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Determined to bear witness to the Iraq war

A Duluth peace activist is headed to war front for fourth time.

By Richard Meryhew, Star Tribune

Last update: March 13, 2008 - 2:39 PM

The drivers in Baghdad unnerve her. The prospect of triggering a
roadside bomb or crossing paths with a suicide bomber worries her
even more.

Yet what Michele Naar-Obed fears most as she works in Iraq,
unarmed and vulnerable, is that nobody back home will listen to her
plea to end the bloodshed.

"What I'm afraid of is that nobody's going to care," said the
49-year-old peace activist who calls a Catholic Worker house in
Duluth her home. "That as a nation, we're just going to continue on
this downward spiral of violence and reach this point of no return."

Hoping to prevent that, Naar-Obed and her colleagues at Christian
Peacemaker Teams keep praying. And protesting. And returning to
Iraq to document the atrocities of war.

The Chicago-based peace group is funded by the Brethren, Quaker
and Mennonite churches.

This month, Naar-Obed will again leave her husband, their
11-year-old daughter and their home on the hill overlooking Lake
Superior to go back to Iraq to talk with civilians and push for the
withdrawal of U.S. troops.

It'll be her fourth trip, her third since the war began and the
first since four co-workers - two of whom she knows personally -
were kidnapped last month by insurgents who have threatened their
execution.

"We feel part of the faith is putting God first," said her
husband, Greg Boertje-Obed, a fellow peace activist. "There is
sometimes a mission you are given that will take priority over your
family relationships. ... It's not easy. But we do know many
military families who are separated by business and risk, and they
do adjust."

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