Booklist:
“Ferner traveled to Baghdad as a peace activist just before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and again a year later, as a freelance reporter, to cover the impact of the war on the lives of ordinary Iraqis. He offers a perspective on life in Iraq before and after the war, in the Red Zone, the area outside the protected zone from which most media cover the war. In part 1 of this book, Ferner recalls his one-month stay as a member of a peace delegation, joining an international movement to stop the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and the harrowing realities for peace activists as the invasion began. Part 2 focuses on Ferner’s two months as a reporter, interviewing farmers, cab drivers, and engineers, all striving daily to work, attend school, and raise families in a war-torn nation. In part 3, Ferner examines interactions between soldiers, journalists, activists, and ordinary Iraqis, offering portraits of people thrown together by war. Along with photographs and letters, Ferner offers a compellingly human perspective on the war.”
Midwest Book Review ***** (out of 5 stars)
May 8, 2007
Especially recommended for public lending libraries.
“INSIDE THE RED ZONE: A VETERAN FOR PEACE REPORTS FROM IRAQ provides an account by a peace activist and journalist who visited the country just before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and again a year later, visiting ordinary Iraqis, peace activists, soldiers and others working in the country. The result is a hard-hitting set of stories of a country often hidden from American view: accounts chronicling the daily life of Iraqis both urban and rural. INSIDE THE RED ZONE is essential for any thorough understanding of the psyche and structure of the nation, and is especially recommended for public lending libraries.”
Toledo Blade:
“Ferner…has tried hard in this book to do what amounts to serious journalism of a kind that all too few of my fellow journalists in Iraq have done. He went to see ordinary people who live far from the cameras and microphones and the world of the well-connected. [I] would recommend that anyone wanting to know about the real Iraq read Inside the Red Zone. It is a book of power and insight into this nation where we have been fighting for nearly four years now, at the cost of thousands of lives….When one reads this, and thinks of the Iraqi people and what is likely to come, one is likely to be sad. And chagrined it took so long to make us listen.”
Ann Wright, US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.
As a former US diplomat and US Army Reserves Colonel who served in crises in Grenada, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, I know the important role that ‘witness’ organizations, such as Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams play in attempting to hold our government accountable. Certainly in the case of Iraq, the brave members of Voices in the Wilderness had years more experience observing first hand the harm caused by US sanctions than did even our own diplomats. Inside the Red Zone counters government stories about what really is going on in Iraq and how innocent civilians, as in all wars, are caught in the middle of state sponsored violence.
Howard Zinn
At a time when so much of our information from the Iraq war is unreliable, whether from the government or from the major media, it is valuable to have Mike Ferner, a veteran himself, give us his on-the-scene observations, joined to his own passionate reactions to what he saw.
Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, Archdiocese of Detroit
Secretary Colin Powell famously declared about civilian casualties in Iraq: “That is a number in which we have no interest.” Mike Ferner, a Veteran For Peace, has a passionate concern about the people of Iraq. Inside the Red Zone enables those of us who, like him, care about the people of Iraq, people whose land happens to be over huge oil deposits, and to gain some sense of the human cost of this war. Those who read this book will begin to share Ferner’s deeply felt determination to end this war as quickly as possible.
David Cline, President, Veterans For Peace
In a series of dispatches from the war zone, former Navy Corpsman Mike Ferner gives us moving insights into realities that the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq means for ordinary citizens, peace activists, relief workers and US troops. The suffering and hope, as well as the absolute folly of our ongoing military presence, come out in human terms that Americans seldom hear or see in the mainstream media or from politicians today. Turn off your television and read this book.
Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D., USAF Lt. Col. (ret.), political science instructor at James Madison University, retired early from her final assignment in the Pentagon to protest the Iraq invasion in March 2003.
In travel vignettes from pre-invasion and American-occupied Iraq, Ferner shares this world of our creating through the words and faces of Iraqi children, as well as the eyes of our own children, sent to Iraq in desert camouflage, heavily armed but badly forewarned. There exists in America today a well-publicized illusion, manufactured by Washington, that we are somehow in Iraq to wage war against Islamic terrorists and formless evil. Ferner bursts through this flag-draped political façade, presenting what we are really doing in Iraq, to whom we are doing it, and what it is doing to us. His story is filled with frankness, courage and compassion - something we desperately need to understand what’s happening “over there” and perhaps more importantly, to prevent future similar misguided American military interventions.
Mike Sallah, Investigations Editor, Miami Herald, 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author of the book, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War, about U.S. atrocities in Viet Nam.
Inside the Red Zone is a story of everyday Americans who risked their lives to raise white flags in a war zone. Mike Ferner shows us the words “shock and awe” aren’t just about cruise missiles soaring over Baghdad, but about people like Kathy Kelly, a 52-year-old activist from Chicago and Cliff Kindy, an Indiana farmer, who traveled across the globe in a desperate effort to stop the inevitable. What’s inspiring about this book is that the people are part of a peace movement that wasn’t sparked by a draft, like during the Vietnam War – but from a real desire for peace. Ferner’s book offers no excuses for the pain brought about by Saddam Hussein, but unlike the mainstream media, he lifts up the rubble to show us the casualties of the war and the costs of a conflict far from over.
David Swanson, Co-Founder AfterDowningStreet.org
Americans oppose the war on Iraq in large numbers because they understand that it was based on lies. But many speak of it as a mistake or a miscalculation. Anyone who reads Mike Ferner’s account of the people in Iraq whose lives are being destroyed will change the way they talk about this war. They will call it wrong, criminal, something that could never have been done the right way, no matter how competently performed. Americans, like all people, are good people. If they learned what is in this book they would not simply oppose the war by telling pollsters they oppose it. They would do what some of the most courageous and principled among us are doing. They would follow Mike Ferner’s example and put their own safety and liberty on the line repeatedly to end the killing. Minds are not changed by didactic argument, but by the skillful recounting of suffering that expands our sympathies and compassion. A movement that sacrifices for others cannot be created by demanding it, but only by setting an example. Ferner has told the stories that can change minds and sets the example that needs to be followed.
