Time to learn Farsi?

It feels like the worst hangover in history, though i didn't drink anything. I went to bed at 2am GMT with the exit poll figures on the net showing a reasonably Kerry lead in most of the swing states and woke up to the horrific news that Bush is almost certainly the winner. There is the thinest sliver of hope (bouyed slightly by Kerry just winning Wisconsin) that Iowa and NM could go to Kerry in the next few hours and then if he gets about 65% of the absentee and provisional ballots he could still pull back the 120,000 or so votes needed for victory. But realistically speaking that's unlikely and could take weeks to emerge. (full data from CNN).

As I listened to the results last night I was filling in an application form for something which is now more relevant than ever, in the face of another four years of neo-con aggression. I was applying to join Christian Peacemaker Teams, an organisation which is genuinely pro-life in that it works to prevent violent conflict (I cannot get my head around the mentality of people who oppose abortion (like me) but at the same time enthusiastically support the death penalty and the massacres of thousands of foreign civilians).

I have spent time with their team in Baghdad and, if I am accepted, hope to join them in Feburary after doing a month of intensive training in Chicago. I'll be committing to at least three years service, and with Bush in power there will, unfortunately, be plenty of work to do both in Iraq and who knows where else (it is perhaps time to start learning Farsi and Korean). The latest email from my friend Matt, who is out there now, says there is substantial interest among Iraqis in forming a sister Muslim Peacemaker Team group, and that is a development I've been praying for for many years and I'd love to be involved with helping get that up and running.