Below is a comment made by a comrade who spent time out in Palestine with regards to the Truth justice Peace project, which she's supposed to be helping do research for:

im worried sick about them and i think theyre
> all going to die basically, whichever way you look
> at it. If they really do become successful, as in,
> they succeed in helping to defend people in
> autonomously ridding themselves of both the Iraqi
> state and the impending US neo-liberal dictatorship,
> then either Saddam's forces will have them or
> they'll get incinerated by a few deftly dropped
> bombs. They are Definately going to be co-opted by
> Baghdad (one third of the Iraqi population is
> employed in a policing capacity by the state). I can
> accept that, as an intial unaviodable fact but, they
> dont have the info and are probably unlikely to get
> it out there, of how to get away from all that move
> on and to people that really do need them. They
> havent prepared themselves politically at all.
> Theyre riding in on goodwill and theyre entering a
> fucking vipers nest, i cant tell you how worried i
> am about all of them. They dont even know any
> arabic, simple, simple phrases (I can sort that out
> tho and the Turkish people the caravan picks up
> along the way will probably have a good
> understanding too). They dont know about the
> insurrections in the north and south which errupted
> at the time of the Gulf War. They dont know about
> the massacres (when in Jenin i was asked by a really
> tough and smart woman - 'How many masacres do you
> know of?' - I was stuck, Dier Yassin, Sabra and
> Shatilla, um, Jenin. It was really wrong to not know
> the most important facts of peoples lives in terms
> of acts of total state violence and what people had
> been through collectively)
>
> They dont know what theyre up against basically and
> there is nothing worse than entering a conflict zone
> blind, as a clueless 'Ajnabeeya' (Foreigner). People
> will be thinking that about them enough anyway. They
> are also in danger of reproducing a racist and
> colonial relationship with people there by thinking
> that they Can just ride in on the horse of white
> skin privelage and save everybody, without having
> any knowledge of whats really going on, no cultural
> sensetivity etc. A deep streak of liberalism informs
> the whole project and having seen how international
> volunteers were manipulated by the police state
> mafia that is the PA state apparatus, in Palestine,
> well, its gonna make Iraq look like a chimps
> tea-party.
>
> I think they should know where the really vulnerable
> people will be, not saddam's cronies which i fear
> theyll be duped/coerced into defending. Due to the
> vulnerability of the Iraqi state under attack, a
> repeat of the failed uprisings can be expected. i
> think they will be far more intense/uncompromising
> this time - no sell-out or co-operation (largely
> attempted and rejected, although a group of soldiers
> did collaborate and were promptly jailed on
> returning to the US) with US and UK forces (eben if
> the parties do, i think there will be forces and
> groups unwilling to be crushed again). These places
> will be getting a pounding, from every side, in
> particular the sectors of the population that reject
> the stalinist Kurdish rulers, as well as the Iraqi
> state and US domination.
>
> So, dudes, can people please help me get as much
> historical and current social and political info as
> possible? I was thinking of trying to talk to people
> who've fled the regime. Don't know if people have
> any contacts in the Iraq exile community - maybe HSG
> might now some individuals??
>
> The human shields cannot go out there without some
> kind of orientation to the political topography of
> the country and conflict theyre about to walk into.
>