I was in New York City on September 11th, and the one source of hope I have today is in how generous the people of New York were after the terrible attacks of that day. I take comfort in the feelings of brotherhood and sisterhood that I overwhelmingly felt in the aftermath of that terror. And I take comfort in the cries for peace that I heard and saw as well. The messages scrawled on sheet after sheet at the peace shrine in Union Square read, “We don’t want a war,” “Give peace a chance,” and, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Of the hundreds of messages scrawled on those sheets, I only remember one in favor of war: “Retaliate x10.” And, God help me, I find myself praying the death toll will be that small. It’s been almost 30 thirty years since the Vietnam War, and we have yet to come to grips with the fact that the Vietnamese people paid for the 58,000 U.S. soldiers that were killed at a rate of 50:1. Our country killed between 2 and 3 million people in Vietnam. Vietnam wasn’t a war - it was a massacre.

It’s been 11 years since “Desert Storm,” and we have yet to come to grips with the fact that for the roughly 150 U.S. soldiers killed by enemy fire, the Iraqi people paid at a rate of 1,000:1. Our country killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people in Iraq during the 6 weeks of “Desert Storm.” In the long years since then, U.S.-led sanctions have contributed to the deaths of perhaps over 1,000,000 more innocents - most of them children. That’s not even a massacre - it’s a bloody slaughter. When terrorists crash airplanes into crowded skyscrapers, murdering massive numbers of innocent people, we’d do well to ask ourselves what taught them to be so callous. And we’d do even better to stop pretending it was the “Playboy Channel.”

My hotel is a block from Sadoun Street, one of Baghdad’s busiest. Sanctions have loosened some in the last year, but most people still struggle in desperate poverty. According to the UN, thousands still die every month as a result. Um Sultan’s three children are absolutely beautiful, with big, luminous eyes matched only by their infectious smiles. They’re beggars. 9-year-old Oufan is leader, keeping track of her younger sister, Eifan, age 7, and her brother Sultan, age 4. They’re out on Sadoun every day, working the street.

I bought bananas for the street kids one day. They grabbed them and ran just far enough to make sure I wasn’t going to grab them back. And then they ate them, peel and all. That’s starving hungry. That’s in a country where before the sanctions the biggest complaint pediatricians had was childhood obesity.

Um Yasser won’t let her children beg for money, but she let’s them hustle for it. She has no choice. 12-year-old Yasser shines shoes, and 9-year-old Sara sells chewing gum. Between the two of them, they make enough to support themselves and their three, younger sisters. When I asked Um Yasser where their father was she shook her head sadly, and told me he had died. Then she raised her hand to the heavens and said in a strong, clear voice, “Allah Kareem” - God is Generous.

I think of my cousin back in the United States, who looked at me so uncomprehendingly in the days before I left for Iraq. I think of my cousin, whom I love, who shrugged her shoulders and told me with utter disdain, “there will always be collateral damage.” I want to grab her by the shoulders, and shake her, and point to Oufan, Sara, Yasser, Eifan and Sultan, and all our other innocent victims, and ask her which of their deaths would restore her sense of security? There is no such thing as ‘collateral damage,’ but the death of entire worlds.

There’s an amusement park next to the Baghdad Zoo. It reminds me of the summer fairs in Manassas and Chantilly that I used to look forward to all winter long when I was younger. Carnie barkers calling out their attractions; the smell of roasting peanuts and hotdogs; the ferris wheel, bumper cars, fun house, and carousel. Evenings at those summer fairs always seemed to last forever.

The carousel here in Baghdad is something straight out of Ray Bradbury: wild horses straining in mid-leap, frozen in hand-carved and hand-painted wood; children screaming in wild delight as they ride them, or chase each other between them. Their laughter should lift my heart. But all I can see is what their bodies will look like when the cluster bombs start falling, and no matter how far I ride the carousel I can’t ever seem to find a way back to the spirit of my innocence.

The wind is blowing from the West this winter, and something wicked this way surely comes.

Ramzi Kysia is a Muslim-American peace activist, and serves on the board of directors for the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (www.saveageneration.org). He is currently in Iraq as part of a Voices in the Wilderness (www.vitw.org) peace delegation trying to stop the war.

###