welcoming, but they said, 'We don't like what your government is doing,'" Moore said. "A lot of people were saying, 'They think we're all terrorists. We're not terrorists.'"

Since her days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland, Moore has had a strong interest in world affairs. She is not a pacifist. She said there could be circumstances in which she could support the use of U.S. military force.

But Moore said that President Bush has not made a convincing link between the attack on the World Trade Center and the need to go to war against Iraq.

"There was the whole thing with 9/11 and Afghanistan, and suddenly out of nowhere comes Iraq," she said.

"There's so much fear in this country right now about terrorists. I think it's going to make things worse in terms of terrorism. War is not the answer. It's not going to make anything better, and it may make a lot of things worse."

Moore said a war against Iraq "has a lot to do with oil and power."

"I think Saddam Hussein doesn't care about his people, and he's a dictator, and he probably is dangerous, but a lot of leaders in the world are just as dangerous," she said.

Hussein is so sinister that Iraqis won't speak out against him in public because they fear for their lives, she said.

"When I could get them by themselves, the Iraqis would say, 'Saddam Hussein is terrible,'" Moore said.

"One woman told me she was more afraid that the whole country would be destroyed by Saddam Hussein" before U.S. troops could capture it, Moore said.

"The people are really proud, and they love their country. While people don't like Saddam, many people feel the U.S. government, with the Gulf War and the sanctions, have done them more harm than anything their government has done against them."

Moore said the Persian Gulf War left the nation's infrastructure in shambles.

Since then, 1.7 million people have died because of a lack of food and health supplies, and "people are still getting sick from the water," she said.

Children are experiencing higher rates of leukemia caused by what Iraqis think is depleted uranium from bombs, and infant mortality is increasing as well, she said.

"But the rich people aren't suffering. It's the poor who are suffering."

Joan Moore will talk about Iraq and give a slide presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Berea municipal building. For more information about No Iraq Attack, go to www.noiraqattack.org.
Reach Art Jester at (859) 231-3489; 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3489; or ajester@herald-leader.com.

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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Swaiziland; War with Iraq

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