Love this women for her passionate speaking!

Hey Everyone!! I am this month's guest on the October episode of We Cannot Be Silent with Phil Restino and Larry Pinkney. We will be broadcasting live on the Wolf Spirit Radio Network ... see http://www.wolfspiritradio.com/ ... from 10pm to 12am Eastern Time on Monday October 21st.

The phone number to call in to the show with questions or comments is (775) 657-5973 and the link to the chat room during the show is at http://www.wolfspiritradio/wolfchat

For Now, They Struggle

By Dahlia Wasfi

(Part One of Two)



“Dahlia, come here,” my father called. The resignation in his voice told me that something was wrong.

On the east coast of the United States, it was 7 p.m., January 16, 1991. In Iraq—my father’s birthplace—it was 3 a.m. the following day. I was upstairs in my parents’ house in Delaware, during winter break of my sophomore year at Swarthmore College. When I heard his sad command, I tiptoed to the balcony overlooking the family room. I thought that if I stepped delicately enough, nothing would be disturbed when I reached my father. My efforts were futile. Peering over the railing, I saw him standing by the television.

“They started bombing,” he said. The assault of Gulf War I had begun.

I looked down at my father over the banister with helpless despair. He stared at the television screen with helpless despair. I wanted to reach down into the TV and stop what was happening, maybe even stop time until I could figure out a solution. But I could only stand motionless, frozen at the balcony, trying to process what I was seeing. Even as I tell this story years later, my stomach churns as it did that day, for the hopelessness and helplessness of that moment. Fear and sadness instantly overcame me. My relatives were among the millions of Iraqis who had no say in their government’s actions, but who would now pay dearly at the hands of the most powerful military in the world. I couldn’t help my dad. I couldn’t help my family.

Moments later, once the initial shock of the news passed, I found myself nervously humming. I soon realized the song was R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” For me, it was.

My father was born and raised in Basra, Iraq. Graduating from Baghdad University, he earned a government scholarship to study in the United States. He completed his graduate studies at Georgetown University. While in DC, he met and married my mom, a nice Jewish girl from New York. Her parents had fled their homeland of Austria during Hitler’s Anschluss and immigrated to the United States. Was it love at first sight? I don’t know, but my sister was born in 1969, and I arrived in 1971. To pay back his scholarship from Iraq, my father taught at Basra University from 1972 to 1977. Thus, my early childhood was spent in both Iraq and the United States. For me, the bombing of Basra was equivalent to the bombing of Yonkers, New York. I had family in both places.

Upon returning to the Swarthmore College campus for the spring semester, I was dumbstruck by the mostly pro-war atmosphere. This militancy was in stark contrast to the peaceful traditions of its Quaker founders who had established the school in 1864. The Quakers, a Christian denomination also known as the Religious Society of Friends, are known as a peace church, because of their teachings’ emphasis on pacifism. While Swarthmore no longer has any religious affiliation, it prides itself on being an institution that still reflects many Quaker values. As the current brochures describe, “Foremost among [these values] is a commitment to the common good and to the preparation of future leaders who will influence favorably a changing and complex world.”[1]

However, in the early months of 1991, as far as I could tell, Swarthmore was a breeding ground for warmongers. Flags and pro-military banners hung from the dorms of Parrish Hall, the main building on campus. Their messages remain burned in my memory. On a white sheet, students had written, “By Air, By Sea, By Land: Bye-Bye, Iraq.” Hanging from the next window: “U.S. Troops: Simply the Best.” They made me cringe. The blatant disrespect for the lives of Iraqi victims was sickening to me. I thought, what the hell is going on? Why didn’t the best and brightest understand that war is unacceptable, no matter who is directing the tanks? Why was the anti-war sentiment drowned out at this supposedly ‘liberal’ institution?

Internally, I condemned the hypocrisy of militancy on a campus that purported to reflect peaceful traditions. But the Swarthmore disconnect between image and reality was mirroring the hypocrisy that I despised within myself. I was living the American dream at one of the top—and among the most expensive—schools in the nation. Meanwhile, my government rained down terror in the form of cruise missiles on Iraqi families.

I had only vague pictures in my mind of a few of my relatives in Iraq. But I had very lucid and distinct memories of my childhood years spent there. The missiles that trailed across the Arabian night sky that January of 1991 fractured the calm over Iraq, as the war itself shattered my world and my memories to pieces. There was no question that the regime of Saddam Hussein was politically repressive. But now, Iraqis suffered under brutality from within and aerial bombardment from without. Iraqi families were under attack. My fellow students were celebrating. Yet, even though I had insights no one else could have, I said and did nothing for our victims. At the time, assimilation was a higher priority for me than speaking the truth. I reeked of selling out.

More than 100,000 Iraqis perished during the forty-two days of Gulf War I, but I was lucky. My blood relatives survived. The worst was yet to come, however, because US and UK aerial assaults had purposely targeted Iraq’s electricity plants, telecommunication centers, and water treatment facilities. These attacks were in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, relative to the protection of civilians in war.[2] In a matter of days, life for Iraqis became desperate. There was no potable water, no electricity, and—with economic sanctions in place—there soon would be no means of rebuilding.

On August 6, 1990, severe economic sanctions had been imposed on Iraq, four days after Iraqi troops entered Kuwait. (In sad irony, that date was the forty-five year anniversary of another Western targeting of a civilian population, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.) All of Iraq’s exports and imports were banned, in order to induce Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.[3] Though withdrawal was completed by the end of the 1991 Gulf War in April, those brutal sanctions remained in place. Once stored resources were depleted, Iraqis had begun to starve. It was a stringent medical, cultural, intellectual, and nutritional embargo that victimized the already-suffering Iraqi people. I knew the direct correlation between my government’s actions and human suffering. I did nothing.

Most of my cousins had been born after my immediate family left Iraq in 1977. I had never met them, and I had only faint memories of aunts and uncles, and of my paternal grandmother who had already passed away in 1979. I knew I had many relatives suffering under desperate conditions in Iraq, but I was emotionally, as well as geographically, distant from their pain. With English as my one and only language, I couldn’t have spoken with them on the phone—even if US and UK forces hadn’t bombed the telecommunications centers. I condemned the hypocrisy of my government for starving the Iraqi people while claiming to punish Saddam Hussein. But the hypocrisy I despised was within me. I continued my life, business as usual, graduating in 1993, and moving on to medical school, with a sadness I could not explain.

Between 1991 and 1997, I finished my Bachelor’s degree at Swarthmore and earned my medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. During the same time-period, economic sanctions achieved the chronic malnourishment of nearly 1,000,000 children in central and southern Iraq.[4] According to Philippe Heffinck, then UNICEF Representative in Baghdad, “It is clear that children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship.”[5] By the following year, the mortality rate of Iraqi children under five years old was a shocking 500,000 deaths higher than predicted since 1991.[6]

I knew these figures, but I didn’t have time to think about them. I had begun a residency in general surgery, first at the University of Maryland, and then back at Penn for a year of research. I was constantly working, ever more sleep-deprived, and miserable. Yet I remained unconscious of the internal contradiction fueling my unhappiness. After three grueling years, I convinced myself that changing fields would bring me contentment. I switched to a training program in anesthesiology at Georgetown University Hospital, where I began working in June, 2000. My experiences there would prove to be the final straw.

Most residencies are abusive, and this one was no different. But the environment became even more hostile following the events of September 11, 2001.

“I don’t want to operate on any Middle Eastern people,” one attending physician muttered.

“We should blow up the countries of each of the hijackers,” another said vengefully.

These were my supervisors—medical professionals who had taken the Hippocratic Oath. One of the foundations of medical ethics is supposed to be Primum non nocere (“First, do no harm”). I wasn’t feeling that sentiment in what these doctors were saying. And based on the hostility they were directing towards “Middle Eastern people,” I worried about potential backlash against me, if they learned what my background was. I swallowed the lump in the back of my throat, along with my voice, and continued to work under them, business as usual. Protecting myself within my workplace took priority for me during those days, over speaking against injustice. I condemned these physicians for their hypocrisy, but my silence was dishonest as well.

By early 2002, the US had invaded Afghanistan, and the American government was telling lies to build support for invading Iraq. By this time, my relatives—from whom I still was separated—had been starving under sanctions for more than twelve years. Now, we were going to shock and awe them. My tax dollars would help foot the bill.

“We should just nuke ’em,” my attending physician proclaimed.

In September of 2002, overwhelmed by the hypocrisy without and the painful conflict within, I couldn’t continue business as usual any longer. I burned out. I was hospitalized.

I was sure that my stay at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington marked the end of my medical career. With my identity inextricably tied to my work, I reasoned that this crisis was likely the end to my life as well. That finality was what I wanted, confirmed by my new diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder with Suicidal Ideation (i.e., I was depressed and wanted to die). As such, the months afterwards were precarious and delicate times. The tough professional exterior I had developed as a student and resident had shattered, revealing itself as the façade it was. What remained was a lost, frightened, and very fragile soul who had to start life over again—exposed and unprotected. While the drumbeats for another US war on Iraq were growing louder, I was drifting aimlessly through my days, like tumbleweed in a ghost town at the mercy of the elements. Then on March 16, 2003, three days before the launch of Shock and Awe, a single news headline would stop my downward spiral: “Israeli Bulldozer Kills American Woman.”[7] This woman, Rachel Corrie, would show me that goodness still exists on this earth. She would give new purpose to my existence.

After reading that headline, for the first time in a while, I thought about someone other than myself. Also for the first time in a while, I felt an emotion other than depression. I felt anger. Having been completely immersed in news of the imminent attack on Iraq and what it meant for me, I felt blindsided by this report that seemed to come out of nowhere. What the hell is going on here? What happened? From the article:

In a matter of months, Rachel Corrie went from the orderly peace movement of this small liberal city [Olympia, Washington] to a deadly world of gunfire, violent political conflict and the bulldozer that crushed her to death.

Crushed to death by a bulldozer? I felt my stomach turn and I tasted nausea. What kind of horrific torture did she endure? My God. What the hell is going on in this miserable, Godforsaken world? Who was she?

Corrie, 23, a student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, died Sunday in Gaza while trying to stop the bulldozer from tearing down a Palestinian physician’s home

I sat staring at the monitor, the words of the USA Today article blurring as I tried to make sense of the news. She was so much younger than me. I thought to myself that she had no apparent ties to the Arab World. Why was she there? Why was she halfway around the world in Palestine, while I sat in the comforts of the USA? Then the crux of the mystery hit me like a slap in the face: why was SHE dead when I—who wanted to die—was alive and reading about her passing? The horror was unjust; it was nonsensical; it was illogical. The loss of her, someone I’d never known of until that morning, was just stupid. I became indignant.

I searched the internet for everything that I could find out about Rachel Corrie—who she was, where she came from, what brought her to challenge bulldozers in Gaza. (And I wondered, my God, what kind of courage does that take? I couldn’t even muster the strength to stand up to bigoted doctors in my workplace.) I found a picture of her. She was so beautiful. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, this young woman had the typical “All-American” look. She appeared slender and graceful, like a dancer. She even looked natural and confident in the standard over-the-shoulder shot which every high school portrait photographer makes you pose. Most of us look awkward. Rachel’s picture looked elegant.

The outlines of most human beings are dwarfed by the hulking form of a D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer, armored and used by the Israeli Army for the destruction of land and homes.[8] Rachel’s frame, in particular, appeared so delicate in the pictures I could find. She was someone who would never experience racial discrimination based on her looks, the way I felt that I had. What was she doing in Palestine? Like everything else I looked at, none of this made any sense whatsoever. This tragedy must be some horrible, horrible mistake.

In the midst of my indignation, I suddenly was struck with self-loathing at what I then perceived to be more internal hypocrisy. Why was I so moved by Rachel’s death? I knew that Palestinians—and many other indigenous peoples for that matter—were dying every day in their struggles for justice. I didn’t want to be racist and mark Rachel’s death because she was American, while ignoring others who died because they were the “wrong” nationality. There was actually another young man shot and killed by the Israeli Army that day in Gaza, within hours of Rachel’s murder. No news of the loss of his life had broken in the papers of USA Today.

But there was something about Rachel and her story that mystified me and captured my attention the way no one else had before. The journey of the next few years would help me decipher why her courage, her life, and her death were so powerful to me. It would take a while for me to understand enough about myself to be able to comprehend why she touched my heart so. In the short term, however, I considered the bizarre contrast of that day in my mind. The headline could have read, “23-year-old, all-American woman visited—and was murdered in—Rafah in Gaza, Palestine, while 31-year-old failed physician surfs the internet at home.” The incongruity made me wonder: if Rachel could travel thousands of miles to learn about people she didn’t even know, then maybe I should go see my family whom I haven’t seen in almost twenty-seven years.

(Part Two of Two)

In February and March of 2004, I made a 19-day journey to Iraq. The first memories of my life were from those early years in Iraq. My life would start over again there, too. With Baghdad International Airport controlled by American occupation forces, I flew to Jordan and made the 10-hour car ride to Baghdad. In Iraq’s capital, a year after the invasion, damage from bombing raids was omnipresent. Iraq had been liberated, all right—from sovereignty, security, electricity, and potable water. The new “democratic” Iraq modeled sewage in the streets, rolling blackouts, shootings, and explosions. After several days spent visiting my Baghdadi relatives, I needed to reach my father’s immediate family in the south. Ahmed [name changed], one of my cousins from Basra, drove twelve hours round trip with a friend, to pick me up and bring me to visit the rest of the family. With numerous checkpoints and no security, their efforts were Herculean.

To my naïve foreign eyes, Basra’s condition appeared to be much the same as Baghdad’s, except that the damage seemed more extensive. This city had been destroyed during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980’s, the 1991 Gulf War, bombings during the 1990’s, and the 2003 Shock and Awe invasion. Throughout that time, sanctions and neglect had thwarted the city’s—and her people’s—recovery. I expected to receive resentment during my visit. After all, my immediate family had left Iraq for America during the good days of the 1970s. So much destruction had been wrought against the Iraqi people by my government since then. Every destroyed building we passed, every sewage-flooded street, every child suffering in poverty, I despairingly thought to myself, “You’re welcome, Iraq. I helped do this to you.” I held resentment towards myself and deep shame as an American in this occupied land.

But I did not feel resentment from anyone else during my brief stay. When we arrived at my uncle’s (Ahmed’s father’s) house, I was welcomed with kisses and hugs, overwhelming love and affection. Though I was meeting my cousins for the very first time, they already knew me, far better than I knew them. My father was a legend in the family and in the neighborhoods of Basra where he had grown up and been both a teacher and a professor. My cousins had tracked his life—and the lives of his children, in turn—with fond attentiveness. They welcomed me as if they had known me their whole lives.

Despite the desperate conditions, the novelty of a visit from a long-lost cousin brought everyone joy, myself included. Getting to know each other for the first time, my cousins and I were like little kids, giggling and joking, whether the electricity was working or not. I was so struck by how thin they all were. “You have no idea what it was like [during the sanctions],” my cousins told me. “We are only alive today because your father helped us.” Even with his support during those years of starvation, my Iraqi family had sold furniture and other belongings to get money for food.

My cousins’ features were familiar to me, because they were similar to mine: olive skin; thick, curly hair (some of them); and a strong Semitic nose (also described as “large.”) But their cheeks were hollowed out, especially on Ahmed’s face. His clothes hung on him limply, like they did on their hanger. His physique was paper-thin and his face gaunt, revealing the faint outline of his skull. His appearance reflected years of starvation and war. To me, his emaciated body was a microcosm for the whole of Iraqi society. The people appeared as if they had been newly released from a strangling chokehold. They were laid out, exhausted, gasping to catch their collective breath. Ahmed’s weary, sunken, dark brown eyes held the fear, worry, and pain of all of that suffering, all of those years.

My father was one of ten children, so we have a lot of family in Iraq. Seemingly everywhere I was escorted during those six days in Basra, I met blood relatives or my father’s former students. Most Basrawis (pronounced “bas-RAO-weez,” meaning people of Basra) live their whole lives in their hometown. My father had traveled to the US and become successful. During my short stay, I heard so many wonderful accolades about him and his teaching. (When I returned home, I joked with my father about how all the images of Saddam Hussein, destroyed after the invasion, would soon be replaced with his picture, to honor his courage and success.)

I was experiencing joy with my cousins that I had not felt in as long as I could remember. My spirits were up, so much so that I stopped my anti-depressive medications. I felt cured. However, because of the unpredictability of a country without law and order, my stay was cut short. I had to return to Amman via Baghdad to make my flight home. But I promised my family that I would return for a longer stay—very soon, we hoped—when the situation in the new Iraq had improved. I left in early March, 2004. Though we looked toward the horizon for better days, conditions in Iraq went from bad to worse. Electricity and water became scarcer, as did jobs and security. But Iraqis’ pain and suffering did not stop there.

The lack of these basic necessities quickly became overshadowed by the monstrous obscenities of the American-led occupation. By April, 2004, the atrocities committed against Iraqis by occupation forces at Abu Ghraib prison (and many other prisons throughout the country) had come to light. In addition, the indiscriminate slaughter of Iraqis continued unabated and even accelerated, as exemplified by the April, 2004 siege of the city of Fallujah, followed by the October 2004 bombings and November 2004 massacre of the people of that city. (That November, I had wanted to make my return visit to Iraq, but US Marines had blocked the route of the final leg of my trip, the road from Amman to Baghdad.) Anti-American sentiment in Iraq was skyrocketing to new highs and with good reason.

In the final months of 2004, and through the start of 2005, kidnappings of Westerners became prominent news stories. Fearing for my safety, amidst ever-escalating anti-American feeling, my family advised me to stay safely at home. Thinking only of myself, I was undeterred from making another trip to see them. I selfishly gave little thought to the danger into which I was putting my family by asking them to “harbor” an American. The facts that my father was Iraqi and I was on vacation probably wouldn’t mean much to those desperate souls who might abduct me, whether seeking expensive ransoms to feed their families or sending a message to foreigners to get out of Iraq. But I was mostly oblivious to the risks. I figured that if I were kidnapped, I could use the few words of Arabic I’d learned growing up (from when my father was angry), in reference to the US government. Surely, I thought, with such skills of wit and a photo of my father, I could get myself out of any sticky situation. By the end of 2005, with no end to the chaos in sight, my family had agreed to host me once again, before the situation deteriorated even further.

Because the road from Amman to Baghdad was now exceedingly dangerous, my trip was planned to visit only Basra this time. Hostility still governed relations between Iraq and Kuwait, not only from the era of Gulf War I, but from the decades of territorial disputes, dating back to the early twentieth century. Even with an American passport, I knew my Iraqi background might be sufficient cause for Kuwaiti border officials to make my trip more difficult. But I didn’t see any other option. I bought tickets to fly via London to Kuwait International Airport in Kuwait City. This capital city sits about 82 miles (132 kilometers) from Basra, with the Iraq-Kuwait border about halfway in between.

I had a planned layover in London of two days, so that I could attend an anti-war conference on December 10, 2005, organized by a UK-based group, the Stop the War Coalition. My scheduled flight to Kuwait was for the following evening, December 11th. If Kuwait had been my final destination, I could have made the trip without a problem. However, four days before the scheduled December 15 elections, Iraq’s borders were sealed for “security” reasons (the few sections of the country’s boundaries that were secured, anyway). I had to postpone my trip out of London until the borders were reopened. With bitter sarcasm, I joked with my family that the new Iraq had so much freedom in it that occupation forces had to close the borders to contain it all.

Finally, two weeks later on Christmas Eve, I got a seat on a redeye flight out of London. I landed in Kuwait City on Christmas morning. Though I was tired, my excitement prevented me from getting any sleep on the plane. Exhausted and jet-lagged, I struggled through airport customs and the Kuwait border-emigration process to get to Kuwait’s northern border and into Iraq. It was raining, and my kind taxi driver waited so I could have shelter, until the bus arrived to carry passengers across the several kilometers of no-man’s-land between the borders of Iraq and Kuwait. I peered out my rain-streaked window to see a soldier (whom I remember as being British), standing over what looked like an old oil barrel and brushing his teeth using a small hand-held mirror. It was a bizarre sight, and I started to ask myself where the hell I was and what was I doing.

After what felt like a long wait, finally, the shuttle bus creaked into the makeshift parking area. Upon its arrival, numerous travelers emerged from the cars parked nearby, moving hurriedly with their boxes and bags to climb aboard and escape the desert rain. The bus was old and weather-battered, and in my sleep-deprived fog, I wondered if it was the same bus my parents had ridden when they made the commute in the early 1970s. There I was that day, alone, isolated, physically and emotionally drained, and unsure of what was coming next. Somewhere along that anonymous road, in the sands of a nameless desert, I burst into tears. I thought, “This was the stupidest plan I have ever come up with… why didn’t anyone try to stop me?!” Of course, many friends and family had tried to alert me to the dangers and difficulties of this trip. I had ignored them. Now there was no turning back.

I stepped off the rickety bus at the Iraqi border, along with my fellow passengers making the difficult journey into occupied land. I was so tired, from both the long trip and my recent crying. My eyes alternated between staring vaguely into the distance in an exhausted daze, and darting toward all angles of my belongings, making sure nothing got stolen. I was trying to put my thoughts together, to decide what to do next, when I believe I witnessed a divine intervention. My gaze moved up from my cart of belongings to find Ahmed standing right before me. I felt an unbelievable rush of relief and joy. The harrowing part of the journey was over. I believed then that everything would be all right.

Ahmed did all the paperwork for me; he had to since it was in Arabic. We meandered over to a car where another cousin, and their friend who had brought them to pick me up, were waiting. All that I’d brought was loaded into the trunk, and I relaxed into the back seat, feeling safe for the first time in what felt like days. When we arrived at my uncle’s house, I got the same, beautifully warm welcome from my family as I had before. It was early afternoon, which was early morning for me back home, and I was utterly spent. Though it was rude of me, while the family sat down to the big midday meal made in my honor, I curled up in my cousin’s bed and slipped into a deep, serene sleep.

On the following day, my first full day back in Basra, we lost electricity completely. On the second day, we ran out of water. On the third day, we lost telephone service. When we realized the phone lines were dead, Ahmed jokingly predicted, “I think tomorrow, we lose air!” We all laughed. Despite suffering the hardships of war, sanctions, and occupation for their entire lives, my cousins showed amazing resilience and tenacity. I was amazed by their intact sense of humor in unpredictable and dangerous conditions. But this spoiled American accustomed to the luxuries of electricity and running water thought worriedly, “What the hell did I get myself into for the next three months…?”

* * *

Iraqis are still suffering today under the grip of a new repressive regime that came to power during the American-led occupation. While the foreign military occupation of Iraq has officially ended, an economic occupation depriving Iraqis of their livelihoods and lives continues. Life goes on in the hope that one day, circumstances will improve. Iraqis are taking to the streets today demanding an end to their repression.[9] For now, however, as it has been for decades, they struggle. Electricity, water, and jobs remain scarce. In my family, the destruction of Iraq’s healthcare system has contributed to the deaths of one aunt, one uncle, and one cousin since my 2006 trip. In August 2007, another cousin was killed in the violence we brought to his country. He left behind a wife; a young son; a heartbroken mother and brother; and an entire family devastated by grief, for whom life will never be the same. These precious souls are only four of the more than 1,000,000 lives (and counting) taken by the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.[10]

Every country around the world is made up of families. It is those families who either reap the benefits of their government’s actions, or pay the price. Our victims in Iraq (and elsewhere around the world) are dehumanized. Through media stereotypes, we have been programmed to dismiss the “other’s” humanity.[11] That disconnection from humankind is why my college classmates could celebrate the 1991 Gulf War. That disconnection from humankind is why I had focused on my personal gain, even while my taxes brought suffering to millions. It was Rachel Corrie’s generous spirit—and the shocking loss of her life—which reconnected me to what is truly important.

If there are political differences between states, then whatever they may be, no resolution comes from targeting the innocent families of their respective societies. We should respect the humanity of women and children, who are the majority of any population. And if we respect their humanity in Iraq, can we respect their grief as they lose their brothers, fathers, husbands and sons, the same way we mourn with and share the pain of American military families? From Rachel, I learned that the answer is yes. Our human connection is all that we need to reach one another.

Before the Israeli military came to Rafah in armored bulldozers to level homes on March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie literally stood up for what she believed. With her courageous stand, she equated her Western life with the lives of the Palestinian families behind her. Perhaps her actions were an affront to the occupation soldiers staring down from their sixty-ton vehicle, inspiring them to crush her to death. To me, her courage showed hope and strength. She inspired me to follow my heart and find my voice.

With Rachel’s example before me, my life has directed me to know my family. I’ve traveled thousands of miles to go see them and know them. But my work as an activist has also taught me that I don’t only have family in Iraq. My relatives are everywhere: in Afghanistan; in Pakistan; in Kashmir; in Vietnam; in Walter Reed Army Medical Center; in Arlington Cemetery; in every village and city around the globe. You have relatives there, too.

My medical career is on hold so that I can call for the immediate, unconditional end of war and occupation on behalf of all of my family.

What would you do for your family?

What will you do?

Dahlia's profile here on Fighting for LIberty

http://fightingforliberty.ning.com/profiles/members/?q=dahlia

Dahlia's Website

http://www.liberatethis.com/

Uploaded on Feb 1, 2012
Dahlia Wasfi is an Iraqi-American physician and peace activist. Born in 1971 in New York to a Jewish-American mother and Muslim Iraqi father, Dr. Wasfi spent part of her early childhood living in Iraq.

"I speak to you today on behalf of relatives on my mother's side — Ashkenazi Jews who fled their homeland of Austria during Hitler's Anschluss. It is for them that we say 'Never again.' I speak to you today on behalf of relatives on my father's side, who are not living, but dying, under the occupation of this administration's deadly foray in Iraq. From the lack of security to the lack of basic supplies to the lack of electricity to the lack of potable water to the lack of jobs to the lack of reconstruction to the lack of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are much worse off now than before we invaded. 'Never again' should apply to them, too."

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