Specks on the Sea

A pacifist writes a polemical eulogy entitled A
Coward's Tribute to Margaret Hassan. Tom Nagy introduced himself to Hassan
when he traveled to Baghdad in the shadow of a "looming American
invasion".

My passport held my credentials: letters identifying me as a reporter for
the Progressive Magazine and as a researcher for the Canadian affiliate of the
Nobel Peace Prize awardee, International Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear War. I was travelling to Iraq to estimate the level of child mortality
that would result if the US government unleashed its threatened war of
"Shock and Awe". I had also come to Iraq as a member of a group of
ageing pacifists called the Iraq Peace Team.

Nagy, who wrote "The
Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the US Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water
Supply" believed that the US had intentionally targeted Saddam's water
supply system to create "increased outbreaks of disease and high rates of
child mortality". He hoped Hassan would provide further evidence to help
him uncover this diabolical plot.

Margaret confirmed to me that the machinations of the US-dominated UN
Sanctions Committee had denied and delayed many items indispensable for the
rehabilitation of Iraq's water system. But nothing prepared me for what
followed next. Margaret handed me a section of pipe of huge diameter. The
pipe, however, was so clogged that only a trickle of water could pass through
it. What prevented the necessary maintenance of such water treatment pipes?
Margaret explained that any items which the Sanctions Committee did, from time
to time, permit to be imported were paid for in hard currency generated by the
Oil for Food programme. Nevertheless, Iraq was required by the US-dominated UN
to pay 100 per cent of the cost of these shipments at the border, before being
allowed to inspect even these life-saving articles for usability or
completeness. And, according to Margaret, the shipments were almost invariably
incomplete and of unusable quality.

This must have been a remarkable scene, one which would have put the best
efforts of Wile E. Coyote in the shade. But if it happened, then here is
evidence, if any were needed, that the entire Oil-For-Food-Programme
investigation is on the wrong track. Kofi Annan and Saddam had nothing to do
with it. The thing was secretly run by the Pentagon.

Such cruelty by officials of my own country shattered me. That night sleep
was impossible. The next day I could not leave my bed. I recalled the warning
of a Canadian psychiatrist who had worked extensively with ex- refugees like
me, that the experience of the first five years of my life as a
refugee/displaced person increased my risk of "falling apart" in
Iraq. The Canadian doctor warned me that if I could no longer function, I
should leave the country at once. Following this medical advice, I took the
next flight out of Baghdad. In my dazed condition, I mistakenly thought the
Jordanian airliner taking me to Amman was travelling through the "no-fly
zone". I remember looking out the window for US fighter planes and their
heat-seeking missiles. Curiously I felt no fear. I was beyond caring. A part
of me wanted to die.

Fortunately for Nagy, no US fighters were scheduled to shoot down commercial
airliners that day and he lived. But when he came to himself Nagy understood the
true meaning of his entire journey.

Now, I realise that I should have followed Margaret's example and stayed in
Iraq, even if I remained bed-bound, to share the fate of the Iraqi people. ...
If Margaret is dead, then are we not compelled to ask who benefits by her
death? And are we not compelled to memorialise her dauntless heroism by racing
to any country threatened by future invasions and staying there to try and
avert war by sharing the fate of the innocent? Can there be any more fitting
memorial to Margaret than to make wars and invasions impossible by interposing
our bodies between their child-victims and the terror weapons of our own
governments? Let us call future pacifist groups who take on this mission
Margaret Hassan Peace Teams. If the current invasion of Iraq has killed
Margaret Hassan, then may the example of Margaret Hassan inspire us to slay
war itself.

In James Michener's The Bridges of Toko-ri an American naval aviator
comes to the same moment of existential realization as he awaits death from
North Korean soldiers who are closing in on his position as his squadron make
one final protective pass with their F2H-Banshees before their fuel state
compels them to return to the carrier.
Michener rhetorically asks, "Where do we get such men? They leave this ship
and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea.
When they find it, they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such
men?" Nagy would know.