Wayward, But Inspiring

Christian Peacemaker Team member Tom Fox, right, the sole American among CPT's four captives in Iraq, is missing in the latest video aired on al Jaz. "We don not know what to make of Tom Fox's absence from this video," CPT says on its Web site.

They also say, and this is interesting:

Many Iraqi friends and human rights workers welcome CPT as a nonviolent, independent presence. Iraqis have asked us to tell their stories in our home communities, to share with them our own experiences of peacemaking, to assist them in building nonviolent institutions in Iraq, and to accompany them as they seek justice for detainees and others suffering from the oppression of Iraq. We seek to promote what is human in all of us and so to offer a glimpse of hope in a dark time. This hope springs from our own faith tradition. We have witnessed a similar hope within the faith traditions of the people of Iraq.

It's sort of like Rolling Stone in China. I wrote yesterday that I don't care for Rolling Stone's politics, but having it in China is a good thing to the extent it fights authoritarianism.

And as much as I don't like CPT's politics ("We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the U.S. and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."), there's a place in Iraq for a nonviolent opposition to war. CPT would have it be an anti-American nonviolent opposition, but its hard to be anti-violence and pro-al Qaeda in Iraq or pro-Maqtada al-Sadr.

Related Tags: Christian, Peacemakers, CPT, Hostage, Iran, Rolling Stone