Hello Paul
I often feel that DOING is better than TALKING. Changes are more likely to
happen. But I don't know what to do.
On Tuesday night, I went to the pub with a friend who is half Iraqi. Her
father couldn't visit his homeland when Saddam Hussein was in power. But nor
could he visit recently when his mother was dying. His family in Mosul were
safer with Saddam, being people who did ordinary jobs and kept their heads
down. It seems no-one is safe now.
I visited some websites. Amnesty International, StopTheWar Coalition. I have
done two things:
1) I have now emailed my MP, providing the links to the Guardian article and
the Lancet article. This took less than 5 minutes. I got the email address
by following links on the Stop the War Coalition website.
2) I have donated £10 to Amnesty International, online. This too took about
5 minutes. Whilst this money may not go to addressing the situation in Iraq,
it is a small contribution towards achieving 'justice for us all', as
Amnesty urges. Frighteningly, on arriving at the Amnesty home page, I was
confronted by a briefing on the situation in Sudan (The 1.4 million people
driven from their homes in Darfur are still at risk of unlawful killing;
displacement, rape, detention, torture, starvation and disease).
By chance I have been approached today to provide some training in Applied
Behavioural Analysis. I was feeling reticent about this, but then it
occurred that I could charge liberally and use that money to do something
more. It feels hopelessly insignificant, and I am haunted by a criticism I
once received on David Smail's forum, that no revolutions would be spawned
from attitudes like mine. But I try and comfort myself with other ideas, for
example, the one about the ripples: 'Each time a man stands up for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lots of others, or strikes out against injustice, he
sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million
different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which
can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance'.
If you have any ideas, please let us know.
Penny
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul@home" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 12:34 AM
Subject: 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed
> This is breaking news. Now I understand Shock and Awe.
>
> First 'scientific' survey on the civilian death toll of the recent war on
> Iraq conservatively estimates 100,000 civilians have died. The less
> conservative figure the researchers cite is 200,000.
>
> I didn't want to sit tonight with this alone, so wanted to pass it on to
my
> colleagues and friends. Here is how the survey has been reported in the
> Guardian (link below). The survey has been published in The Lancet.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html
>
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