Noah Merrill, former director of the Providence chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, has co-founded the organization Direct Aid to Iraq. He explains its underpinnings in detail over here.

Key paragraph:

4. We can do better

Americans who are opposed to this war are narrowly focused on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, but we can do better. The US peace movement – itself narrowly focused on the withdrawal of troops – has a crucial role to play in expanding this vision. We must make it clear that Americans have a responsibility to be part of building a movement for a future of peace in Iraq, a movement that acts in partnership with Iraqis, and with Iraqis in the lead.

I couldn’t agree more that it’s still very important for those of us who want withdrawal to make it clear that we don’t want to forsake Iraqis. Since day one of the conflict, a significant subset of people who are kind-hearted, and were originally against the invasion have conflated withdrawal with abandonment — something much of the media has seized onto, to marginalize anti-war organizers by framing them as naive and/or cold-hearted.  We need to make it clear that we believe it to be our moral obligation to work with Iraqis to rebuild their country, on their terms.

A video of one of the Iraqi children, maimed by the American bombs, whom DAI has been able to help:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_HEu38BaiE&eurl=http://www.directaidiraq.org/]

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