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

by Mike Ferner

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313084744
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/30/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

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.

What People are Saying About This

Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton

"Secretary Colin Powell famously declared about civilian casualties in Iraq: It's really not a number I'm interested in. Mike Ferner, a Veteran For Peace, has a passionate concern about the people of Iraq. Inside the Red Zone enables those of us who, like him, do care about the people of Iraq to gain some sense of the human cost of this war for those whose land happens to be over the huge oil deposits we have determined are of vital interest to us. Those who read this book will begin to share Mike Ferner's deeply felt determination to end this war as quickly as possible."

David Cline

"In a series of dispatches from the war zone, former Navy Corpsman Mike Ferner has given us moving insights into realities that the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq has meant for ordinary citizens, peace activists, relief workers and US troops there. The suffering and hope, as well as the absolute folly of our ongoing military presence, came out in human terms that Americans seldom hear or see in the mainstream media or from politicians today. Turn off your television and read this book."

David Swanson

"Americans oppose the war on Iraq in large numbers because they understand that it was based on lies. Anyone who reads Mike Ferner's account of the people in Iraq whose lives are being destroyed will change the way they talk about this war. They will call it wrong, criminal, something that could never have been done the right way, no matter how competently performed. If they learned what is in this book they would not simply oppose the war by telling pollsters they oppose it. They would do what some of the most courageous and principled among us are doing. They would follow Mike Ferner's example and put their own safety and liberty on the line repeatedly to end the killing. Ferner has told the stories that can change minds and sets the example that needs to be followed."

Karen Kwiatkowski

"There exists in America today a well-publicized illusion, manufactured by Washington, that we are somehow in Iraq to wage war against Islamic terrorists, Islamofascists and formless evil. Ferner bursts through this flag-draped political facade, presenting what we are really doing in Iraq, to whom we are doing it, and what it is doing to us."

Michael Sallah

"Inside the Red Zone offers no excuses for the pain brought about by Saddam Hussein, but unlike the mainstream media, Ferner's book lifts up the rubble to show us the casualties of the war—mothers and children—and the costs of a conflict far from over."

Ann Wright

"Certainly in the case of Iraq, the brave members of Voices in the Wilderness had years more experience observing first hand the harm caused by US sanctions than did even our own diplomats. Mike Ferner's Inside the Red Zone is a gripping reality check to counter government stories about what really is going on in Iraq and a how innocent civilians, as in all wars, are caught in the middle of state sponsored violence."

Howard Zinn

"At a time when so much of our information from the Iraq war is unreliable, whether from the government or from the major media, it is valuable to have Mike Ferner, a veteran himself, give us his on-the-scene observations, joined to his own passionate reactions to what he saw."

Editorial Reviews

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.” —Reference & Research Book News

“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.” —Booklist Core Collection:The Iraq War, Four Years In

“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.” —The Bookwatch

“[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.” —The Toledo Blade

“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.” —Booklist

From the Publisher