There's a great story in the New York Times that I came across via my fellow PCV Kris Rush's website

The story, written by a former Peace Corps volunteer Avi Spiegel who served in Morocco, suggests that the Peace Corps is both too hasty in pulling volunteers from dangerous situations in places like Jordan and Uzbekistan, for example, and not fast enough in placing in the field in places where they can be a of maximum assistance such as Iraq and Liberia.

I definately echo Mr. Spiegel's concerns. While no one wants to see volunteers coming home in body bags, it's really a shame that in places like Iraq and Somalia, all the locals ever see of America is a guy in desert cammos with a high powered machine gun.

I suggested in an email home back in April (see "more" below) that I would love to serve in Iraq. It's the exactly the type of situation where the Peace Corps can be effective by aggressively meeting the needs of people at the grass roots level. I'm sure I can do a hell of lot more good, not to mention interesting, work there than I can sitting on my tuchus in Samoa.

Send in the Peace Corps
By AVI M. SPIEGEL

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dreams of a leaner and meaner military, a smaller yet more modernized force, are in jeopardy. Faced with continued resistance in Iraq and peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials are now considering proposals to expand and restructure American forces amid fears that longer deployments will result in an overextended military.

Their focus may be misplaced. The question of how to reorganize the armed forces should be turned on its head: instead of making the military better at humanitarian assignments (in Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps Liberia), humanitarian groups should strive to become more comfortable in military situations.

The Peace Corps, America's oldest overseas volunteer program, should equip itself to enter regions it now deems too dangerous. A force of trained and educated volunteers could improve its cooperation with the military and learn how to conduct itself in such settings.

With Congress debating spending on the Peace Corps and Americorps, it is time to update the Peace Corps' mission. Even in the face of mounting budgetary concerns, neither the military nor the Peace Corps is likely to react well to calls for a more active, less gun-shy Peace Corps.

Indeed, most humanitarian organizations cling to their independence and worry that any semblance of cooperation with the military might jeopardize their credibility. In postwar Iraq, on the other hand, the military was slow to allow international humanitarian workers into the country because of concerns over their protection, and volunteer organizations complained about lack of access.

The lessons are telling: there are humanitarian workers who are capable of entering dangerous situations, and better relations with the military just might allow them better access.

Even journalists in Iraq gave up reservations about being "embedded" in the military. No one is suggesting Peace Corps volunteers answer to the military. But isn't providing humanitarian assistance at least as important as reporting the news?

Amid tales of declining troop morale or of soldiers assuming draining humanitarian duties, America's volunteer humanitarian force — the Peace Corps — has been notably absent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reluctance to send volunteers into potentially dangerous situations might have been understandable in the past. The agency was formed in 1961, during the cold war, when the battle against Communism shaped United States foreign policy. Peace Corps volunteers were frequently withdrawn from any country in which the political situation became unstable.

Today the war on terror guides America's foreign policy, and it is all-encompassing. No nation is totally immune from danger. If it only allowed its volunteers in safe, stable countries, the Peace Corps would risk being shut out of too much of the world. The security situations in these countries may not change, but the Peace Corps can.

Four years ago I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. Today I simply would not have that option. The Peace Corps withdrew earlier this year from its lone outposts in the Arab world, Morocco and Jordan. (The organization announced yesterday that it would return to Jordan next year.) Meanwhile, the Pentagon is planning to expand its military presence in the region.

Unfortunately, the Peace Corps removes its volunteers just when they are needed the most: when anti-Americanism is running unchecked and the need for contact with ordinary American citizens is greatest. Volunteers who have just graduated from college may not be prepared to serve in these challenging settings. But there are surely Americans, given the right amount of training and experience, who would relish the chance.

From North Africa to the Persian Gulf, the sole face of America is too often the face of a soldier. American citizens deserve the chance to change that image — for their own good and for the good of their country.

Avi M. Spiegel, a student at Harvard Divinity School and the New York University School of Law, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco from 1998 to 2000.

DISPATCH FROM THE (PEACE) FRONT

Since the war started, I often lie in bed at night an try to tune in my shortwave radio, mostly without success. It's incredibly frustrating. I went out and bought myself a new radio just so I could keep myself informed in times like this. However, there are very few signals coming through to the South Pacific these days. BBC doesn't broadcast here anymore. Voice of America, forget it. Occasionally I can pick up Radio Australia, but more often, the transmission is full of static. I hear broadcasts in other languages, possibly Mandarin, possibly Vietnamese, definitely indecipherable. I once tuned in Radio Tehran when I was living in Matautu, but never since. I'd love to hear stories again about how the "Zionist Entity" is controlling the actions of America. Oh well.

Most of the local radio stations have some semi-hourly news service from Radio Polynesia or Radio New Zealand from which I glean snippets of information here and there. It's neither regular nor comprehensive, so I'm always left wanting. This morning I was listening to an insteresting program from Tonga about the importance of shortwave radio to an island nation with no TV. Right in the middle of the report, the program cut out and instead I was listening to a horrible cover of "uptown girl".

TV Samoa has been broadcasting CNN or BBC world service during most days, but I don't have much access to television. There used to be one in the Peace Corps office, but no longer. It was brought out initially at the onset of hostility, but I haven't seen it around lately. I probably could go out of my way and hunt one down, but for whatever reason, I haven't. I did catch a Don Rumsfeld/Dick Meyers press conference on Armed Forces TV that preempted the better part of the first half of the NCAA championship game on Monday, but that's the extent of it.

Every so often I get a copy of the local paper, the Samoa Observer. The mast-head boasts that it is "award-winning", however, this is certainly not for its international coverage which is all gleaned from Yahoo! News with such alacrity that the links (news - web sites) are left sitting in the text of the paper. Very comical.

So the Internet remains as my major source of information. I tend pull up Google News since it's fast loading, has the most recent stories and contains links to sites all over the world. I've read coverage from the New York Times, The Spectator of London, Al-Jazeera, and the Miami Herald, just to name a few. However following the war on the web lacks a certain immediacy.

I've read many of the accounts of how this is most tightly covered war since Vietnam. There are dozens of reporters in the field, some independent, but most "embedded" with specific divisions as they make their way across Iraq. The best reporting I've seen comes from Newsweek, which provides a free subscription to Peace Corps volunteers. This is a fantastic service for us, however the magazines don't exactly arrive on time and often they come in clumps. It's something of an effort to read through a single Newsweek in a night, let alone three. And when the news is several weeks old, well, sometimes it's hardly worth the effort at all.

The effect of all this lack of media, it that often seems as though the war is not happening. If it is happening, it's in some alternate universe.

My experience is so much different from previous action in Iraq. During the first Gulf War, I was a junior at UC-Santa Cruz. A young female student came bursting into to my Horace & Catullus class to announce that "bullets were flying over Baghdad". While not quite accurate, we certainly got the point. Within hours the students at Santa Cruz started to mobilize with speed that would make their hippy parents proud. They gathered in large groups to organize protests and discuss the quickest routes to Canada. I spent most of the next several weeks on the couch glued to CNN watching "pool coverage" and getting very little hard information. That's happens when the former head of the CIA is in the oval office.

In the final days of 1998 I was in Egypt. It was right in the middle of that Monica Lewinsky business. I'll have to check the dates exactly, but I think it was the 15th of December that Clinton launched a cruise missile attack on Iraq. I spent the next 3 months in and around the Middle East. I never feared for my safety except once when I met an Iraqi in Jordan who was forced by the sanctions to leave his family and try to eek out a living elsewhere. I don't think I've ever felt such incredible hate. Fortunately there were several friends around who managed to diffuse the situation. For the most part, everyone I came across was eager to talk to me, engage in discussion or debate or simply hear my opinions. Almost everybody was informed, most people more so than I. I can't remember anyone who didn't want to talk about what was going on.

The reality in Samoa is much different. You couldn't get much further from the Middle East than the South Pacific. Samoa is a net importer of oil and petroleum products so the war will effect the economy, most notably at the pumps. However, there seems to be a lack of curiosity about Iraq. No one, not a single person has said anything to me about the war. Debate here is almost nonexistent. It is replaced instead by rumor and innuendo that causes low-grade paranoia. During the attack on Afghanistan, rumors flew that Islamic extremists, including (for some unknown reason) the brother of Osama bin Laden, had drifted into the country. Men of "Middle Eastern extraction" were allegedly seen casing the U.S. Embassy and the Australian High Commission. There was a resort on the south side of Upolu that was booked solid for months by some group. Naturally, Islamic extremists. Who else could it be?

On the 14th of March there was a "Peace March" in Apia, but it was so nonpolitical, that it was almost pointless. There was nothing spontaneous about it and it was highly orchestrated by the government. There was some guy from the police who was going around taking away any signs which he deemed to be offensive. These mostly included any which a mention of "war". I'm not really sure why they were culling the signs, but my guess is that Samoa can't really afford to offend its major benefactors, Australia and the USA.

It looks as though the war went better than expected for the "Coalition" forces. I hope now that our energy will turn towards rebuilding Iraq and, along with it, our image among the people of the Middle East. I think the Peace Corps has a role to play in the new Iraq. It's only a matter of time before whatever new government is formed invites us into the country. If the timing works out right, I would love to be a part of it.