McLEAN, Va. - As soon as he arrived in Baghdad in October 2004, Tom Fox contemplated the possibility that he would be kidnapped.

"I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier," Fox wrote in one of the first entries in his Web log detailing his work in Iraq as a Christian peace activist.

Fox, 54, is among four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams who were kidnapped this week by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.

Fox's blog entries reveal a man who struggled to remain hopeful about Iraq's future and had deep misgivings about the mindsets of U.S. military personnel and contractors he met.

"Sooner or later the insurgency will run out of suicide bombers and weapons. Sooner or later the ringleaders will be captured or killed. But what will remain will be one of most restrictive, oppressive police states in the world," Fox wrote in May.
_______________________________
IRAQ: Most recent reflection by Tom Fox, "Why are we here?"

[Note: The following reflection was written by Tom Fox the day before he was abducted.]

The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) Iraq team went through a discernment process, seeking to identify aspects of our work here in Iraq that are compelling enough to continue the project and comparing them with the costs (financial, psychological, physical) that are also aspects of the project. It was a healthy exercise, but it led me to a somewhat larger question: Why are we here?

If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the realm.

I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" is the word "agape." Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all God's children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as "never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow human beings."

As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word, not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women and children in the various towns and villages.

It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.

"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.

http://www.cpt.org/archives/2005/dec05/0007.html
____________________________________
American Hostage Tom Fox Killed In Iraq
Friday, March 10, 2006

The FBI verified that a body found in Iraq Friday morning was that of Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., spokesman Noel Clay said. He said he had no information on the other three hostages.

Clay said additional forensics will be done in the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is investigating, he said.

Fox's family has been notified, Clay said, and "our heartfelt condolences go out to them."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187529,00.html
____________________________________
Rest in peace Tom....