Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq

Mike Ferner, a peace activist and journalist from Ohio, traveled to Baghdad twice, once just before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and once again a year later. In this book, he profiles Cliff Kindy of the Christian Peacemaker Teams; Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness; and other peace activists, soldiers, journalists, and ordinary Iraqis he met during his two extended visits to what became known as the Red Zone, the area outside the protected Green Zone enclave. He provides a rare inside look into the daily life of Iraqis before and after the war as well as a collective profile of segments of the contemporary American peace movement that have thus far been hidden from public view. These stories have been gathered on the dusty streets of Baghdad and from tiny farming villages in the Sunni Triangle. They were not collected from the lobby of a five-star hotel, nor from behind the tinted windows of an armored SUV. We meet activists who are unarmed, trained civilians who put their bodies in between rival factions to promote peace, sitting in front of tanks and bulldozers and fasting in the desert on the Iraq-Kuwait border shortly before 130,000 U.S. troops invaded in 2003. We also are given an unvarnished view of everyday people in Iraq—cab drivers, an unemployed engineer, a newspaper editor, farmers in a rural village—all living their lives as normally as possible in the cauldron their country has become. The humanity of the people in these stories will resonate with people of all political persuasions because they go beyond the portrayal of Iraqis we're used to seeing in the news—as casualties, victims, grieving parents, and shell-shocked children. Instead, when Ferner gave presentations upon his return from Iraq, the comment he most often heard was, These people are just like us. They're just like people we know.

About the Author :
Mike Ferner is an American peace activist, a member of Veterans For Peace, and a freelance journalist who has published articles and commentaries on Iraq and other current affairs issues in such periodicals or online venues as the Nation, Truthout, Z, Common Dreams, and Counterpunch.

Review :
A member of Veterans for Peace, Mike Ferner traveled to Iraq twice, just before the invasion in March 2003 and again a year later. In this book he reports on those travels, describing the experience of serving as a human shield in an attempt to prevent the war during the first visit and presenting reportage from the Red Zone, in other words the entirety of Iraq except for Baghdad's Green Zone. His reporting profiles other peace activists alongside ordinary Iraqis just trying to survive the chaos and violence of occupation and war. The author travelled to Baghdad as a peace activist just before the U.S. invasion in 2003 and again later as a freelance reporter to cover the impact of the war on ordinary Iraqis. The result is a compellingly human perspective. Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq provides an account by a peace activist and journalist who visited the country just before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and again a year later, visiting ordinary Iraqis, peace activists, soldiers and others working in the country. The result is a hard-hitting set of stories of a country often hidden from American view: accounts chronicling the daily life of Iraqis both urban and rural. Inside the Red Zone is essential for any thorough understanding of the psyche and structure of the nation, and is especially recommended for public lending libraries. [I] would recommend that anyone wanting to know about the real Iraq read Inside the Red Zone. It is a book of power and insight into this nation where we have been fighting for nearly four years now, at the cost of thousands of lives….When one reads this, and thinks of the Iraqi people and what is likely to come, one is likely to be sad. And chagrined it took so long to make us listen. Ferner traveled to Baghdad as a peace activist just before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and again a year later, as a freelance reporter, to cover the impact of the war on the lives of ordinary Iraqis. He offers a perspective on life in Iraq before and after the war, in the Red Zone, the area outside the protected zone from which most media cover the war….Along with photographs and letters, Ferner offers a compellingly human perspective on the war.