I first met Cole Miller on a very cold January day in Washington, DC. about 2 months before the invasion of Iraq began in 2003.  I was at a protest, trying to prevent the war from happening, and afterwards I went into a coffee shop to warm up.  As I looked around I suddenly saw this man holding a poster with the picture of a young Iraqi girl I recognized.  I said to him, I know the man who took that photo, Alan Pogue.  And so Cole Miller and I began talking.  That began a collaboration and friendship which has continued to this day.

I am pleased to say that Seattle area residents have been good in finding ways to express a natural, healthy compassion for the Iraqi people — first during the terrible period of the economic sanctions — and now during the even more terrible period of invasion and occupation.  But it has required educating folks about the reality of U.S. policies.

I think Cole Miller and No More Victims do a great service for us in this and other ways.

First, they educate us all as to what the concrete reality of war really looks like — far different from the images of brave soldiers fighting ‘the enemy’ that we see in our movies.  Through the photos and videos of individual Iraqi children being helped by No More Victims, an actual human face is put to the bare statistics that a great many of Iraqi injuries and deaths occur from American air strikes.  We need to see and recognize that reality.

Second, it’s a real service to provide a way for us to do something to help individual Iraqis.  This helps to overcome the widespread feeling that there is nothing we can do.  By showing that one person, Cole Miller, can make a difference — when joined by others such as photographer Alan Pogue whose photo of Asraa’ was on that original poster — and then involving a growing number of kind, compassionate people in Seattle and elsewhere, we find hope to change the world for the better, starting with ourselves, our country, then the world.