((TITLE))
My Reasons for Wishing to Visit Baghdad 
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((BODY))
I wish to visit Baghdad as a peace activist and writer.

I hope to arrive in Baghdad before hostilities commence between Iraq
and a United-States-led coalition, and to remain until either the
immediate threat of hostilities has eased or the climax of the
hostilities is past.  If, as today seems likely, hostilities commence
in the first week of April, then I would envisage staying until some
point toward the end of April. I do not envisage staying more than
three months in Iraq.

My primary aim is to demonstrate by my presence in a combat zone that
I consider this war unjust (even though it is directed against a
government which has incurred the legitimate censure of human-rights
monitors and of the United Nations).

My secondary aim is to write about the concrete realities of
destitution and death, to help mobilize humane public opinion in the
United States and other Western countries. I would attempt to file
articles with the periodical press while in Baghdad, possibly working
by a telephone or Internet link with one or more volunteer literary
colleagues in Toronto. I would seek to have my articles compiled into
a small book, for which I have the tentative title "Shields".

I may make some arrangements with periodical and book publishers
before travelling.

My writing would be in the spirit of the theological and philosophical
writing already on my Web site, http://www.metascientia.com,
especially

* my "Open Letter to Donald Rumsfeld"
* my "Peace Hymn of the Republic" 

In my writing, I seek to strengthen respect for the United Nations,
for human rights, and for the rule of international law.



(signed) 



Toomas Karmo

((/BODY))

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DOCUMENT-IN-A-NUTSHELL: statement of reasons for visiting Iraq

AUTHOR 
__Toomas (Tom) Karmo = {t.karmo} 
__416-971-6955
__((verbum@interlog.com)) 

STORAGE 
__definitive archived version 
  is on {t.karmo} *nix workstation veritas.localdomain 
__convenient-reference version
  is in "Technical" section of http://www.metascientia.com 
  __mirrored at http://www.interlog.com/~verbum/

REVISION HISTORY (LATEST FIRST) 

*_20030307T192306Z 
  __prepared base version, quite hastily 



DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION 

__description of my reasons for visiting Iraq, 
  prepared on the instructions of Iraqi Embassy Ottawa, 
  and transmitted to the Embassy by fax
  __a supporting document for a visa application 

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