DULUTH, Minn. — Michele Naar-Obed knows she will not stop the war in Iraq by walking the streets of Baghdad, unarmed and unguarded, calling for an end to the violence, but she considers it her duty to try.
She is 49 years old, a mother, a wife, a pacifist who can't stand to be passive. Soldiers put their lives on the line for their country; she will risk hers too, in pursuit of peace.
Four of her colleagues in the pacifist movement were kidnapped in Baghdad late last month. The men -- fellow members of Christian Peacemaker Teams -- have been threatened with execution. Their captors have released videos showing them shackled and handcuffed.
Undaunted, Naar-Obed plans to head out this week on her fourth trip to Baghdad in three years.
She may scour morgues for men gone missing in the chaos of war, or help Iraqi families seek compensation for belongings damaged in military raids. Her role, above all, will be to bear witness: to observe how ordinary Iraqis struggle through the violence and to share their stories with the world.
"What we stand for, how we'd like to see our world behave -- there have to be people who work to pass these values on to the next generation," Naar-Obed said. "Maybe one day the spark will ignite a flame."
Since 1988, Christian Peacemaker Teams have deployed to areas of conflict around the globe, including the West Bank, Colombia, Haiti and the U.S.-Mexican border.
In some regions, the activists confront war-makers head-on, throwing their bodies in front of tanks and bulldozers. In Iraq, they have chosen instead to record and publicize the war's effect on civilians.
They were among the first to document allegations of torture at U.S.-run prisons, including Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad. They were among the first to take testimony from Iraqis who accused American troops of using the chemical agent white phosphorus during the 2004 offensive against insurgents in Fallouja.
Shunning armed guards, the activists live in a Baghdad apartment outside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone. They have stayed on even though most other foreign aid workers are gone. Despite the kidnapping, several of the activists remain in Iraq.
Critics call them reckless and naive. "I don't feel the slightest bit sorry for a bunch of hand-wringing liberals wandering into a war zone," reads a typical posting on the conservative blog Freerepublic.com. Others say their calls for unity are ineffectual.
