Margaret

As most of us have probably heard today, it appears that Margaret Hassan has been killed by her captors. This is the saddest kind of news; she had worked for many years among the Iraqi people to try and improve conditions there, and her death is senseless. It is all the sadder when I consider the many thousands of other Iraqi civilians who have also been killed without such global attention, without the uniqueness of being a foreigner, but each sharing the fact of a family left behind and undoubtedly many contributions of their own.

Something else, though, makes this story even more persistent in my mind: Margaret was a friend of friends. Specifically, she was a colleague of my coworkers Rick and Mary, who have (until recent months) been living in Baghdad doing relief work for our organization. They were here in Philadelphia the week before last, on a speaking tour until it is safe enough that they can (they hope) return and resume their work. I had a chance to speak with Rick, and he mentioned that Margaret (who was at that point being held hostage) had had them over to dinner not so long before (and vice versa) and that they knew her well. Just today, I learned that another friend of mine from work, who works closely with Rick and Mary on Iraq issues, knew Margaret, too, as well as the Italian women who were kidnapped and released in September.

I know that many Americans (let alone Iraqis) have experienced the losses of this war even more closely, many of them having military friends or family members who've been killed in the war so far. Some of them even manage to believe they died for a noble cause. For everyone who has lost someone, though, there are thousands of people whose lives will not be immediately affected by this war, by these decisions, by this violence. Regardless of their political leanings, many people will watch this war and make their judgment of it with the luxury of distance. All I can say is that it looks very different when the pronouns are replaced by the names of people you know.